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Good morning and Happy Friday the 13th (luckily, the only one this year). If you’re feeling superstitious today, you aren't alone. We asked around the virtual office to find out our colleagues’ most bizarre rituals.
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Tiffany, designer: “I listen to ‘Solsbury Hill’ by Peter Gabriel before every job interview.”
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Jordan, director of accounting: “I wore the same Phish T-shirt (2013 summer tour) to all my CPA exams.”
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Henry, copywriter: “At sundown before a new fiscal quarter, I take a shower and condition my hair with Hellmann's mayonnaise.”
Stay vigilant today.
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Nasdaq
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14,816.26
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S&P
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4,460.83
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Dow
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35,499.85
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Bitcoin
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$44,464.75
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10-Year
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1.362%
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Salesforce
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$248.39
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*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET.
Here's what these numbers mean.
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Markets: Big Tech companies heard us dissing them this week and took revenge by propelling the S&P 500 to a record high.
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Economy: We haven’t mentioned jobless claims here in a while, and that’s because things are generally going well in the labor market. The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits has now dropped for three straight weeks, slowly approaching pre-pandemic levels.
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DEMOGRAPHICS
We Know Where You Live This Summer
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Every 10 years, the census helps Americans answer the deepest of questions: Who are we? And why is everyone moving to western North Dakota?
The government dropped the first detailed results from the 2020 count yesterday, revealing a country that’s more racially diverse, urban, and Phoenician than it was in the previous tally a decade ago.
Why it matters:
- Data on where people live will be used in a bruising battle by politicians to redraw boundaries for voting districts.
- These numbers will be leveraged by many businesses to inform market research, expansion efforts, and local labor conditions.
- It determines where governments allocate spending.
Hit me with the details
The headline stat: The US became a lot more racially diverse over the past 10 years. The non-Hispanic white population dropped for the first time on record (2.6%), falling to its lowest share of the total population on record. People who identify as Hispanic, Asian, and more than one race drove all the population growth during the last decade.
Still, that growth has slowed down: The US population increased 7.4% from 2010 to 2020, the lowest growth rate since the 1930s. It’s not good news. Less people growth = less economic growth, and a baby bust from the pandemic threatens to pinch the US’ growth rate even more.
Cities are getting bigger while rural areas empty out: “Population growth was almost entirely in metropolitan areas,” the US Census Bureau’s Marc Perry said. 52% of all counties shrank in population.
Chris Paul knows: Phoenix overtook Philadelphia as the fifth-largest city in the US, following NYC, LA, Chicago, and Houston. The leaderboard change reflects the broader trend of people relocating to the South and West from the Northeast and Midwest.
Meet the fastest growing metro area: The Villages, a retirement community in central Florida. Its population grew 39% over the last decade, but also shrunk three inches in height.
And the fastest growing county? McKenzie County, North Dakota, which grew more than 100% since 2010 thanks to a fracking boom.
Looking ahead...the redistricting fight, which could determine who controls the House in 2022, begins now.
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Reddit, the ancestral birthplace of memes, is now worth $10 billion following its latest funding injection from Fidelity. The social media company’s valuation has more than tripled over the past 2.5 years.
CEO Steve Huffman credited the wave of attention Reddit received for its role in the meme stock frenzy this winter for attracting new users, advertisers, and capital.
Big picture: Despite its outsized cultural influence, Reddit’s still just a guppy swimming among sharks.
- It has 52 million daily active users, compared to Twitter’s 206 million and Snapchat’s 293 million.
- Reddit recorded $100 million in ad revenue last quarter, which is a 192% annual increase but comes nowhere near Twitter’s $1.2 billion and Facebook’s $28.6 billion.
Still, that guppy’s booked a ride on the East Australian Current. Huffman said Reddit’s keen on upgrading its site—by, for instance, improving video sharing—and adding more staffers to a workforce that’s doubled over the last one and a half years.
Looking ahead...Reddit’s “still planning on going public,” Huffman told the NYT...but has “no firm timeline yet.” We’ll be lurking on r/SecurityAnalysis until then.
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Daniel Shirey/Getty Images
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Last night in Dyersville, Iowa, the Chicago White Sox hit a walk-off HR against the NY Yankees in the first MLB regular-season game ever to take place in Iowa, and only a short stroll-through-a-cornfield away from the field featured in Field of Dreams. You couldn't script it any better.
