Nov 18, 2021 Sign Up

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"Your job isn't gonna be automated by AI it's gonna be automated by a series of if else statements don't flatter urself." –Pavel Asparouhov

Good morning! The ConstitutionDao (that we wrote about on Tuesday) has raised twice the amount they set out to raise ($40 million at time of writing). Now let’s see if it's successful in purchasing the US Constitution at the Sotheby's auction today at 6:30pm ET. In a world where Rivian (selling no cars is worth over $100 billion), it’s no surprise that Grammarly, the text-checking software with unlimited ads on YouTube, is worth $13 billion in their latest funding round with 30 million users. In Thanksgiving news, the cheapest day to fly for Thanksgiving is Monday and to avoid Tuesday, which will be the most expensive day according to AAA.

If you are looking to learn SQL, Tableau, product frameworks or KPIs, check out today's sponsor Skillful.

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1. Story of the Day: Apes That Became Millionaires

If you've not heard someone mention NFTs or Web 3.0 in the past few weeks, you're probably an investment banking analyst staffed on multiple live deals or living under a rock. NFTs have exploded in popularity this year and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is the internet’s hottest NFT project.

Launched in April by four anonomyous 30 year olds – Gargamel, Gordon Goner, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, and No Sass – through their company Yuga Labs, BAYC is a collection of 10,000 unique digital head-and-shoulders drawings with a variety of traits, some quite rare (and thus more valuable).

The floor price of a BAYC NFT, which initially went on sale for about $250 each, was $218,116 at the time of writing. One rare ape sold at Sotheby’s recently for more than $3.4 million.

The BAYC NFT holders call themselves "apes." It’s also more than just owning an NFT, it’s a strong community if not a cult. The BAYC members eat bananas (lmao) and wear black sweatshirts that cost about $800. Steph Curry, Lil Baby, Jimmy Fallon and Post Malone are all ape-holders.

Earlier this month, the apes came out of their internet personas and met in real life for the first time at a weeklong Ape Fest 2021, which ended with a Brooklyn warehouse party featuring Lil Baby, the Strokes, Questlove, Beck, Chris Rock, and Aziz Ansari.

Short Squeez Takeaway: An ape holder, who started off with $1,150 worth of Dogecoin that his cousin gave him, turned it into about ~$10 million investing in some apes. Now he gets to hang out with celebrities on a yacht. It's not hard to see why these NFT rags to riches (& cults) stories are generating extreme FOMO in the population and everyone seems to be apeing into the JPEG world. 

Source: InputMag

2. Markets Rundown

• Stocks edged down Wednesday, with major indexes finishing moderately lower as investors weighed largely upbeat earnings from big retailers while continuing to evaluate inflation worries.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) TJX Companies ($TJX) +6% after the apparel and home retailer reported a quarterly earnings beat on the top and bottom lines.
• (+) BioNTech ($BNTX) 5% after NYT reported the FDA is looking to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 booster dose for all adults as soon as Thursday.
• (–) Roku ($ROKU) -11% after the stock was downgraded to “sell” from “neutral” at MoffettNathanson.

3. Top Reads

A Message from Skillful: Launch Your Career in Tech

How many times have you told yourself that you’re finally going to learn SQL? Tableau? Or even product frameworks and KPIs? And it never ends up happening?

Us too. Until we heard of Skillful.

Skillful runs cohort-based programs dedicated to business careers in the tech industry. Think roles like Strategy & Operations, Product and Growth.

Basically the kind of work you’d do as someone who reads smart business and tech newsletters like, I don’t know, this one.

At Skillful, you’ll get access to programs that are built + led by operators from the top companies in tech.

And you’ll join a strong community of Skillful grads who have been hired by employers like Stripe, TikTok, Uber and many more.

Short Squeez subscribers get access to early bird pricing for their upcoming cohorts. Just sign up at the link below to get your early-access code.

Get our early access code.

4. Book of the Day: The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact

What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember twenty years later?

This book delves into some fascinating mysteries of experience: Why we tend to remember the best or worst moment of an experience, as well as the last moment, and forget the rest. Why “we feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they’re not.” And why our most cherished memories are clustered into a brief period during our youth.

Readers discover how brief experiences can change lives, such as the experiment in which two strangers meet in a room, and forty-five minutes later, they leave as best friends. (What happens in that time?) Or the tale of the world’s youngest female billionaire, who credits her resilience to something her father asked the family at the dinner table. (What was that simple question?)

The Power of Moments shows us how to be the author of richer experiences.

5. Career Portal

6. Short Squeez Picks

7. Daily Visual: The Biggest Gender Gap
Difference in median full time earnings of men & women in selected countries

Source: Statista

8.  Daily Acumen: Worrying about the future

It’s normal to worry from time to time. Given life’s many unknowns and challenges, worry is a natural response to many situations. However, chronic and all-consuming worry can be troublesome and interfere with our ability to function freely and calmly in our daily lives.

Remember, worrying about the future is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life will always be things that never crossed your worried mind. You’ll tackle those as they come.

9. Memes of the Day

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