LOLs keep piling up. Cost of doing business. Nevertheless, Meta came out swinging against it.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and whose business model from day one has been to collect and monetize data on users and non-users alike, was fined a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by the EU’s European Data Protection Board for Facebook’s violations of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), not for collecting this data in the first place, but for sending this data from EU residents to the US.
“This fine, which is the largest GDPR fine ever, was imposed for Meta’s transfers of personal data to the U.S. on the basis of standard contractual clauses (SCCs) since 16 July 2020,” the statement said.
The prior record fine of €746 million ($806 million) was levied on Amazon in 2021.
LOL#1: “Meta has been ordered to bring its data transfers into compliance with the GDPR” within six months, the regulator announced – meaning, that it could still collect the personal data of European residents and use their personal data, LOL, but would have to stop processing the data in the US.
“The EDPB found that Meta IE’s infringement is very serious since it concerns transfers that are systematic, repetitive and continuous. Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is massive. The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organisations that serious infringements have far-reaching consequences,” the statement said.
The decision was the result of an inquiry into Facebook by the Irish Data Protection Commission, the regulator overseeing Meta’s operations in Europe. Ireland is where the European headquarters of Meta, Apple, Twitter, and Google are located thanks to the special tax treatment Ireland has used to lure them there, including a low corporate income tax of 12.5%.
LOL#2: This huge “unprecedented” magnitude of the fine amounts to… let’s see… in 2022, Meta had a pre-tax profit of $28.2 billion, or about $77.2 million per calendar day. So the $1.3 billion fine (pre-tax) would amount to about 17 calendar days of pretax income.
So two weeks plus Monday through Wednesday of pretax income. Not even a slap on the wrist for a company of this size. Just part of the cost of doing business.
LOL#3: Meta came out swinging as you’d expect, with a long-ish thingy about how the internet works and why data transfers are part of it. “This decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and US,” they said.
“The ability for data to be transferred across borders is fundamental to how the global open internet works. Thousands of businesses and other organizations rely on the ability to transfer data between the EU and the US in order to operate and provide services that people use every day,” they said.
“We will appeal the ruling, including the unjustified and unnecessary fine, and seek a stay of the orders through the courts,” they said.
And they said all this when the underlying problem is the all-pervasive data collection itself – not where the data is being processed. But then consumers have known all this for years, and they see all the warnings that pop up on screen in the EU and elsewhere in compliance with GDPR, and they’re still using Facebook though life reportedly works just fine without it. OK, so be it, and let’s slap some wrists to show how powerful this regulation is, LOL#4.
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LOL#4 is on the American people that Europe recognizes how the US government spies on us and we either don’t care or remain stubbornly ignorant of it.
LOL#5. It’s Meta that spies on you! And Apple, and Google, and all the others. Constantly, wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you deal with, what you buy, your body functions, health data, love life, what you read and watch, and what you don’t read and watch, anything and everything anywhere and everywhere. Data centers are a HUGE business because that’s where the results of corporate spying are processed and stored forever.
So true.
This is one of the best Wolf Richter posts ever. In our evolution, the ability to predict and influence our spending is now paramount. To me, being on Facebook is like having a credit card with no kickback.
I always love
accept terms and if you hit no then it kicks you out of app/service
gee I pay you for service/app
but I can’t change the terms
but they sure can and do
Like your analogy HH,,, but, to this old boy who has had nothing at all to do with face hook or any of the other similar data snatchers, being on those rapacious soul sucking websites is like,,, IDK, and hope never to know.
Bad enough on the amazing site and similar merchants, but IMO the convenience outweighs the social cost, albeit slightly so,,, and it’s easy to say NO.
Unfortunately, VintageVNvet, Faceborg can apparently create “shadow accounts” of non-users based upon information scraped about us from the accounts of friends of ours who all too cavalier with their own privacy, and thus by extension, everyone else’s …
And yet they cannot get anything right…young, dumb and full of…
They wont spy on us if we use browsers like Brave, stop using their search engines as well as other tools and encrypt our communications end to end. For the most part.
Even if you do all those moves, the only group that will hunt you down and find you is your college alumni looking for donations. You can’t hide from them until you are dead and buried. LOL!
Anthony A,
The last time a representative from my university called, the person tried to engage in “small talk” but I told her straight out, “I’m not giving them any money”.
