Baby Geniuses

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Happy Thursday, Future Party. Leave it to Taylor Swift to break the internet — again. Her livestreamed cameo yesterday on boyfriend Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, to chat about her upcoming album drew 1.3 million concurrent viewers… before crashing. We’re betting the same thing happens on October 3rd when The Life of a Showgirl drops. On that day, we suggest you prepare to start listening to that album… swiftly.

Silicon Valley execs, computer scientists, wealthy AI doomsdayers, and high-net-worth couples are paying big bucks to grow the smartest babies their genes and cash can produce.

The Big Bet: The growing interest in “genetic optimization” is a natural evolution of the tech industry’s obsession with IQ, which has been put on a pedestal as the most important determining factor in success. For some, kids are now the ultimate legacy project.

Behind The Births: How much would you pay to make sure your kid is the smartest in class?

The Future: Unsurprisingly, bioethicists aren’t thrilled about what amounts to voluntary eugenics. But as The WSJ points out, even top Bay Area preschools require IQ tests for admission — so the rat race for intellectual superiority is already well underway.

Ironically, Shai Carmi, an associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who helped design the models used to predict IQ in embryos, admits the tests are “not very good.” At best, they might select an embryo with just three or four IQ points above average — “not going to be something to make your child a prodigy.” Baby steps, we guess.

Next Try: While it’s unlikely we’ll see a future split between high-IQ and “normal”-IQ humans à la the movie Gattaca, customizing babies could very well become an elite status symbol.

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Labels are commissioning music videos for old hits — sometimes decades old — to capitalize on their resurgence or introduce the artist to a new generation of fans.

Why It Hits: New artists rarely get the resources to make music videos these days, so giving established artists budgets for old songs shows how streaming’s catalog mindset has transformed the industry — it pays to create videos for proven hits rather than to gamble on new ones. Maybe music videos are evolving into the coolest kind of retrospective.

Behind The Videos: Generational bangers are getting music videos for a whole new generation.

Encore: Tony Kiewel, co-president of the label Sub Pop, gave The NYT a little insight into the thinking behind making a video for “Real Love Baby.” Originally uploaded to SoundCloud, the track became Father John Misty’s most-streamed song and unexpectedly went viral on TikTok in 2023. The video, Kiewel said, “gave us an excuse to talk about the song,” since “we can’t send a press release out that says, ‘This song is viral.’” Creating a video opened up that conversation — and provided fresh material for marketing and social media clips.

Queue Up: With the continuing popularity of greatest-hits albums, it’s possible that a legacy artist could one day roll out a greatest-hits album — a big-budget visual anthology of their career.

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59.7% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Is Google Chrome your main web browser?

“Yep, starting a new relationship at this point just seems like a lot of work.”

“I mainly use the Google ecosystem (Pixel phone, Pixel watch, etc.), so it’s the default browser on most of my devices. I’ve also switched my personal and work laptops to Chrome, so I can access my bookmarks no matter which device I’m using.”

“After Chrome started making changes to prioritize Google services and prevent ad blockers, I switched to Safari and have never gone back. Safari runs easily twice as fast, uses way fewer resources, and the Reader/Hide Distracting Items features are built-in lifesavers.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🤑 Paramount surged into meme-stock territory on the Nasdaq yesterday, with shares jumping 38% after hitting a high of 60%. Wall Street clearly likes what it’s hearing from David Ellison.

📘 NBCU locked down the rights to Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne and Treadstone book series in perpetuity after a seven-way bidding war.

🎧 Spotify announced that it struck a deal with the royalties company Kobalt to service songwriters on the platform.

👴 Fountain Life, a longevity startup founded by Tony Robbins and Dr. Peter Diamandis, raised $18 million in funding in a round led by Eos Ventures.

🤖 OpenAI said that it would no longer delete old versions of ChatGPT when it rolls out a new model.

👀 A new study found that companies are purposely hiding how visitors can delete their data, which is illegal in California.

🛒 Amazon will start making same-day deliveries of perishable groceries in 1,000 US cities… and 2,300 cities by the end of the year.

🚗 A mysterious auto startup called Tensor announced that it’s rolling out the first consumer-ready, fully autonomous EV in the US.

👟 LEGO and Nike can’t stop building together, with their partnership expected to expand to apparel and sneakers.