Episode 179: Eucalyptus Sale Deep Dive, is Waymo an Uber Killer, Winnings' Winnings, Victoria becomes an official Crime State, Adir Visits Lakemba, and guest business publishing legend, Chris Janz
The guys go deep on the story behind Eucalytpus' massive sale to Hims and Hers, Uber's self driving worries, Winnings sells to Ellerston, Victoria sinks deeper, and Adir's message to Pauline Hanson.
The Contrarians catchup
Adam is uncharacteristically working from home to record the podcast, though he can be forgiven since it’s a Saturday. And Adir said the podcast isn’t work anyway - “this is pleasure, this is a leisure activity.”
Adam’s quiz was a simple one this week: which company was dethroned last week? For the first time since 2012, Walmart is no longer #1 on the Fortune 500 revenue list. The new king? Amazon. Only three other companies have ever topped the list (ExxonMobil, General Motors, Ford Motor Company).
Victorian Labor, $15B and the election question
Jacinta Allan is having a rough week. Fresh allegations, amplified by lawyer Geoffrey Watson, suggest the Victorian government may have wasted up to $15B, effectively through corruption linked to the CFMEU and “Big Build” spending.
The bigger debate wasn’t just corruption, it was whether voters will actually punish it. Polling still shows Labor competitive, despite 16 seats needing to flip for the Liberals to form government.
Adir: “At the beginning of an election, no one has any vote. Everybody gets to decide afresh.”
Adam: “What do these people need to do to get voted out of office? Like, could they do a Donald Trump style ‘shoot someone on the street’ and still no one cares? That’s $4,000 for every single person in Victoria… If you’re a family of five, that’s 20 grand in your pocket.”
Adir: “Any government… that is promising you no new taxes and no cuts… is either completely dishonest, or it’s going to make Victoria irretrievably destroyed.”
Uber v Waymo v Tesla: who actually wins?
Autonomous driving is heating up. Waymo continues expanding in US cities, while Tesla pushes Full Self-Driving as a mass product. Meanwhile, Uber has lost almost a quarter of its value in six months.
If autonomous vehicles commoditise supply, pricing power collapses. But if Uber owns the customer relationship, it may simply swap human drivers for robots and improve margins. Markets tend to price in collapse long before collapse is actually imminent.
Adir: “The human imagination is problematic in stock markets. But the incumbency is a huge advantage and Uber’s primary asset is the side of the marketplace that has the consumer.”
Adir: “The companies that make the cars, it's not obvious to me that they will vertically integrate and also own the network, and I think the network, might be a scarcer resource than an electric autonomous vehicle. So I think that Uber will find a way to integrate these autonomous vehicles into their network and it'll continue business as usual with better margins and maybe lower average basket.”
Adam: “It’s inconceivable that you lose a monopoly and you don’t lose a huge amount.”
Pauline Hanson, Lakemba, and reality
Pauline Hanson recently claimed: “It concerns me greatly that people can’t go into certain suburbs in this country.”
She specifically named Lakemba, in Sydney’s west.
Adir went there. He didn’t see Palestinian flags lining the streets. He didn’t experience hostility. At the same time, he acknowledged complexity, fear exists on multiple sides, and political rhetoric amplifies division.
Adir: “It certainly feels very much still like the heartland of Lebanese/Muslim Australia, but it is also full of Asians. The place is completely clean… it feels as safe as anywhere else. I actually feel like there is a much better chance to return to social cohesion in Australia than it seems.”
The $1.6B Eucalyptus sale: what’s really going on?
Eucalyptus agreed to be acquired by Hims & Hers in a headline US$1.15B deal (AUD $1.6B). But the structure matters - the deal breaks down into:
US$240M upfront cash
US$710M over 18 months (cash or stock)
US$200M earnout
The complication? Hims’ share price has fallen ~75% in recent months, largely due to a lawsuit from Novo Nordisk over compounded GLP-1 drugs. The key question: How much of that “$1.6B” will ultimately be realised in cash vs volatile stock?
Adam: “Hims and Hers is a business growing revenue but not growing earnings and the problem is, marketing spend continues to go up, so this is a business that’s not performing particularly well.”
Special guest: Chris Janz on rebuilding media
We were joined by arguably Australia’s most accomplished financial publisher and founder of Capital Brief, Christian Janz.
After leading Fairfax through its digital transition, Chris launched Capital Brief with a clear thesis:
Australia’s media market is highly concentrated
Advertising-driven models distort incentives
Subscription-led journalism better aligns with readers
He explained why Capital Brief focuses heavily on enterprise subscriptions rather than chasing mass clicks: “The minute you introduce advertising into the equation, you almost introduce a reason to gamify for reach.”
Five other stories worth following:
Amazon’s recent AWS outages were reportedly triggered by its own AI coding tools after engineers allowed an AI agent to fix issues without oversight. Amazon blamed user error, not AI, though some employees question that distinction.
Microsoft announced the departure of gaming chief Phil Spencer and Xbox President Sarah Bond after struggling to keep pace with Sony and Nintendo. CoreAI product head Asha Sharma will take over, despite not being known as a gamer.
Etsy is selling secondhand fashion app Depop to eBay at a steep discount, marking the end of its “House of Brands” strategy. The deal underscores how sharply pandemic-era e-commerce winners have diverged since demand cooled.
A Sheffield co-op grocery store has gone viral for freezers emitting a soothing, symphonic hum likened to an “electrical gong bath.” A Guardian reporter confirmed the calming drone, inspiring impromptu meditation in unexpected modern spaces.
World Labs, founded by Fei-Fei Li, builds AI “world models” that understand 3D environments. After releasing Marble to generate 3D worlds from prompts, the startup raised $1B to pursue robotics and scientific applications.