the WWE executive to education secretary pipeline
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Union leaders say it's time to 'reconstruct the Democratic Party’
Streetwear is going back to its roots, according to industry experts
Donald Trump’s social media group in talks to buy crypto trading venue
The comments section of this New York Times post about The Unspoken Grief of Never Becoming a Grandparent needs to be studied. Reactions range from upset that Boomers would even dare… to upset that Boomers would even dare. One person said The Times was a disgrace for even covering this. Another said they need to read the room. People are very serious about not having children, and very angry at the generation who they blame for creating the economic and social situations that made it so. This was maybe the most liked comment: “How about the unspoken grief of unaffordable healthcare and housing, rising living costs, wage stagnation, crushing student debt, and an impending climate crisis!? Instead of guilting your kids into having their own, look around at the world you left us - what do you expect??” If The Times is as smart as they think they are, they’re already working on a follow-up piece.
On the other hand, it’s a great time to be a well-dressed Boomer. So there’s that.
I will never try Molly Baz’s new yassified mayonnaise brand (I hate mayo), but I do enjoy the branding (done by CENTER). Molly is having a very good year.
Remember how I said Trump’s win could save Google from getting broken up? I was wrong. Back in August, a judge ruled that Google held a monopoly in the search market. Last month, the DOJ said it was “considering behavioral and structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search.” Now, according to Bloomberg, the department is set to ask the same judge who ruled against Google in August to require them to sell Chrome—a $20 billion business and about 56% of Google’s revenue. The Information also reported that when Google CEO Sundar Pichai called Trump to congratulate him on winning the election, Elon Musk joined the call. Apparently, this took Pichai by surprise. Both Trump and Elon have claimed that Google is biased against conservatives, and we know that several of Elon’s businesses are Google competitors. I doubt he’d suffer to see Google de-Chromed. The comments under Mark Gurman’s tweet on the case is great discourse.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Amazon was working on a Shein and Temu competitor—it just launched, and it’s called Haul. Nothing costs more than $20, and items typically arrive within one to two weeks as they ship directly from overseas to U.S. customers. I won’t dwell on the environmental implications because I know you know, and when has that ever stopped anybody? I’m just wondering what Bezos is going to do about Trump—about those tariffs! And then there’s the Biden administration, which has been working hard to close the de minimis exemption, which allows low-value shipments to enter the U.S. duty-free. Whatever the risk, it sounds like the “opportunity” was too good to pass up. Credit card data analyzed by Earnest Analytics found that 96% of Temu customers also shopped on Amazon—but while it estimated Temu’s U.S. sales grew 840% between January 2023 and 2024, Amazon reported product sales growth of just 5.3% for the year. Tell me, how could Bezos resist?
In other Amazon news, the company announced low-cost telehealth visits and free medication delivery for Prime members, covering men’s hair loss, eyelash growth, anti-aging, ED, and motion sickness. Hims & Hers shares plummeted over 24% that day— their worst day on record.
Last year, U.S. venture firms returned $26 billion worth of shares to their investors, the lowest amount since 2011. VCs invested $60 billion more than they collected, marking the highest deficit in at least 26 years. At the same time, the past three years have been the highest on record for total VC firm investments since 1998—with much of that money going to AI startups. There’s a picture of Lina Khan in this WSJ article—apparently, she’s much to blame. Because of her, deals are dead, and so are IPOs. But many feel optimistic about the potential of a “business-friendly” Trump administration. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that the chart below explains why Silicon Valley turned red.
Starting next month, Delta is bringing Shake Shack burgers to its in-flight menu. Meanwhile, Spirit Airlines just filed for bankruptcy.
I love asking media people if they think Quibi could have worked in 2024. Invariably, all say no, but still, one wonders... TikTok is said to be considering adding TV-like dramas with minute-long episodes to its platform. The shows will be paywalled, providing an additional revenue stream for the company. Aside from Quibi, Snap, Meta, and YouTube have experimented with similar concepts—none of it has worked. Hear me out, though: if any platform can pull this off, it’s TikTok. This behavior already exists on the app; people (myself included) already watch short movies or movie recaps on there. Last year, Paramount released Mean Girls for free on TikTok in 23 parts for one day. People actually clicked through. There’s potential; success is just a matter of execution, and TikTok is great at executing shit. Mostly.
Someone very smart told me that most people don’t care about “Substack news,” so maybe I’ll cover it less in the future. But did you know that in April 2023, Elon Musk offered to buy Substack during a call with Chris Best? “At the time, he was trying to supercharge paid subscriptions on the social network, now called X, which had long fashioned itself as a ‘global town square’ for political news and debate.” Chris, who could have become CEO of the combined company, shut it down immediately. The Times article implied that this might have been the start of his villain (or hero?) origin story.
