Business, Economy & Culture:

• Beyoncé Released a Song and Levi’s Saw It’s Moment (nyt)

  The executive team at Levi’s sprung into action as the track list dropped for her new album (‘Levii’s Jeans’ was one of the 27 tracks). One of Levi’s top objectives is for more women to buy their products, and they’re hoping that Beyoncé will be key to making that happen.

• Adam Neumann’s Latest Project is a WeWork Competitor (bloomberg)

  Adam Neumann launched his sequel to WeWork called Flow in 2022, and just launched the next iteration, which is called Workflow. It’s described as a more adult version of WeWork- this time, these are office spaces within residential buildings that his company already owns or they’re partnering with landlords to manage spaces that they don’t own.

• U.S. Hiring Accelerated in September, Blowing Past Expectations (wsj)

  It’s going to be a soft landing after all? Employers added 254,000 jobs last month, exceeding the 150,000 job expectation. The unemployment rate was at 4.1%. Though these are just a few data points, consensus seems to be shifting to a .25% cut at the next Fed meeting in November.

• LVMH Has Been Busy This Week:

  • They’re buying a stake in a non-alcoholic sparking wine company (of course, it’s French) (wsj)

  • An announcement came out about their 10-year partnership with Formula One (cnbc)

  • Sold off Off-White Label to Bluestar Alliance (cnbc)

• YouTube Takes On TikTok with Longer Shorts (tech crunch)

  Creators can officially upload videos on YouTube Shorts that are up to three minutes! For creators who tend to have content that runs longer than 60 seconds (this was the previous limit), this new update will make it much easier to share the same content across platforms. I’m personally so excited about this one.

• Beauty’s Most Viral Brands Are Moving Offline (business of fashion)

  Trending beauty companies are looking to old-school forms of advertising to boost their brand awareness. Something about these traditional, out of home forms of media feels more eye-catching than digital ads, and many brands are leaning into these experiences. Summer Friday’s is particularly good at this - they’ve been everywhere from TSA bins at LAX to London taxi cabs.

Resources:

• Notebook LM: This Google-built tool allows anyone to upload information in the form of school notes, a meeting transcript, or any other type of document, and the tool can provide you with different ways for you to study/learn the info. The mind-blowing aspect though is that Notebook LM can turn the information into a PODCAST for you to listen to (the voices/hosts of the podcast are also so realistic that it’s kind of scary).

• 12ft.io: This is my go-to tool to get past article paywalls, especially when I’m doing research for video content and need to visit one-off sites for detailed info. I pay the annual dues for the subscriptions that I use the most (and I probably pay for 10+ publications at this point), but having this tool has been clutch for the others.

• Free Investing 101 Course: Money with Katie is an OG in the personal finance influencer space. This course is a quick and informative tool for people who want to brush up on the basics of investing.

Startups/Entrepreneurship:

• Angel Investing: Was it Worth It? This is a detailed & honest review of an experienced angel investor’s actual returns. I love seeing these transparent conversations around angel investing since I feel as though the past few years, angel investing has become “TikTok-ified”.

• Pandemic Startups Are Thriving, and Helping to Fuel the Economy: Covid had a very unexpected result on the labor market: Americans started businesses at record rates. The pandemic gave people the opportunity to re-evaluate their lives, and many went on to create businesses that have since been fueling job growth (as we’ve seen this week).

• Women Entrepreneurs Hitting a Funding Wall: In 2023, the average size of women-led venture funds was $41 million, compared with $244 million for all venture funds, according to The Venture Capital Journal. Venture capital firms across the board are struggling to raise new funds from their LPs, with the number of new funds created in 2024 on track to be the lowest since 2015, according to Pitchbook.

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