WEEKLY INTAKE 24. 2025
MOONLIGHTING. NOSTALGIA PLAYS. BIG RELEASE WEEK. WU TANG VISUALS. OBLIQUE STRATEGIES. NIKE'S SCARY GOOD. AI BACKLASH. NEUROMANCER. ASPEN ART WEEK. FIGMA IPO. BTC ALL TIME HIGH. GROK 4. LIVING TO 250.
“To know is human. To imagine is Divine”
MOONLIGHTING
Soham Parekh's virility last week sparked an online debate on moonlighting and overemployment. This software engineer was outed by Suhail Doshi (founder of AI startup playground), but what followed was crazy. Many other founders commented he'd been working for them or had been fired by them. A database tracking his over-employment was deployed (Soham Tracker).
As he went viral, it brought attention to the overemployed movement at large. The Reddit thread /overemployed has over half a million users, where people share tips and screenshots of Justworks pay stubs. A study by Deloitte shows that roughly four in 10 millennials and Gen Zers have side jobs (WSJ).
Soham broke his silence on TPBM, admitting he wasn't proud of what he did, claiming he worked 140-hour weeks to get out of a 'dire financial situation'. People were quick to point out he was making $800,000 to $1 million USD a year by working 3-5 jobs concurrently (in India), wondering how 'dire' he really was.
All the exposure ironically paid off, landing him a new job at Darwin, another AI startup.
NOSTALGIA PLAYS
Each generation has a version of this. Midnight in Paris summed up the endless loop of yearning for what a prior era had. Often it's a haze of simplicity that's alluring. Our modern pace and hyper-connectivity are finally flipping.
Nearly half of young people say they'd prefer a world without the Internet, more specifically to live less 'performative lives'. In a study by the British Standards Institution, A quarter of survey respondents spent more than four hours a day on social media. Almost half were lying to their parents about online activity, lying about their age online, had burner accounts, and 68% said they felt the time they spent online was detrimental to their mental health.
Airmails take is more on the vibe of a pre-Internet era, less driven by the statistics of said survey, and more about the impact technology, specifically performative connectivity, has on our day-to-day lives. While also acknowledging the advantages (GPS and the ability to research exploration).
It is, of course, true that each era experiences a crisis about the new wave of tech destroying people's souls. When it wasn't the Internet, it was TV, or the radio, or the printing press, even papyrus scrolls, and nostalgia is common across every generation.
Isabel Brooks (airmail)
BIG RELEASE WEEK
This week we get some much anticipated new music. Nostalgia plays here as well, with both drops coming from artists who dominated the aughts and haven’t put out new music in a long time.
CLIPSE
It's been a near 15-year wait for the fourth studio album. In that time, we've gotten solid drug dealer music from Push, but I've been waiting for this proper reunion since the snippets started dropping last fall.
When the Clipse said they hit an impasse with the label, refusing to remove or censor Lamar’s verse, the duo bought themselves out of their contracts for a seven-figure sum.
SWAG
Big moves from Bieber, launching his brand and new music on the same day. The album is strong, the marketing campaign is a big flex as well, having fun with it all.
SKYLRK dropped the same morning, activating the website and social channels after months of cryptic teasing. Serifa killed it with the world build here, with artists I’ve been following for two years now, it’s great to see them on something this big.
WU TANG TOUR VISUALS
Services Generaux absolutely killed it with the cinematics and imagery for WU’s tour. Watch their work, time and again, they blow me away.
BRIAN ENO & PETER SCHMIDT, OBLIQUE STRATEGIES
100 worthwhile dilemmas, cards designed to disrupt linear thinking. The original Cards Against Humanity. Two separate experiments in creative disruption, by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. They each worked on ideas and provocations around instruction, constraint, and ways to help blockage or redirect thinking.
They then merged the cards into a single deck, 1975. Various studios and creative figures used the limited runs of the decks, creating a cult following.
NIKE’S SCARY GOOD CAMPAIGN
The newest output in Nike’s brand turnaround attempt is their “Scary Good” campaign. After a dismal few years, Nike has gone back to a core pillar of performance, a focus on athletes and WINNING. What I love about this one is the world building, if you're going to make a campaign, build a world that can output many things, versus a tagline.