That’s the last time I heard from them.
August, I have moved many times and had an unlisted phone number each location. They still found me! How I got them to stop bugging me was to tell them I am now in a nursing home and dying. Up until then, I told them to bug off many times but I guess my old school just didn’t get the message. Persistent folks.
Edward Snowden says otherwise. Meta is just one link in the chain. Let’s be real here.
Wolf Richter
I pray for deluge of information overload and paralysis by over analysis.
oh. Forgot about (AI)Chatgpt!?
Meta spies on us for profit, but they turn over all the information to the NSA. The government has direct connections hardwired into all the major IT companies. It all gets piped to their Bluffdale facility which has a capacity as high as 12 exaoctets.
As always, if the product is free, it means YOU are the product.
Some do care. And some are doing something about it. Nostr for example.
The US government contracts out spying on Americans to other Five Eyes members like Britain because US has a paper thin law that says it can’t (or rather shouldn’t) spy on Americans.
The US in return spies on Brits – so both get what they want pretty easily.
Michael Droy,
Back around the summer of 2014 when the NSA data center in Utah was all over the news, I got talking to a guy in a bar one night about it. He told me that he had had the contract to build the data centers for Verizon (and Bell of PA before that) for years. Years earlier he had built a data center in Canada for them and all calls and texts were routed up there first and then on to the intended recipient anywhere in the world.
Doesn’t /Didn’t / Hasn’t stopped the FBI from “accidentally” (intentionally) to break the law and spy on US citizens in the USA by means of this and that including FISA warrants.
What was the number?
Millions of times?
And of course nobody even had their hand slapped or even a note out in their file.
So who cashes in on the the 1,2 bill Eurones fine money? What a treasure trove. Certainly, I imagine, not the affected customers whose data got sold.
Maybe a whole load of govt. departments or other entities lining up to get their snouts in this trough.
New limousines for the European Commission? Or redecoration of the European Parliament, that antidemocratic taxpayer black hole?
Yes they store this data, and then sell adverts…
And they do things like show washing powder adverts to kids watching Peppa Pig on YouTube.
Or show me weird tight outfits for women while reading Wolf Street.
These titans of industry.
Lol#6.
It’s all a big huge load of rubbish. They sell advertising, expensive and targeted, based on your usage, but they’re not really doing very well despite decades of practice.
Buyers of this data are getting scammed in my view.
I used to work in adtech, campaigns on facebook and instagram perform very well, which is why they can command a respectable CPM. Some users getting ineffective ads is unavoidable on any platform.
Now, I left the industry before the rise of Tiktok. I wonder how the Chinese are eating their lunch…
Spot on. Or occasionally when appropriate ads are presented it’s…too late.
Kenny Logouts,
It’s not only advertising. That’s just a sideshow. Your personal data determines what you see on the social media (news, tidbits, reports, etc.), what you see on YouTube and in search, etc. The prices for airline tickets you see online, prices for goods on Amazon, etc. are based on what info they have on you. Insurance premiums can be that way. Whether or not you get financing is increasingly based on the info known about you. There are a bunch of AI-driven finance companies that will look at this stuff to see if you qualify for a loan (instead of the FICO score). Whether or not you get that job may depend on what is known about you. This encompasses just about all parts of life. AI has been all over this for years.
What you see on YouTube? Hell, I keep getting these links to video reviews of fast cars, fast motorbikes, and current bicycle racing highlights. Seems sort of like magic, eh? How do they do that?
But I do use different web browsers for different types of use on the WorldWideWeb. One of which I’ve set to never allow cookies, and to completely erase history when closing it out and turning it off.
Something that’s happened fairly recently is that there are new outlets, like rumble, where reporters and investigative journalists outside the Commercial Media Censorship & Control Complex can be found; many broadcasting current events live.
But Governments and Commercial Media do not like this. These dark forces of narrative control are hard at work, and are shredding the First and Fourth Amendments of the Bill of Rights.
Now, in the United States Senate, there is a proposed Bill:
“Digital Platform Commission Act of 2023”.
“To establish a new Federal body to provide reasonable oversight and regulation on digital platforms.”
This is being sold as a way to protect against Artificial Intelligence. But what it really is meant to do is have the US Government infiltrate and control every social media website that operates, defined as: originates in or is received inside the United States. It is a measure to give the Federal Government the power to control free speech online.
