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It’s Friday, FutureParty people, which means it’s time to celebrate… well, time for everybody, except computer scientist and businessman Craig Wright. After he was forced to prove in court his claim that he’s secretly Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, a UK judge said there’s “overwhelming evidence” that this isn’t the case. The mystery lives on.

In other news… VR goes on tour, young people flock to Facebook Marketplace, and SpaceX successfully launches Starship.

We hope you enjoy this and all upcoming issues, but we have one request: please share your feedback. If you have any thoughts at all about our new look, format, and direction, please reply to this email. It’ll go straight to us. Do not hold back.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

YT: The Crow, X: Alex Garland, G: Apples Never Fall, R: Jackson, TT: “Night Shift”, S: “Call”

💰 Steve Mnuchin, the former US Treasury Secretary and entertainment financier, announced that he’s talking with investors about a potential TikTok acquisition… right on the heels of former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick putting his hat in the ring. Read More → bloomberg

🚀 SpaceX’s Starship — which was built for a future mission to Mars — finally didn’t blow up during launch and flew into orbit (the third time’s a charm). Read More → theverge

🥩 Impossible Foods is undergoing a meaty rebrand — making its products and packaging look and feel a lot more like actual meat. Read More → fastcompany

👖 Walmart announced that it’s collabing with textile startup Unspun on 3D-woven pants. Read More → wired

🌅 Yahoo News is moving into the creator economy with a new program for influencers to get paid for publishing lifestyle content on its platform. Read More → fastcompany

51% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Did you get a job using your major after college graduation?

“I majored in Public Relations, and I work in insurance! My parents made me go to college. I should have gone to Europe! I would have learned more about life.”

“I worked all throughout college, and that helped me shift into the job I wanted at the same company after I graduated. The skills you learn in school are valuable and give employers confidence to give you a chance, but your network is more valuable in finding job opportunities.”

“My degree is literally just a resume staple at this point.”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT ROOTS.

How land-lordy is your landlord?

As it turns out, you can be a landlord and you don’t have to be land-lordy at all.

Meet Roots — the real estate fund that’ll make you a landlord who actually helps their residents.

Here’s how it works:

• You invest in the Roots fund (get started with as little as $100). 

• Roots buys properties, fixes them up, and rents them out.

• Renters get invested in the fund for paying on time, taking care of the property, and being good neighbors.

Pretty cool, huh?

We think so, especially since the fund is up 43.5% since July 2021. You can also ask the 4,000 investors who’ve trusted them with over $25 million.

.AR/VR.

VR concerts prepare for an extended reality update

The Future. Led by Meta Quest, Wave, AmazeVR, and Fortnite, the VR concert industry already has roped in top artists like John Legend, The Weeknd, and Blackpink and doesn’t show any signs of slowing. Expect Apple to try to boost Vision Pro sales by announcing exclusive performances on Apple TV that can only be fully experienced in extended reality.

Digital box seats
Even as COVID fades into the rearview, VR concerts are here to stay, innovating…

• Festivals. Meta Quest put on the Music Valley concert series in Horizon World, featuring artists like Jack Harlow and Doja Cat.

• Tours. AmazeVR launched the first VR tour in support of Megan Thee Stallion — playing in select theaters in cities across the US, with shows selling out at fifteen stops.

• Merch sales. Travis Scott’s “Astronomical” performance in Fortnite raked in about $20 million, with a significant portion coming from the sale of branded in-game items.

• Virtual artists. Wave put on a concert by Teflon Sega — a mysterious artist who’s gone viral despite only appearing as an avatar.

VR shows have mostly been used as a novel marketing tool to support a tour or album drop. But as the tech improves and becomes more interactive, it may prove to be its own thing entirely — a new gamified, entertainment platform that unlocks the creativity of artists.

That may boost the number of households that actually own a headset, which currently sits at only 13%.

• Read: Dwayne Wade details his post-NBA ambitions, with fashion playing a large part.

• Listen: Wasserman Media Group head Casey Wasserman goes deep on how TV money is making college sports very complicated.

• Watch: Investor Gary Vaynerchuk has some advice for people who have several disparate business dreams.

.ECOMMERCE.

Facebook is Gen Z’s favorite thrift store

The Future. Even though Gen Z has mostly stopped using Facebook to connect with friends, they do use its buy-and-sell platform Marketplace a lot to save money and be more sustainable. While Meta has been searching for a way to normalize social shopping across its ecosystem of apps, don’t be surprised if it starts to put an emphasis on Marketplace as a growth engine during its next earnings call.

Commerce request
For young people, TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat are for play, while Facebook is for business.

• Marketplace, which has over a billion monthly users, is the most popular secondhand goods platform behind eBay.

• Although Meta doesn’t ever break down the user demos behind Marketplace, the platform has become immensely popular among cash-strapped Gen Zers and millennials.

• That’s because items are cheap, it’s easy to barter thanks to the integration with Messenger, and there’s a level of trust that comes with profiles being connected to FB (with buyers and sellers also having ratings).

Yoo-Kyoung Seock, professor of textiles, merchandising, and interiors at the University of Georgia, says that Marketplace is dubbed “the internet’s garage sale” among Gen Zers.

Maybe a little buying and selling is what gets them using Facebook as a social network again.

When Apple’s video features mess up your very serious work meeting.