Weekly Intake - 12.2025
THE EXPERIENCE AND LONGEVITY ECONOMY. PYRAMIDS GOING CRAAAAZY. ENDEAVOR PRIVATIZES. THE FRICK REOPENS BEAUTIFULLY. GHIBLIFICATION. BROOKLYN MIRAGE RENOVATION. DOTDOTDOT'S 91 SOURCES.
LUXURY CAPTURE IN THE EXPERIENCE AND LONGEVITY ECONOMY
With more value being placed on the LIVED experience, luxury consumption is shifting. People with means are acquiring less stuff, pivoting that purchasing power to memories and quality of life. Recent scientific advancements are also providing potential for life extension, while much of it is burgeoning. Unproven longevity is undeniably enticing.
We over estimate happiness from things.
We Under estimate happiness from experiences.
A combination of the desire to live better with a pursuit of more time to enjoy said experiences, is driving the emerging global longevity industry, expected to reach $650 billion by year-end. Bain & Company's Global Luxury Report has some deeper data points around these trends, on a macro level. The market for personal luxury goods experienced a contraction of 2%, while The luxury hospitality market rose by 4% at current exchange rates to an estimated €242 billion.
The number of reservations made one to two years in advance increased, suggesting a heightened interest in securing priority access to exclusive experiences.
“Real scarcity today isn’t found in rare materials like gold or diamonds, but in something far more valuable: time,”
Christian Kurtzke, chief executive of luxury consultancy The Together Group
Another major catalyst is three consecutive years of price hikes in the luxury sector. McKinsey’s “The State of Luxury” states that price increases drove 80% of growth from 2019-2023 but hit a ceiling. People with the means to purchase that bag started seeing a divide between the cost and the actual value of that product.
The Last few years seem to have been when the shift accelerated. Free and clear of COVID-19, we saw global travel hit rates unseen before, to the point where major European destinations are waging war on tourism.
Spain and Venice are showing open hostility, with Spanish anti-tourism protestors promising to make this summer a living hell.
In 2024, Barcelona saw protests with water guns aimed at tourists, while Venice implemented a €5 entry fee to curb overcrowding. Spain’s tourism hit 85 million visitors in 2023, up 17% from 2019, fueling local backlash.
The Guardian covered this in 2024 over tourism diluting exclusivity, pushing high-end travelers to boutique destinations like Rosewood’s properties in less-trafficked locales.
I’ve been writing about this a lot over the past few months, looking at LVMH’s investments in hospitality with their 2024 acquisition of a stake in Orient Express and Cheval Blanc’s new Paris properties, along with groups like Dior and Prada opening restaurants and hospitality-focused brand extensions. Last week, ultra-luxury group Aman announced it is seeking to raise $2 billion for global expansion.
Prof G Markets has a great segment on this week's show. Scott talks about demographics creating the perfect conditions for this. The number of millionaires has doubled since 2020 (in the U.S. alone). Continued concentration of wealth creates a larger pool of people willing to spend $5,000 a night on beautiful hotels.
A conversation ensues, providing an interesting background color on the luxury hotel market space. For decades, The Ritz and Four Seasons were the only names in town at the highest level. They had a moat in robust reservation systems and marketing budgets.
The internet, and specifically social media, reduced the marketing budget moat. Boutique hotels are more discoverable now, and social media is doing all the legwork. These hotels are STUNNING. Everything from architecture to locale to clientele is extremely photogenic, which creates constant UGC for these properties.
This has allowed a plethora of new players to emerge into the space, from boutiques to new groups like Rosewood (one of my favorites), Auberge, Six Senses, and, of course, Aman.
(If you want to geek out, I really liked 48:00 where he breaks down the complexity of how hotels work from a business level).
It's clear there's a movement here when the hottest show on TV focuses on wealth, class privilege, and five-star hotels. The Four Seasons hit a marketing Jackpot. Three of its resorts have played starring roles in each of the three seasons of “The White Lotus.” The show and hotel operator are officially partners.
Visits to the Four Seasons webpage for the Sicily hotel soared 193% after season two.
WHAT DOES LONGEVITY MEAN?
Bryan Johnson is the current figurehead of longevity, and his trajectory is interesting. What started as a personal journey in fringe technology-driven pursuit of life extension has pivoted this year to viable products, taking a lucrative turn.
Don’t Die, his Netflix series, put what he’s doing on the map. It was followed by a line of products (Blueprint protocol), conferences, and potentially a cult (no joke).
Brian’s world seems ripe for dark side development; we’re already seeing cracks in the veneer. Last week, the New York Times reported on previous employees banding together regarding aggressive confidential agreements designed to silence and control.
When Equinox rolled out its $40,000 longevity program last year, it sparked an online debate on what longevity means. Similar to the supplements market, there's implication, reality, and something in between, which is somewhat selling a dream (60% of longevity products lack clinical evidence).
“We’re not going to be selling promises that we can’t fulfill,” Equinox’s definition of longevity places emphasis on “vitality and happiness.”
Julia Klim, vice president of strategic partnerships at Equinox
BOF’ has an article this week on The Murky, Expensive World of Longevity, Explained.
