Black Panther Makes Disney’s Profits
Thanks for opening this week’s brief, even though it is Mother’s Day weekend. I hope to keep this one shorter and hopefully still enjoyable! Happy Mother’s Day to you and your loved ones!
Happy Mother’s Day to American Moms — whose country endangers their health and their futures
On Sunday (May 13) U.S. and most other countries will celebrate moms. Except for Christmas, Mother’s Day is the second most expensive holiday. This year, a projected $23.1 billion will be splurged on gifts for mom. However, America isn’t so generous toward its mothers. According to this 2015 ‘State of the World’s Mothers’ report, the US ranks 33rd for the quality of life for mothers — 9 of the top 10 countries are in Europe.
The U.S. has a maternal mortality crisis, with an estimated 26.4 deaths for every 100,000 live births in 2015 — with black mothers having a 4x chance of dying during childbirth than white mothers. Unless privileged enough to have good workplace benefits, the U.S. is one of two countries in the world that does not mandate maternity leave for mothers. Stepping out of the paid workforce also has important consequences for the mother’s future earnings potential. According to the Center for American Progress, a 26-year-old mother making the American average salary for her age who stops paid work for a year, for instance, will lose over $124,000 in earnings through her career.
How Google’s AI Wants To Control Your Entire Life
Google introduced new products and upgrades this week, including its AI software, ‘Duplex’, flexing its superiority in artificial intelligence and innovation. I’ll break down this update in three ways; The good, the creepy, and the freaky.
The Good 😁: Google will introduce a new “news” app similar to Apple news, and will also help those of us who lack walking navigation skills with it’s improvement to its Maps app, and also plans to help its users spend less time addicted to our devices.
The Creepy 😱: Forget OpenTable, Google’s Duplex was put to the test and successfully booked a restaurant appointment, wait for it… OVER THE PHONE while talking to a real human who didn’t realize they were talking to a bot!!! The new technology can also write your emails for you as if it was inside your brain, and teach your children home manners by making them say “please” before making requests to it.
The Freaky 😏: Google will auto-suggest who your photos should be sent to, so now you can blame sliding into someone’s DMs on Google AI.
Companies mentioned (YTD): GOOGL (+5%), YELP (+5%)
Black Panther Drove Disney’s Q2 Profits 🙅🏿♂️ — www.bloomberg.com
Wall Street analysts to Disney CEO “Wakanda profits are thoooose!?!”. ‘Black Panther’ shattered industry myths while made a huge statement with its predominantly black cast on its way to digging up $1.3 billion worth of vibranium, I mean movie ticket sales. The film’s strong performance helped offset Disney’s TV business that’s suffering from a decline in pay-TV viewership.
Companies mentioned (YTD): DIS (-5%)
Why This is a Good Time to Look for a New Job
The gap between available jobs and those actively seeking work is the narrowest in nearly two decades of record keeping. In March, the number of unfilled jobs in the U.S. reached a record high of 6.55 million, while there were just 6.59 million reported unemployed Americans in the same month, according to the Labor Department. So, technically, there is a job for every unemployed adult out there.
The largest growth in job openings came in the business services category, even the “Amazon-plagued-high-turnover” retail sector seems to be growing in new job openings. As a result, employers must be far less selective than they were three or four years ago when the unemployment rate was still relatively higher than today.
H&M is Relying on Technology to Make its Clothes Cool Again — www.wsj.com
H&M, the world’s largest clothing brand, is asking artificial intelligence and big data to help them determine which fashion trends to bet on what consumers will buy in its stores. As H&M faces stiff competition from online shopping trends and its self-inflicted misery of cultural inappropriateness, the company has repeatedly slashed prices to clear out $4 billion of unsold goods, and its shares are down 56% in the past three years.
H&M wants to personalize each of its 4,288 stores to curate its merchandise based on the community and local shopper profile. To detect trends three-to-eight months in advance, H&M is analyzing data from shoppers’ receipts, returns, blog posts, search engines and other sources rather than relying mainly on its staff. So maybe soon we’ll stop seeing people wearing exact same clothes in every city you go to.
🙅🏿♂️ For Da Culture 🤴🏾
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Kanye West in the Age of Donald Trump — www.theatlantic.com
Kanye West wants freedom — white freedom. Mr. Coates writes an insightful long-form essay about the triumphs and struggles of Kanye West.
13 Black Authors Nominated for PBS’s ‘The Great American Read’ — www.signature-reads.com
These authors deserve recognition for the breadth of their literary masterpieces in spite of the challenges they’ve faced.
Chart of the week
What Else I’m Currently Reading
Podcast interview with Disney CEO Bob Iger, goes into the mind of one of the most respected CEO in America
Tinder swipes all the way right to boost its revenue by 150%
Record labels Warner Music Group and Sony cash out over $1 billion from investment in Spotify
All the pushup bras in the world can’t seem to keep Victoria’s Secret. Its stock is down 50% as millennials go ‘boho’
The 2018 World Inequality Report highlights how the wealthiest 1% has gotten richer and the poor get poorer
How Black millennials can close the generational wealth gap
Companies mentioned (YTD): DIS (-5%), SPOT (+5%), MTCH (+29%), LB (-46%)
Resource of the Week
DoNotPay
Got a parking ticket? Was your data breached by Equifax? — DoNotPay is helping victims of the breach file lawsuits against Equifax, and also helping people battle parking tickets. All you have to do is open the app, answer a series of questions, print the form that it spits out at the end, and file it with the local court.
Music of the Week — open.spotify.com
This week’s letter is curated while listening to “Self Promotion — EP”, an album by Wale. With only 4 tracks on this my fav are: Negotiations and Cassius.
Thank you for reading through this weekend’s brief! Hope you found a couple interesting articles to spark your next happy hour or office water-cooler conversation. I would appreciate your feedback by responding to this email — Which article did you find most interesting this week? What topics would you like to know more about?
Cheers,
Valentine
