Sweet side gig

February 5, 2020

Listen: Lots of things

There’s lots of good music out this week and I couldn’t decide which song to feature today, so here’s three:

 

Play Play by J Hus ft. Burna Boy – sweet, flirty Afrobeats

Enjoy the Show by Kid Glock ft. DaBaby – sharp rapping over a lethargic beat (BUT IS IT 100% TRUE. Billie, please.)

Another Life by Jadu Heart – sparkly, ruminative indie rock

 

Choose your own adventure!

A nice little side gig

Ever wonder what pro athletes do with themselves after they retire at like age 34? The answer is, increasingly, venture capital. A propos of the Super Bowl, the 49ers’ former quarterback Joe Montana is a full-time investor now, and others are getting in before they retire: Kevin Durant is investing quite a bit, and the NBA shooting guard Andre Iguodala has invested in a bunch of companies including Allbirds, Zoom, and Cloudflare. And if you take two seconds to think about it, investing actually makes a ton of sense for star athletes. It gives them something to do with a fat wad of cash, of course, but big-time players are useful even beyond their money, since they can endorse products to their fans (free marketing!). Social capital for the win.

Social capital, you say?

Athletes aren’t the only ones finding second homes in new industries. Please welcome Quibi, Jeffrey Katzenberg‘s new app. Having raised enough money to both operate and air a Super Bowl ad, the “upcoming American short-form mobile video platform” will air ten-minute videos optimized for your phone. While we do have an app that performs this function (“YouTube,” heard of it?), this one promises movie-quality content, with shows like “Chrissy’s Court” (that’s Chrissy Teigen, of course); something called “Survive” with Sophie Turner; and an action-looking program called “Elba vs Block” (yes, that Elba). Cause who loves consuming quality content on tiny, tiny screens? You do.

 

Vending capital.

Now, please enjoy this story about a kid who’s making six figures off of his YouTube channel about owning and operating vending machines. This guy over Teigen any day.

It’s never too late to exercise your pent-up funds!

Margot