Elizabeth Lopatto
We found it, the unofficial theme song of Bluesky.
Please imagine this playing when I compose my little skeets.
Elizabeth Lopatto
Senior Reporter
Senior Reporter
More From Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Giving up the ghost... kitchens.
Wendy’s is permanently closing its ghost kitchen business. Butler Hospitality, a ghost kitchen company, shut down entirely. Travis Kalanick’s CloudKitchens lost a bunch of restaurant partners. Uber Eats is trimming its menu.
I guess you could say these kitchens got... ghosted.
Ghost Kitchens Are Going the Way of the Pandemic
[Bloomberg.com]
Elizabeth Lopatto
Jeffrey Epstein’s schedule shows meetings with Peter Thiel.
At least three meetings were scheduled in 2014, according to reminder emails Epstein’s assistant sent him. Epstein of course also spent time with Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Gee, I wonder if this was “nerd tunnel vision” too.
Peter Thiel Is Latest Billionaire Said to Have Met With Jeffrey Epstein
[The New York Times]
Elizabeth Lopatto
The AI boom is a big leg up for the people who profit from debt.
As global levels of debt are rising, debt collectors are using AI to hound borrowers.
Some of the companies that stand to benefit most from AI integration are those that purely exist to collect debt. These companies, known as debt buyers, purchase “distressed” debt from other creditors at steep discounts—usually pennies on the dollar—then try as hard as they can to get debtors to repay in full. They don’t issue loans, or provide any kind of service that clients might owe them for; it’s a business model built on profiting from people who fell behind on payments to someone else.
Elizabeth Lopatto
AND NOW?
Here’s a profile of a 34-year-old social network, ECHO, run by a woman named Stacy Horn:
At its peak in the late ’90s, ECHO had 3,500 members. Among them: writers, artists, musicians, actors, therapists, and even, briefly, John F. Kennedy Jr.
Now it has just 43 users.
The inside story of New York City’s 34-year-old social network, ECHO
[MIT Technology Review]
Elizabeth Lopatto
How much money did Elon Musk donate to OpenAI?
TechCrunch did the math, and it couldn’t be more than $57.4 million, not the $100 million Musk has been claiming. OpenAI became a for-profit business after Musk stopped donating.
Elizabeth Lopatto
Venture capital is going great.
“For the first time in more than a decade, returns for venture funds were negative for three consecutive quarters last year,” The Wall Street Journal writes, citing PitchBook Data. “If you deployed a lot of money in 2021 at 2021 prices, that’s not going to feel good,” says Jay Ripley, the head of investments at Global Endowment Management.
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Concerning.
Elon Musk has been subpoenaed by the US Virgin Islands because Epstein “may have referred or attempted to refer” him to JP Morgan. Though a subpoena was issued in April, lawyers have been unable to serve Musk with physical papers — and are seeking permission to serve him via email. They seek documents. Other billionaires, including Sergey Brin, have also been subpoenaed.
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