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Cue Rebecca Black: Friday, Friday, gonna refine on Friday. Wait, what? Thanks to Apple’s ongoing great marketing campaign for Severance, there’s now a Lumon Industries website, where you can try your hand at refining numbers like a true innie. Maybe if you finish your quota, you’ll be treated to a Music Dance Experience.

Yeah, we’re big fans of the show over here.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

MrBeast Is Looking To Raise Cash Instead Of Giving It Out

Beast Bucks // Illustration by Kait Cunniff with DALL-E

MrBeast (real name Jimmy Donaldson) is preparing to kick off a rare fundraise that would value his empire at $5 billion.

The Viral Picture: MrBeast is the long-running champ of the creator economy, printing more money than most companies. As he expands both his physical and digital footprints, getting a chance to invest may be as competitive as one of his YouTube challenges.

Behind the Fundraise: MrBeast is coming to Wall Street.

  • The fundraising would be to invest in his holding company, which houses everything from his social-media earnings, his chocolate company, Feastables, and his Lunchables competitor, Lunchly.

  • The holding company is profitable, generating more than $400 million in revenue last year.

  • But not all is profitable in Beastland — while Beast Games on Prime Video was a ratings hit, Donaldson admitted that he lost “tens of millions of dollars” on the first season. Still, Amazon is committed to spending another $250 million on two more seasons.

Final Valuation: Several financial firms and high-net-worth individuals are already interested in the raise, but those identities are under lock and key at this stage. And it’s uncertain if they’ll agree to the $5 billion valuation price point. But with MrBeast moving more of his business in-house and buying more land and property in his base of Greenville, North Carolina, the Beast empire is only set to expand from here.

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Robots Are Taking Themselves For A Walk

One giant leap for robotkind // Image courtesy of Boston Dynamics

Boston Dynamics, long at the cutting edge of robotics, is now touting a breakthrough in leveling up its robots for the real world.

Why It Hits: Boston Dynamics is no longer the only player in the robotics game, facing competition from Big Tech players like Tesla, startups like Figure, and new entrants like Meta. If Boston Dynamics can scale robot independence (of movement, not sovereignty), then it could be the first company to make machines accessible to the average… er, wealthy… consumer.

Behind the Code: Boston Dynamics founder and chairman Marc Raibert told Wired that the company will soon no longer need to “handcraft everything that robots do.”

  • State of play: The company’s dog-like Spot robot is already used on oil rigs and construction sites, while its humanoid Atlas robot is used for research.

  • New breakthrough: While most robots have to be pre-programmed or directly controlled to complete tasks, Boston Dynamics is using an AI technique called “reinforcement learning.”

  • Under the hood: Reinforcement learning involves a robot using machine learning to learn faster through experimentation and feedback loops… but Boston Dynamics has created simulations that allow them to do it all in their heads.

The Future: Raibert told Wired that the new training method means, “You don't have to get as much physical behavior from the robot [to generate] good performance.” And with Raibert founding the Robotics and AI (RAI) Institute last year to incubate more crossover between robotics and AI, that almost promises those robot dancing videos will only get more uncanny.

Let’s just make sure we never end up in an I, Robot situation.

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DEEP DIVES

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53.8% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Do you currently use a smart assistant like Alexa?

“Not a Luddite, but I just don’t trust them.”

“I currently have Alexa devices throughout my home, but they kind of suck. Definitely hoping this new AI infusion will make them a bit more intuitive and functional. Otherwise, they’re just glorified speakers for my Spotify account.”

“I’m disabled, and I live alone. Having my Google assistants in almost every room gives me peace of mind.”

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.

QUICK HITS

→ Technology

🚀 Blue Origin is planning to launch an all-female crew to space, which will include Lauren Sánchez, Gayle King, and Katy Perry.

🛰️ Intuitive Machines has launched its second moon mission — this time, to test cell signals in space.

🤖 Anthropic is training its Claude chatbot by having it play Pokémon Go… which you can watch on a Twitch livestream.

→ Fashion / E-commerce

👕 Urban Outfitter’s clothing-rental platform, Nuuly, has turned a profit.

⚾ Takashi Murakami is collabing with the MLB on a merch and collectables capsule.

🧸 Precise TV found that 75% of kids ages 2-12 ask their parents to buy them a toy after seeing it advertised on YouTube.

→ Creator Economy

🎙️ Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network has dropped Alix Earle’s Hot Mess podcast.

💻 TikTok is beefing up its desktop platform to better compete with YouTube Shorts.

📱 Instagram announced that it’s looking to launch Reels as a dedicated app (just please, no more gore).

Let us know how we are doing...

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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.

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