The backstory: The 1989 flick put the 4,000-person, three-hotel Iowa town on the map, but it wasn’t until 2016 when MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred visited the original field and thought, “Let’s get Aaron Judge out here.” The MLB initially scheduled the game for 2020, but it was pushed back because of the pandemic.
The mayor of Dyersville, perfectly named James Heavens, said the town expected 10,000 fans, support staff, and members of the media to arrive for the game. But nostalgia ain’t cheap. The average ticket price for the game on TickPick was $1,343, compared to $803 for a World Series game.
Looking ahead...Mayor Heavens hopes Dyersville will become a regular stop on MLB’s schedule, and he may just get his wish. "I think the reception that this has received has been so positive that we will be back," Manfred said.
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Robots have gotten pretty darn good at a lot of things: vacuum cleaning, delivering groceries, driving cars (kinda).
But we never thought we’d meet one that could whip up food and smoothies the second we rolled up on our electric skateboard.
Blendid's fully autonomous robotic kiosks serve fresh and tasty food at a fraction of the cost of human-operated locations—and now you can get in on that smooth operation as an investor.
Check out the deets on Blendid’s juicy potench:
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Ideal for busy locations and/or locations with need for extended hours of service
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Attractive operating margin due to simple operation and limited labor need
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10 patents granted or in process
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24/7 accessibility, to meet consumers where and when they want delicious food
Today’s your last day to invest—their funding round closes tonight at midnight PST. Get in with Blendid right here, right now—while you still can.
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Giphy
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Stat: Disney+ has 116 million subscribers, the company said in its earnings report yesterday. To illustrate how impressive that is, Disney initially projected that the streaming service would hit between 60 million to 90 million subscribers...by 2024. Together with ESPN+ and Hulu, Disney has nearly 174 million subscriptions, breathing down the neck of Netflix, which has 209 million.
Quote: “It is very serious. It is like you’re a farmer and it doesn’t rain.”
2021 has not been a breeze for Mads Nipper, the CEO of offshore wind company Orsted. And we mean that literally—historically low wind speeds in Europe mean Orsted’s profits will come in at the lower end of projections for the year.
Read: How millennial investors lost millions on Bill Ackman’s SPAC. (Institutional Investor)
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The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to breaking a mirror and then immediately winning the lottery.
It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.
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Britney Spears’s father, Jamie, has agreed to eventually step down from her conservatorship and make way for a new conservator.
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US home prices jumped 23% annually to hit another record. The median price of an existing single-family home is now $357,900.
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Adidas is selling Reebok for $2.5 billion to brand management company Authentic Brands.
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Sony is delaying the release of the movie Venom: Let There Be Carnage by almost a month due to rising Covid cases.
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Roughly two-in-three people in the US are currently living in areas where temps feel like 100+ degrees Fahrenheit, per the National Weather Service.
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Learn a new language faster than you can say “oui oui.” Babbel can help you speak a new language in as little as three weeks. With lessons based on real-life scenarios, you’ll be ordering crêpes in Paris in no time. Get up to 65% off the #1 language app here.*
Quality therapy from anywhere. Talkspace online therapy is an easy, affordable way to connect with licensed mental health therapists in your state. You can match with a qualified therapist and start messaging with them the same day. The same day! Get started here.*
Speak internet: Research this glossary of Reddit terms to prep for the company’s eventual IPO.
The Carlos Watson Show is back: YouTube's favorite talk show is debuting its brand-new season on Amazon Prime. Matt Damon, Condoleezza Rice, Brian Chesky, LeBron James, H.E.R., and more headline one of the most diverse lineups in talk show history. Check it out.
It’s hot: Here are nine spritzes to refresh yourself this weekend and probably the fanciest looking fruit salad we’ve seen.
*This is sponsored advertising content
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Lionel Messi’s new deal with Paris Saint-Germain includes payment in cryptocurrency fan tokens.
Everyone wants to be like Messi, but does it make sense for us pub-league players to put some of our money in crypto?
To answer that question, we’ve launched the Crash Course on Crypto with the context, tools, and resources to help you better understand the cryptocurrency landscape.
Because while you’re never going to become a professional soccer player, you could become a savvy investor. Give it a read here.
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Adam and Eve play rock-paper-scissors 10 times. You know that:
- Adam uses rock three times, scissors six times, and paper once.
- Eve uses rock twice, scissors four times, and paper four times.
- There are no ties in all 10 games.
- The order of games is unknown.
Who wins? By how much?
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Adam wins 7 games and Eve wins 3. View the solution here.
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