As we all know, Impromptu is a hard pasteurized cow's and/or goat's milk cheese made by Andante Dairy in California. Made using techniques from the Pyrenees, the firm cheese is smooth and nutty in taste with hints of butterscotch. It also pairs well with fruitier reds, just like this newsletter. We've interviewed a surprising crop of CEOs for today's newsletter, so imagine them all gathered around in your living room on short notice, now, why don't ya? Put your car keys in the bowl, fellas! —Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor |
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"Recovery and body maintenance is kind of a newer term, but we believe that people should be preparing their body every day and not only for athletics, but just to approach your day, enhance circulation, do all the things that are going to make you feel good." — Jim Huether |
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1. The Stock Market Has Never Been Higher |
Check your investments because the broadest index, the S&P 500, was up nearly a percentage point in afternoon trading yesterday, building on Friday's record. The stock market has never been higher! Hallelujah!
With few macro-economic reports out this week, the focus will be on major companies' earnings, with Bank of America, Johnson & Johnson and UnitedHealth Group all reporting their latest results today. Later in the week we'll see results from United Airlines, Netflix, American Express and Procter & Gamble.
Analysts are looking for S&P 500 companies to deliver overall growth of 4.1% in earnings per share for the latest quarter, compared to last year. If they're correct, it would be a fifth straight quarter of growth. With interest rates down thanks to the Fed, recent reports showing the U.S. economy remains strong have also raised optimism about a perfect landing where inflation falls to 2% and we don't have a recession.
I'm sure that's exactly what's going to happen. #NotFinancialAdvice Read More |
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2. Mechazilla Welcomes SpaceX Rocket Back to Earth with Open Arms |
SpaceX entered space exploration history this weekend by catching a descending rocket coming back to earth with a set of mechanical arms known as "Mechazilla."
Launched from SpaceX's facility in Boca Chica, Texas, the unpiloted test flight marks a milestone in SpaceX's quest for rapid and fully reusable rockets, surpassing the traditional use of expendable launch vehicles.
The Super Heavy rocket achieved a controlled splashdown of its upper stage in the Indian Ocean after enduring extreme reentry temperatures. Then the rest of the rocket went back to Mechazilla faster than your ex to that musician she was seeing before you guys got together.
SpaceX's goal is to make life multiplanetary, says Elon Musk. NASA plans to utilize a modified Super Heavy for lunar landings in its $100 billion Artemis program, which seeks to establish a permanent base on the moon, facilitating eventual Mars missions. It'll need a lot of reusable rockets to do so cost-effectively. Meantime there are no problems here on earth that need solving, because the stock market is up. Read More |
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| As Elon Musk said, "The future should look like the future." At the "We, Robot" event, Tesla's CEO unveiled a passenger van designed for autonomous transport using advanced camera systems and AI technology. Its sleek, train-engine-inspired design has no visible wheels, and Musk said it can carry up to 20 passengers or be used for transporting goods. |
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3. You Should Probably Book Travel for Thanksgiving Already, Says Priceline CEO |
Travel spending is up 118% from 2019, and Priceline CEO Brett Keller joined us to talk about the post-Covid travel boom.
"Last year was a revenge year," he said. "People were traveling more than they normally would. This year, we've seen things normalize. People are returning to normal travel patterns. We feel like we're returning to a normal, healthy travel cycle. Travel typically grows a couple of points faster than GDP worldwide, and that's what we would expect moving forward as we look at travel."
In 2023, people flew more internationally, and that's slowed down a bit in 2024. The hot destinations are now areas like Hawaii, Cancun, Mexico, and the Caribbean. And if you're planning on traveling for Thanksgiving, "you really should be booking now," he said, addressing the procrastinators in the Cheddar audience. "We're getting within that window where prices will likely start to rise the closer we get to Thanksgiving vacation period."
Priceline has also introduced a conversational chatbot called Penny, which may or may not save you a few.
"We launched Penny about a year ago and have found very quickly that consumers really love to engage with her because she's fast, she's responsive, she speaks in a friendly tone, and she has access to a lot of information," he said.
Penny, who is in my ears and in my eyes, can help Priceline customers rebook and cancel easily. She's also good at answering questions about your hotel. "Penny can quickly access that information and share to you the comfort of the bed, whether the pool is open, whether you can bring two dogs instead of one," he said. "This is a way for customers to get answers quickly that would have required additional searches or phone calls or things that would have taken a lot more of their time to execute."
I have always wanted to know whether I can bring two dogs on vacation, so my life is about to improve! Read More |
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4. Recovery: It's the New Holy Grail for Athletes |
I'm a squash fanatic, and some of the men and women I play squash with are recommending the ice-compression legs, by companies like Hyperice, for quicker recovery after training. Hyperice CEO Jim Huether has been leading the company for almost a decade now, and joined us to talk about how his recovery boots are being used by LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes, among others.
The firm was founded in 2012 by Kobe Bryant's friend Anthony Katz, was recently valued at $850 million, and has just partnered with Nike to make a new boot. The two companies have been working together for several years, with Hyperice building recovery rooms on Nike campuses. The new Nike Hyperice boot "combines heat and dynamic air compression," he said. "It's really designed to advance recovery, warm-up, and body maintenance to create a healthy body."
There's a dual air bladder system bonded to thermal electric elements that create heat, just like this reasonably high-quality newsletter. There are three levels of heat and three levels of compression. They're all ideal, we hear, before or after a game.
"Recovery and body maintenance is kind of a newer term, but we believe that people should be preparing their body every day and not only for athletics, but just to approach your day, enhance circulation, do all the things that are going to make you feel good," he said.
They're also good for people in middle age, apparently, although I'm yet to splash a grand on a pair of the boots. Till then, I'm down for a good yoga session and some frozen peas. Read More |
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5. Eat Y(our) Protein! So Says Plantible Foods CEO |
This summer I tried Ka'Chava protein shakes and gained a ton of muscle. It was frightening, honestly, to look in the mirror. #NotBodybuildingAdvice
Bottom line: Protein is big business. It's also a huge innovation space. We spoke with Toni Martens, co-founder of Plantible Foods, a food tech startup that uses aquafarming techniques to create plant-based protein ingredients. (Translation: He grows duckweed.) The company is valued at (checks notes) nearly $70 million. Its goal is to reshape the global food supply chain and produce more sustainable, functional, and nutritional ingredients. Its Rubi Protein is made from duckweed, an invasive plant that is frequently ridiculed as pond scum in hastily thrown-together memes.
"Agriculture and food is one of these rare industries that hasn't really gone through a fundamental disruption over the past hundreds of years," he said. "I think there's been a lot of optimization and mechanization, but no foundational change in what kind of crops would grow and what kind of ingredients or inputs we produce."
Because nobody wants to eat duckweed, Toni?
"We're trying to initiate that change at Plantible by tapping into novel plants that are more sustainable and fast growing, but that can also produce healthier and better tasting food ingredients for the broader food industry," he said.
"We've developed a vertically integrated agricultural supply chain that allows us to grow novel aquatic plants that require ten times less water than soybeans while yielding ten times more protein per acre per year," he said. "And alongside with that, we harvest these plants and then convert them into a highly nutritious and very functional food ingredient that can replace eggs and dairy proteins."
The product is "neutral in taste" and has a "neutral color" but still has all "of those desired functional characteristics that allow it to outcompete eggs and animal proteins from a health and functionality perspective."
I'm still never going to try it, based on that description, but I can see how a bunch of people might. You know what else is high in protein? Reasonably high quality cheddar, like, the cheese. And that tastes AMAZING. I'm out! Read More |
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