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Good morning. The organizers of Bonnaroo, an iconic music festival in Tennessee set to start Thursday, canceled the event at the last minute—not because of Covid but because heavy rains over the past two weeks have drenched the area, making it unsafe. It's a bummer, but the good news is you can wait in line for a porta potty anywhere.
—Neal Freyman, Sherry Qin, Matty Merritt
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Nasdaq
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15,259.24
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S&P
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4,522.68
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Dow
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35,360.73
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Bitcoin
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$46,994.26
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10-Year
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1.308%
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Oil
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$68.69
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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: The S&P 500 tied a bow on its seventh straight month in the green—its longest winning streak since 2017. Investors are closely watching oil prices after Ida knocked out at least 94% of offshore Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production.
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Afghanistan: President Biden defended his Afghanistan exit strategy against heavy criticism, calling it an “extraordinary success” after helping airlift more than 120,000 people from the country. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that more than 100 Americans remain in Afghanistan, and he’s working on getting them out.
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Back in 2017, direct-to-consumer startups flooded your Instagram feed with pastel colors and pledges to “cut out the middleman.” Now, they’ve put on dress slacks and are marching toward Wall Street.
Allbirds, the maker of footwear that’s graced the soles of many a tech bro, filed to go public yesterday. The company has made sustainability its core focus, and it plans to continue that mission by putting a green twist on the traditional IPO.
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The company is conducting what it calls a Sustainable Public Equity Offering, which means it’s holding itself accountable to hit certain environmental, social, and governance (ESG) targets.
- Allbirds says its supply chain has been carbon neutral since 2019, and that the carbon footprint of its standard sneakers is 30% less than those of its rivals.
But as it tries to steal business from those bigger rivals—namely, Nike and Adidas—it’s worth noting that Allbirds hasn’t made money since it was founded, nor does it envision becoming profitable in the near future.
Sounds familiar
In that way, and in many others, it’s similar to Warby Parker, the e-commerce eyewear seller that filed to go public last week. Warby is also ditching the classic IPO playbook by going public via direct listing, which means it’s not actually going to raise any money in the process.
Both Allbirds and Warby Parker successfully leveraged online channels to attract urban millennials comfortable with buying apparel on the internet. Allbirds’s online sales revenue grew 74% from 2018–2020, and Warby’s total sales jumped 44% over the same period.
But as they’ve matured, these brands have found that brick-and-mortar locations are a necessary complement to online shopping.
- Warby has opened 145 retail stores as of June 30. Allbirds has 27 and is planning on opening hundreds more.
Zoom out: Allbirds and Warby Parker are just a couple wildebeests in a bigger stampede of consumer-facing companies headed to the public markets. Chobani, Sweetgreen, and Roger Federer-backed On Running are all reportedly planning IPOs of their own, hoping to cash in on the strength of the US shopper. – NF
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Power outages in Southern Louisiana via Entergy
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Since Ida made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday, it’s left 1 million homes and businesses on the Gulf Coast without power. Southern Louisiana (pictured above) in particular is reeling from massive outages; it could be weeks before power is back.
What happened: The storm crushed the transmission system that provides most of the energy along the coast. Entergy, a New Orleans-based energy utility, said that as of Monday, 2,000 miles of its transmission lines were out of service, and the Department of Energy said it could take up to three days to fully assess the damage and even begin to repair them.
It’s not just phone batteries at 1% scaring officials. Without power, homes, businesses, and hospitals in Mississippi and southern Louisiana don’t have safe drinking water, working fridges, or the ability to run air conditioning in the brutal 100-degree heat.
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Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards told residents who evacuated before the storm to stay where they are—the state’s emergency systems just can’t handle them right now.
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Tulane University began evacuating its students to Houston yesterday.
How you can help: Donate to national orgs like All Hands and Hearts, or local charities like Another Gulf is Possible and Feed the Second Line. – MM
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Zoom’s plunging sales growth is the latest sign that pandemic winners could be hitting a wall.
In its earnings call Monday, Zoom said revenue grew 54% to hit $1 billion in Q2. While that’s impressive, the company reported 191% sales growth in Q1, and 369% the quarter before that.
Big picture: When everyone was cooped up at home last year, Zoom provided a crucial lifeline for remote work, remote school, and—most cringingly—remote happy hours.
