The Dive | Business News

By now, you’d’ve heard of ChatGPT. And after playing with it for a couple of minutes - had that moment of existential dread as you think - how long until this technology takes my job? Don't worry, ChatGPT is still often getting things wrong.  Here at Equity Mates HQ, we asked it for a blurb on an Australian software company. It gave us a description for a real estate investment trust - that’s...

Over the past decade, the biggest agricultural revolution since the domestication of livestock has been taking place.  Cultured meat. Cultivated meat. Lab-grown meat. Cell-based meat. No kill meat. Whatever you call it, what started as Dutch researcher Mark Post’s effort to prove you could produce meat without killing animals - has since exploded into one of the hottest trends in agriculture....

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission - ASIC - has just brought forward its first ever greenwashing case. It's accused Mercer Superannuation of misleading customers about its sustainable plus fund, one of its superannuation investment options. The Sustainable Plus options were marketed as suitable for members who ‘are deeply committed to sustainability’ due to the fact they excluded...

The Reserve Bank has been looking into the use of a central bank digital currency here in Australia. The world is rapidly moving towards a cashless society - Cash was used for 59% of point-of-sale transactions in 2022, down from 72% in 2019.  But in Australia less than 25% of transactions use cash, in the UK it’s just 15% and in Norway, only 3% of payment transactions are cash! So our currenc...

The government has announced they want to tax earnings above $3 million in super at 30% instead of the current 15%. That's frustrating if you're one of the 0.5% of Australians with that kind of money in your account. But most of us don't have $3 million stashed away... actually the average account has a measly $150,000 in it. Forbes reports that by the age of 25-29, the average man will have aroun...

Onions, a staple in many dishes worldwide, are currently facing a serious shortage. This shortage, along with other food crises, raises concerns about food security . It’s a global problem. Especially because onions are the staple of cuisines across the world, the most consumed vegetable after tomatoes. If you put all the carrots, turnips, chillies, garlic and peppers the world together - that’s t...

Companies are exploring ways to offer more flexibility and better work-life balance to their employees. One trend gaining traction is the four-day workweek. In a pilot program in Britain, 56 out of 61 businesses decided to continue with the four-day workweek, recognizing its benefits. Benefits for employees include better work-life balance and reduced burnout. According to the pilot program, 70% o...

Pokies, poker machines, slot machines. Whatever you call them, they've been popular in Australia since the 1950s when pubs and clubs were looking for ways to entertain their customers. Then in the 1990s, they became electronic - making them more sophisticated and addictive. The government saw pokies as a potential source of revenue and began issuing licenses for their installation in clubs and pub...

When was the last time you sent a letter? With the rise of digital communication, the traditional act of mailing a letter has become increasingly rare. Australia Post, one of the country's most iconic institutions, is feeling the impact of this trend. In the past six months, the company has reported a loss of nearly $200 million in its letter division. With the CEO, Paul Graham, warning of an unst...

Rev up your engines, folks! It's time to explore the incredible world of Formula One racing and the groundbreaking technology that drives it. If you're a fan of this high-speed sport, you know that it's not just about racing around a track at breakneck speeds, it's about pushing the boundaries of engineering and technology. Fast cars, competitive team principles, and charismatic drivers are just t...

Lithium is a hot commodity - integral to the world’s move towards sustainability, as its an essential component in electric vehicles.   Is it unsurprising then that global demand has skyrocketed? German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently flew to Latin America to secure more lithium supplies. Why? Almost half of the global lithium resources are located in the so-called lithium triangle...

Last year, a record 180 rockets were successfully launched into orbit - many of them carrying satellites.  This meant at the end of 2022, there were 8261 satellites orbiting the Earth. Interestingly though increasingly more satellites are being launched by private companies rather than governments. In 2021, private-sector funding in space-related companies topped $10 billion dollars, an all-t...

February 14th has many of us looking around and asking: What percentage of flowers are purchased on Valentine's Day?  There’s just no escaping the mass of flowers seen in florists, or on your social media feeds, regardless if you’ve a Valentine or not. Here’s an interesting fact about Valentine’s Day. It alone makes up around 10% of the annual demand for cut flowers. That's all in one day!&nb...