This leans into a genre, campy horror, that allows them to have fun with the concept. Nine ads tailored to key talent from Kylian Mbappé, Ronaldinho Gaúcho, Giulia Gwinn, Erling Haaland, Kerolin, Sam Kerr, Cole Palmer, Salma Paralluelo, and Vini Jr.
This is all part of the new CEO, Elliott Hill’s, “WIN ACTION” turnaround strategy.
AI BACKLASH
Back in 2023, 53% of adults were more concerned than excited about AI usage in daily life, which seems trite. When I think about 2023, AI was still a mirage, no one could have anticipated the tidal wave that was coming.
DuoLingo had one of the best social campaigns of 2024; the owl mascot went viral many times, from Brat concerts to getting sick when you didn’t engage. Its social engagement was through the roof, especially with young cohorts. Then, a year later, they had to shut their accounts down after news of their efforts to become an “AI-First” company drove waves of online backlash, especially around human replacement.
We have entered the era of ‘efficiency’, with AI being a key driving force. However, it’s increasingly becoming a justification for corporate-level reductions in force and individual-level efforts.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about the academic studies that are making us dumber. If it eliminates entry-level jobs, where will people get training to make it to mid-level?
A great divide is emerging; those with knowledge and access are accelerating output and changing the pace of work, and that gap is exponential. People will be left behind, and another group is emerging that is walking away.
A positive, NYC Art Schools are seeing record applications. Internet overload, a desire for purpose, and perhaps a hope that tangible human skills like art will offer opportunities as a wave of sameness hits the digital landscape. It’s also tied to a generation's corporate pessimism, driving them to pursue more fulfilling existence paths.
Art school was transformative for me, spending summers at RISD exposed me to a world that valued art, which I didn’t get in public high school. I’m happy to see a rise in value and desire for art education at large, especially as a countermeasure to machine takeover.
AI’S EFFECT ON MEDIA TRAFFIC
This little box above could change everything in publishing. “Google zero” is devastating traffic to publishers, as people are now getting answers directly in search vs. being directed to platforms. The publishing industry has constantly been disrupted by changes in technology. Print budgets shifted when blogs forced content online, then came social media algorithms as a primary traffic driver, and AI is just the next thing they’ll need to adapt to. WSJ has a great, deeper look at this, as does Puck.
In some ways, you can see a direct correlation with publishers adapting to this wave or not. Business Insider’s organic traffic collapse of 55 percent is probably a major factor in laying off 21 percent of its staff. When people see news via search or through social media, nearly 60 percent don’t click the link (Bane & Company).
NEUROMANCER
Rounding out the futurism theme, the book that predicted pretty much everything ‘cyberpunk’, actually inventing the term and creating an entire genre, is getting a proper series development. The book that inspired Bladerunner and the Matrix, William Gibson’s cult classic Neuromancer, is coming to Apple TV, with 10 episodes.
It will be created for television by Graham Roland (“Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” “Dark Winds”) and JD Dillard (“Devotion,” “The Outsider,” “Sleight”), and star Callum Turner.
Netflix is also reportedly in talks with Spotify to expand its music and live events offering (WSJ exclusive). Concerts, awards shows, big interviews, and faster turn documentaries. I’m excited about this, as its one of the spaces we specialize.
It’s been hard to monetize live music and music docs. The payouts to artists were so big in the last cycle that very few turned a profit. Hopefully, this partnership creates a pipeline for more of this type of work.
ASPEN ART WEEK
One of my favorite hotels, the Jerome, hosts the second edition of the Aspen Art Fair, July 29 - August 12. It’s an interesting format, transforming a hotel in its entirety, from event spaces to the rooms themselves. NYT feature on the fair from 2024.
Cadogan Gallery, Harpers, Patron, Palo, and Megan Mulroony are some of the galleries I’m interested in.
HERON PRESTON BUYS HIS BRAND BACK
The cautionary tale of PE money, Milan-based New Guards Group (acquired by Farfetch in 2019) also represented peak streetwear fashion valuation.
We’re entering a non-roll-up era, where many designers are buying back control of their brands. It’s a risky play during hard market conditions, but it puts them back in the driver’s seat of the brands they bled sweat and tears to build. Being less beholden to investors, market reporting, and outside pressures. Earlier this year, Stella McCartney and Giuseppe Zanotti both bought their brands back from LVMH and L Catterton, respectively.
Heron re-acquiring the rights to his brand follows Ambush, Palm Angels, Off-White, and County of Milan, also leaving the New Guards Group.
