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Last week, Starbucks announced the closure of 1% of its North American stores by the end of 2025, resulting in sudden job losses for hundreds of baristas. The closures are one part of a $1 billion restructuring strategy dubbed Back to Starbucks”; the coffee chain will also be laying off 900 corporate employees. Processing the news in real time, Starbucks baristas have made their feelings about the closures clear, filming their reactions and going viral in the process. A Starbucks employee at a Washington state location posted a heartfelt video to TikTok last week. Starbucks permanently closing my store and leaving us jobless was not on my 2025 bingo card, she wrote alongside a clip, which has more than a million views, of her hugging a coworker. In a follow-up video, she wrote: making a banana cream matcha to cope with my store permanently closing. In another video viewed more than 6 million views, one employee dances to Michael Jacksons They Dont Care About Us on the counters and tables of the Starbucks that employed her before its imminent closure. The announcement assured that baristas from closing stores will either be offered severance packages or transferred to new locations. But rather than wait for official news of their fate, many decided to take matters into their own hands, crowdsourcing their own list of shuttering locations. On TikTok, a group of employees discussed their predictions for where they might be relocated in the shuffle. The big reveal: Everyone in the video was let go. We deserve better, and Im sorry for every barista going through it right now too, another barista captioned her video, claiming she was given just two days’ notice of her stores closure. Starbucks Workers United, the union that represents 12,000 baristas across 45 states and the District of Columbia, said it was requesting information from Starbucks about the planned closures. We expect to engage in effects bargaining for every impacted union store, as we have done elsewhere, so workers can be placed in another Starbucks store according to their preferences, reads the statement published last week. It has never been more clear why baristas at Starbucks need the backing of a union. Starbucks announced its closing locations where it doesnt see a path to financial performance, and those it identified as unable to create the physical environment our customers and partners expect.
Category:
E-Commerce
This week brought a mix of serious headlines and splashy moves. On one end, regulators and retailers are making decisions that could directly affect your wallet and grocery cartfrom FICO shaking up how mortgage lenders handle credit scores to Walmart promising cleaner labels on its private-label food. On the other, cultural and corporate forces collided in ways that only 2025 could deliver: Starbucks is closing stores (many of them unionized), and Taylor Swift is rolling out a new album and a three-day movie event thats giving theaters a rare box office jolt. Here are some of the week’s biggest stories. More pasta recalled after deadly listeria outbreak Retailers added new ready-to-eat pasta items to ongoing listeria-related recalls this week, including products from Trader Joe’s and Albertsons. The CDC ties the outbreak back to August 2024. Cases have currently risen to 20 this year, with four fatalities and 19 hospitalizations. Quantum computing stocks leapagain Rigetti, D-Wave, IonQ, and Quantum Computing Inc. notched double-digit daily pops, extending huge 12-month runs. Rigetti landed a $5.7 million order for two upgradable 9-qubit Novera systems; D-Wave touted a U.K. police pilot that sped up response-time modeling. Fans see early commercial traction; skeptics say the hype is still miles ahead of revenues. Big banks eye relief as capital rules get rewritten Trump-era regulators are crafting the most sweeping capital update since 2008, easing parts of the Basel Endgame, recalibrating GSIB surcharges, and tailoring leverage constraints. Industry sources expect systemwide capital to be flat at worstmaybe lower for some mega-banks. Critics warn softer buffers could bite if the economy wobbles. Walmart is cleaning up its private-label ingredients Walmart announced plans this week to eliminate the use of synthetic dyes and 30 additives across its Great Value, Marketside, Freshness Guaranteed, and Bettergoods brands by January 2027. The move follows federal nudges to phase out dyes and taps consumer demand for simpler labels. Walmart says 90% of its private-label items are already dye-free, with more reformulations rolling out soon. Starbucks closings include 59 unionized stores As part of a $1 billion Back to Starbucks overhaul, the company will close about 1% of North American stores by the end of 2025 while opening others. Starbucks Workers United says 59 of the closing cafés are unionized; the company says union status wasnt a factor and is offering transfers or severance. KB Home hints Florida discounts went too far After cutting hard to revive demand, KB Home says Florida orders bouncedand some communities may now see price increases. Management points to fewer housing starts and cost reductions as tailwinds. Not an all-clear for the whole state, but the tone has shifted from defense to cautious optimism. FICO upends mortgage-score distribution Fair Isaac Corp. will let mortgage lenders license FICO scores directlyskipping the credit bureausand says per-score costs could fall up to 50%. FICO shares ripped higher; Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax slumped on margin worries. The change follows public pressure from housing regulators to boost competition and lower fees. Taylor Swifts 3-day film window = scarcity play Alongside her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, Swift is premiering a companion film in AMC, Cinemark, and Regal multiplexes this weekend for just three days (Oct. 35). Its the same scarcity engine behind her limited-edition dropsand a studio-free win for theaters. Great for Swift-level stars; not a plug-and-play model for everyone else. Tesla sued over Cybertruck doors after fatal crash A new suit alleges electronic door releases failed in a fiery crash, trapping a 19-year-old passenger; manual releases require finding concealed cables. It adds to complaints and investigations around Teslas button-operated doors. Tesla has floated redesigns that blend mechanical and electronic releases to address panic scenarios. New Yorks inflation refund checks are in the mail New York is sending onetime checks of $150 to $400 to 8.2 million households through October and November. Eligibility is based on 2023 filing status and adjusted gross income (AGI); no application is needed, but make sure your address is current with the state if you’re a NY resident.
