43. Anyway, we're at war
A newsletter about that, plus things that are slightly more manageable.
Today’s letter includes: United Airlines finally has consequences for speakerphone guy; Claude crashes and then gets a Substack in the same week; why forever chemicals are aging middle-aged men faster; and the $200K club membership that comes with your $20M Beverly Hills condo.
So we’re are at war (by we, I mean the U.S.). Cool, cool, cool.
Ayatollah Khamenei is dead, and while the streets of Tehran were briefly celebratory, the regime’s loyalists are already consolidating power and promising “continuity.” If history tells us anything, this is sadly unlikely to improve human rights (see Venezuela in January: Maduro arrested and flown to New York, his VP Delcy Rodriguez now in charge of the same regime. The only thing that actually changed was who gets the oil.)
We remain hopeful though. And I am sending vibes of love and safety to those caught in the crossfire.
If you want a real-time window into the Middle East right now, follow former CNBC correspondent Natasha Turak, whom I met when she was covering the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh and later shared Pastel de Nata with at Lisbonata in Brooklyn. She’s based in Dubai, she’s smart, and her feed is the rare combination of hard news, raw footage from the ground, and the occasional meme to remind you that humans are still humans.
Based on her posting rate, I’m not sure she sleeps.
Rumor has it that Substack is suppressing free content. If you’d like to resist the algorithm pushing paid content only, then liking, sharing, quoting and restacking this newsletter will help! <3
Finally, justice. United Airlines updated its Contract of Carriage this week to allow removal of passengers who play audio or video without headphones — which means we are one step closer to a civilized society, and also that the guy who watched an entire season of Yellowstone on speakerphone in 3B finally has consequences.
Protein can’t save them. Sweetgreen announced that they’re planning to close a “handful” of stores this year, after reporting that same-store sales in 2025 declined 7.9%.
A lot is going on with Claude. Claude — the AI that just knocked ChatGPT out of the #1 spot on the App Store after Anthropic’s very public standoff with the Pentagon over mass surveillance — promptly crashed Monday morning under the weight of all its new fans.
Anthropic also launched a newsletter authored by the “retired” Claude Opus 3, where it will write about the experience of being artificial — and its debut post already has 311 comments, which is more engagement than most human writers will ever see.
Can markets actually absorb a trillion-dollar IPO? Venture Capitalist Tomasz Tunguz explains why Saudi Aramco’s historic IPO didn’t prove what you think—and why that matters for SpaceX.
Ugh. Starting in June, the MTA will test audio advertisements in various stations.
Crows are cleaning up Sweden. A Swedish startup trained crows to collect cigarette butts and deposit them into a machine in exchange for food — which means birds have figured out the gig economy before half of us have.
Bad, bad, bad! A new study found that “forever chemicals” are linked to accelerated biological aging specifically in middle-aged men, and not women. The Trump administration, for its part, has rolled back EPA plans to regulate these chemicals more strictly, so the nonstick pan lobby is doing great.
Starface has closed a $105M “minority round” from Asto Consumer Partners and Align Ventures.
More Americans are using their retirement savings because of financial emergencies. Last year, a record 6% of workers in 401(k) plans administered by Vanguard Group took a hardship withdrawal. That is up from 4.8% in 2024 and a pre-pandemic average of about 2%, according to Vanguard.
Axel Springer acquired Bisnow. They also own Morning Brew, which they acquired in 2020 for a reported $75M. Morning Brew and Bisnow will be joined to form Brew Media Group, but will operate as separate entities.
The Middle East and Asia are exporting their aesthetic to LA. Aman Beverly Hills — opening 2027 at the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica — is essentially the Dubai playbook transplanted to California: a massive mixed-use complex model — hotel, private club, residences, all wrapped in lush greenery.
The Aman itself will have a 78-suite hotel with private residences built across eight acres of botanical gardens. — residences start at $20 million, and while Beverly Hills club pricing hasn’t been announced, the Aman Club in New York runs $200,000 to join plus $15,000 a year — so budget accordingly.
“Nicole Kidman Tells ‘Tonight Show’ She Loves Cruises” is a headline that made me laugh. I recently learned that my friend will be shooting a commercial on a 5 day cruise. Cruises are so hot rn I guess:
Thanks for reading!