CBD
According to the two Sydney men who have caused an international storm with their app "Titstare", abuse is "the Australian way of showing affection".
In that case, tech entrepreneurs David Boulton and Jethro Batts must be feeling the love right about now. On Monday the pair took to the stage at a US tech conference to debut Titstare.
As a room full of male nerds who have never had sex chortled, the pair promised the app would allow you to "take photos of yourself staring at tits".
The app supposedly features a real-time feed of boob photos, together with the ability to rate the pictures and upload your own.
Reaction was swift and scornful, with the pair's effort traduced all over the internet as "disgustingly sexist", "brain-bleedingly sexist", "offensive and misogynistic" and a "gutless, sexist, little shitfest".
Boulton and Batts were themselves described as "Beavis and Butthead from Oz", "morons" and - CBD's favourite - "paramecium" (a single-celled underwater protozoa).
The pair's previous effort was hateyoucards.com, a website that enabled users to send abusive postcards to their mates. It was in that context that Batts and Boulton spoke up in favour of "playful abuse" as an Australian tradition.
Given they love abuse so much, it's something of a mystery why their social media presences started evaporating following the backlash against Titstare.
Gone is Boulton's Twitter and Batts' LinkedIn profile, which listed him as "just another ridiculously charismatic brokenprenuer".
However, Batts' entry on Meetup, under his middle name Clayton, remained alive on Monday afternoon.
It reveals he's the member of 11 eclectic groups, including GreenUps (drinks for Sydney greenies), Young Entrepreneurs Sydney and, of course, the Sydney Freemasons Meetup Group.
Schmooze daters
Call it speed-dating for CEOs: the heads of 30 Australian companies are off to New York, via Boston, this week to schmooze institutional investors.
Bosses attending Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Australian Investment Conference in the Big Apple this Thursday and Friday include Elmer Funke Kupper (ASX), David Robb (Iluka Resources), Chris Delaney (Goodman Fielder), David Bartholomew (DUET Group), Geoff Lloyd (Perpetual), Mark Steinert (Stockland), and David Dearie (Treasury Wine Estates).
CBD's ultimate boss, Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood, will also be there, together with chief financial officer David Housego.
About 160 fund managers are to front up, with 300 one-on-one meetings scheduled.
Some of the Australian CEOs will be pulling double duty, putting in a similar appearance in Boston on Wednesday.
Jobs unstocked
Singapore-owned PhillipCapital is continuing its drift away from stockbroking, shedding jobs in the process.
CBD understands somewhere between one and five positions have gone in the past week or so as the business, formed when Intersuisse took over the broking business of boom-time glamour house Austock, moves to consolidate its position as a wealth manager.
Lighting up
It's official: smoking makes you cool.
"The benefits that smokers receive from smoking may include immediate pleasure, control of stress, improved self-image and the avoidance of withdrawal symptoms," Treasury officials say in a regulatory impact statement on tobacco excise.
On the other hand, "Tobacco use leads to serious illness and premature death," the officials say.
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Frequently Asked Questions about this Article…
Titstare was an app demoed by two Sydney entrepreneurs, David Boulton and Jethro Batts, at a US tech conference. The app purported to let users take photos of themselves 'staring at tits', view a real-time feed of boob photos, rate pictures and upload content. Reaction was swift and scornful online, with critics calling it 'disgustingly sexist', 'offensive and misogynistic' and other harsh descriptions.
The two founders named in the article are David Boulton and Jethro Batts. The pair previously ran hateyoucards.com, a site that let users send abusive postcards to friends — a background that informed their defence of 'playful abuse' as an Australian tradition.
Following the negative reaction, the article reports that the founders' social media presences began to disappear: Boulton's Twitter account and Batts' LinkedIn profile were gone. Batts' Meetup entry (under his middle name Clayton) was still visible, showing memberships in several groups.
The article says about 30 Australian company bosses attended, including Elmer Funke Kupper (ASX), David Robb (Iluka Resources), Chris Delaney (Goodman Fielder), David Bartholomew (DUET Group), Geoff Lloyd (Perpetual), Mark Steinert (Stockland), David Dearie (Treasury Wine Estates), and Fairfax Media CEO Greg Hywood (with CFO David Housego).
The article describes the trip as 'speed-dating for CEOs' — executives travel to schmooze institutional investors, raise their company profile and hold one-on-one meetings with fund managers to discuss strategy, performance and investment interest.
According to the article, about 160 fund managers were expected to attend, with roughly 300 one-on-one meetings scheduled between the Australian CEOs and institutional investors.
The article reports that Singapore-owned PhillipCapital is continuing to move away from stockbroking and toward wealth management, shedding jobs in the process. CBD understands between one and five positions had been cut as the business consolidates its wealth manager focus after inheriting a broking arm from Austock/Intersuisse.
The article quotes Treasury officials saying smokers may receive benefits such as 'immediate pleasure, control of stress, improved self-image and the avoidance of withdrawal symptoms', while also stating plainly that 'Tobacco use leads to serious illness and premature death.'
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