Oct 20, 2021 Sign Up

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"Bad news isn’t wine. It doesn’t improve with age." – Colin Powell

Good morning! Bitcoin price is mooning and nearly at its all-time-high (ATH). Jack Dorsey tweeted "705742" yesterday, which could mean anything in the world but we think it's his Bitcoin price target. Elon Musk is already the richest person in the world (~$220 billion) and soon to be Trillionaire according to a Morgan Stanley analyst. Most of that increase in wealth is not expected to come from his Tesla stock but from his SpaceX ownership (~50%). SpaceX was recently valued at $100 billion in a secondary share sale.

If you are in the market for jeans, check out today's sponsor, Revtown, who are changing the jean game by infusing it with a touch of athletic stretch.

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1. Story of the Day: Citi Tackles Wall St Culture

Citigroup is leading the way and making some much needed changes to Wall Street culture. Citigroup told staff to avoid scheduling calls and meetings from noon to 1pm and hour long meetings to be shortened to 45 minutes so employees can use the extra time to prepare for their next task.

"What I’m hearing now is that it is not simply the long hours taking a toll on our well-being. It is the density of the day," said CEO Jane Fraser said in a memo to staff.

Jane Fraser is the first woman to lead a top US bank and has taken a different approach to the hard stance on return to office by rival bank CEOs, who have rushed workers back into the office, even as the Delta variant spread. Recently Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said: "If you can go into a restaurant in New York City, you can come into the office." (lmao OK boomer)

Just days after Jane Fraser took the job in March, she promised that most of the bank’s staff would be able to work from home at least two days a week on a permanent basis.

Fraser didn’t stop there. She’s also letting employees rewrite their schedules. It’s fine, she says, if people want to knock off early to pick up their kids from school and log on in the evening to finish their work. "Maybe see your kids or avoid a particular time of commuting that’s hellacious."

"I want to crush the competition," Fraser says, sipping her coffee.

Short Squeez Takeaway: Jane Fraser and Citigroup might be onto something here. Many workers who have embraced remote work as the new normal are quitting instead of going back to work. Jane's team has already been fielding inquiries from execs looking to defect from rivals including JPM and Goldman. We predict analysts will soon enter the chat too if Citi keeps up its anti-Wall St work policies. Citigroup y'all hiring???

Source: Bloomberg

2. Markets Rundown

• US stocks closed higher Tuesday, adding to the largest four-day stretch of gains since late July, with companies reporting solid third-quarter earnings despite the spread of the delta variant and supply-chain disruptions.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Alibaba ($BABA) +6% after it announced that it has created a custom computer chip that will be used to power its data center servers.
• (+) ChargePoint ($CHPT) +6% after Stifel initiated coverage with a buy rating.
• (–) Ulta ($ULTA) -11% after the company released long-term financial targets during its investor day.

3. Top Reads

A Message from Revtown: The Revolutionary Jeans

Ex-Under Armour Execs are changing the game for jeans. How? By taking tried-and-true denim and infusing it with a touch of athletic stretch.

After years in athletic apparel, Revtown’s founders decided to take the best parts of workout clothes—think comfort, flexibility and durability—and apply them to denim. The result? Crazy comfort and solid style at a killer price.

You get the point. These jeans can do it all. But don’t take our word for it—try them for yourself. Revtown jeans are delivered directly to your door, which means no retail markup—just great jeans at a fair price.

Plus, domestic shipping and returns are free, so you have nothing to lose.

Slip your thighs into some Revtowns and see for yourself.

4. Book of the Day: The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives

The hidden brain is the voice in our ear when we make the most important decisions in our lives—but we’re never aware of it. The hidden brain decides whom we fall in love with and whom we hate. It tells us to vote for the white candidate and convict the dark-skinned defendant, to hire the thin woman but pay her less than the man doing the same job. It can direct us to safety when disaster strikes and move us to extraordinary acts of altruism. But it can also be manipulated to turn an ordinary person into a suicide terrorist or a group of bystanders into a mob.

In a series of compulsively readable narratives, Shankar Vedantam journeys through the latest discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science to uncover the darkest corner of our minds and its decisive impact on the choices we make as individuals and as a society. Filled with fascinating characters, dramatic storytelling, and cutting-edge science, this is an engrossing exploration of the secrets our brains keep from us—and how they are revealed.

5. Short Squeez Picks

• Christine Shaw talks with Rajini Kodialam, co-founder and chief operating officer at Focus Financial Partners, about working best with women Podcast
• A Crypto Optimist and a Crypto Skeptic Walk Into a Podcast Studio
•  Is Bitcoin digital gold?

6. Daily Visual: Covid-19 cases by Vaccination

Source: Axios

7.  Daily Acumen: How to Break a Phone Addiction

Make time for scrolling.

The best way to counteract mindless scrolling is with mindful scrolling. Set times each day or week to look at your smartphone and really focus on it. Besides making addiction easier to beat—studies have found mindfulness to be very effective in treating addictions—such a practice might also show you how little you actually enjoy staring at your phone.

Turn off your notifications.

Most addictions are associated with a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Smartphones game our dopamine, most crucially through the sounds and banners indicating that someone messaged or mentioned you and you must look right now to satisfy your curiosity.

The solution is simple: If you have a smartphone, turn off all the notifications, except perhaps the ones you need to stay employed.

Physically separate yourself.

Silo off parts of your home where your phone is not physically proximate, such as the dinner table and the bedroom. You can plug your phone in the kitchen at night before you go upstairs to bed. It’s a habit, and, as a result, you’ll never miss your phone when going to sleep.

Some people take this even further. The digital-technology scholar Cal Newport advocates the “phone foyer” method, where he leaves his phone by the front door when he walks into his house, and doesn’t put it in his pocket until he leaves again. If he needs to look at it, he does so only in the foyer.

Source: The Atlantic

8. Memes of the Day

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