substack's cap table just got interesting
and what Donald Trump Jr. has to do with it
QUICK HITS
Two interesting headlines came across my “desk” last night. The first announced that Donald Trump Jr. was opting out of a role at the White House to join 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in conservative-leaning companies. I pinned the tab on my browser; I’d have to circle back. Shortly after, I got an alert from Axios that Substack had raised new funding—$10 million—from a few strategic investors, including Omeed Malik,
, and AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant. Omeed Malik— who also backed Tucker Carlson’s new business venture through his VC firm 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. now works. Ain’t life grand. Readers, I can only lead you to the water, but I won’t force you to drink. This is just information; do with it what you will.Publisher’s Weekly released their 2024 Publishing Industry Salary & Jobs Report, and wouldn’t you know it, 79% of people who work in the industry are women, and 80% of everybody is white.
Big fan of this Acne Studios campaign shot by Talia Chetrit, announcing Charli XCX as the face of the brand. “I’ve been wearing Acne Studios forever," said Charli. "I was wearing Acne Studios whilst I was writing this record and I’ve been wearing Acne Studios on stage throughout my tour. Their clothes are effortless and cool and always make me feel confident. It’s a dream to work with the Acne Studios team.”
Apple Studios and A24 are co-developing and co-producing a Sam Bankman-Fried movie based on Michael Lewis’s book Going Infinite. Lena Dunham is writing the script.
Our friend Lina Khan would probably love to see Google broken up, but as I said on Monday, she’s going to have to let that dream die, much to the disappointment of legacy media, who also want to see Google wield less power. After two years at Google, Shailesh Prakash, a Google News executive central to the tech giant’s relationships with publishers, has resigned. This comes amid a continuing rift between Google and news outlets over how the search engine drives traffic and uses their content. Publishers have always thought Google ought to pay them more, and with the added complication of AI, that relationship is getting even more fraught. Prakash’s sudden exit is not a great sign.
Wall Street bonuses are on the rise for the first time in three years, and trust me on this, the men in finance you really want are the debt underwriters. According to a study by Johnson Associates, investment bankers who work on deals where corporate borrowers refinance or raise new debt are set to see their bonuses jump by as much as 35%. And despite a slow year for IPOs, equity underwriters are looking at bonuses going up 15% to 25%, asset and wealth management are set for a 7% to 12% increase, and merger advisers are bringing up the rear with bonus increases of 5% to 10%. You know they do not like Lina Khan.
Because you'd rather work from home than return to the office, old money real estate families like the Rudins and Kaufmans are being forced to break the cardinal rule that built their families’ wealth: never sell. U.S. office vacancies are at record levels, with demand looking permanently impaired as companies opt for smaller spaces. Meanwhile, many of these old buildings require substantial upgrades to replace shrinking tenants. Last year, the Rudin family sold control of a 30-story tower in downtown Manhattan, developed in the 1960s. This fall, they’re parting with 80 Pine Street, after losing an anchor tenant. The Kaufmans are selling a downtown tower and marketing another Midtown property, both at values far below their worth five years ago.
This year marks the first time I’m paying attention to the Gift Guide Industrial Complex—purely for anthropological reasons, of course. I like Goop’s little promo video; Gwyneth looks great. I’ve been noticing more brands using serif fonts over the last few months, and I have some theories brewing as to why this is. Will share soon.
curated these themed gift guides for a THINGTESTING x Pinterest partnership, and I couldn’t help noticing that: 1.) that Lynnee Fry Pan I love to hate made the list for New and Noteworthy to Gift in 2024, and 2.) as I predicted, there’s going to be lots of CPG gifting going on. Brands like David, Ghia, Bero, and Brighland also made the list. I mean, this isn’t new per se—holiday hampers have always been a thing—but like I said, I think the signaling is different here, which is what makes it interesting.
Online sales of Wisp’s emergency contraceptives went up about 1,000% in just one day after Tuesday’s election. At Winx Health, a sexual and vaginal health company, sales of its morning-after pill were up 315% on the day after the election compared with the 24 hours before the election. As of Friday, sales of the product had climbed 966% from the three days before the election. “We’re seeing the majority of these sales come from our multipack,” co-founder Cynthia Plotch said. “So it’s not that women are buying a single product. They’re stockpiling to have them on hand for themselves, for their friends, for their sisters.”
It’s been a record year in many respects, one of which is the fact that, for the first time ever, every governing party facing election in a developed country lost vote share. “From America’s Democrats to Britain’s Tories, Emmanuel’s Macron’s Ensemble coalition to Japan’s Liberal Democrats, even to Narendra Modi’s erstwhile dominant BJP, governing parties and leaders have undergone an unprecedented series of reversals this year.” Immigration, unemployment, inflation—the economic and geopolitical conditions of the last two years have been rough, and political incumbents are paying for it.
Sweetgreen introduced two things this week—fries (to target non-salad eaters) and holiday merch (couldn’t say why), including a Kale Camo hoodie and a Salad tote. I like the Salad tote. Sweetgreen’s Instagram is kind of amazing, so is their brand. They’ve definitely made me roll my eyes any number of times, though. Market Studios called them out on Instagram for allegedly stealing their design for the Kale Camo hoodie. Apparently, Market had pitched the idea to Sweetgreen last year as a collaboration, but they never heard back.
Few newsletters bring me as much joy as Shelf Life, a CPG trends newsletter by DIELINE written by my new friend Chloe Gordon. Yesterday, DIELINE announced the launch of their digital magazine—The Premier Packaging Design Resource—filled with 300+ pages of inspiration, in-depth analysis, and industry-leading case studies. I’m a nerd for this stuff and am always curious about the different ways trade publications are expanding their offerings. I reached out to the DIELINE team to find out more about their decision to launch the magazine.
