đ When one door closes, another one opens. So weâre excited to see whatâs next for Rachael Gunn, AKA Raygun, the Australian B-girl who breakdanced her way to viral fame at the Paris Olympics. Gunn said that following the global backlash she received, sheâs retiring from competition â but that sheâll still be breaking in her living room.
đ§On the pod: A look into the baseball players nearing billion-dollar contracts.
NEWS FLASH
đ„ Sick of fighting with your significant other about where youâre eating? We have great news. Dine Brands is opening the first combined Applebeeâs-IHOP restaurant in Texas next year. The restaurant is divided in half with the interiors of both chains represented, but customers will be able to order from both menus regardless of where they sit. While the concept is new to the US, the company has 13 locations in Canada, Latin America, and the Middle East, which see 1.5x-2x the revenue of traditional restaurants. Makes sense, considering youâd need to order the pancakes and riblets.
đ Another reason to avoid rattlesnakes: An encounter could cost you $297k+, as it did for a California family whose toddler was bitten by one in their backyard. The massive bill accounts for two ambulance rides, an ER visit, and several days in intensive care, but the bulk â ~$213k â was for several vials of Anavip, an antivenom drug. Why? A KFF Health News investigation found that an estimated ~70% of that cost is a hospital markup designed to generate revenue and balance overheads. The familyâs insurance brought the cost down to $7.2k for the drug, but still â yikes.
đ„ïž Remember Houseparty? Ben Rubin, who sold the video chat app to Epic Games for $35m in 2019, is back with Towns, the first product from Here Not There Labs, the company Rubin and ex-Skype engineer Brian Meek formed in 2020. Towns allows users to send messages in groups, akin to Discord, but thereâs a catch: Only users who match certain criteria are allowed to post, while other users can only follow along. The idea is that by eliminating spam, bots, and irrelevant posts, people will have a more valuable experience.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Warner Bros. Discoverysaid Max saw 7.2m new global subscribers in Q3 â the biggest quarterly growth for the streaming platform since it launched â reaching 110.5m total subscribers as of Sept. 30.
Lucid Motors is taking orders for its Gravity SUV, a new EV with a range of 440+ miles and two electric motors delivering the equivalent of 828 horsepower. The Touring model costs ~$80k, while the Grand Touring comes in at ~$95k.
Canadaordered ByteDanceâs TikTok Technology Canada to dissolve following a national security review, but will allow citizens to continue using TikTok. Canada banned TikTok on government devices in 2023.
MANAGEMENT MASTERY
How to be a remarkable manager
Shouts to every team leader who reads our newsletter. We know itâs not easy to always stay smiling, keep folks in check, and cobble up reports.
The job is daunting to some â but for heroes like you, whoâve mastered all the key concepts in our people management guide, itâs a welcome challenge.
Weâll just leave this free ebook below, in case youâd like to brush up on your skills or make damn sure youâre killing it.
Youâre so thorough. Itâs one reason why youâre the best.
Since the second motorist got stuck in traffic behind the first motorist, commuters have dreamed of flying cars.
Though it seems like an impossible technology, the Federal Aviation Administration recently published its official safety regulations for air taxis, and regular rides are closer than ever.
Joby Aviation is still working on a hydrogen-powered vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (VTOL), and Archer Aviation just signed a ~$500m deal to sell 100 electric VTOLs to Japanâs Soracle Corp.:
Dubbed Midnight, theyâre more like helicopters than cars.
They can fit four passengers and a pilot, and travel 100 miles at up to 150 mph.
Soracleâs plan is to launch the air taxis âin cities where existing ground transportation is constrained by traffic or geographic barriers.â
Japan doesâŠ
⊠have notable geographic barriers, plus varying climates and a propensity for earthquakes and tsunamis, but the country has spent more than a century addressing those issues with trains.
A regular shinkansen, AKA bullet train, goes up to 200 mph (though some can go faster).
They can carry 1k+ people across the length of the country (which is a lot more than 100 miles).
So what is the market for air taxis if the country spending $500m on them arguably doesnât need them?
The answer is may be just helicopter aficionados, but the industry better figure it out, because German air taxi company Lilium just announced that itâs going into insolvency, per The Verge.
If these companies take too long to get off the ground, commuters might get desperate and start taking cars everywhere.
Sanrio surprised fans in 2014 after it was revealed that Hello Kitty is not a cat herself, but a little girl who happens to have a pet cat called Charmmy Kitty.
TOOLBOX
Slow day at work? We have everything you need to make your lunch break more productive:
Donât skip this key step: Building a great startup is only half the battle. Learn how to build a distribution engine that can get your product in front of the right customers.
Tune in: Do the tiny-house market and work-from-home trend go hand in hand?
Is it better to be consistent, or perfect? Itâs a loaded question for content creators. Luckily, we have a podcast packed with ways to elevate your content game.
AROUND THE WEB
đ On this day: In 1994, musician and restaurateur Sonny Bono was elected to US Congress.
Len Kretchman, the co-inventor of Uncrustables, is clearly a humble guy, since he didnât give himself nearly enough credit for creating one of the most iconic lunch box staples of all time. Itâs not just school kids who agree: Professional football players have developed quite an affinity for the crustless sandwich. Per The Athletic, NFL teams consume an estimated 3.6k-4.3k Uncrustables a week â thatâs 80k+ Uncrustables a year.
SHOWER THOUGHT
Itâs more acceptable to be on your phone at work than reading a paperback book.SOURCE
