5 ms·

Adding something to the "Risks" section of your company's financial report reads more like CYA ("Cover Your Ass") than "We're afraid of AI!" behavior.

pyuser583 1y ago
Facebook once listed "adoption of mobile devices" in the "Risks" section of their reports.
- arcticfox 1y ago
  I mean, this was absolutely a risk to them. They could have easily lost during the transition.
  - omneity 1y ago
    They did and then spent $5B purchasing Instagram and Whatsapp to recover.
    - tsunamifury 1y ago
      19 billion buying WhatsApp. Instagram was moments before ipo. Also the FB html5 play at the time was a decent bridge to the app play which did of course explode growth. So let’s be fair they didn’t fail but they acquired to grow even more.
    - HWR_14 1y ago
      I thought they spent $17B on Whatsapp.
steveklabnik 1y ago
Yes, the risks part of a 10-K is usually pretty comprehensive, and includes all kinds of things that may or may not be an issue: that's why they're risks, and not problems or showstoppers or something. Many of the 10-Ks I've read enumerate tons of things that have a very low chance of happening. I'd be curious about the position of these segments in the 10-Ks, like, if they're suddenly all at the top, that's much more interesting than being tacked on to the end.
- dmurray 1y ago
  I'm not sure the position is significant. It's free to put any bad thing in the risks section of your 10-K; investors aren't going to shun your company over it. If you fail to put the risk in, the bad thing happens, and your company loses value, on the other hand, you may get sued for securities fraud - and courts have been oddly receptive to these suits. It's like any other clause that gets added to any other mostly-boilerplate legal document over time: one firm adds it, pretty soon everyone copies their work and it's a standard term. It's viral. How fast this spreads among company filings is a matter of epidemiology, not something that actually tells you the companies' outlook.
  - steveklabnik 1y ago
    I'm not sure it is either, I don't read enough 10-Ks to make a strong claim here, it's just always felt like the ones I've read have been vaguely ordered by importance, and I wonder if that's actually true or not.
echelon 1y ago
Here are some S&P 500 companies that are doomed: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpublic_Group_of_Companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpublic_Group_of_Compa... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnicom_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnicom_Group - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Discovery - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Corporation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Global https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Global I'm sure there are a lot more.
- andsoitis 1y ago
  Why do you think Warner Bros, Fox, and Paramount are doomed?
  - bitmasher9 1y ago
    The most around content creation is eroding. We’re seeing many small AI videos become viral, and the length of some of them are reaching 5-10min. What happens when anyone can write a script and have a feature length movie or 12 episode season.
    - manmal 1y ago
      Vibing a movie will be possible, but people also won’t pay money for watching that. It will be great for script writers to be able to make an MVP of their movie first, and someone will still need to produce this into an actual movie.
      - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        >Vibing a movie will be possible, people also won’t pay money for watching that Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok all beg to differ. AI slop farms are making bank over there, especially on short form content aimed at little kids. They get hundreds of millions of views, earning more than what Disney/WB makes on some of their high budget garbage movies in cinema.

pyuser583 1y ago

Facebook once listed "adoption of mobile devices" in the "Risks" section of their reports.

arcticfox 1y ago
I mean, this was absolutely a risk to them. They could have easily lost during the transition.
- omneity 1y ago
  They did and then spent $5B purchasing Instagram and Whatsapp to recover.
  - tsunamifury 1y ago
    19 billion buying WhatsApp. Instagram was moments before ipo. Also the FB html5 play at the time was a decent bridge to the app play which did of course explode growth. So let’s be fair they didn’t fail but they acquired to grow even more.
  - HWR_14 1y ago
    I thought they spent $17B on Whatsapp.

steveklabnik 1y ago

Yes, the risks part of a 10-K is usually pretty comprehensive, and includes all kinds of things that may or may not be an issue: that's why they're risks, and not problems or showstoppers or something. Many of the 10-Ks I've read enumerate tons of things that have a very low chance of happening. I'd be curious about the position of these segments in the 10-Ks, like, if they're suddenly all at the top, that's much more interesting than being tacked on to the end.

dmurray 1y ago
I'm not sure the position is significant. It's free to put any bad thing in the risks section of your 10-K; investors aren't going to shun your company over it. If you fail to put the risk in, the bad thing happens, and your company loses value, on the other hand, you may get sued for securities fraud - and courts have been oddly receptive to these suits. It's like any other clause that gets added to any other mostly-boilerplate legal document over time: one firm adds it, pretty soon everyone copies their work and it's a standard term. It's viral. How fast this spreads among company filings is a matter of epidemiology, not something that actually tells you the companies' outlook.
- steveklabnik 1y ago
  I'm not sure it is either, I don't read enough 10-Ks to make a strong claim here, it's just always felt like the ones I've read have been vaguely ordered by importance, and I wonder if that's actually true or not.

echelon 1y ago

Here are some S&P 500 companies that are doomed: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpublic_Group_of_Companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Interpublic_Group_of_Compa... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnicom_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnicom_Group - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Discovery - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Corporation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Global https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Global I'm sure there are a lot more.

andsoitis 1y ago
Why do you think Warner Bros, Fox, and Paramount are doomed?
- bitmasher9 1y ago
  The most around content creation is eroding. We’re seeing many small AI videos become viral, and the length of some of them are reaching 5-10min. What happens when anyone can write a script and have a feature length movie or 12 episode season.
  - manmal 1y ago
    Vibing a movie will be possible, but people also won’t pay money for watching that. It will be great for script writers to be able to make an MVP of their movie first, and someone will still need to produce this into an actual movie.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      >Vibing a movie will be possible, people also won’t pay money for watching that Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok all beg to differ. AI slop farms are making bank over there, especially on short form content aimed at little kids. They get hundreds of millions of views, earning more than what Disney/WB makes on some of their high budget garbage movies in cinema.