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Good morning. It was the mid-1970s, and 20th Century Fox was locked in negotiations with a young filmmaker who wanted to produce a “space western.”
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The offer on the table from Fox: $8.25 million for production (it later swelled to $11M) and $500,000 to direct.
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The filmmaker’s counter: $150,000 to direct, but with two conditions: 1) he retains all merchandising rights and 2) he retains the rights to any sequels.
“DEAL,” said 20th Century Fox (they had their reasons). The movie in question? Star Wars: A New Hope. We all know what happens next…
This is your sign to go get what’s yours. May the Fourth be with you.
⏰🚀 Ready, Set, Go: Today's newsletter takes 4.26 minutes to read.
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🍩 Daily Sprinkle
“Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.”
–Oprah Winfrey
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🗣👂 Dose of Discussion
🔦 A Spotlight on Retail Investing
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At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, CEO Warren Buffett took aim at free-to-trade platform Robinhood, saying it takes advantage of the “gambling instincts” of the general public.
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Buffett’s partner Charlie Munger was even more critical: "It's just god-awful that something like that would draw investment from civilized men and decent citizens. It's deeply wrong. We don't want to make our money selling things that are bad for people."
🤿 A deeper dive…
The Berkshire Hathaway executives take issue with Robinhood’s “gamification” of stock trading, likening the retail brokerage to a casino that encourages millions of inexperienced users to place short-term market bets (since a higher volume of trading is more profitable for Robinhood).
Relevant Quote:
"There's nothing illegal about it. There's nothing immoral, but I don't think you'd build a society around people doing it…
...The gambling impulse is very strong in people worldwide and occasionally it gets an enormous shove... It creates its own reality for a while, and nobody tells you when the clock is going to strike 12 and it all turns to pumpkins and mice...
...And if you cater to those gambling chips when people have money in their pocket for the first time and you tell them make 30 or 40 or 50 trades a day and you're not charging commission but you're selling their order flow or whatever — I hope we don't have more of it. And I will be interested in reading the prospectus." –Warren Buffett
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🗣️ In Response...
Jacqueline Ortiz Ramsay, head of public policy communications at Robinhood, wrote in an official blog post on Monday:
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"If the last year has taught us anything, it is that people are tired of the Warren Buffetts and Charlie Mungers of the world acting like they are the only oracles of investing. And at Robinhood, we’re not going to sit back while they disparage everyday people for taking control of their financial lives."
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“[Robinhood] open[ed] the doors of financial markets to everyday people, deeply unsettling the old guard who will fight to keep things the same.”
⏭️ What’s Next?
The recent surge of retail investors has prompted lawmakers to take a closer look at the practices of some free-to-trade brokers.
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Last month, Massachusetts regulators filed a lawsuit seeking to have Robinhood’s broker license in the state revoked, accusing the company of encouraging inexperienced investors to make risky bets that could result in heavy losses.
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📰 Quick Bits
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🇺🇸 COVID Restrictions Lifted
New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut: Officials announced most businesses will be allowed to operate at full capacity starting May 19 for the first time since last year.
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Businesses in the tri-state area will still have to abide by social distancing guidelines unless they require all individuals to show proof of vaccination or a negative test. (From the Left | From the Right)
Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order immediately suspending any local pandemic-related restrictions on Monday, saying the state is “no longer in a state of emergency” while citing the availability of vaccines.
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DeSantis said the executive order serves to “bridge the gap” between now and July 1, when an identical measure passed by the state legislature takes effect. (From the Left | From the Right)
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🍎⚖️🎮 Apple’s Epic Showdown
Epic Games’ antitrust suit against Apple began in a federal court in Oakland on Monday, kicking off a case that could reshape the multi-billion dollar mobile app market ($154.05 billion in 2019).
Epic Says:
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Apple's App Store is anticompetitive; it uses its iPhone market power to dominate a secondary market (app downloads). Apple, which has two-thirds of the U.S. smartphone market, requires all financial transactions made by user-downloaded apps to be processed through its app store – from which it takes up to a 30% cut.
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The company is looking to get Apple to open up iPhone software distribution, which (among other things) would mean Epic can use its own payment processor and bypass the 30% fee.
Apple Says:
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It created the App Store so it gets to set the rules, which are designed to ensure apps are both high-quality and secure.
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The tech giant also claims the relevant market in this case isn’t iOS, but rather the gaming market as a whole, where Apple competes with Google (Android), Microsoft (Xbox), and Sony (Playstation).
The trial concludes the week of May 24.
