High-Definition Influence

PRESENTED BY SHOPIFY

Happy Wednesday, FutureParty fam. Running a business can be such hard work that one VC is making health and wellness a central part of its investing in startup founders. Bessemer Venture Partners started collaborating with the coaching company Exos on a program called “STRIVE,” which ensures that founders and CEOs are doing basic things like eating, sleeping, and working out. Getting a company off the ground is a marathon, so Bessemer really wants to make sure that the people at the helm have the stamina for it.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

The Streaming Wars Break Out Of The Business Model

Netflix and Amazon are offering unprecedented incentives to either win projects from top talent or keep hit filmmakers with existing projects at the streamers in the fold.

The Big Picture: Hollywood has nearly reached a consensus that launching a movie on the big screen is the best way to turn them into events theatrically and on streaming. That’s influencing filmmakers more and more to take less money upfront for a shot at the box office. So, streamers are realizing that they need to up the ante to stay competitive.

Behind The Streams: Bloomberg has the scoop on two big projects that could crack the streaming business right open.

• Greta Gerwig (director and co-writer of Barbie) is in talks with IMAX to put her next project — Netflix’s big-budget adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia — on screens around the world before its streaming debut … and, so far, Netflix is on board with the plan.

• IMAX has “signaled” that it’ll be more than happy to add the movie to its lineup as long as exhibitors like AMC and Regal agree… and they’d want a significant exclusive theatrical window.

• Amazon wanted Saltburn filmmaker Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights (starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi) so bad that it offered to give it a month-long exclusive theatrical window and a pay-per-stream residual in its bid.

• Participants in the residual would get a higher rate for viewers who signed up to watch the movie and a lower rate for average subscribers — a potentially major windfall. Still, Warner Bros. Discovery won the movie by offering a huge marketing spend.

The Future: Whether it’s longer theatrical windows, or novel performance-based compensation models, the underlying narrative is that streamers need more than just a lot of content for subscribers — they need content that breaks through the noise and generates a lot of viewership. It’s Hollywood taking the-less-is-more approach, which, in this new era of cost-cutting, is paying more for less. And as more top filmmakers ink those kinds of deals, expect the incentives to become key talking points in the next round of union contracts.

Together With Shopify

The Risks Of Not Becoming An Entrepreneur

Starting your own business is a high-risk, high-reward undertaking — especially financially.

Despite 62% of US adults saying that they’d rather be their own boss than work for someone else, only 36% say they’d be willing to accept a fair amount of financial risk to make that happen.

But not starting a business when you have the desire to do so could be even riskier — physically, mentally, and financially.

Consider Sonja, who was financially stable in her two-decade mortgage lending career until she began to feel empty and unfulfilled. She needed a change and took the edge off with a planting hobby, which went viral on TikTok.

That viral moment inspired Sonja to leave her day job and launch Partly Sunny Projects, giving it six months to take off.

Fast forward five years later, the business is thriving, and Sonja’s never been happier in her career.

Sonja’s story proves that there’s no better time to dive into entrepreneurship — and Shopify is here to help make your dreams a reality, with a little less risk along the way. 

Learn more about Sonja — and other inspiring entrepreneurs like her — today.

HD Is For The Influencers Now

Instagram has said that it will start to downgrade the quality of videos on the platform that aren’t generating enough views as a cost-saving measure.

Why It Hits: As Meta transforms into an AI company, the costs associated with all things data — chips, computation, storage — are skyrocketing. So, Meta hopes lowering the quality of video on Instagram will free up space and money for where it now counts.

Between The Code: On Instagram, having your video in HD is now a privilege, not a right.

• Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared on Threads that videos will now be on a sliding scale of quality depending on how many views they bring in (the exact number is a mystery).

• If videos don’t meet the views threshold — which is now the most important metric on the platform — then the videos will start to appear fuzzy.

• Additionally, older videos will now be automatically downgraded. But if they start to pick up views again, their full quality will be restored… for as long as they’re getting the increased viewership, at least.

Closing Thoughts: In case you haven’t heard, AI systems take up an insane amount of server space. As more people use its AI systems, Meta wants to prevent system-overload by keeping every video — many billions of them — at crisp HD. Unsurprisingly, creators are up in arms about this plan, especially newer ones. They feel that having their videos at a lower quality will kneecap their growth. Who wants to watch fuzzy videos? Well, creators who are able to make that downgrade a feature instead of a bug of their content may be the ones who game the system and still manage to go viral.

DEEP DIVES

• Listen: Most Innovative Companies chats with Hollywood producer Will Packer (Girls Trip, Fight Night) about his new book and how AI is upending the entertainment industry.

• Watch: WSJ sits down with actress Salma Hayek to discuss her work in philanthropy and how her acting career surprisingly got better after turning 40.

• Read: THR profiles actress and artist Janelle Monáe, who’s really, really into Halloween.

53.3% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Do you think doubling California’s film and TV tax credits will bring back major productions to the state?

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

“It all comes down to saving money.”

“The wages are too high, and the regulations are too costly and strict. California has ruined doing business here for many industries, including film. That’s why everyone is leaving.”

“[Yes,] if restrictions are sane and fair or (haha) nonexistent.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

QUICK HITS

→ Entertainment / Media

🦸 Superheroes are mostly having a tough go at the box office… making 2025 a potential make-it-or-break-it year for the most surefire genre of the past decade.

🎭 SAG-AFTRA has struck a deal with AI firm Ethovox to build a “foundational voice model” for digital replicas that abides by all union rules.

🎫 Oasis is canceling 50,000 tickets to their reunion tour in the UK that were sold on secondary markets, putting them back on Ticketmaster at face value.

→ Technology

🖥️ The US Treasury finalized its hard-line rules for American firms that want to invest in Chinese companies.

📱 Apple has chosen India to build its baseline model of the iPhone 17 to lessen its reliance on China.

👁️ Science Corporation created a retinal implant that gives blind people enough vision to read, play cards, and even recognize faces at a close distance.

→ Fashion / E-commerce

💰 Actress-director Olivia Wilde co-founded a VC firm, Proximity Ventures, to invest in companies in the consumer and enterprise spaces.

👟 Adidas and Ye have finally settled their countering lawsuits from the fallout of their Yeezy partnership.

👃 Luxury fragrances are passing Gen Z’s sniff test.