Two winners next week—Merlot with Merle or maybe a Malbec with Adele? Spotify is now pairing songs and wines like a chef does with food. Badass.
McDonald’s will crush it in its rollout to include a pair of long, cozy, French fry socks with delivery after 5 p.m. I see a "Breaking Bad" binge.
Inside scoop on WeWork IPO—it won’t happen in this lifetime. Founder pleaded for a press release to say it was delayed rather than DOA. Goldman and the big boys told WeWork’s largest investor, SoftBank, to pledge $750 million one day after IPO to prop it after market entry. SoftBank said no. Founder has to take bullet on this one, running WeWork like it was a Waycross beauty salon—cash underneath tables, drawers, doors and mattresses with side businesses out by the shed. Dude, pay the country club dues out of your own pocket.
I'm not in on this trend: device-free meetings. Half of Fortune 500s have a policy of no peeks at screens during meetings and some even collecting at door. Don’t go near this den—they’re watching too many reruns of “Madmen.” Doing two things at one time in this economy generally rewards. It also compels great content from the leader, instead of the warden and prison meeting routine. As Minnie Pearl’s mentor told her—love your audience and they’ll love you back.
By the way, Oct 23rd we have a senior speaker seminar: How to Emotionally Connect with Any Audience of 2 or 2,000. Request an invite. It’s with Kelly Springer from NY and, when I announced it, I left off her GMA cred—too tied up with her natural ability to connect and her voice pitch is the best I’ve heard since Sara Carter. Stay on the sunny side. By the way, seminar attendees will include academia and high achievers—not all entrepreneurs. Boring. Automatic ticket is Peiru Kim, rare combination of excellence and empathy, which shines in Sugarcoat.
Trend I am all in: Shared Weddings. Laugh all you want. In Lebanon—by the way, known as Paris of the Middle East—they are now having mass weddings to cut down on costs, and the record so far is 134 at the same time. Walk across the hall just like graduation. Biggest challenge is to agree on the same caterer. By the way, on Friday, 123 kissed the brides at the same time in Maronite church in Beirut, exactly where Florence Eid and I attended services and would have been chapel. Hang my head and cry. An app to match wedding dates is Killah.
Lavender is in and I am glad everybody came around. Lavender latte every morning since 2010 and now the herb is in everything from soap to spaghetti, so the cool thing in Silicon Valley is to pack up, move to Austin, Texas, and start a lavender farm—better margins than a bed and breakfast. By the way, big hit at my book signing was not book. Lavender martinis owned the day.
Flirtin' With Disaster. Simplify your stock portfolio next week. Load up on Facebook. Do the math: if you bought one share every day, you would have $1 million in nine years. FB is one of two or three companies where scale is a canyon advantage over the competition and now it is in the dating business with that secret crush feature. Over. So if you dream about your freshman biology lab partner as the one that got away, you’ve got a chance. By the way, Facebook will zap the like button before 2021. They’ve already piloted and permanented in seven countries with Instagram.
Survey says: Light Up My Life. Our job is to earn your business, not survey you. If we did a great job, keep buying from us. If we did not, let us know and we will make it right. Otherwise, just cut the frigging grass and fix the brakes without sending me 10 questions. And Delta, please don’t ask my opinion if you should have hired the person on the phone—just answer the phone when I call. I feel like Delta and I are back on the wrong foot. Just because I change my outbound flight should not in the same ticket transaction terminate my return flight. Survey: Are commercial airlines a socialist monopoly?
See the future. Root Insurance, a Columbus, Ohio-based car insurance startup, officially raised $350 million in funding at a valuation of $3.65 billion. You download their app and drive for two weeks. You then get a no or yes with an offer of 50% discount from your current rate. You just wiped out agents and basically Allstate.
When The Eagles released “Take It Easy,” they had settled on a shared values sound until the Brilliant Jerk and super-talented bass guitar player one day stomped his feet and said, “This shit is not rock, I’m not playing it.” Band co-founder Glen Frey said, “This shit sells. We’re doing more of it.” Six years later, after many battles, Frey and the Brilliant Jerk literally got into a fight on a San Francisco stage. The band broke up in two months. Fire the Brilliant Jerk. By the way, The Eagles will be in Atlanta for two nights with Vince Gill in that guitar spot.
By the numbers:
Number of GMC employees: 46,000
Numbers of days on strike: 5
Numbers of cars produced: 0
Losses per day due to strike: $1 million
Right now, I am predicting settlement 1st week of October. I haven’t seen production this bad since Jeff George was the Falcon’s quarterback.
Noun
1. An area where special environmental circumstances have enabled a species or a community of species to survive after extinction in surrounding areas. Otherwise known as a founder’s loneliness or kingdom post-sale.
