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Business, Economy & Culture:

• The New Fame For Creators: 2024 is The Best of Times and The Worst (hollywood reporter)

  More than 70% of Americans between ages 18-29 follow influencers on social media. We are in the “diversification era”: to succeed as a content creator in today’s age, you cannot just count on one platform. One of the quotes from the article describes this well: “everything is becoming really fragmented and really niche, while algorithms are more brutal and competitive than before.”

• They’re Desperate for Work—and Being Brutally Open About It (wsj)

  Job hunters are adopting the #Desperate tag on LinkedIn to highlight their urgent employment needs, a trend that underscores the current job market's difficulties, including inflation, fraudulent listings, and a sluggish hiring landscape. The effectiveness of such public declarations, including the #OpenToWork badge, is debated among hiring professionals. Personally, I think this is NOT the way to land your next job, but to each their own.

• Some of the Web’s Sketchiest Sites Share an Address in Iceland (nyt)

  In Reykjavik, Iceland, an unassuming office building houses both the quirky Icelandic Phallological Museum (penis museum for hundreds of mammals) and the registered address of Withheld for Privacy, a company that's part of a growing industry offering online anonymity services. While these services can protect website owners from harassment, they've also inadvertently made Iceland a disproportionate global hub for cyber misconduct, shielding thousands of dubious internet sites from scrutiny.

• Worldwide Efforts to Reverse the Baby Shortage Are Falling Flat (wsj)

  Many European countries are spinning up family benefits to incentivize people to start having children: cheap child care, extra vacation and free fertility treatments. Europe’s overall population shrank during the pandemic and is on track to contract by about 40 million by 2050, according to United Nations statistics.

• Nvidia Hits Another Record High (tech crunch)

  Nvidia shares hit a record high on Monday, closing at $138.07 as Wall Street anticipates earnings updates from big tech on their AI infrastructure spending. Nvidia stock has surged nearly 180% this year, following a rapid climb last year. Nvidia is now the second-most valuable U.S. company, right behind Apple.

• A Chicago Turf War (air mail)

  This is such a juicy read: the key elements here are that a private equity buyer swooped into an affluent Chicago suburb, Winnetka, and started buying up a bunch of lake front property. Justin Ishbia (the PE guy) planned to build a a 68,000 mansion (roughly the size of the White House) on the property, and the locals have been far from pleased.

Resources:

• 48th Annual Taking Stock with Teens Survey: This Piper Sandler survey is one of my favorites to read through. It tells you where the world is heading (through teen spending and teen preferences). Some brand-focused takeaways: 1) Nike is the number one brand for apparel and footwear (although we know the competitor brands are catching up), 2) Chick-fil-a is teens’ preferred chain restaurant.

• Creator Spotlight (What it means to be a creator’): This is a bit meta, but this is a newsletter about newsletters. I love reading every single article (as someone who is actively building a newsletter, I find these insights from other newsletter authors to be some of the best insights to help this newsletter grow). This specific newsletter issue went to the root of the creator vs influencer conundrum. I encourage you to read this issue if you work in the creator/social media/online ecosystem in some way, as it’s great food for thought and a great set of talking points during your next client/business dinner.

• Does Substack have a jealousy problem: This is also more newsletter-focused, but I really enjoyed reading this breakdown of what it means to have jealousy towards other people in your field. And it also takes a stab at the differences between jealousy and envy, as they are different (but equally as annoying) beasts. Personally, I’ve struggled with this BIG time in the past (yes, yes, we all know that comparison is the thief of joy), but I feel like I’m finally coming around on the other side.

• Suzy Welch, Becoming You - My brilliant VC friend, Sri Varre, first mentioned Suzy to me. Suzy is a NYU Stern School of Business professor, who seems to be doing the personal brand thing quite well. Since discovering Suzy’s page, I’ve loved learning about ‘Becoming You’, which is a self-discovery and career exploration methodology.

Startups/Entrepreneurship:

• Ghost, B2B Retail Inventory Marketplace, Raises a $40 Million Series C Led by L Catterton (fortune)

  Ghost is a private B2B marketplace for surplus inventory—”large lots of products, anything you’d find in a department store,” says Kaplan (a co-founder). The cofounders started the company to address retail industry inefficiencies; they allow buyers and sellers to transact digitally. They see themselves as a private layer behind-the-scenes that helps power all of these businesses’ inventory operations.

• America’s Newest Class of Millionaires: Plumbers and HVAC Entrepreneurs: Private equity might just be the theme of today’s newsletter. This article is obviously extremely one-sided (pro-PE), and doesn’t leave room for the other side of the conversation around PE impacting entrepreneurship/smaller companies that try to compete in these service industries. However, I do love the idea that these service industries can see multi-million dollar payouts, which can ultimately change the trajectory of an entire family’s life and legacy.

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