But apparently, nothing can beat the delicious awkwardness of trying to end a conversation in person. Like other pandemic-boosted companies such as Peloton, Zoom has started to lose momentum as offices reopen and people socialize IRL.
- “What we’re seeing...is headwinds in our mass markets,” Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg told CNBC. “People are taking vacations again, they’re going to happy hours in person.”
Zoom’s stock fell 17% yesterday after investors got a peek into the company's post-pandemic life.
Looking ahead...to sustain growth, Zoom plans to turn its software into a “destination app” that offers everything from group planning to document editing. – SQ
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SPONSORED BY LINCOLN FINANCIAL
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This important message comes to you from the fine folks at Lincoln Financial, who are on a mission to inform people that financial security is about more than just retirement.
That’s why their suite of products are here to help you live the life you want now, while also helping you plan for success in the future.
It all comes down to a few questions. And don’t worry, these aren’t brain teasers:
- What are your goals and responsibilities for the future?
- How can you protect your family?
- How do you find extra money to pay down debt?
- How can you plan for the retirement you want?
Oh, and we should mention: You don’t even necessarily need the answers.
That’s what Lincoln Financial is here for. They have the solutions and tools that can help you make tomorrow financially brighter and more secure.
Get a hold of your financial future with Lincoln Financial here.
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Stat: Since announcing its $200 surcharge on the health-care plans of unvaccinated employees, Delta Air Lines says it went from 11 workers/day receiving vaccines to 55. For the sake of debate, here’s an interesting take on why Delta’s policy is a bad idea.
Quote: “They have the drive and work ethic. They get the technology. They catch on really quickly.”
Heather Coleman, the operator of a McDonald’s in Medford, Oregon, wants to hire your teenager. Faced with a severe labor crunch, her location is hiring 14 and 15-year-old workers (yes, it’s legal), and these coachable employees have been a “blessing in disguise,” she told Insider.
Read: Why are hyperlinks blue? (Mozilla)
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If you heard a bunch of people making Bishop Sycamore references yesterday, here's a quick rundown of the wacky story so you can participate.
In a high school football game televised on ESPN on Sunday, IMG Academy walloped Bishop Sycamore 58–0. Blowouts happen at all levels of competition...but this one has completely enraptured the sports industry because it was clear to everyone involved that Bishop Sycamore had no business playing a nationally televised game against IMG, one of the top HS football programs in the country.
So how did they end up on ESPN?
The game was booked by Paragon Marketing, a firm that partners with ESPN to schedule high school sports broadcasts. According to ESPN’s commentators for the game, Bishop Sycamore said it had several D-1 prospects on its roster, but those claims couldn’t be verified. So it appears Paragon was duped into thinking this was a high-caliber team, and ESPN allowed the game to proceed despite a number of red flags.
- What makes this episode particularly concerning is that putting overmatched athletes on a football field could lead to serious injuries.
So many questions remain, particularly about conditions at Bishop Sycamore, a “school” in the loosest sense of the term. Aaron Boyd, a former Bishop athlete, told Complex that players slept in a hotel for five months and “had to go rob Meijers, Krogers, Walmart because that’s the only way we can eat.”
+ For more: Read this deep dive into what is one of the wildest sports stories of the year. – NF
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South Korea’s National Assembly passed a first-of-its-kind bill that will require Google and Apple to allow alternative payment systems to be used in their app stores.
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Google is delaying its return-to-office plans...again...to January 2022.
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Windows 11, Microsoft’s first major operating system in six years, has a release date: October 5.
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Jeopardy! saga update: Mike Richards is out as executive producer of both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune after inappropriate comments from years ago surfaced two weeks ago.
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Business horoscopes: Little known fact—NFT actually stands for Now Flirt with a Taurus. Check out some goofy horoscopes we put together here.
Feel-good video of the week: 11-year-old drummer Nandi Bushell rocked so hard on stage with the Foo Fighters.
*This is sponsored advertising content
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Word Search: Is that an Oscar or an Emmy? See how well you can identify famous awards in today's Word Search.
Extinct but Not Forgotten
On this day in 1914, the last member of this species, a female named Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. Can you name it?
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✢ A Note From Lincoln Financial
LCN-3723090-081821 Lincoln Financial is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation and its affiliates, including The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company, Fort Wayne, IN, and Lincoln Life & Annuity of New York, Syracuse, NY.
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