“I went through hell to protect what I built. I fought for my name, my work, and my vision. Now I’m back with more purpose than ever,”
Heron Preston (in BOF)
BUSINESS & MARKETS
FIGMA FILES FOR IPO.
After speculation last month, Figma officially filed under the ticker (FIG) on the NYSE. It will be one of the next highly anticipated IPO’s. Coming a long way from their scrapped Adobe deal in 23, I see them as a major threat to the legacy company.
We took a full pivot to Figma as a business a year ago; Adobe simply lags in any multimedia presentation format and is far less collaborative. Sending PDFs in 2025 feels archaic.
Over 13 million people use Figma per month, and only one-third of them are designers, according to the filing.
“Expect us to take big swings, including acquisitions.”
Figma said in its filing.
NVIDIA HITS 4 TRILLION
The first company in U.S history to hit that milestone. Apple was the first to $1 trillion, the first to $2 trillion, and ironically, NVIDIA has added more than the entire market cap of Apple in the past two years.
The company now reflects 3.6% of total global GDP, bigger than the U.K., France, and Germany. The stock has risen over 40% since early May.
META 1-UPS GOOGLE WITH LUXOTICA STAKE
3.5 billion for 3% of Ray Ban’s parent company, Luxotica. Google was early in with Glass, but didn’t understand the importance of product design the first time around.
Tech alone kept the first generation of wearables niche, but these new iterations are embedded in frames that are already popular styles. Zuckerberg is spending smart here; a mere 3 billion gets them access to Prada, Chanel, Versace, Ray-Ban, and Oakley.
The use cases are so much stronger than full VR; this is going to be the next wave of personal computing (Vogue). It’s not going to be full immersion (Vision Pro), it’s going to be embedded in something already worn daily.
This also could be the opening innings of the end game for mobile devices in the current state of square blocks, with two major tech giants sending strong signals through these investments.
BOF has a feature on ‘the smart glasses gold rush.
TIKTOK’S U.S. PUSH
As the ban remains in a gray area, new developments are underway for a ‘US version’ of the app. This seems like smoke and mirrors. Whatever is built will have backdoors and similar algorithmic controls; there’s no way the CCP would give up the greatest psyop in a generation.
TikTok now has 118 million U.S. monthly users, which is about 1/3 of the U.S population. Projected to generate $14.8 billion in U.S. ad spend this year, primarily with Gen Z’s outsized engagement, an average of 52 minutes a day.
A continuation of TikTok in America could offset what was predicted to be a $6-9 billion windfall to Meta.
BTC IS ON A TEAR
New all-time highs, with very little retail euphoria. BTC hit 118k, making the unknown founder the 12th richest person in the world.
Just before the new high, a legacy mining wallet started moving more than $8 billion worth of BTC in $1.1 billion batches without test transactions. This wallet held an $8K initial position for 14 years without taking any profits, didn’t move or diversify, just sat through 100x, 1,000x, and 10,000x run-ups. Then wakes up and moves the full amount on July 4th. Leaving some to think of it as a message on the inferiority of USD.
GEN Z SAVINGS RATE
Apparently, Gen Z is crushing retirement savings (NYT). 20% of them are saving, and as a whole, Gen Z is contributing more, earlier to 401(k) plans than millennials (Vanguard study). Technological advancements have also played a major role in this generation's onboarding to saving and investing. A whole financial world of information on podcasts, budgeting apps, micro-investing (Acorn, etc), and easier-to-use platforms like Robinhood have changed the landscape of saving and investing.
Thanks to the Secure 2.0 Act, employees are automatically enrolled into 401(k) plans.
Generally, money has become less ‘taboo’ for this generation, and that’s a good thing. Talking about money, being educated about it, able to share and receive information is demystifying financial literacy.
The next phase is to…
DEMOCRATIZE RESEARCH
It's not just Gen Z, as a whole, the retail investor has leveled up.
After contributing a record $155 billion to U.S. stocks and ETFs in 2025, retail investors are reaching close to 60% of the market cap. The World Economic Forum projects retail will command 61% of global assets under management by 2030, up from 52% today.
I’ve written a lot on how retail’s evolved market participation warrants a recategorization from ‘dumb money’. We're becoming less emotional (irrational), have more access to markets, and have become the second-largest buyers of U.S. equities, after corporate buybacks. Retail is now reshaping markets.
