It’s almost the weekend, which means we’re one day closer to Monday’s rare total solar eclipse. What’s wild is that food brands are going all-in on specialty food items in commemoration. Krispy Kreme eclipse donut? Yep. Blue Moon Eclipse Sips Kit? You bet. SunChips takes the gold, though, with a Pineapple Habanero and Black Bean Spicy Gouda chip that’ll only be available for the 4 minutes and 27 seconds of the eclipse. Genius.

In other news… Disney beats a board proxy battle, Flip flips the social shopping script, and Paramount and Skydance go exclusive.

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• YouTube – Turtles All The Way Down

• X (Twitter) – Peter Jackson

• Google – Broadway

• Reddit – Dwayne Johnson

• TikTok – “Blessed”

• Spotify – “It Was Always You”

.ENTERTAINMENT.

Disney triumphs over the board invaders

The Future. The Walt Disney Company is keeping the status quo in the boardroom after defending a very public proxy battle with activist investor Nelson Peltz and his Trian Partners firm. While the shareholders clearly stayed in Bob Iger’s corner, the Disney CEO sees the skirmish as a warning, which could lead him to name a number of potential successors over the next quarter.

Mouse hunt
Iger can rest easy tonight knowing that the expensive fight with Peltz (Disney spent $40 million) has come to an end.

• All of Disney’s 12 existing board members (Iger included) soundly defeated Trian’s board nominees: Trian principal Nelson Peltz and former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo (and the nominees from activist investor Blackwells, but that matters less).

• Trian’s nominees did receive the backing of about 25% of shareholders, though, including advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services and California’s pension administrator, CalPERS.

• That does mean there’s some agitation around the issues that Peltz brought up, including creative direction, streaming strategy, and succession plans (plus the many grievances brought up in Trian’s 130-page white paper).

The board vote was so unusually public because Disney has a larger number of retail shareholders than most public companies, according to THR, which turned a niche dispute into an open drama that brought out influential figures like George Lucas, Michael Eisner, and even the families of Walt and Roy Disney.

When the dust finally settled, Disney’s stock was down by 2%. What a rollercoaster.

65.9% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Are you a gig worker?

“I left a terrible work situation and am now exploring the gig economy. I love not being on call for a completely disorganized and shortsighted boss but I do miss the regular money coming in. There are pros and cons to both.”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT RYSE.

Have you invested in RYSE yet?

Well, it’s not too late. RYSE is on the cusp of making automated “smart shades” a home staple. In other words, you’re gonna want in.

Here’s the background: RYSE recently launched in over 120 Best Buy retail stores, which is awesome. Plus, the smart home industry is on fire, and billion-dollar acquisitions for companies like RYSE are on the horizon.

Here’s the latest: They recently opened a new public offering. And get this — you can invest in their company at just $1.50/share.

Media, Music, & Entertainment

• Paramount Global and Skydance are inching closer to a merger, with the two companies setting an exclusive 30-day window to hash out a deal… which has already boosted Paramount’s stock. Read More → nyt

• Patrick Whitesell, the executive chairman of Endeavor, is getting $250 million in seed money to launch his own media company as part of Silver Lake’s buyout of Endeavor. Read More → thr

• A Harris Poll found that more than half of millennials and Gen Zers believe they’re paying too much for streaming services, spending an average of $56 per month. Read More → axios

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Amazon announced that it’s getting rid of its “Just Walk Out” grocery checkout system in favor of self-scanning carts at its Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh stores. Read More → theverge

• Uber Eats and Waymo are rolling out a driverless food-delivery service in Phoenix, AZ. Read More → fastcompany

• Louis Vuitton’s new book on its fragrance business, A Perfume Atlas, comes with $5,000 worth of perfume as part of the packaging. Read More → highsnobiety

Tech, Web3, & AI

• Alex Mashrabov, the former head of generative AI at Snap, is launching the Sora competitor, Higgsfield AI, which can generate video from a selfie. Read More → techcrunch

• Biotech company LyGenesis has started human trials for a procedure that would grow new livers inside of patients who are in need of transplants — a list that already has 10,000 people in the US alone. Read More → wired

• California Rep. Eric Swalwell has partnered with Wolfsbane.ai to protect himself from deepfakes and other digital manipulations of his likeness. Read More → deadline

Creator Economy

• Facebook is the latest social platform to take advantage of the vertical video craze — an experiment to get users to share Reels rather than horizontal videos. Read More → techcrunch

• Snapchat’s Friend Solar System feature is making a lot of teens very, very anxious. Read More → wsj

• Car influencer Supercare Blondie (real name: Alex Hirschi) is launching an auction house for hypercars and yachts and already has $100 million worth of rich-kid toys ready for sale. Read More → tubefilter

.ECOMMERCE.

Flip wants to make shopping go viral

The Future. Social shopping platform Flip has raised new capital to expand its ambitious goal of taking on Amazon and TikTok Shop. Considering it functions solely as a creator-driven sales platform for brand names like DeLoghi and OtterBox, Flip may become the hub for a new generation of QVC-style influencers.

Trendshoppers
Flip is hoping that brand curation helps boost social shopping sales.

• The online marketplace company has raised $144 million in a round led by Streamlined Ventures, which shot Flip’s valuation up to $1.05 billion.

• This includes a $50 million investment from AppLovin Corp, which will allow Flip to use its AI tools for its ad business instead of having to build one from scratch.

Flip’s marketplace exists somewhere on the spectrum between Amazon and TikTok Shop, offering only brand-name products and featuring videos from shoppers who have actually purchased them.

Reviewers earn money from video views and affiliated product sales, while Flip gets a commission on sales and also charges brands a fee for the app’s algorithm to make the products more discoverable.

• Read: The Verge features an exhaustive history of Vice’s rise and fall as millennials’ favorite news platform.

• Watch: Kid Cudi and Tony Hawk talk about the best and worst of everything on Complex’s GOAT Talk.

• Listen: M. Night Shyamalan sits down with Malcom Gladwell to discuss one of his first sold screenplays, a love story titled Labor of Love, and how the experience shaped him as a filmmaker.

Photography is nostalgia now.

JOBS OF THE WEEK

Explore a weekly curated list of the latest and greatest opportunities in business, tech, and entertainment. For more listings, check out the complete job board.

Music Touring - Assistant
CAA
Los Angeles, CA

Partnership Marketing & Media Sales Intern
Kroenke Sports Enterprises
Denver, CO

Staff Designer, Brand & Persona
Adobe
San Jose, CA

Creative Director, Games Studio
Netflix
Los Angeles, CA

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Today we get into how there may be a new IMDb specifically made for content creators, how those very same content creators are moving away from video into writing, and Endeavor's announcement that they are going private.