The Connection Newsletter 53 - One of these is not like the others

The Connection Newsletter 53 - One of these is not like the others

April 29, 2019

Hi!

This is edition #53 of

The Connection

, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) As always, thanks so much for reading.

Thanks to

. and

. for the microphone recommendations. Zack suggested a tabletop microphone and Morgan strongly recommended

against

a wireless lav mic. I ended up going with this microphone for now: 

. Hoping to test out it out next weekend.

Published two sets of book notes this week:

I’m trying to alternate between fiction and non-fiction with my current reads. I finished

last week and started reading

by Peter Thiel.

(By the way, if you love to read and you’re not using the

, you’re missing out. Get access to your local libraries’ digital and audiobook collections on your phone. Highly recommend.)

I’ve been listening to the

Phantom of the Opera

soundtrack since I was 10 years old. Finally saw the musical on stage with the

.

Some upcoming travel - if you’re around, would love to meet for a coffee or drink:

  • May 6 - May 9 in SF

  • May 20 or 21 In NYC

Okay, a ton of articles this week. If you find even one that you enjoy, I feel like I'll have done my job :)

Make sure to hit "Display Images" above to see puppy pics. 

Profiles

I read a bunch of standout profiles this week. This one stood out in particular:

As positive reviews for

Avengers: Endgame

pour in (96% on RT) this profile on Kevin Feige, the architect behind the Marvel Comic Universe felt incredibly timely.

Mr. Feige’s success is incredible. Just ask Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Co.

“We had huge expectations for Marvel when we acquired it, but the MCU Kevin and his team have built goes beyond anything we could have imagined.”

However, the icing on the cake comes from dipping back into

, in a single paragraph that details Feige’s humble beginnings as a creative executive, back when Marvel Studios wasn’t actually a studio:

“It was an office above a Mercedes dealership in Beverly Hills, when Feige was a young executive who read scripts and carried (Ari) Arad’s bags to and from meetings and consulted on the movies that other studios made with their characters.”

Around 2005, Feige conceived the idea of a shared universe, where individual character films would unite in an Avengers crossover film. Marvel secured a total of $525 million dollars of funding from Merrill Lynch in order to make the idea happen. Arad wasn't convinced that this plan would be successful, eventually resigning from his position in 2006. Feige took over as head of Marvel Studios in 2007 (

).

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And other profiles you might enjoy:

💘 Whitney Wolfe Herd spawned the idea for Bumble on a business trip to Mykonos, over ouzo and halloumi.

“Every time I texted a guy first, I lived in sheer panic. Did I say too much? Did I use too many ys on that heyyy?”

If an app made women equal partners, she thought, it could be ‘the perfect solution to our dating woes as a culture.’”

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♚ According to Keanu Reeves, “movie jail” is real. The actor was blocked from working at Fox for 10 years after turning down

Speed 2

to perform

Hamlet

onstage in Winnipeg.  

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📚

“First year of law school you have to cover three subjects: criminal law, torts, and contracts. To me, torts is the most confusing, contracts the most boring, and crim law I can do in my sleep. Took my first test, I got a 100. Super easy for me.”

“The reading is what really gets me. It’s so time-consuming. The concepts I grasp in two seconds.”

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  Hollywood + Tech 

Watching Disney make its foray into the streaming world is fascinating, especially as they work out the kinks in their technology (for example, trying to watch UFC 236 on the ESPN app proved to be an absolute nightmare for MMA fans). This is terrific reporting on how Bob Iger (CEO of the Walt Disney Co.) evolved his position towards Netflix over the past 7 years:

(paywall,

)

“Disney decided to sell its movies directly to Netflix, ending the Starz TV deal. Netflix got recently released movies starting in 2016 and older films and direct-to-video releases starting in 2013, all for a price reported to be more than $300 million a year.

The movie agreement was separate from deals Disney struck to license individual TV shows to Netflix. Disney even started making shows especially for Netflix: In 2013, for instance, Disney’s Marvel unit agreed to make several new series for Netflix.”

Iger was thrilled with the bottom-line benefits, but when ESPN started to see subscribe declines in 2015, he realized he needed a better strategy to confront cord-cutting. And in 2016, Disney bought a 33% stake in streaming service BAMTech, which eventually served as the tip of the spear in Disney’s streaming service.

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And other articles on Hollywood + Tech you might enjoy:

🧨 WGA members have cut the cord with their agents over packaging fee. The packaging fee allows agencies to get a percentage of the show’s profits in perpetuity in exchange for putting together (or “packaging”) elements of the show, e.g. the director, writer, and actor. However, this incentive is not aligned with the writer’s interests and writers don’t see any money from packaging deals.

What some WGA members are realizing: if they’re already paying their manager’s 10% and their lawyer 5%, what are the agents doing for them anyway?

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🗺 Boring old Google Maps is way more powerful than you realize.

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📱 It’s like doctors who smoke cigarettes. Talking about fake news on social media and pontificating on “quality time” is one thing. But changing behavior is quite another.

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  “One of these is not like the others” 🦄 

Lastly, other things worth sharing:

This article talks about how Related (parent company of Equinox) used $1.3 billion of EB-5 visa money to fund Hudson Yards.

EB-5 money is designated towards funding undeveloped and under-employed areas. But it’s a rigged game where they can essentially gerrymander areas to fall into this jurisdiction.

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Amy and I were watching this 8 minutes after it released. It already had 450K views. I’m gonna need to update

.

Thanks for reading!

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