“Mom, this war is the stupidest decision our government ever made, I think.”—a Russian soldier speaking to his mother in a call intercepted by the New York Times

“They ask for so much money for a night. So we try to prepare here and hope for the best.”—Tampa Bay resident Rafael Baca to the Washington Post about why his family couldn’t afford to obey the evacuation order for Hurricane Ian

“Nobody should have this much wealth, but it is what it is.”—Mark Cuban to Forbes about his massive fortune

—Sherry Qin

Pickleball was invented on Bainbridge Island, a small, wealthy community west of Seattle, in 1965. This year, during the growing frenzy for the game, it became Washington’s official sport. If you haven’t been swept up by the pickleball craze, then picture a hybrid of tennis and pingpong, with a flat-surfaced paddle and a hollow, plastic, Wiffle-like ball. The dinking sound of gameplay can be heard across the United States, from playgrounds to private country clubs. The most devoted fans are having pickleball-themed weddings. But for every match and wedding, there are plenty of people side-eyeing the game’s rising popularity.

The amount of money poured into pickleball clubs, bars, and professionalization is reaching NFT-esque proportions. LRMR, LeBron James’s family office, along with other investors, purchased a team in Major League Pickleball (MLP), joining Gary Vee, Drew Brees, and Brené Brown, who are all team owners.

Perhaps related, the demographic skews white, wealthy, and middle age (if you play more than eight times a year, you’re probably at least 48 years old, according to statistics). Seeing cash, developers are inevitably eager to monetize pickleball passion, adding cocktails and karaoke to pickleball venues to make them even more profitable. A $180 million effort is underway to build at least 15 private pickleball clubs in Florida alone.

The amount of media and IRL-surface coverage that Big Pickleball has dinked into the mainstream has been a bit much for some. New York City Council Member Erik Bottcher recently said it’s “great” that pickleball is booming, but it “isn’t cool” that players are sometimes taking over playground space meant for children.

Then, there’s something of a turf war brewing in the racket sport world. Some tennis players are concerned that their community courts might end up pickle-fied and that, once the hype dies down, these facilities may go the way of the “once ballyhooed” sport of racquetball. It’s been a year of loss for tennis as both Serena Williams and Roger Federer retired. Hours after his final match, Federer was asked if he’d played pickleball. Never, he said.

A representative for Club Leftist Tennis, a Brooklyn-based Substack and Twitter account, compared pickleball to air fryers, a fad device that recreated an existing solution while making it smaller but less efficient. “You wouldn’t have to spend all this money getting new stuff, you wouldn’t have to have some big fight over changing the infrastructure that already exists. You could just embrace what’s already there,” the rep told Morning Brew.

Tennis is still a much larger sport, for now. A June report from the United States Tennis Association found that 22.6 million people played tennis in 2021, while pickleball grew to 4.8 million players, according to USA Pickleball. But pickleball’s money faucet doesn’t show any signs of slowing to a trickle. It might be the most lucrative-yet-ridiculed product from Washington state since the Frappuccino.

—Ashwin Rodrigues

Two robotic arms with prongs that resemble hands hover above an unpeeled banana on a table. One prong picks up the banana and the other grabs a section of the peel and pulls it back slowly. It turns the banana and delicately takes off each successive piece of the peel. In about 50 seconds, the robot has successfully stripped the banana, a task so simple a monkey could do it.

That might not seem like a big deal in 2022 (weren’t we supposed to have flying cars by now?), but peeling a banana is a task that requires fine motor skills, something so unique to primates that robots have struggled to master the nuances. This robot had to learn nine skills to get the job done, including peeling to the left or right and picking up the banana. A human had to show the robot those tasks 17,319 times, which took 811 minutes of training.

The robot comes from the University of Tokyo, which introduced it earlier this year. It’s far from perfect—it only manages to peel a banana about 57% of the time—but its invention points to a future where machines might rival humans in kitchen tasks. That’s important, because while they might not be taking over your Sunday night meal prep, robots will likely become more common in industrial kitchens, making your drive-through burger on a kitchen assembly line.

That’s not exactly new territory for robots to conquer. Flippy takes over the fry station at restaurants like White Castle, using its giant arm to move baskets of fries and breaded chicken into bubbling hot oil (restaurateurs can rent Flippy for about $3,000 a month). Others take orders from kiosks, shoulder the strenuous task of kneading pizza dough, or mix drinks (Makr Shakr whips up cocktails, and Botrista makes trendy teas, lemonades, and lattes). But these kitchen robots aren’t that common, as automation has been slow to take hold in the food service industry. That’s in part because restaurant wages historically have been abysmally low, and owners didn’t have much incentive to shell out thousands of dollars for cyborg chefs when there was an eager pool of human hands to exploit.

