Apple to buy Disney? Bezos $500M yacht party, AI extracts John Lennon, Ketamine clinics pop-up in NYC, SBF goes to jail, killing your cells with booze, blockchain voting, and more fun...
Will Apple buy Disney in a $160 billion mega-deal to include Marvel, Star Wars, and Steve Jobs’s creation— Pixar?
We know Bob Iger is panicked and snapping at strikers as Disney confronts the Incredible Shrinking Hollywood. Financial analysts suggest Disney 'will be purchased during the next three years.' Apple is rumored to be interested, but any deal would be highly scrutinized by FTC and DOJ. Clearly, theme parks, stuffed toys, and cruise ships would not be on the table because Apple is maniacally focused on software and devices and selling online services through its app store. The apple of the Mac-maker's eye would be Disney's vault full of priceless original content that remains the most valuable asset in the entertainment world.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, entertainment insiders anticipate the studio herd to continue its dramatic contraction, leaving three or four studio platforms, and everybody else gets snapped up. 'There will be Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and one other. If you could put NBCUniversal, Warners, and Paramount together, they probably have enough gravitas to survive as well.' one industry veteran predicts.
Even Disney's crown jewel, Pixar, is becoming an animation afterthought that can no longer compete with Universal's DreamWorks Animation or Sony Pictures Animation. Acknowledging its decline, the studio laid off 75 employees in June to offset recent losses.
"I believe that if Steve were still alive, we would have combined our companies or at least discussed the possibility very seriously."
—Bob Iger, in his 2019 autobiography, The Ride of a Lifetime
Apple could be a motivated buyer of Disney's content franchise to support its fledgling Apple TV+ (50M subs), which already overlaps with Disney Plus (158M subs) and competes with other established streamers like Netflix and Max. The Apple TV+ strategy is just another way the company locks people into the Apple ecosystem to buy more devices and services. In the quarter ending June 30, Apple topped 1 billion paid subscriptions to all services, including iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple TV+, with revenue growing 8 percent over the prior-year period to reach $21.2 billion.
With the industry moving into Web3, Apple is well-positioned to offer mobile token wallets and extend film and TV content into the metaverse with its Video Pro mixed-reality goggles.
Steve Jobs served on Disney's board of directors from 2006 until he died in 2011. Mr. Iger served on Apple's board from 2011 to September 10, 2019, the same day Apple officially announced its Apple TV+ service. If the Apple-Disney deal goes through, Bob Iger will have a new 'proudest decision,' and Steve Jobs will be cheering from the heavens that Tinker Bell can help Apple spread a little extra pixie dust on the Disney brand and bring the iconic studio back to life.
Vote for the 2024 US President on the blockchain and prove to the world it can be done
Americans no longer trust its archaic and anti-democratic US election system, a problem that can be solved by turning the process over to the people.
A new Rasmussen survey found that 55 percent of likely US voters believe cheating likely affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including 39 percent who think it's Very Likely. Conversely, 39 percent don't think cheating affected the 2020 election, including 28 percent who say it's Not At All Likely. This mistrust is not a new phenomenon; in one way or another, the US presidential elections were contested in 1824, 1876, 1912, 1960, 2000, and 2020. Protecting the integrity of elections remains a high priority for US voters. The right to a fair vote is democracy.
Rebuilding our voting systems on a trustless, permission blockchain must be done. Running the risk of setting off all sorts of conspiracy theory alarm bells, a proper and efficient voting system must tie into citizen authentication and verification. We would also propose extending the US citizenship/voting blockchain application to filing taxes and registering for and receiving government benefits. We touched on some of these topics in our last post on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
But before you adorn your moose hats and start reciting scriptures from the Book of Revelations, we assure you….
Did you know?
(Overheard on the streets of the global Silicon Valley—Got any hot tips?)