Colorado Democratic Senator Bennett and Vermont Democratic Senator Welch are the two authors of the bill.
“Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.”
I read and donate to Wolf Street because it’s where free speech is alive and well. Thank you Wolf. May you live long and prosper.
I don’t feel like a great deal of that impacts me, and so it’s value must be very low for me.
It’s depressing to imagine people falling for the inane advertising these tech companies push and blindly buying stuff that’s thrown up in their faces.
I suppose if we accept your view that all that extra profiling capability has really significant value, then it’s just being used to screw profit out of consumers based on their individual circumstances/traits that otherwise wouldn’t be known.
Don’t you think that’s a disturbing and depressing thing for these big ‘titans of industry’ to be so highly valued in society for?
When I look around, I don’t see this having enabled society to be a better place. People aren’t happier, healthier and wealthier than before.
All the appearance of this subversive spying has correlated with is more people are sadder, less healthy, and less wealthy, with a seeming greater bifuraction of society.
This technology could be driving a wedge down the middle of society. Splitting it into the happy, healthy and wealthy, and the unhappy, unhealthy and poor, based on all these systems taking advantage of their profiling and pushing them in the appropriate direction.
Does that truly add value to society?
I’m experiencing the same thing, Kenny.
I’m not a driver and don’t own any sort of motor vehicle. But when I’m, oh, watching YouTube videos, I get pummeled with car ads and ads for automotive-related services.
Likewise, pharmaceuticals. Yours Truly doesn’t do drugs and hasn’t had any sort of prescription in many years.
Wolf, would having to leave Europe affect the balance sheet more? Zuckerberg is an evil lizard and he should be fined 100x this
can’t wait to see how they treat elon
luckily for elon it was 100% OPM
and now that he’s 25% of former company
what’s he got to lose??
And Meta trade p over 1%!
FB is involved in the African sweatshop workers making $2 a hour in order to vette ChatGPT, they are forced to watch porno for days on end to determine what is hate speech, etc etc. (Clockwork Orange toothpicks under the eyelids). I think there is somewhere someone (else) who doesn’t believe AI comes up with analysis out of the blue, and is not programmed by its creators. ChatGPT will certify CRT, then buckle up and wait for ChatGOP, and all the rest to come along with private versions. My AI, or my Magic Eight Ball, says the earth is really flat.
So if not for being made slaves and were left in Africa, would that be the life that the descendants of former slaves were denied?
Would it therefore be rational to base reparations on that wage differential?
Hmm, how do I feel about this? Meta fined; I like. Effective tariff/tax/transfer from US to EU; I don’t like. The EU can’t or won’t innovate, so they fine US corporations to skim some off the top. Not rooting for US corps, specifically, but it’s another trade barrier. Maybe Amazon, Meta, et al would be better off in the long run exiting the EU market.
“Maybe Amazon, Meta, et al would be better off in the long run exiting the EU market.”
If they’re making money they won’t exit, they’ll keep taking the slaps. Though if we’re going to bring feelings into this, not that anyone cares, but my personal ones are that it’s a complete shame nobody on this side of the Atlantic is willing to wind up and deliver some open hand hooks of their own. I blame Will Smith for ruining it for the rest of us.
“The EU can’t or won’t innovate”
The EU’s a big place, it’s home of Siemens, Spotify, Philips, ASML (lithography for almost all computer chips), Ubisoft, SAP, Booking.com, Babbel, Doctolib, Contentsquare, Vestiaire, Mojang, Ericsson, Logitech Justeat (Grubhub) and hundreds of other new and recent startups with many thriving quite well. We were in Europe in February meeting and getting data for a report on this very topic, a lot of the best tech innovation right now is coming out of the EU. We weren’t enamored about all the ways they do things there, but blanket statements like “the EU can’t or won’t innovate” are wild exaggerations, and the “Europe isn’t innovative” meme has always been a myth that any investor would embrace at their peril. As for this fine on Meta, they made their bed on this and now they’ve gotta lie in it. If anything with the shenanigans they pulled with Cambridge Analytica alone without even going into all their other ahem, questionable data practices, this fine is a gentle slap on the wrist just like Wolf is saying, unless the US privacy watchdogs actually do their job and go after the many other privacy violations here.
