👋 Good morning. The spice is gone for Coca-Cola, the motel business is getting shaken up, and it may pay off if you can prove your house is haunted — but we aren’t talking about the fun kind of haunted house here.
🎧 On the pod:Is Meta winning the AI wearables race?
NEWS FLASH
💸 The $177B man is probably feeling pretty bummed: Bernard Arnault, founder of luxury conglomerate LVMH, has shed $54B in net worth since March, dumping the downtrodden man — who was once quoted as saying, “As long as I’m not the richest man in the world, I won’t really be happy” — in fifth place. Fueling LVMH’s stock slump? Its alcohol division, lagging because the state of the world has made people too sad to pop champagne, per the company’s CFO.
🤖 Can we stop AI models from hallucinating? Microsoft thinks so. It unveiled Correction, a service that automatically revises factually incorrect AI-generated text by flagging suspicious text before fact-checking it against a source of truth. Microsoft isn’t the first to try to keep AI honest — Google’s Vertex AI includes a feature meant to “ground” language models.
🥤 Variety is the spice of life: Coca-Cola abandoned its new permanent Spiced soda flavor just six months after its release. The flavor, which was, confusingly, raspberry and not spicy, will be replaced by a new one in 2025. The zesty flavor, a failed attempt at attracting younger customers, wasn’t alone in disappointing Coca-Cola execs: The company will also put its Cherry Vanilla flavor out to pasture.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
TikTok parent ByteDance is shutting down TikTok Music, available in a handful of countries, on Nov. 28. ByteDance will continue to partner, rather than compete, with other music streaming services.
Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners will acquire Smartsheet for $8.4B. The all-cash offer of $56.50 per share puts a ~41% premium on the company’s average stock price.
Rapper T.I. and his wife, R&B singer Tiny, are $71m richer today. A jury ruled the toy company behind the popular “L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G.” dolls infringed on the musicians’ IP (they formed teen pop group OMG Girlz in 2009).
SKILL UP
Why coders pick Python
Python became a go-to language for beginner devs thanks to simple syntax and flex functionality.
That’s also what makes it the top option for AI/ML specialists. Learn about the language powering everything from websites to software to robots inside the beginner’s guide to Python.
Inside the free ebook:
Use cases across industries
Coding standards + best practices
Overview of advanced features
You’ll also get links to top tools and resources, like research publications and a browser-based code editor. Lucky you.
Motel 6 is changing hands again. Indian hospitality giant Oyo will acquire the budget chain from Blackstone in a $525m deal.
Blackstone, which purchased Motel 6 in 2012 for $1.9B and has since improved and sold off hundreds of motels, will also sell its Studio 6 extended-stay brand, perNPR.
Motel 6…
… was founded in 1962 by contractors William Becker and Paul Greene in Santa Barbara, California. Santa Barbara’s not exactly a place you associate with budget motels, but that was the point — the pair, both road-trip fans, wanted a no-frills option for budget travelers.
They:
Bought materials in bulk, using similar blueprints designed for quick, efficient cleaning across locations.
Equipped rooms with only necessities. Early rooms had coin-operated, black-and-white TVs and no phones, with a payphone in the office.
Charged $6 per night (~$69 today).
The company changed hands several times, but largely maintained its affordable pricing, despite expansion and the addition of modern amenities.
It also enjoyed brand recognition thanks to spokesperson Tom Bodett’s reassuring, “We’ll leave the light on for you,” tagline.
Will Oyo maintain Motel 6’s affordable charms?
Oyo, founded in 2012, is no stranger to economy stays, finding and rebranding underperforming budget hotels.
Once valued at $10B, the pandemic and several controversies haven’t done it any favors; it’s now valued at $2.4B. That said, it manages 10k+ properties in India, where it intends to go public, perForbes.
Motel 6, with ~1.5k locations across the US and Canada, will allow Oyo to quickly scale in the US, where its current footprint sits at 320 properties.
Notably, it has no immediate plans to ditch the familiar name. Oyo CEO Gautam Swaroop said Motel 6 will continue to operate as a separate entity.
Fun fact:As of 2018, ~50% of US motel owners were Indian-American, part of a trend kicked off by an immigrant who purchased a California motel in the 1940s, inspiring generations of others.
Throw on your AOL letterman jacket and listen up: The $26.1B corporate swag business isn’t all just “cheap plastic shit” — it’s also a leading indicator of economic health.
Alternative relationships are on the rise:Trends delves into the weirdness of today’s dating world — and ways you can cash in on it.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
How much Ring will pay you to put down on a new house if yours is haunted. Contestants are invited to submit footage from their Ring cams showing paranormal activity — staged or otherwise. Judges, including “Stranger Things” star Finn Wolfhard, will choose the winner based on visibility of the “ghost,” uniqueness, entertainment value, and engagement. Look, it’s a weird way to escape the affordable housing crisis, but you have until Nov. 1 to submit.
AROUND THE WEB
📅 On this day: In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation establishing Sequoia National Park, America’s second national park.
👀 That’s cool: Check out these “shy lights” that dance from the ceiling of Iceland’s Rijksmuseum.
🎧 Marketing Against the Grain: HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah on AI agents, content creation, and career growth.
🍍 That’s interesting: A TikTok fad has Spanish singles strolling down grocery aisles with upside-down pineapples.
.jpg?width=1120&upscale=true&name=An%20Introduction%20to%20Python_OP1%20(1).jpg)