Platforms like Robinhood, M1, and Public found the market for retail investors. I think the next major opportunity is in democratizing research. There are still high barriers to entry to the level of information and research that professionals have access to. Bloomberg terminal access is around 30k a year.
There is a huge market for retail research, and AI will change the game here (Deloitte), but so could a major platform.
I’m genuinely looking for new tools in the research space, if you have any please send me or list in the comments.
TECH & INNOVATION
GROK 4 IS A BEAST
The AI arms race is giving us better platforms nearly every quarter at this point, but to what end? I’ll write more about Grok 4 next week but so far its’s off the charts, with 100x more training than Grok 2. It’s also unhinged and had to be taken offline after praising Hitler.
Elon made a statement in a livestream back in January that "the cumulative sum of human knowledge has been exhausted in AI training." His approach has been on pure computation, letting the model train itself on non-human-made data.
He’s been building ‘Colossus’, a supercomputer in Memphis, that even blew NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang away. After assembling 100,000 NVIDIA H200 Blackwell GPUs in just 19 days, it now holds 200,000.
“Never been done before – xAI did in 19 days what everyone else needs one year to accomplish. That is superhuman – There's only one person in the world who could do that – Elon Musk is singular in his understanding of engineering.”
Jensen Huang
"The Bitter Lesson," an essay by Richard Sutton from 2019, is now front and center.
TLDR: 70 years of research provides a stark insight: general methods that scale with massive computation, like search and learning algorithms, have repeatedly triumphed over approaches infused with human knowledge. Basically, taking the HUMAN out of training or problem, wins.
Breakthroughs in chess (where deep search beat hand-coded strategies), Go (self-play learning outpaced expert features), speech recognition (statistical models eclipsed linguistic rules), and computer vision (deep neural nets discarded engineered features for superior results). All basically come to the conclusion that we are entering a scary frontier, where human input actually impedes the process.
An example would be self-driving cars. We’re trying to train cars to drive like ‘better humans’, rather than training the car to ‘Get from point A, to point B, without hitting anything, in the safest and fastest way possible’
OPEN SOURCE FOR THE WIN
Last month, this guy Farza went viral using Gemini 2.5 pro to make a real-time shot analyzing coach giving Jordan-style feedback, racking up 5,000,000 views across platforms. He then gave the whole thing away, saying, ‘I have zero interest in working on it,’ and put the whole script on GitHub, encouraging others to take the ball and run with it.
The future of learning will look a lot like real-time, in-the-moment AI instruction – it likely won't look like an AI homework helper.
- Farza
GOOGLE MAPS UPGRADES
Maps just got a bunch of cool upgrades. AI integration enables users to have more conversational interactions directly with maps, eliminating the need for keywords. Maps will have contextual understanding. You can now say something like ‘find me a good date spot bistro, near a subway.’
Live view - Better AR integration, which, when coupled with emerging wearable tech, can provide directions in real time.
Immersive view - It looks like Sim City. You can now rotate dimensionally to see buildings in photorealistic isometric.
Multi-search - upload images, such as food, to search.
AMAZON NEARLY HAS AS MANY ROBOTS AS HUMANS
75% of Amazon deliveries around the world are assisted in some form by automation (WSJ). It’s easing their problems of heavy turnover and working conditions complaints at the fulfillment level. Crazy stat: Amazon employs 1.6 MILLION people globally, with the majority working in warehouses.
Amazon’s Shreveport, La facility is a test case in robotics where humans and machines work in tandem, and they R&D new approaches. The facility moves product 25% faster than other sites.
IU1 - HUMAN LIFESPAN EXTENSION
We could see another disruptive grouping of letters in a similar fashion to what “GLP” has done to the weight loss and obesity landscape. Researchers at Osaka University in Japan have identified a drug called IU1 that can significantly slow aging and could extend human life up to 250 years.
Breakthroughs like this are going to start to accelerate, especially with AI providing exponential growth. The new adage is that if you can live to 2030, you can make it a lot longer.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, made the statement at this year's Davos that AI could double human lifespans in the next 5 years.
STUDIO PRACTICE
I’ve been traveling a lot for work this past month, so finally getting a day in my studio was overdue. This Friday, I finished a piece I’d been working on for months, adding the outer layers. More of my painting and studio practice here.
It’s part of a new pastel series I’ve been working on:
24’ x 36’
Acrylic on wood.
That’s it for this week.