Plus: Click this link, I dare you ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

September 23, 2025 | Read online
# Is Canva profitable? Europe airport cyber-attack and introducing 'workslop' Plus: Click this link, I dare you
{{OPEN_TRACKING_PIXEL}}
Edition 2424
“Australian Huntsman found it’s way in” (Reddit: Goat_Desecrator)
# The News
### Is Canva profitable or losing hundreds of millions of dollars? Accountants say ‘depends’
Newly filed Canva financial documents that show a less-than-rosy picture of its finances — on paper, at least (AFR, $). Over the weekend, the tech Australian unicorn filed accounts for 2021 and 2022 which revealed that Canva has recorded five straight years of on-paper losses. In 2022, it reported a $222 million loss despite a 60% revenue increase to $962 million. Despite this, Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht says the company is “cash flow positive”, and a company spokesperson said that “statutory financials” will show losses because of things like “stock-based compensation”.
The Sizzle: Is Canva secretly a stinker? Until it IPOs — supposedly next year — we won’t know heaps but these financials don’t necessarily contradict Canva’s “profitable” claim. The point of difference is what the nerds call “non-cash expenses”, specifically the stock that it pays to its employees. When Canva, or Atlassian, or whoever, pays an employee with stock, there’s no money comes out of its bank accounts. But, as Capital Brief’s Bronwen Clune writes ($) Australian corporate law requires that this still needs to be recorded as a cost on the company balance sheet.
“When engineers accept equity over higher salaries, accounting rules mandate recording this as an expense, even though the company keeps the cash for growth investments.”
Bronwen Clune
So does that mean you should ignore the Australian financials? Are stock payouts essentially free money for companies? Not quite. Every share you hand out dilutes the other shares, meaning that existing shareholders are losing money. Plus, ignoring the stock payouts means that you’re undercounting exactly how much it costs to pay your staff (who have artificially low salaries on paper if you don’t include the equity).
So, the answer of whether you should pay attention to the financials that show Canva cash-flow positive or losing hundreds of millions of dollars is … probably both?
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### European airport ransomware attack continues
The delays across European airports continue into the week as officials reveal that it was the result of a ransomware attack affecting the check-in and boarding software (Bleeping Computer). Heathrow, Brussels Airport, and a number of others in Ireland and Berlin were brought to a standstill over the weekend after Collins Aerospace’s “Multi-User System Environment” was the subject of a cyberattack (Guardian). There’s no information yet as to who is behind the attack.
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
### Let me introduce you to your new favourite term: ‘workslop’
Academics trying to square the rise in use of generative AI in workplaces with early reporting suggesting that many companies aren’t seeing material benefits from the technology have coined a new term: workslop (Harvard Business Review)
Workslop is AI generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.
HBR
The team makes the case that workslop is hurting productivity because people are using AI to do work that is good enough to pass on, but ultimately ends up being “unhelpful, incomplete, or missing crucial context about the project at hand.” They say they see examples of this in coding, research and just general communication.
The Sizzle: I don’t want to be only negative about AI. In fact, in a future edition I’d like to share some of the ways that I am experimenting with AI (do you have some good uses? email me). Like most tools, I think it can be useful when used in the right situation (obligatory mention of IP, environment and corporate consolidation issues).
But as I was reading this article, I was thinking one thing: EXACTLYYYYYYY.
Everyone now knows exactly what it’s like when they’re handed a piece of workslop. It’s not just in workplaces either — people taking in open source projects or other collaborative efforts have to deal with this too. This sentence particularly resonated with me:
The insidious effect of workslop is that it shifts the burden of the work downstream, requiring the receiver to interpret, correct, or redo the work. In other words, it transfers the effort from creator to receiver.
