👋 Good morning. Hope you have an A+ day. But if not, know that you’ll still likely beat America’s infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country’s infrastructure a C on its report card, up from a C- in 2021 and the nation’s highest grade since the ratings began in 1998. While ports and rail scored in the Bs, America’s transit sank the average with its D rating.
Have some time this weekend? Our pitch competition ends on April 4. Submit your 60-second pitch for a chance to win $5k and get your Big Break.
NEWS FLASH
🤑 It’s a good time to be wearing a Patagonia vest: Wall Street bonuses hit a record high in 2024, with the average payout totaling $244.7k — about 4x a typical US worker’s salary. The bonus pool swelled to $47.5B, driving the average banker’s bonus up 30%, according to data from the New York Comptroller’s Office. Wall Street’s piggy bank touches more people than just investment bankers: One in 11 jobs in New York City is directly or indirectly tied to it, per the Washington Post, with the total number of employees topping 201.5k in 2024, the highest level in 30+ years.
💰 Snark is profitable: Bluesky CEO Jay Graber wore a T-shirt to her SXSW keynote event that read, “Mundus sine Caesaribus,” Latin for “a world without Caesars.” The shirt was a jab at Mark Zuckerberg, who once wore a shirt that read, “Aut Zuck aut nihil,” or “Zuck or nothing,” referencing a similar phrase about Roman emperor Julius Caesar. So many people wanted their own version of Graber’s shirt that Bluesky decided to sell them — and made more money in a day than in two years of selling custom domains. Granted, Bluesky doesn’t focus on domain sales, but maybe there’s something to this whole T-shirt side hustle.
🎮 Attention, gamers: Nintendo’s Direct showcase revealed peeks at several forthcoming games, including “Pokémon Legends Z-A,” “Metroid Prime 4: Beyond,” and “Rhythm Heaven Groove.” Other announcements included Nintendo Today!, a new app for updates on Nintendo news, and Virtual Game Cards, which will allow Switch users to share digital games across devices. That’ll be handy for players who intend to trade in their Switch for a Switch 2 when it drops, reportedly in June.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Home run: The New York Mets made $261m in revenue at Citi Field in 2024, a record high. Admissions made up the bulk of the revenue at $137m, followed by $53m from advertising and $25m from concessions. That’s a lot of hot dogs.
Speaking of sports: NBA player Steph Curry is teaming up with former first lady Michelle Obama on a sports hydration drink. PLEZi Hydration comes in three flavors and will be available on Amazon and at select California grocery stores, taking a shot at the US sports-drink market, which is estimated to hit $32.6B by 2028.
Coca-Cola is resurrecting its “Share a Coke” campaign to target Gen Z. This updated version features its signature personalized bottles and cans, plus a QR code that leads to a digital hub where customers can make and share videos.
SKILL UP
It’s all about the spicy little clips
What’s more likely to go viral: your two-hour podcast with a battle-tested expert, or that 20-second segment where they really went in on TikTok’s algorithm?
But why does it seem like Waymo is the rare tech company doing it right?
Are you going my Waymo?
Ars Technica’s Timothy B. Leetook a look at nine months of Waymo’s self-reported crash data:
Only one of 38 collisions was “clearly” a robotaxi’s fault, in Lee’s opinion.
Many crashes involved someone hitting a stationary Waymo.
Others were from drivers veering into a Waymo’s lane or overreacting to something it did.
By Waymo’s estimation, its cars are safer than human drivers.
Over the 44m miles driven by Waymos in its two biggest markets — Phoenix and San Francisco — through December, the cars were in 13 airbag-triggering crashes.
Waymo used human crash data to estimate that humans would have gotten into 78 crashes if they’d driven the same distance in the same areas.
This is Waymo’s data, so it’s only worth so much, but you could argue that the driverless cars are 83% safer than normal cars.
AAA says…
… that the vast majority of Americans don’t trust driverless cars, but maybe that should change.
Based on Ars Technica’s analysis, these collisions aren’t typically happening because the Waymo did something wild; it’s because a human did something unexpected while the Waymo was trying to follow traffic laws.
Again, the argument could be made that the Waymo is safer than a potentially impatient or distracted human driver.
Waymo’s safety record…
… comes only from the handful of cities it operates in, but that list is growing as competitors collapse.
Meanwhile, Waymo is looking to expand to Washington, DC.
The fully autonomous freeway from Minority Report might be possible soon, but hopefully the federal government’s crackdown on “Precrime” is further off.
Short drama apps and “nervous system work”? Yup. Here are six little-known trends and the business ideas to build on them.
On the pod: Thought your omelet was in trouble? Your morning smoothie might be next — banana-flation is coming.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
Activations of Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed Shadows,” which launched March 20. This marks the studio’s best day-one launch in PlayStation’s online store and the second-highest-selling title at launch for the action-adventure franchise behind 2020’s Viking-centric “Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.”
Since its debut in 2007, there have been 14 main “Assassin’s Creed” video games, each casting the player as both a present-day and historical assassin. While previous games have been set in periods including ancient Greece and France’s Reign of Terror, “Shadows” takes place in feudal Japan.
There was a bit of controversy: A patch removed players’ ability to destroy several items inside of shrines and temples following backlash from Japanese officials, including Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who said, “Defacing a shrine is out of the question. It is an insult to the nation itself.”
AROUND THE WEB
⭐ On this day: In 1960, the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was laid down in honor of producer-director Stanley Kramer.
All that one cover letter for an offensive coordinator position with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s football team read.
The opening, posted online last fall by head coach Luke Fickell, received around 26 applications, according to The Athletic — and somehow, whoever sent this very succinct letter of interest was just one of many vastly underqualified candidates.
Others included a car wash attendant; an esports gamer, whose accolades involved being “first place in all my fantasy leagues”; and a physical therapist and father, who argued that if he could “survive negotiating nap schedules, managing tantrums and handling a meltdown over a broken cracker,” he could surely handle D1 football.
In the end, Fickell hired Jeff Grimes, a former Kansas offensive coordinator. Good call, coach.
SHOWER THOUGHT
Pong is named after ping-pong, but it plays much more like air hockey.SOURCE
Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman, with help from Sam Barsanti, Singdhi Sokpo, and Kaylee Jenzen. Editing by: Ben “Backseat driver” Berkley.
