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ChatGpt has certainly made more than a splash this year but which white-collar jobs do you all think will be impacted the most not just by ChatGpt, but all of AI as a whole in the near-term? I keep hearing from friends and acquaintances who are already relying on chatgpt to supplement their white collar work in marketing and sales especially when it comes to writing content and client-facing emails. Could your or your subordinates’ line of work require re-skilling in the near-term to leverage AI technology to, for example, enhance productivity? Perhaps the same way that certain software tools are a requirement in certain roles whereas previously people were able to leverage more analog methods such as pen and paper?

Thank you SD, this is very informative.

SD, what’s your take on how M&A activity affects Ensign and PD? On the recent Ensign earnings call leadership called out weaker demand for their rigs as a result of M&A activity and it looks like their share price took a dive on this news? Trying to figure out if it’s maybe worth exiting Ensign now if this trend will continue say into 2025? Or is there a reasonable chance someone offers to buy Ensign and rig utilization becomes a moot point?

I know somehow who used to promote a GLP-1 agonist competing with Ozempic and made by Eli Lilly. I believe those drugs help greatly with weight loss but are always co-administered with a strong recommendation to diet and exercise (both of which are considered first line therapy whereas Ozempic is secondary). In practice most patients just don’t do the dieting and exercise very well. This is key. What happens is they take these meds, lose weight and instead of also eating less junk food, they actually increase their intake of junk food because why not?

I like Sync.com as it’s privacy focused, or at least used to be. 2TB at $8/mo. Very convenient for accessing most file formats on the go

If true, do you guys think some of these advanced materials or tech could end up in the hands of a publicly-traded company for the purposes of reverse engineering and creating something useful to businesses or consumers?

LC: Very interesting read, thanks for sharing your experience. I always wondered how these sorts of deals get done when a small business exchanges hands. If you are comfortable sharing, I’m curious about the pizza shop because you mentioned the old owner seemed spread thin between running it and their other businesses. Was this a find through your existing network or a targeted search of some sort? Sounds like a great opportunity for you, congrats!

To add to this regarding Procore. Friend of mine works at a competitor. Procore is the dominant player in construction and has the brand name recognition. They grow by digitizing manual project management workflows for net new customers and also by increasing the cost of subscriptions upon renewal. It seems pretty sticky - not quite like SFDC but close so pretty hard to replace.

Out of curiosity if CAD continues to weaken against USD how would that affect Canadian oil stocks?

The 3M drop you’re referring to would be better viewed in context of how many new jobs were created during this time as well. What seems to be happening is a number of people left the job market in 2020 and for the remaining workers, there are now more jobs to choose from. Since employers need to put bums in those seats, their recruiters are working double time trying to poach qualified laborers by offering them better pay. Perhaps this drives more of the pay increases across the board than employees proactively asking for raises out of need.

What about VXX as an alternative to the European exercise for this play? Does it track the VIX spikes closely?

Thank you SD. And best of luck on the London venture.

@SharperDingaanThank you for your insights into this sector. Been following your O&G trades for PD, WCP and OBE - very pleased with how this balanced the rest of the portfolio in 2022. Used to hold just XOM but rotated into these instead last year and doubled down. In your opinion, if one were to hold either PD or ESI into end of this year, which do you think would do better?