Tuesday time, TFP. University of California, Santa Cruz students Alexander Sherbrooke and Iakov Taranenko are officially the Robin Hoods of the spin cycle. The students found a software vulnerability in the internet-connected washing and drying machines on their campus (and many other campuses). So, they hacked the machine to show it had millions of dollars in it so students could do laundry for free while also emailing the company about the vulnerability. Hilarious.

In other news… corporations want to pay your college tuition, dating apps are about friendship now, and Marvel gives up on connecting its movies and shows.

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.

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• YouTube – Longlegs

• X (Twitter) – Scarlett Johansson

• Google – The Substance

• Reddit – Kevin Costner

• TikTok – “Little Things” - Adrian Berenguer

• Spotify – “Music On The Radio” - Empire Of The Sun

.EDUCATION.

Corporations want to underwrite your college scholarships

The Future. Major brands are helping pay tuition to capture the attention of Gen Z. As more companies get in on the action to build a bond with potential customers, don’t be surprised if some brands create tuition-to-employment pipelines so they can track promising talent as early as possible… that is, if they want to go to a traditional college.

Education marketing
With the average yearly tuition around $36,000 per year, students are looking everywhere for financial aid.

Maybe they should check the S&P 500.

• Brands like Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and many others have launched scholarship funds that typically award recipients $5,000 to $10,000 annually.

• Burger King, which has had a program for decades, has given out 50,000 scholarships, mostly financed through coupon savings and “round-up” campaigns at cash registers.

• Even relatively smaller companies like Cards Against Humanity have jumped on the trend — its Science Ambassador Scholarship gives annual full-tuition scholarships to women and nonbinary students in STEM.

But education expenses don’t need to be reserved for the big players. Startup ScholarshipOwl, which connects students with brands’ scholarships, also helps small businesses launch their own programs (which are typically targeted at local institutions).

And with student debt levels hitting a Whopper™ $1.7 trillion, it’s nice to be served a little help wherever you can get it. (Take that one for free, Burger King.)

70.8% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Do you have an Xbox?

“No Xbox, but a fairly dusty PS4.”

“Yes, but it’s a pretty old Xbox One we got after the 360 died (RRoD). My kids played on it when they were little, but now it is solely used for streaming. My family is full of PC gamers.”

“We are a PlayStation house.”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT JURNY.

Where AI meets hospitality

The $4.1 trillion hospitality industry is about to change in a big way.

Meet Jurny, the AI startup that’s automating operations for hotel and Airbnb property managers worldwide.

Jurny’s system has AI agents that handle everything from concierge services and guest communications to quality assurance and upselling.

The company saw 5x growth last year, $35 million processed in bookings, and over $12 million raised from top VCs and 1,100 individual investors.

In other words, Jurny is a company that you want to invest in.

Media, Music, & Entertainment

• Paul McCartney has become the first billionaire musician in the UK, with his fortune ticking past the benchmark this year due to his successful tour, the growing worth of his music catalog, and the success of Beyoncé’s cover of The Beatles track, “Blackbird.” [Read More]

• Marvel is bringing back the “Marvel Television” banner to promote the fact that viewers can now “jump in anywhere” to enjoy the shows — a major strategy shift from having interconnected movies and shows. [Read More]

• Steven Rales, the founder of Indian Paintbrush (the financier of Wes Anderson’s films), has acquired Criterion and Janus Films… and won’t be changing their mission or leadership. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Italian fashion brand Loro Piana is releasing a linen shirt where every step of its manufacturing process can be tracked on the blockchain — a move to show the brand’s promise of sustainable production. [Read More]

• Levi’s crafted 800 pairs of a “stitch-for-stitch” reproduction of its first-ever pair of jeans, which were made and patented in 1873. [Read More]

• Stüssy is collabing with the art collective Artisan Project on a line of boucherouite rugs, which are made of upcycled Stüssy tees. [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• OpenAI announced that it’s suspended its Scarlett Johansson-sounded “Sky” ChatGPT voice after the actress sent a legal letter to CEO Sam Altman requesting transparency on how the voice was created (after she had turned down an offer to actually voice the chatbot). [Read More]

• Neuralink was given FDA approval to implant its brain chip in a second human patient after detailing its fixes to issues experienced with the first patient. [Read More]

• A UK judge found that Craig Wright, who went to court to defend his claim of being Bitcoin-founder Satoshi Nakomoto, lied and created fake evidence to prove his case. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• The director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service recommends that Canadians don’t use TikTok because, he alleges, user data is readily accessible by the Chinese government and is being used to train AI systems. [Read More]

• The first viral AI-generated, user-generated ad has gone viral on TikTok… and creators and agencies aren’t sure what to think about it. [Read More]

• Kai Cenat completed a 156-hour livestream of him playing Elden Ring in its entirety. Just… wow. [Read More]

.TECHNOLOGY.

Dating apps update for friendship

The Future. Bumble is acquiring meet-up platform Geneva to supercharge its shift to helping facilitate platonic friendships. As online dating declines, dating apps are scrambling to get engagement (and revenue) moving in the right direction again. With Geneva, Bumble could become the go-to platform for making hobbies the thing Gen Z falls in love with.

Platonic programming
Bumble is swiping right on group hangs.

• The dating app company is acquiring Geneva, the digital platform focused on facilitating IRL meet-ups for digital communities, for an undisclosed amount.

• Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones said the acquisition will help “accelerate our friendship product using Geneva’s powerful technology platform,” which TechCrunch believes means the platform will eventually be integrated directly into Bumble.

• Bumble already has its own separate friendship-matching platform, but the acquisition of Geneva likely sets the stage for all of these apps to combine.

The deal is part of Bumble’s larger move into the friendship space, especially as online dating has lost its luster with Gen Z. A Generation Lab survey found that 79% of college students are not using dating apps regularly, instead venturing out into the world for an IRL meet cute.

But with loneliness hitting record levels, Bumble may get by with a little help from some friendship.

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT XWERKS.

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• Watch: Bloomberg details how Starlink made the consumer space race take off… and will fill low-Earth orbit with tens of thousands of satellites in just a couple of years.

• Listen: The Daily discusses whether the 401(k) was maybe a bad idea amid a growing boomer retirement crisis.

• Read: In case you missed it last week, check out how RYSE is making smart home features accessible to everyone.

Scarlett Johansson doesn’t play around.

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