The Billionaire Boys Club
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez have been sailing around the Mediterranean all summer—from Mallorca to the Almalfi Coast and Croatia—celebrating their engagement on their half-a-billion dollar 420-foot-long yacht, Koru. Koru has three decks, two swimming pools, and a cinema. It can accommodate 18 guests and takes a 40-member crew to run. It also costs around US$25 million to operate for one year, requires a 246-foot support vessel with a helicopter landing pad, that holds a collection of sea toys like jet skis and speedboats. For the record, Koru is the World's tallest sailing yacht—with three huge 229-foot masts that power it to 20 knots. It's also the biggest billionaire's yacht which can move under sail-power alone.
Come on, Elon, you started it—don't be a wuss. Elon recently Xed (formerly known as 'tweeted') 'May require surgery before the fight can happen. Will know this week.' Now he is floating the idea of having a 'noble' debate with Zuck rather than slapping and kicking each other around in a billionaire boys' cage brawl. Gotta happen.
Elon's causing another panic for his recent X (formerly known as 'tweet'), 'The block feature is going to be deleted, except for DMs.—it makes no sense.' Clearly, this is a counter-move against the large clandestine block campaigns perpetuated against X Blue subscribers, which hurts business.
Best on the Block
Isn't PayPal's permissioned blockchain-based stablecoin payment system they just launched exactly failed Facebook failed Diem coin (formerly known as Libra) was supposed to be? We encouraged Zuck to mint it in 2019 and go on record again—Zuck squandered a huge opportunity, as PayPal will prove.
The idea of a crypto US dollar made conspiracy theorist Joe Rogan go ape shit. Rogan's assumed scenario is a tyrannical government that ties US CBDCs to a holder's social score. 'No fucking way. I think that's checkmate—game over,' Jumpin' Joe told his 11M listeners and guest rapper Post Malone.
VC Whispers
There are some signs that VC valuations across most stages are finally stabilizing. Amid an IPO freeze, reduced risk appetite, and a pullback among non-traditional investors, private companies have been challenged to achieve valuations reached at the peaks of 2021 and 2022.
Thanks to a new AI project backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), you can now create the partner of your dreams. The Silicon Valley VC fund has uploaded a tutorial to GitHub outlining how to create a customizable 'AI companion' with configurable personalities and backstories.
On Hollywood
The major studios and streamers are motivated to end the work stoppages that have roiled Hollywood, especially after the actors joined the strike last month, dramatically upping the stakes and creating more economic uncertainty. The streamers need fresh content to keep selling subs.
Sound of Freedom paid out $1.20 for every buck to each of the hit film's 6,678 crowdfund investors. The movie thriller about a rogue agent tracking child traffickers in Colombia has grossed $173M so far on $14M in costs. Completed in 2018, Disney shelved the movie and sold it to Utah-based Angel.
Fashion Brand MNTGE's new Ethereum NFTs unlock a limited edition collection of 7,500 physical patches from one of 11 contemporary artists like Jen Stark, OSF, Nyan Cat, and the Bored Ape Yacht Club artists.
AI on the March
Morgan Stanley analysts cite the AI company stock surge, including C3.ai (95%), Nvidia (194%), and Palantir (139%), as evidence of an AI stock bubble near its peak. They suggest that if Nvidia is a proxy for AI, we're in the ‘later innings,’ and the prospects of ongoing market gains could run out of steam.
A new John Lennon song where AI technology 'extracted' the singer's voice from a 1978 demo has been pressed and will be released 40 years after the Beatles star's death. Beatle bandmate Paul McCartney assures that 'nothing has been artificially or synthetically created; it was just a clean-up.'
News Corp Australia has a team of four using generative AI to generate 3,000 local stories each week on weather, fuel prices, and traffic, bragged executive chair Michael Miller at the World News Media Congress in Taipei.
Going Green
Building a healthy, sustainable planet begins with individual awareness. Ending consumer confusion over recycling is critical in the battle against plastic waste. Deposit return schemes boost plastic collection rates to over 90%. On-pack labeling for products suited to reuse and refill is also vital.
Follow the Crypto
In a good sign, the CBDC-allergic Federal Reserve is biting the crypto bullet by building its new institution-to-institution instant payments system, FedNow, on the Hedera blockchain. The announcement boosted Hedera's token HBAR by 16%, which is ironic given recent anti-crypto SEC actions.
