Weekly Intake - Week 07.2025
PEOPLE WITH PARENTS WITH MONEY. SPOTIFY’S FIRST PROFITABLE YEAR. CHRISTIE’S AI UPROAR. THE PACE OF NEW LINGO. LISA YUSKAVAGE / RAYMOND SAUNDERS AT DAVID ZWIRNER. LONG SHOTS.
PEOPLE WITH PARENTS WITH MONEY
New York Mag’s honest attempt to get people to talk about being parentally supported. An open secret that is interestingly hard for people to admit.
My experience when younger and tied to nightlife or generally social activity in the city was that no one seemed to care about flaunting their ability to buy tables, constantly vacation, or go to nice restaurants with their parent’s credit cards.
With age, larger items tied more to one’s ability to be ‘independent’ and a general perception of ‘success’ are less openly spoken about (See: The Fashion Designer Who Worries Taking Money Might Make Him Less of a Man). Rent, down payments for houses, or getting a monthly allowance in your 30s seems to be taboo. Not to ignore social shifts towards guilt around privilege, causing a much more guarded approach to transparency regarding the support people receive.
When we brought it up at drinks and holiday parties, conversations ended with a gauzy look of confusion or a sudden beeline to the bathroom. “I’ll ask around!” they would often say, followed by a prompt “Sounds fascinating, though!” Spending your parents’ money, we realized, may be the very last taboo in polite society.
- As told to Paula Aceves and Julia Edelstein
Let's be real: to sign a lease in NYC, one needs to be able to show 40x rent, an unfathomable sum. This is also connected to a controversial truth: The $400K conundrum: Why America’s urban rich don’t feel that way. The New York Mag article also touches on another interesting theme, which is the CONTROL that comes along with this type of support, giving your parents leverage and losing a degree of privacy in the exchange.
This is not the first exploration into the financial lives of others. What often happens is that someone provides an honest breakdown of how they live, and then the comments section becomes blown up with angry messages and disbelief.
Lindsey Stanberry has been running a series on The Purse: Home Economics, what’s refreshing here is the wide range of lifestyles explored.
MARKET TAKES
A good conversation on Netflix & Disney earnings. What I found interesting is Netflix’s shift to a global means of production, currently more than 50% of content being produced overseas. I’ve noticed a significant uptick in international content on my feed, big thrillers in Eastern Europe etc. This isn’t a play for more subtitles and a wider cultural aperture, it’s a lean into markers where content can be produced at a fraction of the cost.
Spotify’s first profitable year. As of 2025, Spotify has a total of 662 million monthly active users, which is 1/12 of all people on earth- a wild stat.
“It only took 18 years for us to get here, but we’re here,” Chief Executive Daniel Ek said in an interview.
Spotify is really winning in its ability to innovate in terms of consumption trends, especially podcasting. They added video, comments on shows, and generally continue to add new functionality to the platform.
Google saw a 7% drop after reporting earnings. One thing that stands out is that for the first time since 2015, Google's global search market share dipped below 90% during the last quarter of 2024. This is tied to younger users shifting search habits, with a large percentage using Tiktok & Chatgpt as the primary route for information gathering. “Google is for old people,” a recent article WSJ sums this up (10% of people now use ChatGPT to query for information).
What is bullish for Google:
Lowest PE multiple in all of tech, sitting at approximately 22.85
Youtube. The most utilized platform for podcast listening in the U.S., with 31% of weekly podcast listeners aged 13 and up preferring it over Spotify. This is driven by video integration, with many consumers favoring the visual format of podcasts.
YouTube has maintained its position as the most-watched streaming service in the U.S. for the past two years, surpassing competitors like Netflix. Lastly, there is an increase in desire for long form content which youtube has a large bank of.
CAPEX - Alphabet intends to invest approximately $75 billion in Capex for 2025, marking a substantial increase from the $52.5 billion spent in 2024. Google has cash flow, and if they are increasing spending this much, it means they have confidence in how to spend it. A significant amount of this is going into building servers and data centers. Deepseek’s lower cost lead to criticism here, but as that shakes out, I’m thinking Google continues to expand its moat here.
I found the conversation deviation to Steven Bartlet’s Diary of a CEO interesting as well. Number one in Europe, Apple has confirmed Diary Of A CEO as the UK’s most-downloaded podcast for a third year (with over 1b streams). What's separating this podcast is the production value, multi-camera setups, and attention to detail on editing and post.
KERINGS ‘ANNUS HORRIBILIS’
Kering’s quarterly report is in contrast to my hopes of a larger luxury rebound from a few weeks back. Feeling the weight of over-reliance on Gucci, which saw sales fall 24% YoY. Gucci accounts for nearly half of group sales and two-thirds of profits historically.