There is real innovation in sensors coming out of Europe – I’ve been experimenting with a couple advanced sensors from small French companies, and know of similar companies in Germany, Switzerland, and Finland.
yep, Telraam was one of the sensor companies the groups were reporting on (tho I think they may be Belgian), but there were at least 2 to 3 really strong startups that were France based. Imagimob (Swedish) came up too, Evvos might have been another of the big French ones but not sure–one of our partner teams was doing the sensor tech bulletin talks and by then, we were all so tired and basically sneaking out to the boutiques and cafes that most of us left with no idea what was going on in the sector. Still looked like must have been interesting to anyone in that field tho, a lot of really smart people making niche tech.
Fair enough, I meant it broadly, not that there is no innovation in Europe. And I certainly didn’t mean Europeans can’t innovate, as many come to the US and have great success (including keeping more of their earnings).
yeah that’s fair I guess. It goes both ways and we’ve seen techies go in both directions. We wonder sometimes too about the idea of keeping more of their earnings, seems like people’s mileage varies there between the US and Europe. As we found out the hard way (esp when we were doing our own small business years ago) the USA isn’t really a low-tax place despite the memes about it, at least in a lot of places, we just split our taxes in a lot more different ways than Europeans do. The payroll tax and state taxes are a US thing without any real parallel there, but it’s US property taxes and business taxes where the real tax hits are, and are much higher than Europe certainly for property. It depends on jurisdiction but in many parts of the world, the big property taxes are assessed only when there’s an actual transaction involved, like with the purchase or sale or with investments (and real estate investors in the EU are taxed, but far less so for people living in their primary home).
There’s not this huge “passive tax” in Europe for a primary household like we have in the US where we’re forced to pay a heavy tax just for what’s in practice a mythical number outside of an actual sale–the home’s value, which isn’t actually any kind of liquid value we can tap into, yet we do have actual hard costs for it in the property taxes that we have to pay out of other income. (Not to mention the insurance, maintenance, repairs when things break down, one of the places inflation really hurts..) Which is especially harsh for anyone on fixed income or between jobs. And the most ironic part is that many of the highest-tax states in the United States in reality are places like Texas that masquerade as low-tax states, but have some of the worst property tax burdens in North America and the world, with many losing fully paid-off homes when that assessment arbitrarily rises.
And then too, the US has some nasty “surprise taxes” in places that Europe doesn’t, that can eat up all your savings in a way that’s more protected in the EU. A lot of this is with medical bills, but I’d say the worst example is in divorce courts. In fact divorce is one of the most sure-fire ways for even upper-class, very wealthy Americans to fall into poverty (and you can even get a prison term if you can’t pay alimony or child support if imputed arbitrarily high)–family courts in the US are much harsher in divorce than anything we’ve seen in Europe, except in the UK. Europe generally does divorce through mediation, shared custody and civil law, so it’s not a profit center and not a way for either the divorce lawyers or the state to make money. But it’s a huge profit center in the US. We’ve seen even major company execs and surgeons face total financial wipeout from divorces in America, while it’s barely a blip on the radar in most of Europe–at least in that way (and for healthcare), your assets and savings are probably much better protected in Europe than the US. In fact I’d go as far as to say that if you have a lot of skills, assets, savings and a high income in the US, you might want to think twice about marrying or having kids, or at least, make plans to become an expat esp once you have a lot saved up–divorce is the one true way in the US, even more than medical debt, to go from being a prince to a pauper overnight.
Miller, the problem with divorce in the U.S. is that the courts are way too female friendly. The judges are disproportionately female, and they favor their own. It’s as simple as that.
@Einhal
A lot of truth to that, it’s an elephant in the room not easy to bring up in polite company leave alone in the media, but from what a cousin went through we have no doubt. One day he was a pillar of the community, respected army vet, multi-millionaire with patents, creating jobs (an actual job creator) loved by his wife and kids. Then the next, his wife found another man when he was on a tour of duty, suddenly he gets slandered in divorce court when he’s too busy to defend himself, all his caring and contributions ignored, then he loses custody of the kids he loves so much, he’s hit with outrageous alimony and child support and now he’s couch-surfing with relatives, broken and impoverished even with high income. Like another once-wealthy friend (pre-divorce) said, divorce courts in America will make a villain out of a national hero, it’s a topic that needs more discussion but divorce in the US attracts a nasty form of rent seeking and vulture capitalism, supported by the state, where a lot of interests skim funds off the most productive Americans. As we learned, family law in divorce has a lot of strange practices around divorce without due process that are hard to challenge on appeal, including ability for judges to arbitrary impute support payments not based on actual earnings and cost of living, but based on banner years that “show income potential” even if those were outlier years for someone’s salary or business.