Ex-CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried landed in jail two months early for leaking emails from his former gf/work buddy to the NYT ahead of his trial due to begin in October. He faces seven charges, including securities, commodities, wire fraud, and money laundering.
Dinari, whose dShares protocol aspires to define a standard for tokens backed 1-to-1 by existing publicly traded securities, has announced a $7.5 million seed investment. Investors include SPEILLLP, 500 Global, and Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase.
Cube3.ai, a cryptocurrency security service that protects smart contracts against malicious transactions, raised $8.2 million in seed funding to bolster product development. The round included Blockchange Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Symbolic Capital, Hypersphere Ventures, ICLUB, and TA Ventures.
The Science of Life
The folks at Prenuvo have developed an AI-powered full-body scan using MRI technology that examines every bodily system and organ from head to toe to detect a myriad of potential issues, from brain anomalies to liver lesions.
A woman in San Antonio, Texas, was the first to receive a 3D-printed right-outer-ear implant, made from cartilage cells harvested from her left ear and finally output by 3DBio Therapeutics' GMPrint bioprinter. A number of labs around the world have successfully 3D-printed skin, bones, and mini-organs.
Into the Metaverse
The metaverse represents six potential uses by terrorist actors: recruitment and indoctrination; planning and coordinating attacks; virtual training; spreading disinformation; financing terrorism and financial attacks, per Meta Terror by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation.
Silicon Valley-based Run The World, a virtual events startup, is bought by Toronto-based event management software company EventMobi. Run the pandemic supercharged its growth, and they outflanked competitors like Bevy, Hopin, and Eventmaker. The World had raised $15 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and GGV Capital.
Know Thy Enemy
Out of fear of being cut off by US government restrictions, China's Internet giants—Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, and TikTok owner ByteDance—have ordered $5 billion of Nvidia's AI chips. $1B worth of those chips will be delivered this year, and $4B worth to be shipped next year.
At the 19th Party Congress, Chairman Xi declared, 'We will insist on the sinicization of Chinese religions and provide active guidance for how religion and socialism coexist.' To prove his point, the CCP is rewriting the Bible according to the gospel of Xi, where Jesus is a killer rather than a forgiver.
Straight outta Silicon Valley
Apple's 2023 smartwatch models, due in September, will be a last of a generation. In 2024 a significantly overhauled 'Watch X' will be introduced to celebrate the Apple Watch's 10th Anniversary. The Rumor: Designers are working on a thinner watch case with magnetic bands attached to the device.
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, says X is a 'much healthier and safer platform than it was when Elon Musk bought it,' adding the '99.9 percent' of the content on the site is 'healthy,’ as a result of a war on bots. The boss lady also insists that X is 'pretty close to breakeven as advertisers are starting to come back.'
Apple is named America's WORST employer based on how long workers last before quitting—with Amazon, Meta, and Tesla lagging right behind. Resume.io analyzed LinkedIn data to determine results. With a 10.6-year average employment span, oil producer ConocoPhillips was crowned best employer.
Entrepreneurial Huddle
Answer these 10 questions to measure your EQ. Emotionally intelligent people are usually successful both professionally and personally. Their ability to truly connect and empathize with people makes them better leaders, communicators, and relationship builders.
A Google recruiter says, 'Your not moving forward if I see a resume full of text bricks—endless streams of words but no authentic content.' Using bullet points and tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly can clean grammar and achieve brevity. Optimizing a resume for 10-second viewing is key.
What the Math Says
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 49,500 people took their own lives in the US in 2022—the highest number since World War II. The rate dropped slightly in 2020 when COVID hit—during wars and natural disasters we historically pull together and support each other.
Prince William came out on top in a new survey of over 1,000 American adults by Gallup, which asked who of 15 'newsmakers' they approved or disapproved most. The next British King was followed by Ukrainia's Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Jill Biden, King Charles, Chief Justice John Roberts, and The Donald.