Longevity is really about preventative health measures (sleep, diet, skincare, genetics, fitness, along with a plethora of ‘superfood’ supplements and ingredients). Those with the luxury of time and money are in a better position to slow down the biological process of aging.
For $2500, you can get a whole-body MRI from Prenuvo. The radiology group just raised $120M. Kim Kardashian posted a #notanad about the life-saving benefits of early detection. Doctors are concerned it’s leading to over-diagnosing, overwhelming a strained medical system, or leading to people getting invasive treatments unnecessarily.
“That’s a tough concept for people to get, that more information could be harmful,” said Dr. Michael Pignone, vice chair for quality and innovation at the Duke University School of Medicine.
An elite activity collaboration that was not on my bingo card last year was Ikon Pass offering free scans. It makes sense; they both speak to the same clientele.
Fashion is riding this wave as well, just this week Celine launched fitness products.
I know I’ve been harping on the barbell economy, but health and wellness seems to be the most extreme.
Health as a luxury is certainly controversial when it’s not universally provided as a fundamental human right. The movie Elysium, with Matt Damon, depicted a similar dystopian divide back in 2013. Longevity clinics and private healthcare services like Sollis are widening the divide for High Earners more than ever due to the inadequacies of the current healthcare system.
When Marina Abramović’s Longevity Method is available while Luigi Mangione is being celebrated for assassinating the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, we are living in strange times.
PYRAMIDS GOING CRAAAAZY
The OG masters of longevity have awakened a sleeping giant.
Last week, my group chats and IG feeds fired off with this one. Pseudo scientists are having a field day while, of course, ‘experts raise concerns’.
It all started with the University of Pisa reporting the discovery of a large, multi-level subterranean structure beneath the Khafre Pyramid. This ‘discovery’ quickly sparked debate and challenges.
Speaking to Daily Mail, Professor Lawrence Conyers, a radar expert at the University of Denver, said that radar pulses penetrating that far in the underground is not possible, calling the claims “a huge exaggeration”.
“Despite the skepticism, the only way to prove the discoveries are true is through targeted excavations,” Conyers continued.
The catch 22 is that Egypt is very unlikely to approve excavations. One can still dream of a massive power plant housing cryogenically frozen elder race aliens hidden beneath the sands.
ENDEAVOR PRIVATIZES. ARI EMANUEL WALKS WITH $174MM
Ari Emanuel made big bets on the experience economy, building a live events powerhouse, and on Monday, it paid off to the tune of $174 Million (personally).
Silver Lake has finalized its $25 billion acquisition of Endeavor, paying a 55% premium over its pre-sale stock price. This marks one of the largest acquisitions in media and entertainment while simultaneously taking Endeavor private.
It’s also allowing Ari to separate the agent side of the business from IP investments like UFC, Professional Bull Riders, and Frieze (although the future of those investments is undetermined).
EMMA MCINTYRE
Ahead of her first solo show in Asia, she had a great conversation with Sophia Cohen in Cultured Magazine on What Makes a Good Artist-Dealer Relationship. Especially around her appreciation of transparency with her dealer, Sarah Hopkinson, as opposed to what is typically a very opaque industry. The business of art is something I’m very interested in right now as an artist trying to juggle the production of work and marketing it.
This conversation resonated with me as she has similar sentiments about her process to how I paint: the notion of the painting being slightly out of your control, how the pours and layers evolve the direction.
I am so obsessed with the materiality of painting, material experimentation, and the unexpected chance events that paint can reveal to me. Something new happens whenever I start a new work and pour color.
Emma’s show “Among My Swan” will be on view at David Zwirner Hong Kong through May 10.
THE FRICK REOPENS BEAUTIFULLY
After a four-year, $220m renovation, the Frick reopens to the public. The work itself, by architect Annabelle Selldorf, is extremely subtle,e which is appropriate. The Frick is one of the city’s architectural treasures, the actual home of steel magnate Henry Clay Frick and host to his personal collection. This is a place to view old masters in an environment that feels lived in and singularly curated; the renovation requires a deft hand.
Focused more on adding functional spaces like a basement auditorium, the renovation includes three new galleries, access to the Research Library, which now has a renovated reading room, and a new education room with facilities for school groups.
The Frick will fully re-open to the public in April. The New York Times has a full story here.
THE STATE OF AI
Its been another big week for AI, the pace seems to be continually developing exponentially.
A16z’s Consumer team released the fourth edition of the GenAI 100 — a data-driven ranking of the top 50 AI-first web products and mobile apps.
What I found interesting in A16’s podcast covering the list:
The differences in preconceived notions vs how things are actually playing out, for example:
AI as a communicator.
Previously, we thought AI would have a hard time replacing conversational ‘humans.’ In the past year, this has evolved, with AI proving to be a significantly better experience in regard to customer service and support. AI doesn’t have a bad day, get tired, or show up hungover.
AI as a delegator.
Reverse on the thinking that we’d be telling AI what work to do, its p’s proving to be potentially better the other way around. AI is a better project manager and air traffic controller of prioritization, where humans derive more fulfillment and enjoyment from doing productive work.
Advancements in video creation.
