Rent-An-Apple

PRESENTED BY USVC

Happy Wednesday, Future Party. If you or the high school graduate in your life dream of becoming a professional content creator, there’s now a college path for that. Arizona State University announced a new “Content Creation” program launching this upcoming term. It’s not just a class — it’s an entire major that culminates in a Bachelor of Arts degree. A new cultural threshold has officially been crossed.

FIFA is considering creating a new commercial entity to raise more than $4 billion.

The Big Picture: FIFA seems bigger than ever thanks to the outsized success of the World Cup and the way it finally captured America's attention. Organization president Gianni Infantino doesn’t want the opportunity to turn the world’s biggest sport into its biggest moneymaker to go to waste — especially when nothing is more in demand than broadcast rights.

Behind The Push: FIFA wants to turn popularity into profit.

Last Shot: FIFA is an international self-governing body founded in 1904 to oversee competitions between countries’ respective soccer associations. Profit isn’t really in its DNA… which is why UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, immediately blasted the proposal, saying, “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to sell.”

While that may be the case, FIFA said it would “retain control of the venture and still have exclusive authority over competitions, match calendars, and all sporting decisions.” In other words, FIFA seems to believe it owns football.

Next Tournament: Infantino is up for re-election next year, and this plan may live or die based on whether he wins another term.

In 1980, the median company went public at 6 years old. By 2024, that number had climbed to 13.

That’s 7 extra years of growth before most people can buy a single share.

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^{_{*Educational purposes only. Not investment advice. Not an offer of securities.}}

Apple is developing a leasing program in partnership with Klarna.

Why It Hits: Apple products only keep getting more expensive, just as people are tightening their belts. As competitors appeal to more price-conscious shoppers, Apple hopes a leasing program can make its devices more affordable.

Behind The Program: Apple is ready for rentals.

Checkout: Apple has already made it clear that AI has made memory and storage costs astronomical, contributing to higher prices. And with the company preparing its own AI rollout, those prices could continue to climb.

Soon, everyone you know may be renting the new iPhone instead of buying it.

The Future: If Apple expands the program to its more experimental devices, it could generate additional revenue from products like the Vision Pro and its upcoming AI glasses.

Early-stage teams move quickly, but their internal systems often struggle to keep pace.

In the first few months of building a company, it’s easy for documentation, roadmaps, meeting notes, hiring plans, and customer insights to become scattered across different tools and conversations.

At first, that mess feels manageable.

But as the team grows, every unclear process becomes a drag on execution.

The most effective founders treat their workspace like a product.

That means designing it intentionally — with a clear structure, useful templates, shared naming conventions, and a simple onboarding experience for every new team member.

A strong workspace makes information easier to find, decisions easier to track, and priorities easier to understand.

Operational debt compounds just like technical debt.

Every duplicate document, lost decision, or unclear handoff slows the team down.

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62.8% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Do you have a favorite film director?

“If the movie doesn’t seem interesting, it doesn’t matter who’s working on it. Tickets are too expensive for me to just ‘try’ something because of a director. I’ll wait for it to hit TV.”

“I actually have several favorite directors. I’m a big fan of David Lean and Akira Kurosawa. I also really like Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and John Ford. Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, and Guy Ritchie are my favorite contemporary directors.”

“Wes Anderson is my favorite. Sofia Coppola, Tim Burton, and Guy Ritchie follow close behind. Each has such a distinct creative voice that you know whose film you’re watching within minutes, and I’m visually intrigued regardless of the subject matter. That’s what I tend to gravitate toward when it comes to film.”

“Quentin Tarantino. Followed by Scorsese, Spielberg, Cameron, P.T. Anderson, Coppola… the Mount Rushmore of directors.”

“Robert Eggers and Denis Villeneuve have been consistently great.”

“I’ll watch anything directed by David Fincher.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, 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.

📱 HBO Max is experimenting with vertical video through a new feature called HBO Max Shorts.

🥡 WME has signed DoorDash for representation to speed up the company’s entertainment ambitions.

🎤 Roblox has struck a licensing agreement with indie distribution company Too Lost.

🤖 Nvidia is investing a “substantial” amount in Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence.

👀 Amazon is winding down most of its homegrown AI projects.

📕 OpenAI is finally instructing ChatGPT to reject prompts that ask it to mimic the voice of famous authors.

🫰 PayPal may have rejected Stripe’s takeover offer, but it remains open to an acquisition.

👗 Both Kering and LVMH are finally returning to sales growth.

📞 You can now call Yelp’s AI to place a food order.