Spotify 🤝 Netflix

PRESENTED BY NUROPOD

Happy Thursday, Future Party. In case you haven’t noticed, today’s tech elite are obsessed with legendary author J.R.R. Tolkien — or at least with the cool-sounding names from The Lord of the Rings. Palantir, Anduril, Erebor… all pulled straight from Middle-earth. So, it was only a matter of time before someone satirized the trend. A comedy collective called “We Are Children” created “Middle-Earth VC,” a generator that pairs names lifted from Tolkien’s world with startup ideas ripped straight from Silicon Valley. It’s exactly the kind of internet absurdity that feels almost too believable.

Netflix and Spotify have teamed up on an exclusive distribution deal for Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast.

Why It Hits: Video podcasts are essentially the new daytime TV, and every streamer is now rushing to develop a programming slate. With Netflix, Paramount+, Tubi, Hulu, YouTube, and others all competing in the space, a new era of bidding wars may already be underway.

Behind The Deal: Shetty, a former Hindu monk turned self-help podcaster, has entered rarefied air with a new multi-year, $100 million deal for his show, according to Bloomberg.

Final Contract: Spotify has been the king of podcasts for years, but Netflix is still new to the game — and spending heavily to gain a foothold in the industry, including by launching its own slate of video podcasts. While the two companies have already struck several mutually beneficial deals — Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos sits on Spotify’s board, and Spotify’s Bill Simmons has a slate of shows on Netflix — this marks the first time they’ve directly partnered to land a hit show.

Now, the radio star can be the video star, too.

Next Season: Considering Shetty recently took his podcast on a successful US tour, expect Netflix to livestream some of his marquee events… with guided meditation sessions, of course.

Do you hit a wall around 3 p.m. every day? Walk out of meetings forgetting what was just discussed? Feel a low hum of stress running beneath everything else you’re trying to do?

First: you’re not alone. Second: this isn’t a mindset problem — it’s a biology problem.

Most people only use a fraction of their nervous system’s capacity. Your vagus nerve helps your brain switch out of stress mode. When it’s underperforming, your brain can stay slightly on edge — enough to dull focus and memory, but not enough to feel like a full-blown crisis.

People try all kinds of solutions: breathwork, meditation, yoga, cold exposure. They can help, but they also require a level of time and consistency most people don’t have.

That’s why Parasym created Nuropod.

The device clips directly onto your ear and works while you go about your day — at your desk, on a walk, even during meetings.

In peer-reviewed trials, users saw memory improve by 32%, brain fog decrease by 40%, and anxious thoughts drop by 35%.

Featured in Don’t Die, the Netflix documentary about Bryan Johnson, Nuropod is backed by more than 60 completed studies and 5 million user sessions worldwide.

Try it for 30 days — and get your money back if it doesn’t work for you.

MoviePass, the embattled movie-subscription platform, has inked a deal with the Independent Cinema Alliance (ICA) to create a subscription product that connects member theaters.

The Big Picture: While theatrical movies are mounting a comeback this year, much of that success has been concentrated among the major chains. Indie theaters across the US are still struggling, so a tech solution that improves discoverability could help drive some much-needed revenue.

Behind The Scenes: MoviePass founder Stacy Spikes — now back as CEO after a movie-worthy battle with the company’s former owners — is becoming the king of the pivot.

Final Update: ICA includes 180 companies operating nearly 5,000 screens across the US and Canada, generating a combined $1 billion in annual box-office revenue — about 15% of the market. Collectively, that makes it the third-largest domestic movie-distribution network, behind only AMC and Regal. That’s a lot of untapped potential.

For most of these theaters, building a standalone subscription platform simply doesn’t make economic sense, so bringing them under one roof allows them to share both the benefits — and the costs.

Coming Soon: As the analog movement continues to take hold among Gen Z, it could also extend to nostalgia-soaked single-screen cinemas and art-house theaters. MoviePass may be partnering with ICA at exactly the right moment.

With ElevenLabs, editing takes minutes — not hours. That’s the power of AI.

See why more than 1 million creators, including Andrew Huberman and Arianna Huffington, use ElevenLabs for content creation.

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23.6% of you voted CD player in yesterday’s poll: Which analog media device do you currently use most often, if any?

“The reason I bought my 2018 RAV4 instead of another SUV was because it has a CD player — perhaps the last car to have one. But I also still play my 45s, record albums, and cassettes quite a bit at home.”

“I still have over 300 CDs — essentially, I own the soundtrack to my life. There’s a comfort in that.”

“I watch a TV show on DVD every night before bed to help me wind down — and sometimes movies earlier in the evening.”

“I still use my cardio exercise DVDs from the early 2000s!”

“I got a gorgeous wooden record player at an estate sale, and my partner and I have been collecting records ever since. It’s nice to play music without having to use my phone.”

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.

⚽ Both New York and New Jersey’s attorneys general have subpoenaed FIFA over soaring World Cup ticket prices.

🤖 Amazon is debuting a new GenAI Creators’ Fund with a slate of three animated series.

🎥 Tribeca is the first major film festival to program an entirely AI-generated feature film — a docudrama called Dreams of Violets.

👔 BOSS has been tapped as the official businesswear partner of the US Men’s National Soccer Team.

🏎️ Gucci is the new title sponsor of the Alpine Formula One Team in a deal estimated at $60 million per season.

💸 Robinhood will now let AI make trades and purchases on a user’s behalf.

💻 Top digital creators Jordan Matter, Michelle Khare, and Samir Chaudry are backing Bedford, a new AI-powered platform for learning content creation.

🌎 IShowSpeed is leveraging his livestreaming world tour into a new partnership with Expedia.

🙃 Byron Allen says he plans to turn BuzzFeed into a competitor to YouTube.