This is what the Flux. I'm Brett and I'm justin. It's Wednesday, the twenty third of October.
Josie Boy gold bullions have hit a record price, cracking the four thousand dollars mark per bullion. Now we know that goal sees a spike when times are uncertain, and right now with a tight US election and uncertainty in the Middle East, we're talking more than a thirty percent jump this year a loan my friend Sam.
Fancy winning one hundred and fifty bucks funded into your investment account? Wow? Well, this month, flex Academy is all that understanding the share market. We're partnering with Rays to give you the ultimate guide to improving your investing skills, and if you finish in the top three of the Flux Academy leader board this month, you'll win between fifty bucks and one hundred bucks funded into your Ray's investing account. To make sure to download the Flux app to check it out and win at money.
Three victorious stories today, Juzzy Boy, let's do it for our first Ossie Tech giant wise Tech has seen it shares drop more than twenty two percent over the past few days, and its founder and CEO has been hit with major scandals.
Not the ideal news you want to be releasing to the market, as wise Tech. So tell me what's going on here.
Well, Judy wait. Wis Tech Global is a logistics software company founded in nineteen ninety four and be Man.
It was actually a privately owned company for twenty two years before it went public in twenty sixteen.
Now essentially, Wistech sell software to global supply chain and logistics company, or, as they like to.
Say, we build technology that advances human potential.
Now Wiseek has been a bit of an ASX Darling. It's share price had jumped more than twenty times since it's IPO.
But now be man It's share price has dropped more than twenty two percent, or six billion dollars after its CEO and founder Richard White, is having a bitch of a moment right now, and not in a good way, yep.
In short, he sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shares in wis Tech.
He told investors that he sold the shares because there was demand from shareholders for more stock to.
Be available, but it was actually sold to set all some legal cases and allegations in his personal life.
Personal life, meat, business life, business life, meet personal.
Life and now the Australian councilor Superanuation Investors has said that the allegations were a major concern for investors.
But be Man White isn't just the CEO, He's the guy at Wistech.
Yep, He's so central to the business that investors are now wondering if White goes down, does Wistech go down with him?
Interesting? So what is the key learning here?
Key person risk is when a business becomes heavily reliant on a key individual.
It's kind of like having all of your eggs in one basket and.
Then dropping that basket down a flight of stairs and be Man Well.
Keyperson risk normally happens in smaller businesses. It can happen in larger businesses.
Too, especially when the CEO or the founder is so tightly woven into the brand and the company's identity.
You see, be Man White's personal issues have kind of bled into the professional world. And now wyse Tech is feeling the ripple effect.
And so the Wystec board find themselves in a bit of a pickle where they are being pressured to do something and.
Be man Wiseek is in the first major company to have a key person Richen What.
Comes to mind for me, Josey Boy. Twenty seventeen, Uber's founder and then CEO, Travis Kalinnik, was forced to step down after a number of scandals.
People were freaking out, wondering if Uber would even survive.
A little spoiler alert for everyone at home.
It did.
It survived. Uber managed to go public in twenty nineteen.
And at share prices increased by more than one hundred percent since listing to nearly one hundred and seventy billion US dollars.
For our second story, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all invested in nuclear power plants as part of their goals to reduce carbon emissions.
When I hear nuclear power plants, all I can think about is Homo Simpson munching on a donut in front of a glowing reactor. So don't you will?
Okay, So juzzy boy. We know that big tech companies use a heap of power to run their services.
Every time you browse the web, catch up on the latest TikTok trend, yeah or binge stream monsters right now? This is powered by data center. Now get this.
Over the past few years, companies like Amazon and Google and Microsoft. They've made some pretty big promises, you.
Know, pledging to be emissions free by twenty thirty.
But then AI happened, and let me break some news to you, juzzy boy. AI loves to guzzle energy.
Now the tech giants are realizing that going green just got a whole lot harder if they still want to scale the AI empire.
So Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all made a quick dash to go nuclear.
Amazon has led a five hundred million dollar capital raise in a nuclear energy developer.
Google has ordered nuclear reactors for its data centers from a nuclear energy startup, and Microsoft has agreed to a twenty year power purchasing deal to reopen a close nuclear power plants, all part of their ploys to have their AI cake.
And eat it too. Yep, So what is the key learning here?
Big tech is now warming up to nuclear power. Pun most certainly intended is seeb Man.
An AI query consumes up to ten times the energy of a standard Google search.
Yep, you deep dive into I Don't Know What Dogs dream About is more energy hungry than you might think.
And Bman Goldman sax recons power demand from data centers will grow by one hundred and sixty percent by twenty thirty.
So using wind and solar energy alone won't be enough to get these tech companies to become emission free.
But and it's a big butt b man, nuclear plants do not come cheap.
We're talking about one billion US dollars just for a small modular reactor and this slow to.
Bit two plus there's a whole is it save conversation that always pops up. So with lots of talk about nuclear energy, only time will tell if it turns into action. For our third and final story, Quantus could be forced to show out hundreds of millions of dollars to seventeen hundred illegally sacked workers.
Quantus' problems just keep on coming. What is the story here?
Does he body be man? We know Quantus, Australia's national airline carrier bean Arounds is nineteen twenty two, in fact, the third oldest airline in the whole wide world.
Now, over the pandemic, we did see Quantus go through non stop turbulence and we're not talking about the weather here.
They suffered seven billion dollars in losses.
Now, over the last few years there's been profit off ghost flights and ahrible c inquiry and new CEO mass layoffs.
If that wasn't enough, b Man, Now Quantus is facing a major compensation bill.
Why is that the case?
Well, the federal court found that Quantus had illegally fired seventeen hundred workers in twenty twenty.
They justified it as COVID related cost cutting measures at.
The time, but once the pandemic ended, Quantus didn't replace the employees and authorities thenestion whether these layoffs were actually COVID related.
And how much are we're talking about here in terms of dollary dues.
Well, the exact amount of compensation isn't known yet, but it's expected to be worth over one hundred million dollars. It doesn't look like this federal court ruling is going to do Quantus any favors when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. So true, So what is the key learning here?
When it comes to attracting talent? Employment scandals are the ultimate or red flag.
Yeah.
Now we know Quantus is trying to enter its transformation erar, but boy, oh boy, oh boy, does it have its work cut out for itself.
Yeah? In fact, be man forty percent of businesses struggle to recruit good candidates, according to Hid magazine.
And that challenge becomes even tougher for companies that have a public history of missing the mark as employees pluxdam.
If you want to win one hundred and fifty bucks funded into your raised investment account, there is one place to go. It is straight to the Flex Academy this month to understand the share market. To make sure to download the Flux out to check it out.
Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Friday.