👋 Top of the mornin’. Hope you’re not feeling blue today. Or, if you are, we hope it’s at least blue raspberry. The flavor — a sickly sweet berry taste not of this earth — was first developed in the 1970s to differentiate itself from other red-colored food flavors, and it’s having a moment. The flavor’s appearance on US menus has grown 52% over the past four years, and 60% of US consumers have taken a blue-tongued bite.
🎧 On the pod:Is Coca-Cola too late to the prebiotic soda wars?
NEWS FLASH
🥤 The gut-friendly soda sector just got a big splash: Coca-Cola is launching Simply Pop, a prebiotic soda brand, joining the competition with startups Poppi and Olipop — which recently raised $50m at a $1.85B valuation. While traditional soda consumption has fallen, digestive-health soft drinks have grown from a $197m category in 2020 to a $440m category in 2024, according to Euromonitor International. Coke’s Simply Pop, available on the West Coast and in the Southeast US starting late February, will debut with a lineup of fruity flavors, nodding to the company’s Simply juice brand. The cans contain no added sugar, 25%-30% real fruit juice, and six grams of prebiotic fiber.
👚 Just do it, Kim Kardashian. That’s what Nike’s CEO is saying, at least. The company is partnering with Kardashian on NikeSkims, a new apparel, footwear, and accessories brand based on the celeb’s $4B Skims shapewear line. It’s Nike’s first time partnering with an external company on a new brand, likely driven by a bit of desperation: The company’s stock lost more than 25% of its value in the last year, its sales are down, and it’s lost ground to competitors like Lululemon and Alo. It’s the brand’s latest Hail Mary to lure back women customers, following its first Super Bowl ad in decades this month, spotlighting women athletes.
✈️ Not a great first: Southwest Airlines will lay off 1,750 people, or 15% of its corporate staff, including 11 senior execs, beginning in April. This marks the company’s first mass layoffs, which it estimates will save it $210m in 2025 and $300m in 2026, and the latest shakeup since activist hedge fund Elliott Investment Management took a $1.9B stake in the airline in 2024. Southwest has wobbled through a weird couple of years of late, from the software glitch that canceled 16.7k flights over the busy 2022 holiday season, to — there’s no gasp large enough — switching to assigned seats.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Elon Musk’s xAI released Grok-3, its updated AI model with “more than 10 times” the computing power of Grok-2. xAI said the new model outperformed competitors such as OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Google’s Gemini in testing and is capable of “advanced reasoning.”
Spotify may release Music Pro, the HiFi streaming service it’s been touting since 2021, this year. The service, priced as a ~$6/month add-on, could include features such as song remixing and access to presale concert tickets.
Meta will hold a “LlamaCon” event on April 29 to share updates on open-source AI developments for devs who want to build apps and products.
BOOGIE WITH THE BOTS
The 6 steps to stronger content ops?
Define your content strategy
Brainstorm impactful ideas
Streamline asset creation
Personalize at scale
Analyze + optimize
Refine brand consistency
And all of it is easier with AI. Just use this trusty checklist to start leveraging bots like the smarties who are staying ahead.
Rideshare apps have become increasingly expensive for passengers — the death of the so-called “millennial subsidy” saw average Uber fares jump 45% between 2019 and 2022, with recent smaller increases attributed to gas, inflation, and the company’s attempts to become profitable.
But that doesn’t mean it’s gotten any better for drivers, who say it’s been harder to collect rides and earn money.
They’re taking matters into their hands
Some have started driving side hustles, but others are pursuing driver cooperatives, perBusiness Insider. While Uber and Lyft are beholden to shareholders and investors, co-ops are nonprofits owned and managed by workers.
A San Diego driver cooperative is pursuing its own app.
Drivers Cooperative Colorado already has 16k drivers who receive 80% of every fare.
A Colorado driver told BI that drivers still must pass background checks, but they must also attend an orientation and use dash cams, and have the option to buy a $200 stake in the co-op. Oh, and no surge pricing.
The ultimate goal is to provide drivers with a higher percentage of each fare, plus more transparency. For example, drivers for the larger platforms have complained about their accounts being deactivated for no clear reason.
Is this sustainable?
Maybe, but it’s not going so hot for New York’s Drivers Cooperative.
In 2022, its first full year, it earned $5.9m in revenue across ~162k trips, returned $5.2m in drivers’ wages, and recorded a loss of just $318k, per Next City.
Not bad, but a recent deep dive from Documented found many drivers who claimed they weren’t paid the promised $30/hour minimum, and some accused the co-op’s former leader of mismanaging funds. The service has pivoted from ride-sharing to paratransit and nonemergency medical transportation to stay afloat, and its future is unclear.
Colorado’s co-op is young, launched in October 2024, but worth keeping an eye on, alongside similar efforts in Minnesota and San Diego.
If you’re here, you probably like newsletters. And if you want to build your own, best to follow the experts. Here’s how Alex Lieberman, founder of Morning Brew, built a $75m newsletter.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Length of Meta’s $10B+ underwater cable, Project Waterworth, when finished — the world’s longest subsea cable. Located up to 7k meters undersea, the cable will connect North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia, facilitating global digital development and Meta’s AI efforts.
Meta currently accounts for 10% of fixed and 22% of mobile traffic — and, of course, 100% of incomprehensible boomer screeds.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1847, the surviving members of the Donner Party were rescued from the Sierra Nevada mountains, where they’d been stranded by snow. Of the original 89 people to depart from Illinois, only 45 would ever reach their destination of California.
🗞️ Newsletter: What do executives at Goldman and JPMorgan have in common? They read The Daily Upside. Sign up for free.
🥱 That’s interesting: A study found that participants would rather experience an electric shock than be bored.
🧘 How to: Some simple strategies for protecting your peace of mind in stressful times.
🦔 Aww: Not sure what’s happening here, but it’s very cute.
QUOTE OF NOTE
Amazon’s RTO mandate requiring 350k corporate employees to work from the office full time took effect last month — and the transition hasn’t exactly been smooth.
Employees are finding themselves contending with ill-equipped offices that offer limited parking and workspace, perThe Wall Street Journal. And despite now working in person five days a week, many are still spending hours in virtual meetings with teammates spread across other locations — so much for in-person collaboration — just with hard pants and nowhere to sit.
Has the move been worth it? According to one AWS employee’s now-deleted LinkedIn post, “Nope.”
HOT TAKES
You probably noticed a certain stat above that’s hurting your wallet: Uber fares jumped 45% between 2019 and 2022.
Ride-sharing apps have grown more expensive for passengers — but are you still booking a ride?