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E-Commerce
When Scott Belsky talks about creativity, he uses words like output and production. Creativity is the source, with the problem of mining, says the founder, author, and early stage investor. It requires machinery and practice and discipline and whatever else. Belsky joined A24 as the head of A24 Labs in early 2025. Before that, he founded Behance, a global portfolio site that he sold to Adobe in late 2012. He had a long run at Adobe, serving as its chief product officer and later chief strategy officer. This month he became the newest member of the Cornell Tech Council, and has written books like The Messy Middle and Making Ideas Happen. Belsky sits at the intersection of ideas and infrastructure, with the keen ability to frame the creative process in a way thats both practical and magic. Still, Belsky doesnt romanticize any of this. Im always thinking about the inputs in my life and trying to make sure I dont get too stagnant and boring, says Belsky. All of the things youre exposed to act as outputs. Belsky has worked for years building his own creative system of production and the nuggets he shares here are a result of the fact that his system is equally rooted in two worlds: I have always straddled one foot in the creative world and one foot in the business world. When I get too businessy it compromises the ingenuity that I can bring to the product and the things Im trying to create or write. It is a tension to constantly maintain in order to ensure youre not just basking in the stuff youve done before. Im constantly, constantly capturing stuff. It takes a little bit of the romanticism out of it, but Ive come to believe a lot of creativity is simply capturing things the moment they hit, and then tending to them with such consistency that you start to connect little pieces into a bigger thing. And then when you connect little things to big things and then bigger things into each other, then you end up with something amazing. It can be a book or a screenplay or some sort of business strategy or a new business. If I look at myself over the last couple of decades, it’s all about capturing things and then servicing them with the right moment and in the right way. Another thing that comes to mind is the role of others. Sometimes they have the missing pieces to the thing youre building. Sometimes I’ll meet somebody who has an idea or has a skill that captures something I had thought of years ago and suddenly I realize they are part of this project or puzzle. I work to graft them onto it in such a way that makes it come to life. That wouldnt have been possible had it not been for the discipline of going back and tending to the pieces that seemed dormant and irrelevant until suddenly they werent. I pick places to go and I sometimes say yes to things Id ordinarily say no to just get a fresh dose of surprise and exposure to something different. It can come in the form of a speaking engagement somewhere super inconvenient thats not even paying me, but Ill do it because I have a sense this will take me out of my comfort zone in some way. I also try to listen to new music and read things that are from new sources. I have a bit of a paranoia that somehow my input could get stale and my output would then become uninteresting to me and others. There is something to extract from everywhere if you have the skeleton key for itwhich is usually the right dose of curiosity. The ultimate test is when I go to a dinner I was dragged into. Ill say to myself this is going to be completely uninteresting. I try to find the skeleton key to the person or topicit will usually be me mining curiosity, like how does that work or why is that the way it is? Ill go deep into some backstory and it unlocks a door of intrigue and new material that is input, again. It’s like squeezing water from air. If you have the technology, water is everywhere; you dont have to look for the well. Ive also been impacted as a parent. When you have a kid, their inputs are just what you expose them to. Its a closed room experiment. Only for a short period of time, before they go out in the world and start watching TVbefore they start getting inundated with inputs that cannot be traced, you have this previous zone where everything they do you can trace back to the input they were exposed to. Its this fascinating laboratory of understanding creativity. Suddenly you can see the whole system and you can extrapolate how it impacts you and others because they are in the world. Texture and friction are how we remember time. The hardest, hardest vacations to remember are beach vacations; they all kind of blend together. You just remember sitting on the beach. I love the beach, but theres no friction in sitting and relaxing all day. Therefore, its hard to discern between the beaches you sat on in your vacations. Juxtapose that with getting lost on some street in rural Italy or arduously climbing some mountaintop or something like that. You remember those vividly because they were friction-filled. Time with friction is what makes us remember it. I have these two realizations: One is that at the end of your life, you will have felt like you lived longer based on how much time had texture and how much time you remember. In that essence, texture and time is what makes life longer. The other is that maybe it’s the inputs that have texture and friction that impact us the most. I definitely believe that pain is a source of creativity. I hate to say it but it’s true. You look at Billy Joel. His greatest albums came out of a divorce or his addiction. Everyone suffering is rife with texture and friction. It also probably rife with inputs and emotion, struggle, insight, realization. Whenever I struggle, theres a part of me thats grateful I still have kindling. I learn to appreciate the troughs of life. Lets do something with this. Ive become very purposeful with my time. Im in a