We're currently at the 5-10 seconds stage with Runway Gen-3, but this will rapidly advance to minutes and hours. MIT predicts we’ll be at 30 seconds by year-end. China has the most realistic video creation models, resulting from being trained with basically no copyright limitations (e.g., Kling AI’s hyper-realistic outputs).
Aggregators for image and video creation. These platforms streamline the creation process as style nuances are emerging where certain platforms are better for certain things.
Vibe Coding.
It is currently in the early adaptor stage, as the majority of users are still programmers and highly technical people. When it goes mainstream, it will flood the app store. Vibe coding is amazing for 0-1 product ideation, drastically lowering the cost of creation.
Deep research.
An AI agent integrated into ChatGPT autonomously browses the web to generate detailed reports on user-specified topics, often taking 5 to 30 minutes to complete the task. These are much more thorough and are being used to generate quality Market research reports or Trace the origin of a meme.
Companions
What Her predicted in 2013, is now real.
Digital companions have exploded this year as work sidekicks, digital friends, and lovers. 16% of top AI products (e.g., Character.AI) are companions.
The bulk of users are in the NSFW are driving 40% of traffic (2025 estimate), but porn tends to lead a lot of innovation. An interesting use case is people are ‘practicing’ dating and communicating with digital companions to prepare for real scenarios.
The emergence of legitimacy and longevity.
It's hard to believe, but we’re in the 4th year of AI development at this scale.
16 companies have made the list every year, meaning we have major legitimate players such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
MIT’s Technology Review is another great place to stay current in the rapidly developing space.
H&M’s Consent-driven digital twins.
They know this will be controversial. Advancement is unavoidable, so they are taking the stance that the best way to protect jobs and rights in the age of AI is to work directly with models and their agencies, starting with 30 this year. The models themselves will own the rights and be able to use the developed ‘twins’ with other brands (even competitors).
“People will be divided. You know, ‘Is this good? Is this bad?’” said Jörgen Andersson, chief creative officer of the Swedish fast-fashion retailer.
But in his view, AI is coming either way, and nobody is served by ignoring it.
“We saw that as a way, as a big player in the industry, to lead a conversation that takes the model, the agency, and the best interest of the fashion industry into consideration,” Andersson said.
(source: BOF)
What is less clear is what will happen to all the other talent involved in production. Photographers, stylists, and entire production crews will no longer be part of the equation.
The Ghiblification of everything
This week, OpenAI introduced its 4o image generation technology, allowing users to create precise, accurate, and photorealistic images. A Studio Ghibli trend took the internet by storm, with people turning everything from selfies to iconic meme culture images to the studio’s distinct aesthetic.
So many Ghibli-style images were being created that OpenAI rolled back its free access, with Sam Altman posting, “rollout to our free tier is, unfortunately, going to be delayed for a while,” going further to even block the generation of Ghibli-style images.
The Hypocrisy here is Hayao Miyazaki’s personal hatred of AI and his feelings that it is a detriment to art and society. When first shown examples of AI, Miyazaki's immediate reaction was that it was “an insult to life itself.”
BROOKLYN MIRAGE RENOVATION
WOW. It's hard to believe it's been a decade since Brooklyn Mirage opened its 80,000-square-foot raw space. MATTE’s thrown some of our most epic events here. To see this transformation marks the end of an era, but also hats off to an incredibly impressive buildout. This thing looks like a space station. See a preview and more specifics on Time Out. Mirage will be reopening on May 1.
Going forward, instead of regular LED lights, the venue will have a "fully kinetic shutter system," which can open and close to make the venue look like there is no screen at all, paying homage to the first iteration of the venue, which had no screen at all. The sound system will be upgraded as well, with 100 precision-calibrated speakers and subwoofers throughout the venue to ensure a perfectly balanced sound.
AD FEATURES THE CORPORATE OFFICE HELLSCAPE OF SEVERANCE
Its amazing what consideration can do to the average corporate setting. The set design of severance is arguably the most compelling and subliminal of its characters.
AD Digs into the thought, process, and effort that has gone into this masterpiece in production design.
Dieter Rams gets major moments with iconic pieces showing up, but it was interesting to see the process behind these sets, with a majority of the furniture being made in-house.
“We fabricate so much of our set dressing and put it in an environment that is somewhat familiar, but just everything’s a little bit off.”
Jeremy Hindle - Set Designer.
‘I want more halls, more halls, more halls.’
-Ben Stiller
Fun Fact: 46% of young people want to be severed, according to mental health platform Unmind.
Leave it to MISCHF to be ahead of a trend. I loved this video interview with some of the collective members about their Tokyo exhibition. They absolutely are agents of chaos, constantly provoking thought from what they put into the world.
91 SOURCES THE CULTURALLY FLUENT ALREADY KNOW
Closing out, I loved this source list by DotDotDot. A clear sign of a good source list to me is when I don’t know anyone on it; that gives it value. So, ultimately, I guess I’m no longer culturally fluent; I’m okay with that.
- That’s it for this week.
I thoroughly enjoy these weeklies. Also someone recommended the book "Abundance" by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson speaking about how tech will lead us to future abundance. I think you might enjoy. x