Sunday, January 25, 2026

Letter from Ulysses to Penelope from inside the Wooden Horse by Ronald Knox

Letter from Ulysses to Penelope from inside the Wooden Horse by Ronald Knox.  

Dear Wife, This letter comes to you from near the Trojan shore, 
where I'm concealed inside a jerry-built machine of war. 
Excuse the awful handwriting, it's all over the place: 
the reason is, my elbow's jammed in Demophoon's face. 
You'll notice that the ink I'm writing with is mixed in blood; 
don't worry, it's his leg, not mine, that gives a steady flood. 
The fact is this: I'm stuck inside a giant wooden horse 
constructed by Epeus - "laced with oaken ribs", of course. 
We chose the crew by throwing lots, the hardest lads together; 
I only wish the hardest lads weren't all as tough as leather. 
To what should I compare the situation that we're in? 
It feels as if we're packed like bloody sardines in a tin. 
The tickle up my nose from Thoas' crest I can't abide, 
And now Thersander's quiver's poking holes in my backside. 
The Trojans rolled us into town, they heaved us rough and quick; 
I've always hated sailing; as you know, it makes me sick. 
Right now they're throwing spears into the horse's flank to check; 
at any moment soon, I'm sure, I'll get it in the neck. 
Penelope, farewell. If I get out of here alive, 
I'll only ever go by foot, I swear, and never drive. 

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History

 

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I see wonderful things

 

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Offbeat Humor

 

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Sunrise in Åsgårdstrand, 1893-94 by Edvard Munch

Sunrise in Åsgårdstrand, 1893-94 by Edvard Munch (Norway, 1863-1944)



















Click to enlarge.

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Saturday, January 24, 2026

Grok - the answer becomes worth the candle

I am so enjoying the rapid evolution of our modern epistemic environment.  There is much to lament (the disappearance of credible newspapers with real reporting), and much to be concerned about.  But oh, my - what a world is on the horizon.

The time span from Visicalc (1979) to Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) to MS Excel (1985) was roughly five years, maybe ten years for the emergent dominance of MS Excel over the earlier two.  Now it seems like five to ten months for one AI platform to outpace another.

I have been playing around with Grok, integrated as it is with X.  It is a pleasure to nearly instantaneously do reality checks on social media claims.  For example:
I am not a gamer.  I have a vague awareness of some of the ebbs and tides in that industry but no real knowledge.  The before and after pictures are compelling but are they real.  Are they even Ubisoft, and if so, are they even comparable groups.  I would have guessed not, but what does Grok say?

The implied argument seems to be:  Ubisoft focused on hiring female gamer talent, replaced its male employees with women, and subsequently suffered financial destruction.

My knee-jerk questions are

What was the female percent of Ubisoft's workforce in from 2007 to 2025 by year?

Did the Ubisoft market capitalization increase or decrease between 2007 and 2025?

Me:  What was the female percent of Ubisoft's workforce in from 2007 to 2025 by year?

Grok:  

Year                Female Percentage                    Notes/Source
2007                        20%                                    Fiscal year ending March 31, 2007; from Ubisoft's 2007 Reference Document.

2008                        No data available                Diversity metrics were not consistently reported in early annual documents.

2009                        No data available

2010                        No data available

2011                        No data available

2012                        No data available

2013                        No data available

2014                        No data available

2015                        No data available

2016                        No data available

2017                        No data available

2018                        No data available

2019                                21.3%                            Fiscal year ending March 31, 2019.

2020                                22%                               Fiscal year ending March 31, 2020. 

statista.com

2021                                23.5%                            Fiscal year ending March 31, 2021.  statista.com

2022                                25.5%                            Fiscal year ending March 31, 2022.  statista.com

2023                                25.9%                            Fiscal year ending March 31, 2023.  statista.com

2024                                25.9%                            Fiscal year ending March 31, 2024.  statista.com

2025                                26.3%                            Fiscal year ending March 31, 2025; from Ubisoft's 2024-25 Universal Registration Document.

Note: Data is based on fiscal years ending in March, which may not align perfectly with calendar years. Comprehensive gender diversity reporting by Ubisoft began around 2019, with earlier figures sparse and primarily from official documents or secondary sources like Statista. For years without data, no reliable public information was found despite extensive searches.

Twelve years to increase the female headcount from 20% in 2007 to 21% in 2019.  Then six years to raise it from 21% 2019 to 26% in 2025.  

The posts argument seems to be that there was a a very large increase in the female headcount from 2007 to 2014 but that is not evident from the (incomplete) numbers.  20% to 26% over eighteen years is not necessarily a disruptive issue.  It can be disruptive, depending on how the policies are executed but that is a different issue.