startup environment building something new. I run product, design, and development teams. I have a sacred three hours every week that we call concepting. It is a block of time when we review product and have a more product and design driven controlled meeting, as opposed to an engineering one. Its not a meeting to talk about the cost of doing something. Its a meeting about, Whats the best product? Thats a mistake a lot of teams make. Theyll include engineers in that first product design meeting. And if you have engineers, its okay. But they cant be thinking, How am I going to implement this and is that going to be too expensive in time or money? They have to be thinking, Whats possible? How do we solve this problem? Thats a really sacred time. Every team Ive ever managed, I have these concepting blocks. My team, we are very empowered. We have a standup every Monday. Every Friday, everyone gives an update on every project they lead. Everyone is entrusted to use their time and energy to make the greatest impact. Its important to have a team that can be trusted. Full transparency. Everyone does it. Including me. I am one that always looks ahead. I have to make choices. I have a list in Notion of the things that are most important to me and I try to look at it every few days to pressure check myself against my calendar on how Im using my time. Whats important to me right now? One of them might be a project that has many short-term deliverables. I have one for work, one for the companies Im investing in and supporting, and I have one for my personal lifemy ealth and fitness, my relationships with my family. I just think that a quick glance over it is a recalibration of your brain that helps you make better decisions every day. Writing is my craft of processing and testing things myself and then testing things with others. Im tending to these fragments and these ideas. Both books I wrote were the result of lots of different pieces I captured. The Messy Middle was seven years of just capturing stuff and finally seeing the way they come together. I find writing a great form of getting ideas out there. I have forced myself to write this thing called Implications, which is one way I test ideas on the technology side and I learn what people engage with or disengage with. I do the same thing with social media. I dont consume a lot of social media but everything I do, I share on X. Its an instant way of engagement and testing ideas. Its an amazing tool. It helps me triangulate where I should put my focus and energy. I try to run three to five miles every morning. Its a principled period of time where Im forced to unplug. I listen to music but I never look at my phone. I just think and its also a great part of my chemistry and how my brain works. I swear by it. Do I even listen to the music? For some reason the music makes it easier to run. Do I love running? Or, do I just love everything that happens because of the running? When Im running I force myself to complete the run and almost always the idea has become much better. It taught me to wait and not capture and move on from the idea so fast, to sit with something. Should we be careful not to capture actions so quickly and stick with a creative process long enough so ideas build? This is the art and science of creativity. By capturing something so quickly were making ourselves at ease with the fact that weve captured it. When I tend to something over time, is that the equivalent of running and having to think about it more? The best practice would be to have both. Dont let something go. Capture it when it hits and tend to it over time so the pieces fit together. Let yourself keep going. Force yourself not to capture it so quickly.
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E-Commerce
In recent years, Venture Capital-as-a-Service (VCaaS) has become more predominant since it offers more flexibility than the traditional VC model. It is designed perfectly for corporations, family offices, and sovereign wealth funds that want to engage in startup investment without managing a full-fledged VC team. Lets understand the mechanics behind VCaaS and why corporations are embracing it. What is VCaaS? As an innovative, effective model, VCaaS is designed with an established VC firm which works for a corporation or institutional client to invest on its behalf. By using this model, the corporation or client benefits from startup innovation, access to deals, and active portfolio engagement, while avoiding the cost and trouble of setting up its own VC organization. There are a number of unique ways VCaaS works to benefit corporations and startups. Corporations typically want to become more innovative and this model makes this happen. Unique Fund Structure: VCaaS uses a co-investment or Limited Partner focus. By doing so, the corporation involved can set its own priorities, including sectors of investment, technology focus, and area of the world to invest in. This provides a great deal of flexibility to the investing corporation. Dedicated Team (without the hiring headache): A team of experienced investors from the experienced VCaaS firm acts on behalf of the corporate client. By working with such seasoned investors, the corporation benefits from a well-established organization with experts who are looking out for their priorities. Diligence and Deal Sourcing: Since the VC firm involved has strong experience, they can sort out startups based on the corporations goals, deliver strong deal flow, and run due diligencemaking sure all of this goes smoothly. Because VC investors work with startups continuously, they can quickly and effectively find the best fit. Process of Decision-Making Process: This unique model lets corporations make as manyor as fewdecisions as they want to. Some are involved throughout the startup selection process, while others simply want to sign off on final investment decisions. Corporations participate in the process