This is literally what ruined Robin Williams and brought him to take his own life. He was facing two divorce settlements and Parkinson’s when the imputations were made, he wasn’t making money anywhere like he was as a top Hollywood A-lister. But the divorce judges cited the years when he was a top movie star with big earnings, used this as basis for crushing alimony that he couldn’t have paid in 10 years, he couldn’t even afford basic treatment for his Parkinson’s and had no options. Bloomberg too had an article on a top investment banker who wound up in jail when his wife left him around the time of the GFC, but his earnings then weren’t anything like he was making pre-2008, they wouldn’t adjust the alimony so he’s in and out of prison ever since. And since more than half of US marriages end in divorce, near the highest in the world, this is a wrecking ball for tens of millions of Americans, and it’s ironically worst for high-earners in the US (and pre-nups just get tossed out). I don’t get it myself-my immediate circle’s been luckier here so far, knock-on wood–but an old attorney on an unrelated matter explained that “divorce as profitable industry” is a thing made possible somehow by common law countries (so basically most of the Anglosphere sadly enough), for technical legal reasons it’s not a profit center in civil-law countries (nearly all of Asia, Europe and South America). That’s why overseas they use mediation and shared custody without these huge financial demands, and even in the Nordic countries, the wife or less earning spouse is expected to earn their own money afterward without an “alimony windfall”.
And this has a more than trivial effect on US society, I’ve had a lot of old associates and friends who are top professionals and earners, would make great husbands and fathers (and many high-earning women too to be fair) but they won’t risk marriage or parenthood in the US with a 10 foot pole because of the huge financial risks (on top of the emotional and others) of divorce in North America. Or if they do want to start a family, then they find a way to go expat–company transfer to France or somewhere else in Europe, go digital nomad, some reason to expand operations in Asia or South America–with expatriation to a civil-law country basically the best form of asset-protection against the divorce sharks. Looks like a straight path to idiocracy in North America, but seems like the divorce industry is too big of a gravy train for its profiteers (including state governments) to reform it.
@Miller
In fact on that note, chatted last week with an old friend of the family in the process of arranging a move abroad later this year, he’s using some kind of ancestral connection visa to get a quick-track to citizenship. (Ancestors in Poland, Germany and Ireland so apparently has a few ways to get it) Several reasons for the move but when we got down to it, he wants to start a family but when he saw the terrible things his software engineer brother went through in divorce court in Florida (predatory family courts there, Texas is also notorious) he said he couldn’t justify the risk of a wedding and having kids in the US. He’s even marrying a college sweetheart ironically, but it’s much safer longer term for both of them to be married with kids in a civil-law country where he won’t be targeted as a profit source for the rentier vultures that swirl around the North American divorce courts system. A lot of articles in US newspapers talk about the education-industrial complex and how bad an idea is to make healthcare and education into profit centers, we should probably add the family law industrial complex to that bad idea list.
Remember that the US corporate innovation is theft:
From labor which was stripped of power and rights, and jobs outsourced.
From customers due to monopoly price fixing,regulatory capture and government corruption
From shareholders when investment in companies is replaced by the buyback pump, and new bubbles are inflated like AI
US has become a con job of “innovation”.
NGL kinda cringe when LOL is used so much.
IMHO
HAND (have a nice day)
:)
Seventeen days of pre-tax income isn’t going to ruin Meta, but I wouldn’t call that a LOL, either. They certainly didn’t.
For perspective, your typical laughable “large” fine for corporations this size ends up being a few minutes or hours of income.
My take on Meta/Facebook boils down to:
How dumb do you have to be to use any Facebook product? I mean, they do not protect your data. They abuse the customer/company relationship. Their products are horrible D grade trash at best. All of their competitors do it better.
For a human being to wake up and log into Facebook, it’s like the equivalent of jumping into a tar pit. How dumb are these folks?
Sure, yeah they get that dopamine high of other dumb dumbs looking at their cruise trip pictures.
There are so many better ways to spend your time. And a lot of these bottom basement companies are seeking to enrage and brainwash you.
