Long gone are the days when your competition was obvious—that girl passing notes to your crush and University of Michigan can suck it (sorry, Morning Brew co-founders). While identifying who you’re up against is still crucial, in the business world competition can get murky faster than tears and mascara after the big game.

Understanding your competitors can help your team or business:

• Learn from other companies’ mistakes
• Stand out by differentiating your brand
• Better understand the needs of your customers

Here are the top three types of challengers to watch out for:

🫵 Direct competition. These are the companies doing the same stuff as you, at similar pricing and by targeting the same customers.

• Pepsi and Coke go head to head, as do Athleta and Lululemon, Netflix and Hulu, etc.

Indirect competition. These competitors meet the same customer needs as your co, but by using a different product or service.

• For example, AMC Theatres may see Bowlero Corp bowling centers as its competition, since they’re both fighting for the same customers who want to do something fun on a Tuesday night.

Replacement competition. These competitors come dressed in camo. They allegedly offer vastly different products and services, but they end up addressing the same customer needs.

• Direct and indirect competition may be pretty easy to spot, but the replacement challengers are the ones that can sneak up on you.
• For example, Reed Hastings famously said that Netflix’s No. 1 competitor was sleep.

Dive deeper: This Qualtrics article outlines a way to identify your competition that doesn’t include wearing maize and blue at the next tailgate.

Last week, semiconductor company Nvidia briefly surpassed a market cap of $1 trillion, a feat only achieved by a handful of other powerhouse companies (think: Apple and Amazon).

The sky-high valuation bakes in expectations that Nvidia’s hardware, which powers generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, will continue to expand.

• To maintain the share price, though, Nvidia likely will have to continue to show meteoric growth. In other words, expectations are higher than for that kid in pre-K who was already rocking a Harvard sweat suit.

With midyear performance reviews approaching, you may be facing a similar double-edged sword: Kicking ass today leads to even higher expectations in the future.

Here are three talking points to discuss with your boss to make sure you’re both aligned on what success looks like in H2.

1. Since I surpassed my goals and expectations in H1, how can we adjust things in H2 to increase benchmarks without risking burnout?
2. My success in H1 has set the bar high. How can we bring the team up to this standard without making anything less than this seem like a failure?
3. If I continue at this pace, what career advancement opportunities can I expect at the end of this year?

Success at work is great, but managing success long-term is even better. And who knows: If you play your cards right, you may be able to hit the four comma club yourself.

It’s wedding season and you may once again be questioning why you chose to be so friendly in college. Between $500 outfits and plane tickets across the country, your budget may be feeling a little squeezed.

That’s where Money with Katie’s Wealth Planner comes in handy. Track your spending today while making sure you’re still planning for baby showers in the future.

Grab your planner now.

We all want to know how much our boss makes, but for some reason we’re never invited to those salary negotiation meetings. And yet, thanks to various public disclosure requirements, sometimes we get lucky and find out the deets anyway.

Try guessing the total comp for these heavy hitters. (Disclaimer: Prize money is the satisfaction of a job well done, not stock awards.)

• Apple CEO Tim Cook
• CVS CEO Karen Lynch
• Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
• Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle

Read: Business as a force for good? Here’s why B Corp companies are popping up all over the place.

Listen: The hype hasn’t been this big since Serial was released…the Morning Brew Daily podcast now comes out at 7am ET. Listen here.

Watch: Barack Obama explores what makes a good job “good” in the new Netflix series Working: What We Do All Day.

Travel: Avoid the windows vs. AC debate on this road trip—it takes a year but it’ll be 70 degrees the whole time.

Shop: With summer rolling in, spending your valuable tanning hours stuck in meetings is especially painful. Take back your time with the Brew’s customizable calendar toolkit.