đ Congrats to MrBeast, he of the 318m-follower YouTube kingdom, for acquiring a startup this week. He added Vouch, which is essentially LinkedIn for influencers, to his growing empire. The purchase price wasnât disclosed, but like all influencer-related deals, one can only assume the primary currency was souls.
đ§ On the pod:How ready-to-drink cocktails took over the alcohol market.
NEWS FLASH
â Donât take your latte for granted: Starbucks is investing in two new innovation farms in Costa Rica and Guatemala to figure out how to climate-proof its coffee. A more resilient Arabica bean would help combat shortages, which have contributed to a 18% price hike for consumers since 2019. The company buys 3% of the worldâs coffee, though your snootiest colleague would still argue the tripe Starbucks sells isnât really coffee.
đȘ Costcoâs hot dogs will always be its most elite product, but⊠thereâs yet another, far more valuable contender nipping at their delicious, delicious heels. The wholesale darling is adding platinum to its precious metals collection, now offering 1-ounce bars online for just over $1k. The gold bars and silver coins it already offers have proven popular â analysts estimate Costco is selling $100m-$200m worth of the bars every month.
đ A UK fave crosses the pond. McDonaldâs will sell its chicken Big Mac, in which chicken tempura replaces beef, in the US beginning Oct. 10. Its UK launch sold out within 10 days. More fast-food restaurants are adding new chicken items to their menus, as poultry is generally cheaper and perceived as healthier than beef â though perhaps not when fried.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Uber has a new autonomous vehicle partner: Avride will make Uber Eats deliveries with its six-wheeled sidewalk robots starting this week in Austin, and begin ferrying passengers in its self-driving cars around Dallas in 2025.
Good news for subway commuters: Spotifyâs new Offline Backup feature will create playlists you can still listen to if your device goes offline, starting with recent streams and evolving with usersâ tastes.
Tesla recalled ~27k Cybertrucksdue to a delay between the rearview camera image and the dashboard. Tesla released a software update and noted drivers could also reverse the old-fashioned way â by looking over your shoulder and checking your mirrors.
TOOLBOX
Weâre pretty sure that if you had saved all the helpful stuff weâve sent you, youâd basically be a business by now.
đ€ Put a little in, get a lot out: Some clutch tips for exiting your next event with more connections made and relationships built.
đ” Do some trendspotting: Everyoneâs investing in AI this or that, but a16z podcast host Steph Smith has a bigger opportunity in mind.
đ Getting real(real): Hear Julie Wainwright, founder of billion-dollar luxury consignment brand The RealReal, dispense entrepreneurial wisdom and discuss her approach to failure (she once oversaw Pets.com).
THE BIG IDEA
Smart glasses are already doing some real scary stuff
Google Glass was a punchline when it first debuted, and for good reason: It looked ridiculous and seemed pointless.
But nothing can keep a good idea down, even if itâs actually not that good of an idea â Metaâs newer line of licensed Ray-Ban smart glasses have solved the main problem with Google Glass (i.e., they donât look quite so ridiculous) while introducing terrifying new ones.
Unlike Glassâ heads-up display, the Meta Ray-Bans are mostly just Meta AI and a camera on your face.
You can use them to livestream video straight to social media or access virtual assistant features without the pain of talking to a phone.
The new Ray-Bans are a hit, or at least more so than previous smart glasses.
Hereâs where things take a turn
Two Harvard students have rigged together an alarming new use for smart glasses called I-XRAY.
It matches someoneâs face to publicly available data, then spits that info out in a phone app.
In a video, the students use I-XRAY to trick strangers into thinking theyâve met simply by covertly scanning their face with smart glasses and getting their name off the internet.
Combined with the already-high âcreep factorâ of the Ray-Bans (which are stealthier than the âkick meâ sign of Google Glass), the existing privacy concerns of this tech skyrocket.
Luckily, the students donât plan on releasing their system. Instead, they developed it to show just how easily this tech can be misused â not someday, but today.
Also worth noting: Clandestine tracking and recording is against Metaâs terms of service and the students behind it have shared a list of services that remove your information from search engines.
Of course, at this point, thatâs like putting a Band-Aid over⊠your whole face.
Relying solely on your partner? Relationship red flag. Relying solely on AI for your SEO strategy? Google algorithm red flag. Here are four ways to integrate AI better. (We canât help you with the codependence thing.)
Sleep through Brand Strategy 101 in college? These seven key elements of a company branding plan will really come in handy.
NEWSWORTHY NUMBER
How much Sony Music paid for the rights to Pink Floydâs recorded music, name, and likeness. Though not the first such deal in recent history â Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and other musicians or their estates have made similar deals â this one took years due to infighting between bandmates over controversial comments made by founding member Roger Waters. The deal does not include songwriting rights (lyrics and melody), which remain with the individual artists. Sony Music also acquired Queenâs full catalog, including publishing rights, for ~$1.27B earlier this year â this meaning, of course, that Queen was objectively 3x better than Pink Floyd ever was. Surely no Pink Floyd fans would take issue with that.
AROUND THE WEB
⟠On this day: In 1955, the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first and only World Series, losing the following year, then moving to California.
đ€ How to: tell if a piece of writing was generated by AI.
đ Thatâs interesting: What itâs like to be a jail librarian.