Chaos and Complexity
Full-page ad and Open Letter to Gov. Newsom and SF Mayor Breed: 'Gumps has been a San Francisco icon for over 165 years. As we prepare for our 166th holiday season at 250 Post Street, we fear this may be our last because of the profound erosion of this city's current conditions," CEO John Chachas.
Scientists say ADHD is a risk factor for video gaming addiction. Symptoms include no control over gaming behavior, withdrawal anxiety, escalating gaming behavior despite the negative impact on family and friends, patterns of deception, and lost educational and career opportunities.
Stature doesn't pay: Multi-billionaire Apple CEO Tim Cook was 'DENIED his own company's credit card because he is high profile and a high-risk fraud target.' The Apple card has struggled since its 2020 introduction, with customers recently accusing the tech giant of holding their money hostage.'
Revive Thyself (or not)
7 physical and mental benefits of vitamin Sea: Boosts Vitamin D levels, upgrades your sleep quality, fresh-air antidote for respiratory health, presence of bodies of water gives brainwaves a vacation, blue connects with all your senses, and movement and connection comes easier at water's edge.
In the episode of Huberman Lab below hosted by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine, you learn about the long-term physiological effects of booze on your brain and body at different consumption levels. You will never drink booze again.
'Ketamine clinics' are popping up in NYC, where Wall Street high-rollers take a psychedelic 'brain break' via an IV drip for up to $2,000 a poke. Ketamine, classified by the US as by-prescription-only, is best known as a party drug but has proven anti-depressant properties that could help the severest cases.
Flashback Interview
Steve Job's is back? How we could tell in 1996
The January 1996 cover of Red Herring magazine. Eleven months later—in a stunning move—Apple announced the purchase of NeXT for $400 million and brought Steve Jobs back to the company he cofounded.
By Anthony B. Perkins
Red Herring, January 1996 issue of Red Herring
What is NeXT?
In 1976, at the age of 20, Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computer, where he not only built the Apple II, but helped develop and manufacture the Macintosh and LaserWriter. Since ’85 his entrepreneurial energies have been focused on running NeXT Computer, a leader in the object-oriented software market. Mr. Jobs spent an afternoon with Red Herring philosophizing about Netscape versus Microsoft, the Internet promise, and the pros and cons of youthfulness.
Perkins: How long have you been thinking about the possibilities of the Internet as an opportunity?
Jobs: For probably seven or eight years. I don’t know if you have tried the NeXT e-mail system, but it is really the best in the world. So we’ve been using the Internet for a long time to send mail to people. They never did that at Apple. The more relevant question, I think, is when did we start recognizing the value of the World Wide Web. NeXT has had a long association with the Web. Tim Berners-Lee, the European physicist who led the team that developed the original foundation for the Web, used NEXTSTEP. So we were somewhat exposed to it from the very beginning. But I don’t think we quite got it until maybe two years ago. That’s when we started to see that the Web was going to be phenomenal, and it was going to change the way people think of computing.
Perkins: How so?
Jobs: The old way to look at computing was as a straight line between the desktop and the enterprise, with the primary focus on improving desktop productivity. That world, as we all know, is owned by Microsoft. But the Web is changing all of that. One way to view the Web is as the ultimate direct-to-customer distribution channel. At least that’s how NeXT looks at it. Now who cares about that? Businesses! Suppliers! They are the people who can best leverage the Web by using it to conduct business and make money. So the Web completes the computing loop by providing businesses with a new way to interact with their customers.
Perkins: Perhaps ironically one could say it’s like the old mainframe computing model, but with all of your customers hooked into your network, too.
Jobs: Exactly! The browser is just a 3270 terminal [IBM workstation] on multimedia steroids. Right?
Perkins: What do you think about Netscape’s vision that someday soon we will all be automatically hooked to the Net when we boot up our computers, and their Navigator platform will be our primary interface to the world?
Jobs: I wish the world could work that easily, but it doesn’t. You are talking about ideas, I am talking about reality. Look, I love Marc Andreessen, he’s a great guy. But he’s young, and he’s got Microsoft to deal with…