Today’s unsung hero is your lunch, which is no doubt better than the one Sam Bankman-Fried is having in prison. As the convicted crypto fraudster awaits sentencing next month (he faces 100+ years), a fellow prisoner submitted a leniency letter for SBF, hailing him as a noble person for staying true to veganism despite the lone vegan meal on offer: “undercooked rice, a scoop of disgusting-looking beans, and week-old brown lettuce.” Appetizing.
In today’s email:
Forever roommates: More people are buying houses with friends.
Twisted: How retailers manipulate you into craving those $6+ pretzels.
Want the perfect dog?: Better start saving up.
Around the web: Weirdly repetitive names, a tiny desk phenomenon, a snacky moose, and more.
👇 Listen: Diving into the Kellogg’s cereal-for-dinner controversy.
The Big Idea
BFFs are becoming homeowners together
Housing is expensive. More friends are taking the plunge into homeownership together.
2024-02-29T00:00:00Z
Juliet Bennett Rylah
The dream used to be that you’d grow up, build a career, buy your own house, and ditch your roommates — especially the one that always eats your leftover Thai food.
But given the current housing market, many roommates are making their arrangements more permanent.
There are a lot of benefits…
… to buying with friends, from increased borrowing power to not having to shoulder a down payment alone — especially as millennials and Gen Zers put off getting married and having children.
A recent survey found that ~15% of Americans had bought a home with someone other than a romantic partner.
Of those, nearly 25% said they couldn’t have afforded it otherwise.
Of Gen Z respondents, 70% said they’d consider it.
Many of these partnerships have been fruitful.
Vicerecently spoke with several co-homeowners, including one pair that ultimately sold their home for more than they paid for it, then used the profits to buy their own houses.
The Atlantictalked to two couples — each married with children — about splitting a home and all its duties among four adults. The decision allowed them to buy a larger house in a better neighborhood.
But…
… such a huge purchase — and close quarters — can also ruin friendships without a clear plan about the process, how the house will be run, and what will happen if someone wants out, gets married, or decides to have children.
And the trend does not seem to reflect a true desire for communal living, but — much like the tiny home trend — a necessity amid soaring housing costs.
In the aforementioned survey, the top advantages respondents listed were all financial:
Sharing costs (67%)
Affording a nicer home (56%)
Investment opportunities (54%)
If housing costs never come down, we may see a shift in how people live… or a lot of broken friendships. And perhaps an uptick in labelmaker sales because dammit, those are my eggs, Janet!
Free Resource
Two polished business plan templates
Before that big idea sits and dies on some notepad, let’s see if it flies.
Every dream company needs a showstopping one-pager that sums up the story, and a deep-dive counterpart to match. Here are two business plan templates to help you outline every key aspect of your venture.
Clean-cut worksheets for:
Selling your company story
Laying out grand scheme goals
Detailing your product and competitors
Determining legal and financial blockers
Analyzing for product-market fit
If you want to make some scratch on the side, this is where it starts.
Tesla will unveil its updated Roadster later this year with plans to ship the high-performance electric sports car next year, according to CEO Elon Musk, who, it must be noted, also promised a new Roadster back in 2017. So maybe don’t hold your breath?
SNIPPETS
Kellogg’s CEO Gary Pilnick is under fire for a recent CNBC interview in which he suggested cereal for dinner as a viable money-saving solution for families experiencing economic hardship.
Bitcoin hit $60k for the first time since November 2021, marking a 40% jump in value in 2024 and a 20% increase in just this week.
Coinbase’s popular crypto-trading app glitched Wednesday, displaying a balance of zero when many users opened their accounts. Coinbase assured its panicked customers: “Your assets are safe.”
The FAA gave Boeing 90 days to craft a quality control improvement plan amid an investigation into the door plug that blew off during a Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines flight.
Another day, another flip phone: Chinese tech company Honor is joining the flip phone party this year with a vertically folding smartphone — foldable phone sales are projected to rise 40% to 22m units in 2024.
Did you notice? Microsoft Word changed its default font from Calibri to Aptos after 17 years. The new typeface rolled out across Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel.
Messaging app Telegram will launch an ad platform in March, allowing channel owners to receive 50% of revenue made from ads displayed in channels, paid via toncoin tokens.
Bumble is cutting one-third of its staff and refocusing on growing its friend-finding Bumble BFF product, transitioning it from a dating app-like profile-swiping system to something more closely resembling a social networking app.
Update: Wendy’s clarified that when it said its new digital menu boards would enable “dynamic pricing,” a term Uber popularized for surging prices when demand is highest, it didn’t mean it’d actually adopt that same pricing practice. To them, “dynamic pricing” means… something else entirely? It’s unclear what.
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Dearth mall
If a shopping mall keeps you inside for 23 minutes, you're a goner
Ever head into a mall for one very specific thing only to walk out with your arms full of shopping bags and a stomach full of overpriced sweets? (We see you nodding to yourself.)
Mrs. Fields and Auntie Anne may have been laughing behind your back, but we’re not about that — your experience was one of millions just like it because, well, that’s exactly how retailers drew it up.
Malls, department stores, grocery stores, and even casinos enlist tactics that cause “temporal distortion,” making us lose track of time and spend more money. Those time-dizzying tactics include a lack of clocks and windows, building maze-like layouts, and piping in slow-tempo music.
Before you get suckered yet again, do yourself a favor and brush up on all the tricks hiding up stores’ sleeves.
There are thousands of companies valued at $1B+. How many clues do you need to identify today’s billion-dollar brand?
Clue 1: This company has had a lot of ups and downs since its 1874 founding in Switzerland — it made ammunition during WWI and railroad cars during WWII before focusing back in on its core business vertical.
Clue 2: When you think of a “cartel,” you probably don’t think of this company’s industry. Still, in 2007, it was one of five companies called just that by the EU, which fined it €144m for fixing prices, the third-highest fine behind competitors ThyssenKrupp and Otis.
Clue 3: When you’re standing still but still moving — particularly in a shopping mall, skyscraper, airport, transit station, or stadium — this company’s products may very well be responsible.
👇 Scroll to the bottom for the answer 👇
Data point
The US dog breeding industry is valued at ~$3.1B, and doodles alone might be carrying that stat on their curly, designer backs. As hypoallergenic poodle mixes take over, asthmatic, deep-pocketed customers are shelling out wild sums for perfect pups. At Alpine Bernedoodles, a dog breeder in Colorado, doodles range from $3.7k to $4.5k. But that’s just for the dog. If you want a well-behaved, fully trained pet delivered to your door, you can pay an additional $12k. Looking for a dog so polite it can attend meetings with you and drink from a silver bowl on your private jet? Cough up $24k for an “Epic Dog.”
AROUND THE WEB
🐇 On this day: In 1960, the first Playboy club opened in Chicago. It’s unknown if the decision to open up on a Leap Day was meant to be a cutesy play on Playboy “bunnies.”
📜 That’s interesting: A list of tautological place names, or, names that are repetitive. For example, The La Brea Tar Pits translates to The The Tar Tar Pits.
🧅 Read: Prove that mankind possesses free will by signing up for The Onion newsletter, brought to you by America’s Finest News Source.
Today’s Fit the Bill answer is Schindler (market cap: $28.21B)
Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman. Editing by: Ben “You can scroll back up to the puppy pictures now” Berkley.
