CEOs are hugely expensive – why not automate them?

First of all, how crazy is this drawing of a house on an Etch-a-Sketch? That artist got mad talent.

Quick question: What’s the secret to understanding if an expensive role can be automated? 

First of all, try outsourcing it. 

If a person in India or the Philippines can get the job done, this article argues that it can be automated. The mortgage marketis looking for ways to maximize profits, after a year of record volumes, and record production costs; So we may have a unique opportunity here. 

“If a role can be outsourced, it can be automated. But while companies are racing to automate entry- and mid-level roles, senior executives and decision makers show much less interest in automating themselves,” writes Will Dunn in the New Statesman.

“There's a good argument for automating from the top rather than from the bottom. As we know from the annotated copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow that sits (I assume) on every CEO’s Isamu Noguchi nightstand, human decision-making is the product of irrational biases and assumptions,” he adds.

“This is one of the reasons strategy is so difficult, and roles that involve strategic decision-making are so well paid. But the difficulty of making genuinely rational strategic decisions, and the cost of the people who do so, are also good reasons to hand this work over to software,” he concludes.

It’s an interesting premise, that’ll never happen… or will it? We’ve all worked for CEOs who were already on autopilot half the time, amirite?

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🤣 MEME of the day by Starr Johnson 🤣

Have a funny meme? Email your favorite meme here for a chance to be featured in our next Rise&Shred.

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40 cities at risk of housing crash

Good news: Pfizer is testing a pill that vaccinates against COVID-19. Up to 60 volunteers, all clean-living adults aged between 18 and 60, are being given the first pill specifically designed to stop COVID-19.If effective, the drug giant will roll out the “home cure” soon.

Bad news: Eating french fries just two to three times per week is linked to an elevated risk of death, according to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In the study, researchers monitored the fried potato

 consumption of 4,400 adults between the ages of 45 and 79 over the course of eight years. Luckily for Rise&Shred, we eat fries at least four times per week, so we’re in the clear. #CloseCall

Some American cities are much more vulnerable to a housing downturn than others, according to a new study from GOBankingRates. Check out the list here.

While we don’t agree with this assessment (especially the resurrection of 2008 comparison) it’s interesting to think some cities may be more at-risk than others.

The study examined factors such as mortgage delinquencies, foreclosures, and homeowner and rental vacancy rates.

All 40 are among the 200 largest cities in the country, but they aren’t spread out equally across the nation. States such as Texas, for example, are disproportionately represented with seven cities on the list.

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🔥 CFPB, Ocwen and Hispanic Homebuyers 🔥 

With Josh Pitts & Jacob Gaffney

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COVID is now a major driver of homeownership

Sixteen percent of American adults are considering the purchase of a home in the next 12 months, according to NAHB’s Housing Trends Report for Q121.

That is six points higher than the 10% with similar plans a year earlier. The increase marks the third (and largest) year-over-year gain in the share of prospective buyers in the series history. This steady growth shows the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to fuel Americans’ desire to buy homes.

Meanwhile, the share of prospective buyers who would be purchasing a home for the first time stood at 62% in the first quarter of the year, essentially unchanged from a year earlier (61%).

Millennials are the generation with the fastest growth in adults planning a home purchase: the share of this group with plans to buy a home in the next 12 months doubled from 16% to 32% in the year ended in Q121, while other generations saw more tepid growth.

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