Juliet Bennett Rylah

Adobe makes its AI splash

Adobe, much like every tech company, is getting into AI — and it actually looks pretty cool. Adobe Firefly is a forthcoming suite of generative AI models with an array of potential uses. For now, users can sign up for stand-alone beta versions of its…

Netflix pushes deeper into the $170B gaming industry

Hey, should I chat up Theo, a tattooed musician, or confident web designer Dakota? That’s a dilemma in “Too Hot to Handle: Love Is a Game,” one of Netflix’s most-played games, downloaded 1m+ times since its December release. Over the last two years,…

Ryan Reynolds, marketing genius?

Ryan Reynolds: movie star, philanthropist, former People’s Sexiest Man Alive, and… exceptional at business? In 2019, Reynolds acquired a 25%+ stake in Mint Mobile, a prepaid phone plan company that uses T-Mobile’s wireless network. Earlier this week,…

7-Eleven in Japan dials convenience up to… well, eleven.

Japanese entrepreneur Masatoshi Ito died last week at 98. If you’ve ever been to Japan and marveled at its awe-inspiring 7-Elevens, you owe thanks, in part, to Ito. In the US, 7-Eleven had sprung from the 1927 merger of several Texas icehouses, known…

Sephora and TikTok team up

Sephora, TikTok, and ad agency Digitas announced a new partnership: The Sephora x TikTok Incubator Program. It will connect TikTok creators with 12 brands from Sephora’s Accelerate program, a six-month incubator for beauty founders of color that…

What is supercore inflation?

You know, that’s a great question and it’d be great if there were one concrete definition, but… there isn’t. So, we’ll just talk about how the Federal Reserve uses it. The consumer price index (CPI) measures the monthly change in US consumer goods…

Where are the Girl Scout cookies?

Since 2020, shortages have spread across industries, but this one hits right in the sweet tooth. The Girl Scouts of the USA are in a cookie shortage. Girl Scout troops sell ~200m cookies per year, bringing in ~$800m to fund activities. They’re so…

Body doubles are getting stuff done

If you feel like you get more work done in an office, parallel working or body doubling — working with another person in the room — might be for you. For many, another person’s presence can hold them accountable and improve focus. Experts say it’s…

Amazon’s Virginia bummer

The ecommerce giant was flying high amid the pandemic as consumers flocked to online shopping. Now, CEO Andy Jassy is cutting costs, most notably by laying off 18k+ employees. It’s also paused construction on HQ2, its second headquarters in…

A woman is suing Jack Daniel’s over whiskey fungus

A black fungus coats everything near distilleries. A woman who runs a wedding venue near a Jack Daniel’s operation has had enough. If you’re watching “The Last of Us,” whisky fungus sounds like something Joel and Ellie should avoid, but it’s a…

Eli Lilly cuts insulin costs — for real, this time

In November, a verified — but fake — Eli Lilly and Co. account announced that the drugmaker’s insulin was free. The real Eli Lilly quickly denied the phony tweet. In the aftermath, its stock dipped and Twitter paused its check mark program. But now,…

The student loan forgiveness hearing, explained

Remember when the Biden admin tackled the $1.6T student debt problem by canceling $400B of it? That plan hinged on the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act. It allows the secretary of education to change federal student…

Kids can’t get enough of this influencer sports drink

One sports drink is so in demand that teens are charging each other to pose with empty bottles. Why? The power of influencers. In this case, former boxing rivals Logan Paul and KSI who, combined, have 40m+ YouTube subscribers. It’s called Prime It…

Fewer movie screens, more fun stuff

Movie theater screens are disappearing — but it’s not a bad thing. Rolando Rodriguez, chairman of the National Association of Theatre Owners, told CNBC that the 30-screen megaplex is out. Instead, new theaters have 12-16 screens, while old ones are…

Why everyone’s talking about Section 230

For 27 years, Section 230 — part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act — has shaped the internet. It states that website operators (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, media outlets) can’t be sued over what users post or comment, and may also set policies for…

A study found the four-day workweek works

Duh: Workers love a four-day workweek. And apparently, so do companies, per the results of the world’s largest pilot to date. The study included ~2.9k employees across 61 UK organizations of various sizes and industries from June to December 2022. Of…

What’s Temu and why is it everywhere?

A Super Bowl commercial for ecommerce platform Temu depicts a woman scoring outrageously cheap deals, including a $9.99 red evening gown. “Shop like a billionaire,” the ad says. It turns out American consumers worried about inflation enjoy Temu…

These influencers are so fake… no, really

By this point, you may already be familiar with Lil Miquela — the virtual influencer with 2.8m Instagram followers and major brand deals. The company behind the creation, Brud, raised $25m+ at a valuation of $144m+ before being acquired by the NFT…

John Deere vs. farmers, explained

Right to Repair advocates believe consumers should be able to repair things they purchased, either themselves or at the repair shop they choose. It’s infamously been an issue with Apple, but a yearslong battle with agricultural equipment manufacturer…

Gross pranksters hit sushi sales

Is nothing sacred? Apparently not, because Japan is dealing with #sushiterrorism. Some grade-A dinguses have been tampering with plates at conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, causing a stir and a potential dip in sales. Yoshiaki Shiraishi… … opened the…