Last week, Kering parted ways with Gucci’s creative director, Sabato De Sarno, after less than two years, along with a plan to close 50 stores. A departure from boldness into a more “safe” Gucci was probably chasing a quiet luxury trend that deviated from what the brand is known for and didn’t pay off.
This space is very much a zero sum game, with a select few luxury houses competing for the same audiences' attention. Gucci’s stumble will mean money flows to rivals Luis Vuitton & Dior.
The results highlight Gucci’s dramatic fall from grace after years as luxury’s fastest-growing major brand under former creative chief Alessandro Michele. De Sarno’s more minimalist approach failed to resonate with consumers, especially in China, a crucial market for Gucci's growth.
- Jing Daily
Kering does have some positive aspects of its portfolio, though, such as Bottega Veneta, which posted 12% growth in the fourth quarter.
CHRISTIE’S AI-DEDICATED SALE UPROAR
Christie's upcoming "Augmented Intelligence" auction has ignited significant controversy within the art community. Over 3,000 artists have signed an open letter expressing concern and a desire to cancel the show, saying:
The auction “incentivizes AI companies’ mass theft of human artists’ work”.
The auction, dedicated exclusively to AI-generated artworks, features pieces valued between $10,000 and $250,000.
This is a hard subject, as there are still ‘actual’ artists behind the work, so this becomes a debate more akin to ‘acceptable tools’, reminiscent of what Adobe meant to design or what acrylic paint meant to the fine art world. It’s very much being positioned as a collaborative tool that artists are using to push their work.
Simultaneously, it gives me a gut reaction of sadness as it relates to craft.
PARENTS ARE DROWNING IN NEW LINGO
Beyond parenting, marketing and advertising work puts us Olds in a similar position. Slang moves at dizzying speed, think it always has, but with social thrown into the mix, the shortness of the lifespans can leave you picking up words when they are way past trend. WSJ’s article on adults constantly unsure if they’re being insulted (you don’t want to be ‘omega)
Every generation has its own slang.
But powered by social media, the youngest generations have taken things to a dizzying new level, adding and dropping phrases so quickly the adults in their lives can’t keep up. A trickle-down effect among siblings has children as young as 4 declaring something “sus,” as in suspect or suspicious.
Currently trending on Tiktok: getting your parents to use ‘brainrot’
LISA YUSKAVAGE / RAYMOND SAUNDERS AT DAVID ZWIRNER
I saw some of her smaller works last week in CDMX at the Women in a Rowboat show at Olivia Foundation.
Later this month, Lisa will have her ninth solo exhibition (with Zwirner) and her first in Los Angeles in thirty years. The pieces are playful, dreamy and in this case will be large scale.
Opening Reception: Tuesday February 18, 6–8 PM
Los Angeles. 606 N Western Avenue
In Paris, Raymond Saunders: Déménagement
I love Raymond’s work, compositionally the balance of negative space, black and then strong color, with really tight details. See a much larger body on Zwirner’s page.
More ways to see Saunders work:
This show anticipates the group exhibition Paris noir: Circulations artistiques, luttes anticoloniales 1950–2000, which includes work by Saunders and opens at Centre Pompidou, Paris, on March 19, 2025, as well as the artist’s forthcoming major solo exhibition Raymond Saunders: Flowers from a Black Garden, which opens March 22, 2025, at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, before traveling to the Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California.
CHINESE LIVESTREAMER MAKES OVER $18 MILLION IN A WEEK
Zheng Xiang Xiang, is ICE COLD - Making over 18mm in a week by speed running through products with blank expressions (less than 3 seconds per product). This is as dystopian as it gets.
THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME
To be released on May 30th, 2025, Wes Anderson's new film The Phoenician Scheme has recently revealed its much anticipated plot and cast.
Ensamble will include:
Riz Ahmed, Scarlett Johansson, and Benedict Cumberbatch, talks of Willem Dafoe making an appearance, Benicio del Toro takes a central role as Zsa-zsa Korda, one of the richest men in Europe, accompanied by his daughter Mia Threapleton and her tutor Michael Cera.
The story centers around themes of wealth and espionage, “with a rather dark tone.” Anderson’s described it as a “globe-trotting” three-hander adventure.
SLOW TRAVEL
I love the slow content movement, my youtube algo has been invaded with long shots of Paris penthouses, 4k hikes, rainy rivers all set to LoFi beats. This probably started with the holidays and a fun search for different fireplace themes but its become a easy piece of background noise.
Belmond is up on the trend, LONG SHOTS is a channel of 90 minute and longer simple beautiful footage. Its so simple and a perfect depiction of the experience one can expect, well played Belmond.
BELMOND LAUNCHES ‘LONG SHOTS’, THE FIRST SLOW TV SERIES FROM A MAJOR HOSPITALITY BRAND
Thats it for this week.