Also, there is the issue of where the headcount is being added and how that is affecting the rest of the organization.  If you are a software company and you pad your HR and Marketing headcount to achieve overall increases in quota, then you can expect an increase A&G costs without necessarily any increase in productivity.

This warrants a follow-on question.

Me:  What was Ubisoft personnel turnover by year from 2007 to 2025?

Grok:  [in part] Ubisoft does not publicly disclose detailed employee turnover rates (voluntary or total attrition/turnover percentage) on a consistent year-by-year basis from 2007 to 2025 in its annual reports, Universal Registration Documents (URDs), or other official filings. Comprehensive turnover statistics are rare for most companies unless specifically required or voluntarily highlighted in sustainability/HR sections, and Ubisoft's disclosures focus more on headcount totals, diversity metrics, and recent restructurings rather than historical turnover percentages.

Go to the link for more detail but basically not enough data is public and there was too much else going on (scandals within the company, restructurings i.e. involuntary turnover, etc.) for Grok to estimate an answer.

OK.  A marginal increase in female employee headcount but no visibility whether this came in the core business of software or not, nor how that might have affected retention of talent, always a strategic issue for software companies.

How about market capitalization.  How has that changed between 2007 and 2025?

Me:  What was the market capitalization of Ubisoft in 2007 and what is it in 2025?

Grok:  In 2007, Ubisoft's market capitalization at the end of the year (December 31, 2007) was approximately $4.60 billion USD (or around €2.57–€3 billion equivalent, depending on exchange rates at the time). This figure comes from historical market cap tracking sources like CompaniesMarketCap.com, which lists end-of-year values. Earlier in the fiscal year (as of March 31, 2007, Ubisoft's FY-end), it was lower, around €1.66 billion (roughly $2.1–2.2 billion USD at 2007 exchange rates), per Ubisoft's own 2007 Reference Document. Some sources show varying annual figures (e.g., ~$8.38 billion in one dataset), but these appear inconsistent or possibly misaligned with calendar-year vs. fiscal-year reporting; the ~$4.6B end-2007 value aligns across multiple reliable trackers.

In 2025, Ubisoft's market capitalization showed significant decline amid ongoing challenges (restructurings, losses, stock plunges). At the end of 2025 (December 31, 2025), it was approximately $1.01–1.02 billion USD (or €0.81–1 billion EUR). As of late January 2026 (current context around January 23–24, 2026), it had fallen further to roughly $0.64 billion USD (€547–812 million EUR, varying by exact date and source like Yahoo Finance, CompaniesMarketCap, or Euronext quotes), reflecting the stock trading below €4–6 per share with ~130–140 million shares outstanding.

Ubisoft went from $4.6 billion in 2007 to $7-10 billion circa 2010-2020 to $0.6 billion today.  

Clearly a picture of a troubled company.  But was the trouble because of a huge increase in female headcount.

In about five minutes Grok give me the sort of data which reinforces my skepticism of this Just So story.  

Software in general and entertainment software are highly volatile sectors so not surprising to see big numerical fluxes.  In such times, management errors can be very influential and compounding.  

I can imagine a scenario where management in 2007 communicated a desire to hire more female talent and might have been perceived to have had quota targets.  In that sort of environment, it would not be surprising to see an acceleration in unplanned turnover among your most experienced and successful software engineers whose talents were then in constant demand.  It wasn't the increase in female headcount that might have been the problem so much as perceived discriminatory behavior of management against the then current employees which could have been the problem.

I can imagine a scenario where management in 2007, riding a strong market, got distracted and focused on non-business critical DEI, ESG, and quota type issues which would have similar negative impacts on the existing employee base.  Such distraction might be seen as a leading indicator explaining the apparent later management problems.

There are all sorts of scenarios.

This post suggests that Ubisoft switched from a majority male to a majority female (photo) employee base and that that switch was what caused the decline in market capitalization.  Just three Grok queries confirms that the situation is far more complex than the suggested causal relationship.  Possibly a DEI and quotas mindset contributed to later problems but market capitalization increase and collapse are clearly being driven by a host of issues beyond female headcount.

In five minutes of thinking (and much longer to write up), with Grok, the proposed argument can be dismissed as improbable.  

What a blessing.  In before times, that would have been a multi-hour effort and not worth the candle.  Now?  It is an interesting enough argument to invest five minutes to arrive at a least an indicative answer.  

Excellent tool.  It provides pointers to both its sources and the issues in the data that need resolving in order to get at a more robust answer.   

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