Episode 144: Journos WFH Fail, Catapult Goes Large, Atlassian's Horrendous Buy, Biggest Rocketships, Delta's Upmarket Win and Adir's Celebrity Encounter
The Westpac WFH decision, inside scoop on Catapult's capital raise, Atlassian's horror run of M&A, the world's biggest rocket businesses, Delta targets the rich and wins and Adir's brush with fame.
The Contrarians catchup
Adir has 10 pairs of headphones but swears that the technology is getting worse and his older pairs are still the best.
ICYMI, The Contrarians had its first ad in the Australian Financial Review last week. Adir said he’s “not been that excited for a very long time”.
Despite being “the opposite of a foodie”, Adir had lunch with Michael Cheika at Rockpool in Sydney and was sitting near Richard White, the Australian billionaire executive chair, co-founder, and former CEO of WiseTech.
The guys discuss the complexities of consolidating brands post-acquisition. Catapult are deliberately slow to rebrand and migrate, while Luxury Escapes maintain the old brand and white label while integrating the back end.
Adir’s “cringe of the week” (can’t confirm if this will be a new segment): Reid Hoffman - entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster, author, and co-founder and former executive chairman of LinkedIn - created a 20-year-old version of himself using AI and publicly gave it life advice.
Adam said that Perplexity is “better than Google in my view. I very rarely use ChatGPT.”
Delta goes all in on premium
Delta Airlines’ premium-cabin ticket revenue rose 9% to nearly US$5.8B while coach-cabin revenue fell 4% to just over US$6B. Officials say premium sales could eclipse coach for at least some quarters in 2026.
Adir: “I think the order of profitability per passenger mile is premium economy, business, first, economy. I think that news from Delta is good news for you at Luxury Escapes because it shows the trend towards people wanting to indulge more with travel.”
Adam: “What we’ve certainly seen the last six to 12 months is customers look to value, and we are the best value option. We’re not the cheapest or the most expensive, we’re the best value.”
Adir: “Are you paying CPM for that ad you just read?”
Atlassian’s horrendous buy
Atlassian has acquired The Browser Company (developer of the Arc browser and where this newsletter is manually typed each week) to create a new browser tailored for knowledge-workers, focused on workflows, AI integrations and “strong enterprise security”.
The same day the acquisition closed, OpenAI announced their own browser, ChatGPT Atlas.
Adam: “It’s hard not to think Atlassian didn’t burn $600M of shareholder capital on this ridiculous acquisition.”
Adir: “The browser wars with AI, it doesn’t feel like a new war with new winners. It feels like a continuation of the existing war with a dominant player that might get a bit less dominant, but it definitely is Google’s to lose.”
Catapult goes large
Catapult Sports, where Adir is Executive Chairman, raised $150M through a placement and share-purchase plan to fund the acquisition of IMPECT, a German soccer intelligence platform that will enhance Catapult’s analytics suite and accelerate its global growth.
Adir: “Most people presumably who listen to the podcast, they’re not going to do a public company cap raise at any point in time. So I’m going to tell you how it works because everything is just formulaic when it comes to most things that look very complicated and arcane from the outside. They’re actually relatively simple and formulaic. It’s just, you don’t know what the formula is.”
Listen in for Adir’s formula for raising capital at a public company.
Journos WFH fail
A long-serving employee at Westpac won a Fair Work Commission ruling to work from home after the bank failed to properly process her flexible-work request. The case emphasises employers must give valid business reasons when rejecting such arrangements.
Adir: “I can’t believe how angry I am about this ruling. Let’s just talk about the absurdity of the concept. Imagine we said to Mike, you can work from home to produce this podcast. And then Mike moves to somewhere that has no electricity and he says, but I can still work from home because you let me work from home.”
Adir: “The more you have rulings that disempower businesses to set reasonable terms for their workers to be in the office, the more you’re encouraging businesses to say, “‘oh, we’re gonna have to let people work from home. How about we let them work from home in the Philippines or Vietnam, or the Ukraine?’ You’re just sending jobs offshore with rulings like this.”
ICYMI, Adam isn’t the biggest WFH fan, but listen in why he thinks the entire business media buried the lede.
(On the flip side, below is a clever response by furniture brand Eva, who is encouraging WFH to sell more sofas).
Five other stories worth following:
Ford shares surged 12% after earnings, despite lowering its forecast and $1.4B EV losses. CEO Jim Farley plans to prioritise hybrids and cheaper EVs by 2027 while pausing F-150 Lightning production amid aluminium supply issues.
Amid TSA delays, startup Quadridox is developing X-ray diffraction tech that recognises materials by atomic “fingerprints.” It could end manual bag checks, speed airport lines, and even be adapted for medical use.
Ontario’s Doug Ford aired a Reagan-themed anti-tariff ad during the World Series, angering President Trump. Trade talks were halted, a new 10% tariff imposed, and tensions grew ahead of the ASEAN summit in Malaysia.
Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei’s party won 41% of votes, securing congressional power to advance radical economic reforms. Trump pledged $20B in aid but hinted it depends on Milei’s continued success.
French police arrested two men linked to the Louvre jewel heist using DNA evidence. One suspect tried fleeing to Algeria, the other to Mali. Authorities withheld details and haven’t confirmed recovery of the stolen artefacts despite successful sleuthing from TikTokers who “accidentally” repost status updates.