đ Donât get left behind âlearn from Mittens the cat, who made three trips between New Zealand and Australia in 24 hours after being forgotten in her cage inside a plane cargo hold. After a one-way trip turned into a round trip, Mittens took one last flight to be reunited with her owner. Cats are apparently more forgiving than the average air traveler, as Mittens is reportedly âthe cuddliest sheâs ever beenâ since the incident.
đ§ On the pod:What was the dark webâs Silk Road?
NEWS FLASH
đș Netflix and not so chill: Netflix is increasing the prices of its monthly ad-free, ad-supported, and premium memberships in its latest hike. The streaming juggernaut saw its largest-ever jump in subscribers in the last quarter of 2024, with 19m new subscribers â bringing its total to 302m globally. Netflixâs revenue also increased 16% last quarter, surpassing $10B for the first time. Whatâs behind their recent success? The company cited Novemberâs very bad boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul â the most-streamed sporting event in history, with 108m global viewers â as well as its two Christmas Day NFL games and âSquid Gameâ season two.
đ€ Stargate causes a stir: President Donald Trump announced a $100B+ joint venture with OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle to build out data centers and AI infrastructure in the US. With each company set to contribute funds, Stargateâs total investment could reach as much as $500B over four years…. maybe. Shortly after the announcement, Elon Musk took to X to rain on the AI parade, writing, âThey donât actually have the money,â in response to OpenAIâs post about Stargate. Grab your popcorn and get comfortable â Sam Altman swiftly responded to Muskâs claim, calling him âthe most inspiring entrepreneur of our time.â Vicious comeback.
đž AI apps generate major spending: Global consumer spending on AI apps hit $150B in 2024, up 13% YoY, according to Sensor Towerâs annual State of Mobile report. Chatbots in particular boomed, with apps like ChatGPT and Google Gemini seeing ~$1.1B in spending â a 200% YoY increase. It makes sense that consumers are willing to pay up for AI considering most are constantly glued to their devices: Individuals collectively spent 4.2T hours on their smartphones last year, up 5.8% YoY.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
JetBlue will begin accepting Venmo as payment for flights. Cool, but it won’t magically cure what’s been a rocky year: The airline lost $172m in the first nine months of 2024 and had its Spirit Airlines merger blocked by a federal court.
Warren Buffettâs Berkshire Hathaway has now sunk $750m into Nu Holdings, a Brazilian digital bank with its own cryptocurrency platform. Itâs a big change in tune: Buffett denigrated digital currency as ârat poisonâ back in 2018.
MrBeast is now among the contenders for TikTok, which has until April to find a non-Chinese owner. MrBeast â TikTokâs third-most popular user â has joined an investor group led by Employer.com founder Jesse Tinsley in a serious bid to buy the platform.
CHAT CHEAT SHEET
The best way to do less work?
Letâs, as a group, gain an edge over our competitors by skilling up and mastering chatbots.
President Donald Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht on Tuesday, releasing him from a life sentence after 10+ years.
But if you donât spend much time on the dark web â Who does? â you might not know who Ulbricht is, or what exactly he did to get a life sentence in the first place.
I thought the Silk Road was really old…
Sure. The Silk Road was a network of Eurasian trade routes dating back to the second century BC, so named for the textiles that made up a share of its commerce.
Ulbricht, using the alias âDread Pirate Roberts,â founded the modern Silk Road in 2011 as an online black market for buying and selling goods â mostly drugs, but other items included fake IDs and legal items, including books and art.
It could only be found on the dark web â another part of the internet that users access with Tor, a network that anonymizes usersâ locations â and transactions required cryptocurrency.
The FBI shut down the Silk Road in 2013, and Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking, computer hacking, and money laundering in 2015.
That all sounds pretty illegalâŠ
⊠so why the pardon?
Ulbricht has been embraced by many libertarians, who regard the Silk Road as having been a marketplace for free trade, and crypto enthusiasts.
Ulbricht, they argued, did not trade drugs or do any harm.
The Silk Road did not allow certain harmful items, including child pornography.
But six people did fatally overdose on drugs linked to the platform, and thereâs some murkiness around whether Ulbricht was involved in an alleged murder-for-hire plot.
Yet even among those who donât embrace the Silk Road as a libertarian experiment, there have been concerns over his sentence of two life terms, plus 40 years, without the possibility of parole. Trump promised to commute Ulbrichtâs sentence at the Libertarian National Convention last year.
Whatâs up with the Silk Road now?
Itâs gone, but several dark web sites have popped up to replace it. Users can still access the dark web, where theyâll find both illegal and legal activities. For example, activist groups may use the dark web to communicate in areas where the government censors online activity.
Want to level up your content research? We’ll guess probably yes? Well, hereâshow.
Hit pause on that payment: Paid ads arenât the only answer when it comes to marketing â here are some secrets for going organic.
DATA POINT
The time for quiet quitting is over: In 2025, with 65% of workers feeling stuck in their roles and prospects of a stronger job market ahead, experts foresee more employees acting on their workplace hangups this year by ârevenge quitting,â per Forbes.
The trend â when fed-up workers stick it to their employers by suddenly leaving â has been years in the making, according to experts, accelerated by factors like technological advances (shoutout AI), burnout, and different generational expectations (shoutout young people).
Those most likely to bow out, per a survey of 1k+ full-time employees by Software Finder, work in marketing and advertising (16%), IT and tech (11%), and media and entertainment (7%).
And while just 4% of workers overall plan to revenge-quit this year, the tension is clearly palpable â 28% expect to see the trend play out in their workplace.
AROUND THE WEB
đ On this day: In 1957, Wham-O began selling Frisbees, named for the tin pie plates from Connecticutâs Frisbie Pie Co. that students would toss for sport at nearby universities.
Yesterday, we asked if new tech has changed your day job.
For most, the answer is yes: 25% said itâs had a major impact while 40% said tech has caused smaller changes. Then there were the 17% who havenât felt techâs impact yet but know itâs coming, and the 18% who havenât seen any difference.
Luckily, most said that tech has had a positive impact on their day to day, with 79% saying it improved their job. For an unlucky 18%, technology has made their job worse, and for an even unluckier 3%, itâs eliminated it entirely.
As for whatâs being put to work, ChatGPT and Copilot were the most common answers by a long shot, while one reader said their office is still paper-based â oof.
SHOWER THOUGHT
Every day, employers across the US piss away thousands of dollars to analyze employeesâ piss.SOURCE
Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman. Editing by: Ben âMittens, please fly to LA nextâ Berkley.