Delete those social apps and go for a long walk or reread that novel series you loved back in the 90’s.
How dumb do you have to be to use any Facebook product?
EXACTLY!
We should respect the small non-profit with a handful of people who sued Meta and the Irish authorities since 10 years. For them it’s a big win.
https://noyb.eu/en/edpb-decision-facebooks-eu-us-data-transfers-stop-transfers-fine-and-repatriation
Essentially this is another trade war. The EU isn’t attacking european companies. Only American ones. This reminds me of the fake complaints about car accelators *sticking* a few years ago. It was a total con game that was directed at japanese car companies, by americans.
Allies are not friends, more like frenemies. There is constant back and forth spying and attacks on companies that are deemed cash sources.
My Nissan cvt gets stuck every time I drive it more than an hour
Harold – recall that Audi were the original ‘stuck accelerator’ target, exonerated to no fanfare sometime later…
may we all find a better day.
US fines European banks to raise money for Treasury.
EU fines US Social media companies in return and to pay for EU lawyers.
1) Zuk : is a cliff. Meta fell and the regional banks fell from the cliff.
2) The yield curve : 1M = 5.6%. 2Y = 4.3%. The 10Y is zero, down 3.5%.
Hardly anyone I know still uses Facebook. I’m amazed that their ad revenues are healthy. Who is still using it?
No idea I’ve never used Facebook. I’m 65
It has to be small business owners paying for advertisement, and receiving numbers they perceive to be good (random users scrolling by; I’ve never once bought something I saw on social media). Hopefully advertisers keep pulling back and end the party. The only happy ending is one with Zuck in prison
I bailed on Facebook in 2018. Last year, I logged in long enough to delete my data.
3) The 10Y from ZERO to 3.7% within seconds.
4) The banks in percision targeting attack the 2Y/3Y to force it down to about 3%. The 2Y/3Y drag the 10Y down below the 3%.
5) The banks buy at 3%, lend at 6%/8% making money on the spread. The banks sell “held to maturity”. The long duration rise.
6) A possible yield curve for fun ad entertainment : the 1M is anchored to 5.6%, the 10Y rise to 5%/8% and the middle will cave in.
7) The banks recover from their injuries, making money.
What would cause the *middle* of the yield curve to cave in?
Facebook has never respected anyone’s privacy on any of its platforms if it could make a quick buck by not doing so. They will never respect any privacy laws where they operate either, as their response to this fine clearly demonstrates. That Zuckerberg is a scumbag cannot be news to anyone.
Did you hear about the LEGAL problems “Meta” has with the last $5bn fine it paid? Meta was fined $5bn for Zuckerberg directly violating a consent decree with SEC on statements and assurances made to the investing public about privacy safeguards etc at Facebook, which safeguards it turns out Zuckerberg himself was directly involved in setting aside despite Facebook’s public promises.
The fine was supposed to name Zuckerberg directly, but as controlling shareholder of Meta, he got Meta to take the fine and be named for it, keeping his violation out of the “news”.
Now it turns out, a move like that, without board of directors clearing it with proper votes is ….IMPROPER and VIOLATES Delaware Law, allegedly, because Zuck is controlling shareholder of Facebook and getting the company you control to pay “your” fines is self dealing!
So the last $5bn “fine” is being re opened for self dealing violation purposes using a US $600bn public company! Can u imagine the shenanigans!
Someone I know who is very much in IT of Medical Data (keeping it intentionally vague) told me that they might just go to making Europe its own silo as to do anything else was just prohibitively difficult.
I don’t see it as a LOL event. You don’t have the same regulatory capture: META isn’t Siemens. META can get hammered out of its European existence.
If Meta got “hammered out of Europe,” that would be a good thing for Europeans.
I am going to try and remember to ask him about his thoughts on META, and how it relates to what he is doing.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/companies/arid-41146747.html
Meta layoffs a significant blow to Irish tech sector
scaled back plans to re-deveop “fibonnaci square” – you cannot make this up
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/12/08/meta-scales-back-plan-to-occupy-new-european-hq-in-dublin-4/
this same building is cursed ! – the previous occupant (largest retail bank) did a sale and leaseback when they had no money in 2005
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/aib-agrees-record-360m-sale-leaseback-deal-for-hq-extension/25995338.html