The value of these $7 million 30-second ad slots are explored. With over 200 million viewers worldwide, the Super Bowl is a cultural phenomenon in its own right. The advertising during the biggest spectacle in American sports commands a high price, with a 30-second advertising space setting you back $7 million dollars - and that's just the starting price! You have production costs, agency fees and...

2023 is the year of major advancements in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. With the rise of generative AI, people are becoming more fascinated with AI language models like ChatGPT and AI art like Dall-E. However, the real game-changer in 2023 may not be AI but the rapid progression in Robotics. Boston Dynamics and other companies are bringing us closer to the integration of agile and intellig...

Beyonce became the most decorated musical artist in Grammy history this week - claiming her 32nd award win. From her years with Destiny's Child, through to her legacy as a celebrated pop icon, she's not needed these awards to help cement her status as iconic, but a record breaking haul of Grammys over the years has certainly helped, and not hindered, her career. She's not alone. Forbes found...

A price war is brewing in the electric vehicle market. While prices of EVs remain significantly more expensive than cars and trucks with traditional engines, prices are starting to come down. With a flurry of new competitors entering the market, some of the established players are dropping their prices to attract more buyers. It’s Monday the 6th of February and today Darcy and Sascha talk about th...

Adani Group, an Indian conglomerate, faced a major blow last week after a US-based investment research firm - Hindenburg Research - accused them of "the biggest con in corporate history". The report resulted in a significant decrease in the value of Adani’s businesses, totalling over $100 billion. It's important to note Adani denies the claims made by Hindenburg Research and highlights the fact th...

Everyone is talking about Chat GPT. We did an episode about this revolutionary new step in Artificial Intelligence when it launched last year.  What does GPT stand for? Generative Pretrained Transformer. And transforming is certainly what it is doing. The numbers don't lie - it crossed 1 million users within a week - when it took Instagram 2.5 months, Facebook 10 months, and Twitter nearly 24...

Australia is in the midst of a rental crisis. In this midst of this prolonged period of low rental vacancy rates and increasing rent levels, Corelogic published data earlier in the month that said the National Vacancy rate had almost halved in the past twelve months - down to 1.2% from 2.1%.   Since the start of the upswing in September 2020, Australian rent values have lifted 22.2%, mar...

It's our final episode for the year. Since launching at the end of April, we’ve released 149 episodes, written a quarter of a million words in notes, won Best Business Podcast at this year’s Australian Podcast Award, and been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times - by you.  It’s Wednesday, the 21st of December, so we revise - what are the biggest business stories of the year? To learn mor...

This is a blanket apology for all retail workers. There is only one thing more iconic than Santa when it comes to Christmas - that's Mariah Carey’s best-selling hit "All I Want For Christmas." The song tops charts around the world at this time of year. Today Alec and Sascha unpack the numbers behind this song, and look at other holiday hits throughout the ages. We’re asking our UK audience to help...

The FIFA World Cup wraps up in Qatar this weekend. France will take on Argentina in a heavyweight battle.  Off the pitch, perhaps the most significant moment happened two days before the whole tournament kicked off, when Qatar and FIFA decided to ban the sale of alcoholic beer at stadiums. This took the event’s major beer sponsor, Budweiser, by surprise. The company had to pivot its mark...

In late November, nationwide protests broke out across China as unrest over the government’s zero-covid policy reached breaking point. President Xi’s insistence on maintaining a strict Covid-zero policy resulted in years of intermittent lockdowns and harsh restrictions in China. As the rest of the world gradually opened, China remained firmly shut. In the past month however, as cases spiked and pe...

Some things are just meant to be in conflict. Tom and Jerry, Jim and Dwight, Millennials and Boomers. For as long as Millennials have had bank accounts they’ve complained about the Baby Boomers generation. So when a certain stat did the rounds in the office it got us talking. And when we asked you what we should talk about - this was the clear winner.  So, here’s the stat out of the Unit...