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🇨🇴 At Least 17 Dead, Hundreds Injured in Colombia
Colombian officials confirmed at least 16 civilians and one police officer were killed, and over 800 people injured, after five consecutive days of mass protests against a government-proposed tax reform, which was formally withdrawn on Sunday. The country’s finance minister also said he would resign yesterday.
📜 Background:
Colombia’s GDP fell by 6.8% last year - the deepest crash in 50 years - while the country’s unemployment rate spiked largely as a result of the pandemic.
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The Colombian government characterized the proposed tax reform as necessary to mitigate the country’s ongoing economic crisis.
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It would have lowered the threshold at which income is taxed, increased taxes on businesses, and eliminated many of the current tax exemptions enjoyed by individuals.
More: After the tax proposal was withdrawn, protests persisted in several major Colombian cities on Monday, with demonstrators now changing their focus to the way the government was run over the past two-and-a-half years.
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DONUT Holes...
💔 Bill and Melinda Gates are splitting up after 27 years.
👔 Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett named Vice Chairman Greg Abel as his likely successor (though the 90-year-old has no plans to retire).
💻 German police shut down one of the world’s largest child sexual abuse platforms; had over 400,000 international subscribers.
💰 Verizon agreed to sell AOL and Yahoo to private equity firm Apollo for $5B (Verizon previously purchased both for a combined $8.9B). Verizon retains a 10% stake in the new company, which will be known as ‘Yahoo.’
💨 The EPA announced a new regulation phasing out the production and use of hydrofluorocarbons - a greenhouse gas widely used in refrigerators - over the next 15 years.
📝 President Biden raised the refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for the rest of the fiscal year ending September 30 (previously 15,000; set by Trump administration). (From the Left | From the Right)
☝️ 1 Last Thing..
🦸 Marvel announced new titles and release dates for several upcoming films Monday.
+Worth a watch; ~3 mins: Marvel Studios Celebrates The Movies.
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🔢 By the Numbers
$837,330.25 - Amazon’s revenue per minute in the first quarter. See the other tech giants.
60% – The percentage of Hong Kong’s population aged 15-30 that would emigrate out of the city if they could.
$32.4 billion — The value of Tesla shares that Elon Musk can now claim after the electric-car maker hit roughly half of the targets laid out by the board in his 2018 compensation package, according to a securities disclosure.
90 - About the number of new airlines launching in 2021.
$1 - The price of ether in August 2015. The cryptocurrency hit a record high of $3,200 on Monday. |
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📣🗣💬 This Week’s Poll Question…
Do you think politics should be allowed in the workplace?*
Yes
No
Unsure
*Poll results and the best comments for each response will be featured in tomorrow’s newsletter.
+Extra: Last week’s poll covered event attendance, namely "would you attend one right now?" See the results.
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🤗 Daily Dose of Positive
🎸 The Strum of Love
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Image: Google Maps
In 1979, an Argentinian farmer named Ureta and his children began creating a piece of land art in memory of their late wife and mother Graciela, who passed away suddenly at 25 years old.
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The project transformed their farm into the shape of a guitar, and involved planting more than 7,000 trees across a plot of land roughly eleven football fields long (~⅔ of a mile).
Image via NASA
Decades later, the trees are all in full bloom, and Graciela’s guitar can be seen from planes flying above (and even one of NASA’s satellites) – a fitting monument to a beloved mother and wife.
Read more.
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🛸🌄📲 Calling from the Future…
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🚢 New Age Pilgrimage…
Image: AFP
The world’s first autonomous, unmanned ship will embark on its maiden voyage later this month.
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Named the “Mayflower 400,” the AI-captained watercraft will follow the same route across the Atlantic that was taken by the Pilgrims in 1620.
During its weeks-long journey, the 50-foot ship will employ a system of cameras, radar, and underwater microphones to study marine pollution and track aquatic animals.
Read more.
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💡 Dose of Knowledge
🐊 See You Later
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What is the only place in the world where you can find both wild alligators and crocodiles?
A) Louisiana
B) Florida
C) Australia
D) China
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(keep scrolling for the answer) |
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🤑🍩 Refer friends and family, earn rewards
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DONUT merch – and even a mini-vacation – is at your fingertips. Simply:
1. Copy your unique referral link below.
2. Post said link in the family group chat, "accidentally" hit reply-all on the next companywide email, etc.... you know the drill.
3. Watch the rewards roll in.
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Ambassador Rewards and Progress → |
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💡 Dose of Knowledge Answer
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B) Florida
South Florida is the only place you can find both alligators and crocodiles in the wild.
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