But that’s changing. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, more restaurant workers have thrown in the towel, rejecting verbal abuse from unhappy customers and stagnant wages. Between March and July 2022, an average of 760,000 people quit jobs in accommodation and food service each month, more than any other industry aside from transportation and trade. In July, 5.6% of food service workers left their jobs, according to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics. That compounds worker shortage concerns, as the labor pool was already expected to dwindle over the next decade due to a declining birth rate (in Japan, where the banana-peeling robot was created, this trend is more pronounced and is what’s driving automation efforts now). For those with dusty help wanted signs in their windows, robots might be a promising solution.

“The conversation around man versus machine is put in the context of job losses, and especially in the short run, and for lower skilled workers,” said Elizabeth Crofoot, senior economist at Lightcast, which studies labor market analytics. But labor shortages mean that’s likely not going to be the case. “So all these concerns about destroying jobs are likely going to ease, because we’re going to continue to see all these labor shortages, at least through the end of the decade.” Continue reading this story on the robots that will eventually take over commercial kitchens by Amanda Hoover.

Richard Marx is a Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, producer, and best-selling author. He’s also brutally candid.

You might recognize some of his hit songs from the late ’80s and early ’90s: “Endless Summer Nights,” “Hold on to the Nights,” and “Right Here Waiting,” but if you don’t, your parents definitely will. Marx recently released a new multigenre-spanning album, Songwriter, on September 30, using his…well…songwriting chops to blend pop music, rock, country, and ballads. His collaborators on the album include superstars like Keith Urban, Burt Bacharach, Darius Rucker, Chris Daughtry, and many, many more. The album is streaming now wherever you listen to music.

What’s the best advice you ever received?

The first time I had “writer’s block” I was 18 and had just moved to LA to pursue my career and found myself stuck. I called my dad, who’d had an illustrious career as a jingle composer who had to come up with new music constantly for decades. I figured he’d have some tender and supportive advice. He said, “Writer’s block is a made-up, bullshit term people use as an excuse not to write. You know how to write. Just f***king write.”

What’s the most embarrassing song you’ll admit to liking publicly?

This is like asking me my guilty pleasure. I don’t feel guilty about anything that brings me pleasure.

What fictional person do you wish were real?

Jed Bartlet.

What real person do you wish were fictional?

Well, I don’t want to say but…his initials are DONALD TRUMP!

How would you explain TikTok to your great-grandparents?

“Hey, guys, here’s another sign the world is about to explode.”

What always makes you laugh?

The Party with Peter Sellers. Especially the “I need to pee” scene.

If you were given a billboard in Times Square, what would you put on it?

“I wrote songs your mom f***ked to before she met your dad.”

—Interview by Rohan Anthony

A GOAT goes to MIT: Lupe Fiasco is a rap legend, martial artist, entrepreneur, and more. He can now add MLK Visiting Scholar at MIT to his resume. This makes sense if you’ve been paying attention to Fiasco. Ashwin broke down hip-hop’s relationship with academia, and spoke to one of Fiasco’s collaborating professors to see what the rapper has planned for his time at MIT. [Morning Brew]

Work–Life balance: Workers have had enough. Between workplace harassment, burnout, and quiet quitting, workers are checking out or heading for the door. Employers are now advocating for employees doing therapy, even during work hours. What does that look like and how do you carve out time for mental health during your workday? Our pals at Sidekick have the answers. [Sidekick]

OK (car) Computer: The auto industry’s cyberdefenses may not be ready to fend off attacks just yet. That’s definitely not something you want to hear before getting behind the wheel, particularly if you’re driving an EV. Experts worry that automakers’ cybersecurity capacity could struggle to keep pace, leaving them vulnerable to bad actors. [Emerging Tech Brew]

Succession planning: Logan Roy doesn’t consult his CHRO before choosing his successor, but he might be bucking a trend. (Admittedly, we’re pretty sure that everything in Succession is an HR nightmare.) [HR Brew]

Honey, I shrank the bunches of oats: Shrinkflation, or when manufacturers make their products smaller rather than raise prices, has claimed yet another victim: your favorite cereal. Family- and giant size cereal boxes are getting smaller. Retail Brew explores what the changes say about the economy. [Retail Brew]

Caddyshack, democratized: Drinks, drugs, and a healthy dose of social media marketing are bringing more people to golf, despite its image as a sport for rich guys who love polo shirts. Golf brands like Topgolf and Five Iron are also trying to make the game seem less stuffy. [Marketing Brew]

The best thing we read this week: A tech-savvy artist unearthed video footage of people working hard to capture the perfect shot for Instagram through readily available webcams broadcasting from public spaces. It is a lesson in the artifice of social media and the ubiquity of surveillance. [New York Times]

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—Sherry Qin