The SpringHill Company, founded by LeBron James and Maverick Carter, is merging with Fulwell 73, the producer of the Grammy Awards and The Kardashians for Hulu. “We believe we will be the best in live and one of the best in unscripted, focusing on sports and formats and others,” Carter told THR. Existing investors in both companies, including Fenway Sports Group, RedBird Capital Partners, UC Investments, Nike, and Epic Games, are expected to pour in another $40 million to fund planned “growth initiatives.” To all my new readers, I work in Sports, so this interests me. Netflix reported that 108 million people globally watched at least a minute of last week’s Tyson-Paul fight. For comparison, 210 million people watched this year’s Super Bowl. Endeavour CEO Ari Emanuel recently raised $100 million to buy live entertainment businesses. Yesterday, The Information profiled five of the most promising sports media startups—each helping to replace regional sports cable channels and providing more coverage of women’s sports. Most investors won't even touch media right now- sports media is the exception. I say this with all confidence: now more than ever, Sports as Spectacle is BIG business.
Jones partnered with Byline on a limited-edition zine to celebrate their one-year anniversary. I’m very much here for the resurgence of text media. I find the written word very chic.
David Beckham launched a longevity supplement company, and I fear the website actually looks great. So much information. Very credentialed.
Every so often, I’m reminded that the Mormon Church is incredibly wealthy. According to Landgate, the church owns an estimated $16 billion worth of land around the country, with around $2 billion used for agriculture. In 2018, they began a land-buying spree in Nebraska, becoming the state’s largest landowner in five years. Most recently, Farmland Reserve, a nonprofit arm of the Mormon Church, bought 46 farms worth $289 million across Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and the Carolinas from real estate investor Farmland Partners. Farmland Reserve CEO Doug Rose said the company plans to lease “these productive farms to local farmers.”
“Over the past few years, it’s become quite twee and also quite sexy to be Irish.” I’m glad someone finally did a deep dive on this. Not sure about the rest of pop culture, but in the literary world, I’d say it's about 70% the Sally Rooney effect. And let’s not forget; without Sally there would be no Paul.
Two brands I’ve been following for a while—Rocco Fridge and Kin Euphorics—recently collaborated to stock the first 350 fridges sold in the new Rocco colorway with Kin products. The partnership was led by
, whose content I recently discovered (and love). The Rocco Fridge looks like something I would buy if I had more money or less discretion. The design is stunning, similar to many of the interior brands that popped up during and right after the pandemic, when homes became “sets” and interior decor became a national pastime. I’ve said before that everything converges towards “lifestyle”—that is, the most successful companies in every category really want to become lifestyle brands. I truly believe that. Interiors are an interesting one, aspirational, but often unattainable. Especially for young people, who are barely dreaming of homeownership anymore; a decked-out apartment will do.
A Pookie-Sheryl Sandberg crossover is not something I could have seen coming. But I guess it's a good time to implore you all to read Ted Gioia’s essay on The Crisis of Seriousness. Some of these behaviors have me deeply bothered.
God bless The Pew Research Center for always knowing the right questions to ask. According to their latest report, which surveyed over 10,000 U.S. adults about their news consumption habits and analyzed data from hundreds of news content creators across social platforms, almost 4 in 10 American adults under 30 get their news from influencers. Nearly two-thirds of news influencers are men, and 27% of news influencers explicitly identify as conservative, with only 21% leaning liberal.
is working on a podcast about American Gen Z men; there are about 10 things I need her to get to the bottom of.It feels good to know that I’ll live long enough to see how this LVMH succession game shakes out. Alexandre Arnault—the 32-year-old middle child and current head of communications and product at Tiffany—recently got promoted to the role of Deputy C.E.O of Moët Hennessy, the conglomerate’s wines and spirits division. With total wine and spirits sales down 8% for the first nine months of this year, following a 5% decrease in the second quarter and a 12% drop in the first three months of 2024, it's safe to say the category is not in a good place. Prior to his role at Tiffany, Alexandre was tasked with turning Rimowa around, which he did successfully. I’m guessing he’s been brought in to do the same for Moët Hennessy—a tough job, considering its challenges are largely macroeconomic.
Again, what is happening?!!! The WWE Executive to Education Secretary pipeline just got real!
very random tidbit to share RE Partiful from my boyfriend who works in higher education and studies a lot related to online surveillance + its implications / biases:
He says "the cofounders of Partiful developed the app after working at Palantir, a data analytics company responsible for supporting spyware tech that is used for ICE / deportations and "predictive" policing. Their software has been used in bombings/war and the data provided in Partiful is accessible by these government agencies and Partiful can (and has) been used to track party guests"
Every time I see something about Partiful I think of this!!
Re: Boomers being sad over not having grandkids reminds me of the divorce lawyer James Sexton’s idea that reproduction for the sake of reproduction (and tying your whole purpose to having kids or grandkids) is reminiscent of the ideology of a cancer cell, lol!