Category: Business

Control Freaks

Corporate Fuckery, Drive Time

What is it with Germans and their fixation on control?  Here’s the latest from their foremost corporate branch of Control Freaks International:

The 2026 Mercedes-Benz CLA and the 2027 Mercedes-Benz GLC are the automaker’s first truly software-defined vehicles, meaning they have the brains and chips for virtually everything on the car that’s controlled by software to be updated over-the-air. They have the new Mercedes-Benz operating system, known as MBOS, as well as fourth-generation MBUX infotainment systems with fancy touchscreens, all developed in-house.  The new MBOS represents a paradigm shift, says Ola Källenius, chairman and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Group. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, with 100 percent of the car reachable via over-the-air updates. Now, cars come in with an empty electronic control unit (ECU) and then Mercedes loads [the software] into it as part of the production process, he adds. In the past, the ECU came from a supplier with the software already pre-loaded. Not anymore. Mercedes wanted an end-to-end software package it created itself.

Am I the only one who is getting chills from this little exercise as described?  Here’s why I’m both apprehensive and white-hot angry.

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving, with 100 percent of the car reachable via over-the-air updates.”

And those “updates” would include “shut-downs”, all at the behest of MBOS — and if you don’t believe they would, you haven’t been paying attention to the recent history of Germany.

Also, remember that “the gift that keeps on giving” refers to the gift to Mercedes, and not to its customer.

Finally, if you think that these “updates” will remain free forevermore, you really haven’t been paying attention to the history of technology companies — and Mercedes is increasingly becoming more about technology than about engineering.  Which means that at some point, the design of the updates will be left to A.I.

How nice.

Funny, that:  the GLA 250 was always on my list of potential future car purchases.  Not anymore.  I wouldn’t accept one as a gift, because of what I’d be giving up to Mercedes:  my freedom and indepence.

No Surprises There

Management, Technology

It appears that the Mighty A.I. is falling somewhat below expectations:

95 percent of organizations see no measurable return on their investment in these technologies, even as the number of companies with fully AI-led processes nearly doubled last year and AI use has likewise doubled at work since 2023.

Specifically:

Today’s generative AI models are very good at identifying patterns and stitching together bits and pieces of existing content into new compositions. But they struggle with analysis, imagination, and the ability to reason about entirely novel concepts. The result is often content that is factually accurate and grammatically correct but conceptually unoriginal.

“Workslop”, indeed.

From Comfortable Heritage To Modern Banal

Corporate Wokism, Marketing / Advertising

We’ve all seen how modernist logo design has turned the proud familiar into simplistic trash:

…and of the recent Cracker Barrel rebrand we will not speak, as they’ve been forced into a U-turn.

Now if one thinks of modernistic Philistines and Wokery Gone Mad in the civic sense, it’s hard to imagine a better example than that “blueberry in a bowl of tomato soup”, Austin TX.  Who have “progressed” from a traditional city seal to… well, a 1970s-era representation of a homeless person’s tent shelter:

Bloody hell.  It’s an encapsulation of everything that’s wrong with the Left:  ahistorical, simplistic and ugly.

Missing The Point

Corporate Fuckery, Economics

I’m all for POTUS putting the arm on foreign manufacturers to open their factories here in Murka, because we need more industry Over Here.  So more jobs for Murkins, even in industries where our market doesn’t especially care for the actual product.  Clearly, however, something got lost in translation with the recent Hyundai cock-up in Georgia:

Federal authorities say 475 people were detained this week in what Homeland Security Investigations called the largest single-site enforcement operation in its history.

The raid took place Thursday at the HLGA battery plant site in southeast Georgia, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution, as part of a months-long probe into alleged unlawful employment practices and other federal crimes.

…and this is even worse:

According to South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, more than 300 of the detained workers were South Korean nationals.

So in case the SouKs (and others) haven’t got the plot yet:  opening a manufacturing plant in the U.S.A. does not mean you can staff the place with a whole bunch of your own citizens not allowed to work Over Here.  You tossers.

Anyway, the illegal Koreans are immediately going to be “reshored” back in their own country instead of staying in some manky ICE detainment camp awaiting deportation.

We want the foreign factories, not the workers.  We’ve got the “worker” part covered, thank you.

And the Victory Girls have nailed it.

Fiddling & Fraud

Corporate Fuckery

I see that Walmart has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar:

A very high-ranking Walmart executive was allegedly tossing American tech workers aside while pocketing massive bribes to bring in Indian H-1B workers from shady “visa mills.” And once again, the globalist lie about “filling jobs Americans won’t do” is blown to pieces.

This scandal was never about talent shortages or innovation. It was about greed, lining pockets, cutting costs, and selling out the American workers who built Walmart into what it is today.

It should come as no surprise that the corporation whose business mantra is all about the lowest possible prices should treat their own workforce any differently.

I’ve written about this whole situation before (Screwing Americans and Racial Preferences), so to say I am unaware of this bastardy would be some kind of understatement.

But I’m now well past the point of just observing such things and shaking my head about it.

Here’s my suggestion to the Trump Administration.

  • find out how many of these fraudulent H-1B visas were given to Walmart employees since, well, forever;
  • calculate the average annual salaries of each of those jobs, if held by U.S. citizens, and multiply those dollar amounts by the number of frauds;
  • add three zeroes to that aggregate;
  • fine Walmart for that amount, with a massive daily penalty for non-compliance;
  • then go after every other company which has benefited from this kind of fraud, and sue them in identical fashion (ahem Google etc.).

Or just go through the all finance and HR departments and in classical Roman fashion, randomly select one in ten employees for summary termination* (the original meaning of the word “decimation”).  Repeat the process on a monthly basis.

A precondition for the above is the immediate “reshoring” of all fraudulent H-1B visa holders, along with their families.

I’m sick of us pussyfooting around this nonsense, and I’m pretty sure that a large number of Trump supporters feel the same.

* I first wrote “execution” but some people may have a problem with this because Krool & Hartless, Kim.

U-Turn

Corporate Fuckery, Marketing / Advertising

…as Cracker Barrel turns away from the Bud Light precipice:

Cracker Barrel will bring back its old logo after days of ruthless criticism and a plummeting stock price following its botched rebranding.

The company’s board, led by CEO Julie Felss Masino, ignored warning signs and criticism for months ahead of the announcement last week that the restaurant chain would ditch its old logo and give its stores a modern look. The company appears to have walked back part of that decision on Tuesday.

Which part, I wonder?  One commenter shared my doubts:

If they don’t change their support for all the weird sexual politics and attendant shenanigans, none of that matters. In fact, focusing on the logo, etc., just drives publicity and brand awareness up for them. Lose the CB-sponsored drag queens and maybe I’ll care about the decor.

As with the Bud Light “fegeleh” and New Coke episodes, companies seem to forget that if your ethos is traditionalist, you mess with your brand positioning at your peril, and chasing new customers is a fool’s game if you alienate your existing base.

I haven’t eaten by myself at Cracker Barrel for years because their prices have become just outrageous — but when I get an overseas visitor to entertain, it’s a must-see experience (along with Buc-ees and rodeo).

Even The Donald weighed in, telling Cracker Barrel not to be idiots and go back to what has, after all, been their basic positioning since forever.

Kudos to them for acknowledging their mistake.

Unlike Jaguar.  [#Morons]