We've been toying around with the idea of launching a magazine for a while now. When you're in the business of churning out a certain amount of stories on a daily basis, everything starts to blur together. Plus, the pieces you really wanted your audience to read tend to fall through the cracks because they might not necessarily be the flavor or trend of the week. Or it's that redesign that sucks all the oxygen out of the room because people love to hate it. So, a cynical view of this is that we packaged up our greatest hits from the past six months and called it a day. While we have a loyal, dedicated audience, we also have a lot of casual readers who have lives and are busy, and they may only check us out once a week. But with the new magazine, they can catch up on all of the stories they might have missed out on the first time around, in addition to reading some interviews and features that will be exclusive to the magazine and our subscribers.
The other thing is that I'm incredibly lucky to work with the immensely talented writers we have. The other day, someone likened this to a yearbook, and it's a great way to showcase their hard work.
That being said, we have some surprises in store for future issues. There are a lot of different things we would like to do with the magazine, and we're pretty excited about those possibilities- Bill McCool, Editor-in-chief
Things are getting worse for 23andMe. The company is cutting 200 employees—about 40% of its workforce—and discontinuing further development of all its therapies as part of a restructuring program. FT reported that CEO Anne Wojcicki warned there is “substantial doubt” over its continued survival unless it raises new funds.
Speaking of new funds, do any of my readers who work in consumer investing want to talk to me about how things are going? Blackstone’s $4.5 billion debut growth equity fund posted negative net IRR as of the end of September. Their bets on Supergroup and Spanx haven’t panned out, and Oatly has brought nothing but losses since going public in 2021.
Today’s required reading is this piece by Rachel Karten about how legacy media needs a new social playbook. I agree. “What if legacy news organizations gave their social teams the resources to use social media sites that barely drive traffic to do something other than drive traffic?” The Guardian announced today that they would no longer be posting on X because of the “often disturbing content” found on the platform. NPR left almost a year ago for the same reasons. A recent Politico report showed that Biden supporters are more likely to get their news from newspapers than Trump supporters, young people are most likely to get their news from social media, and Facebook is the most popular news source for U.S. adults. But of all the social platforms, X had the highest percentage of users who got their news there. The role of X in news and culture is only going to grow over the next four years, and I hate to see these publications pull out because the vibes are (rightly) off. As Rachel said in her post, “fish where the fish are.” Even if the waters are strange and murky. I understand the motivation behind these decisions, but to me it just looks like ceding further ground in reaching a demographic of people they clearly need to. Because really, what's the plan here?
Every week I say, let’s leave Elon out of it. Every week I fail. Yesterday, Trump announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (of Buzzfeed activist investor fame!) will lead what he called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE (lol))—the “Manhattan Project” of this era. Their mandate? To drive “drastic change” throughout the government with major cuts and new efficiencies in “bloated agencies” by July 4, 2026. “A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,” Trump wrote in a statement. “I am confident they will succeed!” This is apparently a new department, by the way. So many questions…
I guess Khloé Kardashian is launching a fragrance soon.
The Cut published a great explainer on how Trump’s proposed tariffs could affect your favorite brands—and therefore, you. TL;DR: Ahead of the 2024 election, Trump promised to introduce a 60 to 100% tax on imports from China and a 10 to 20% tax on imports from all other countries. Currently, about 98% of clothing sold in the U.S. is made abroad, and many retailers are already planning to pass on these costs to consumers. E.l.f. CEO Tarang Amin told CNBC, “We do have pricing power. If we saw we needed to leverage pricing, we would.”
A Dazed essay that reads like it could have been written for Substack (complimentary) asks if constant exposure to attractive people online is warping our dating standards. "Back in the olden days, men would see like 200 baddies in their whole life, and now they are desensitized to it," said Tinx in a recent podcast episode. I’m telling you, the desensitization of men to baddies is a bigger issue than any of us realize.
Young people are relocating to rural areas for job opportunities and access to nature. Between 2020 and 2023, about 63% of American counties classified as rural or small saw an increase in Millennials and Gen Z — compared to only 27% between 2010 and 2013. Meanwhile, cities are experiencing stagnant or declining populations in the 25-44 age group. Of the 10 most populous U.S. counties, five had declines, and two remained stable. Los Angeles County recorded a 4% net loss in this demographic, while Kings County (Brooklyn) saw an 8% decline.
Kai Trump is in her influencer era and will be for at least the next four years. Won’t be surprised to see many more TikTok family vlogs moving forward.
I miss American Thanksgiving (much better than Canadian Thanksgiving), and my longing is made ever more urgent now that Thanksgiving recipe season is upon us and creators and publishers alike are doling them out. What's the mood around Thanksgiving this year? Are people excited for a reprieve, or are you scared to get together with your family? I’m seeing less of those “how to handle Thanksgiving dinner” articles floating around. Anyway, I will be living vicariously through everything
does for Home Movies Thanksgiving 2024. Maybe I’ll even attempt a recipe.
Three days ago, Billboard reported that Chappell Roan had parted ways with her management team. Two days ago, Chappell left a comment under the Billboard Instagram post saying, “Y’all suck for this.” Yesterday, Matthew Belloni wrote in his newsletter for Puck, “I kinda pity the dozens of music managers now vying for the opportunity to represent and eventually be fired by Chappell Roan when she blames them for the backlash to some stupid thing she says or does without telling them.”
Today, I read all about the Labia Puff, a cosmetic procedure to plump and/or smooth the outer labia, typically using cosmetic filler or fat transfer, which can cost anywhere between $2,500 and upwards of $5,000. The more you know.
The words “Tucker Carlson” are depressing and so are those publisher weekly stats :-(
i did not clock the donald trump jr tea...................