as they want to, without compromise. Management of the Portfolio: Once investments are made, the VC firm makes life easy for the corporation by managing the startup portfolio on a continual basis. They will check on how the startups are doing financially, keep in touch with them, and give the corporation regular updates. This allows for high transparency and flexibility based on how the corporation wants to work. Why VCaaS is Gaining Ground Corporate and institutional investors are increasingly turning to VCaaS because they see its financial and business upside. Investing in startups is an increasingly important practice that is critical for corporations to become more innovative. Corporations count on VCaaS as an effective, reliable, flexible, and affordable model. They appreciate the following benefits: Fast speed to market since there is no need to build an internal VC organization nor hire internal investors Substantial global deal access via the experience VC firm that invests on behalf of the corporation Strong strategic alignment between corporate investment and business priorities High level of operational efficiency with minimal internal cost or burden Brand benefit from being seen as an innovation playerwithout the risk of a mismanaged internal venture effort VCaaS Case Studies Several case studies come to mind that demonstrate the effectiveness of the VCaaS model. These show how corporations can become more innovative by relying on a trusted VC partner. Sunny Health: A diversified Japanese corporation, Sunny Health partnered with Pegasus Tech Ventures to build a 350 billion ($2.4 trillion) innovation fund focused on AI, health technology, renewable energy, and deep tech. By partnering, the company avoided building its own internal VC organization from scratch. Aisin: As a global supplier of car components and systems, Aisin is known for its innovation as an automotive leader. The company relied on VCaaS to invest in electronics and mobility startups while staying aligned with its own R&D. By investing, Aisin accelerates the development of future mobility technologies, allowing the company to grow more quickly and surpass competition. Alchemist Accelerator and Siemens: Working together, Siemens enhanced its startup investment program by working with Alchemist Accelerator using the VCaaS model. Together they focus on startups in the industrial Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence sectors. One example of success is Rigado, a smart city connectivity-focused startup driving unique solutions. Qualcomm Ventures and Tech Mahindra: Indian consulting and IT firm Tech Mahindra worked with Qualcomm Venturesusing the VCaaS modelto invest in telecom and 5G startups. Together they invested in Pensa Systems, a standout in the drone and AI industry. Whats Next in VCaaS The recent growth of Venture Capital-as-a-Service is due to its effectiveness and flexibility for corporations seeking to become more innovative. By using this model, companies experience transparency and benefit from an investment model that aligns with their strategic goals, technical priorities, and timeline, without unnecessary overhead.
Category:
E-Commerce
They made things exciting. You thought you were in love. And now a week has gone by with no reply. Odds are theyre not getting back to you. But dont take it personally: Were all ensnared in a ghosting epidemic. According to the Thriving Center for Psychology, one in four Gen Zers and millennials have been ghosted after just a few dates. And to twist the knife even deeper, one in ten report being ghosted after a couple of months of dating. Tragically familiar, isnt it? Brands like Sweethearts have been quick to capitalize on the reality of today’s dating landscape. In 2024, the heart-shaped candy brand launched “Situationship Boxes,” featuring candies stamped with intentionally misprinted messages that capture the ambiguity of modern relationships. This year, the brand is unveiling “Ghosted Sweethearts.” The all-white conversation hearts are as blank as that text thread youre still waiting on, the brand says. Sweethearts arent just for Valentines Day anymore, said Evan Brock, vice president of marketing at Spangler Candy Co., the 119-year-old confectioner behind Sweethearts. With Ghosted Sweethearts, were poking fun at one of datings spookiest phenomenons and staking our claim on Halloween. Why are brands diving into Gen Zs miserable dating world? The answer lies in the bigger picture: Unrelenting rejection is feeding a generation-wide panic. As reported by Business Insider earlier this year, Gen Z has already been labeled the most anxious, stressed, burned-out, and lonely generationand now its members are facing historic levels of romantic rejection. Infinite possibilities are just a click, swipe, or DM away, but so is infinite rejection. Young adults have more doors to knock on than ever beforefrom jobs to friendships to loveand more doors slammed shut in their faces. Last year, a Hinge survey of 15,000 daters found that 90% of Gen Z respondents want to find love but fear of rejection is holding them back. Nearly half admit they have little to no dating experience. More than half say worrying about rejection has stopped them from pursuing someone, and theyre 10% more likely than millennials to report having missed their shot entirely. Rejection is intimidating for everyone, but Gen Z daters seem to feel it more acutely, said Logan Ury, director of relationship science at Hinge. Sweethearts isnt the first brand to get a laugh out of Gen Zs somber dating scene. In fact, brands have been capitalizing on the struggles of swipe-based dating for years. In 2016, Doritos ran a Super Bowl campaign called “Swipe for Doritos” that poked fun at online dating and rejection. It seems brands have caught on to the despair woven into the tragic love stories of digital-first datersand they’ve wasted no time entering the chat.
Category:
E-Commerce