HBR
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
#### Leftovers
Australian watchdog sues Optus for failing to connect thousands of emergency calls during outage (AP News) NSW Education AI tool set to launch for students from October (iTnews) The government’s National Reconstruction Fund piles $35m into Australian wi-fi chip maker Morse Micro’s $88m Series C (Capital Brief, $) The five most powerful Australian tech leaders in 2025 (The Australian Financial Review, $) PsiQuantum deal cleared despite market testing ‘gaps’ (InnovationAus) Instagram’s AI-powered age check for Aussie teens is now a default account setting (SmartCompany) Gamer fury as Discord begins age verification checks (Mumbrella) Tesla Model Y completes lap of Australia with 13,500 km of FSD Supervised (The Driven) Nvidia is partnering up with OpenAI to offer compute and cash (The Verge) Nobel Laureates and AI Developers Draw “Red Lines” on AI at UN General Assembly (Transformer News) Inside Trump's new plan to let TikTok stay (Axios) Germany pushes to block Apple and other U.S. companies from EU’s shared financial data system (9to5Mac) Stellantis confirms data breach involving customers’ contact information (Engadget) In Maine, prisoners are thriving in remote jobs and other states are taking notice (Maine Public) Facebook adds an AI assistant to its Dating app (Engadget) - we are in hell Microsoft is finally bringing native video wallpapers to Windows 11, 15 years after Windows Vista's DreamScenes (Windows Central) LinkedIn set to start to train its AI on member profiles (TechRadar) Apple’s new anodized aluminum iPhone 17 and 17 Plus scratch very easily (The Verge)
Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Oh, Also
### Click this link, I dare you
This one has been shared a few times in the Slack (thank you mvyrmnd and Timo!) but it’s too good not to share widely.
Phishyurl dot com will take any link and make it look like, well, a phishy URL. Even better, it even lets you choose the phish theme (my personal favourite is adult content, naturally) and its link.
If you’d like to give it a whirl, here’s a link: https://cam-xxx.live/etc/initramfs-tools/scripts/protocol/var/log/ppp/logging/etc/firewalld/ipsets/library/etc/xdg/menus/hash/var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin/class/usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/recursion/etc/selinux/config/list/etc/ssh/sshd_config.d/repository/etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/exception/usr/lib/kernel/install.d/terminal/etc/apparmor.d/cache/firewall/etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/package/etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/latency/var/log/apt/history.log.d/throughput/adware_dropper_tool.exe?attachment=malware&cache=hijacked&cachecontrol=poison&certificate=tamper&cookie=forge&cookiejar=poison&dns=hijack&endpoint=bypass&firewall=spoof&form=inject&header=bypass&host=redirect&id=c5ef316efeae137fe6758954a5a25a709251da987a62aba2579d2411&payload=%28function%28%29%7B+return+true%3B+%7D%29%28%29%3B&port=flood&portscan=exploit&redirecturi=overwrite&script=inject&subdomain=redirect&token=replay&url=redirect
Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.
# Bargains
Electronics & electricals
Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max - $59 at Amazon AU TCL C6K 4K QD-Mini LED 120hz (2025) at The Good Guys 55" for $667 65" for $846 75" for $1144 Panasonic Lumix S 28-200mm F/4-7.1 L Mount Camera Lens - $1111 at digiDirect (Down from $1599.95) Sony K65XR50 65" Bravia 5 4K HDR Mini LED TV (2025) - $1478 at Appliances Online VOLTX M3000 PORTABLE POWER STATION 3000w 3073wh - $1499 at outbax
Computing
40% off first year Plex Pass Premium annual plan - $66 WD Green 1TB WDS100T3G0A 2.5" SATA SSD - $79 at NAS Marketplace 2x Samsung EVO Plus 512GB MicroSD Card 160MB/s ($58.99 each) - $118 at PocketShop Australia eBay Store Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Tiny PC i5-10400t 16GB RAM 256GB SSD Windows 11 Pro (Refurbished) - $329 at Value Gadgets (Refurbished) Seagate 10TB One Touch Hub Desktop Hard Drive with Rescue - $379 at Officeworks
Mobile
1GB 7-Day Travel eSIM- Free at Saily Motorola Edge 60 Fusion 12GB/256GB Storage - $425 at The Good Guys (Down from $699) Google Pixel 8a 128GB - $535 at Skyradar via Amazon AU
# The End
😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.
🤖 We love robots at the Sizzle but this newsletter has always been and will always be written by humans for humans.
🗣️ Have any feedback, a tip or just want to chat? Send me an email or Signal message. I promise to reply!
💬 Want to hang out with other Sizzlers? There’s a subscriber-only Slack server and forum if you want to procrastinate and chat about tech-related news.
🌐 The Sizzle is on Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn if you’re feeling social.
💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the Beehiiv customer portal.
🎁 Make someone's day and gift them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.
💔 Don’t want this any more? I won’t take it personally. There’s a unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email or here’s a guide.
🦺 The Sizzle has been tested to meet and exceed ISO 3533 standards.
## Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land
The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.
Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 The Sizzle PO Box 351 Bacchus Marsh, VIC 3340, Australia
Powered by beehiiv
Terms of Service