Plus: Here Come The Anti-Woke Venture Capitalists |
Good morning,
Unlike most retailers, Dick’s Sporting Goods is doubling down on brick-and-mortar.The sporting goods chain is opening a new jumbo store format across the country, with features like an indoor climbing wall, batting cages and even an outdoor sports field. Forbes estimates the retailer will spend nearly $2 billion on the expansion. It’s the latest bet from Dick’s chairman Ed Stack, and so far, it’s paying off: Dick’s is one of just a handful of retailers to record consistent same-store sales growth since the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Morgan Stanley equity analyst. Expected revenue this year is up more than 50% from 2019, and Stack is worth $5.4 billion.
Let’s get into the headlines, |
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 | | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images |
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| President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of nearly all prisoners on federal death row early Monday, in a move that prevents President-elect Donald Trump—who has promised to resume carrying out capital punishment at the federal level—from allowing their executions to go forward. The president said he was guided by his “conscience” and said, “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued the parent firm for payments platform Zelle, along with Zelle operators JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, accusing the companies of failing to protect consumers from “widespread fraud.” The agency claims customers across the three banks have lost more than $870 million since Zelle was launched in 2017, and has requested relief for affected customers—the amount of which would be determined in court. |
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| | | Here Come The Anti-Woke Venture Capitalists |
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| A little-known organization called New Founding has launched a venture capital fund to invest in what it calls “aligned companies,” startups that oppose progressive ideologies and are intent on both “cultural and economic disruption.” It’s one of a small but growing number of VCs vocally rejecting “wokeism” and building their investment thesis on core conservative values. New Founding’s investments are one tentpole of a broader goal: to remake society with a largely MAGA, largely tech-driven Christian worldview. It decries liberals as “anti-human,” celebrates technology as a singular force that will define a new era, loves crypto and sees the internet as a means to its ends. So far, it’s raised $3 million, a modest start. But it has made 10 investments in seed stage and series A companies, among them an education startup to help teachers start their own “micro-schools,” and an ad-tech company that helps gun manufacturers target consumers. New Founding CEO Nate Fischer told Forbes these investments are the beginnings of a “parallel economy,” offering conservative versions of mainstream products sold by companies like Google that it views as too liberal. “There’s a large share of people who feel that their views are almost entirely absent from the institutions that are shaping the future,” Fischer explained. “And there’s a real acute need and hunger for alternatives.” Silicon Valley leaders are on board. Marc Andreessen—a cofounder of the venture giant Andreessen Horowitz, who has also railed against “wokeism”—is among those backing New Founding’s venture fund. |
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| The stock market had one of its best days of the year Friday, shaking off a historic losing stretch as the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric was actually better than expected in November. The core personal consumption expenditures index rose 2.8% year-over-year, welcome news as strong inflation data would support further interest rate cuts. Starbucks baristas in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle walked off the job Friday in a holiday strike they say will spread to hundreds of stores by Christmas Eve unless the company ups its wage offer in contract negotiations. Starbucks and the union have reached tentative agreements on dozens of issues, the New York Times reported, but they are clashing after the company proposed an economic package with no immediate raises and a guarantee of 1.5% in future years. |
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| WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP |
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| Donald Trump moved his roughly 57% stake in Trump Media & Technology Group to his revocable living trust, according to a recent regulatory filing, and though he has said he has no plans to sell his shares, it could open the door for his son Donald Trump Jr. to sell them. Shares in Truth Social fell 6% as a result, before ending the day down 2%, and the move cut about $200 million from the president-elect’s net worth. |
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| In recent years, Georgia Tech’s reputation has begun to rival that of the engineering powerhouses MIT, Stanford and Caltech, helping fuel the Silicon Valley of the South in Atlanta. It has done so by bucking exclusivity and establishing career pipelines with tech industry giants: For instance, Georgia Tech graduates make up the second-largest group of employees at Microsoft, just behind graduates of University of Washington, according to LinkedIn data. Publishers grappling with AI startups scraping their content to train powerful large language models often have two choices: Either sue the company for copyright infringement or strike a one-off deal to license their archives. But a new class of companies is offering a third option, promising to help publishers get paid when their work is cited or summarized by AI. |
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| President Joe Biden signed a funding bill Saturday to avert a shutdown and fund the government until March 14, following a last-minute effort to approve the measure in Congress and a chaotic week of opposition from President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The Senate voted 85-11 to approve the bill, with all Democrats supporting the measure while 10 Republicans and Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against it, following a 366-34 vote in the House late Friday, with no Democrats opposed. A bipartisan pair of senators urged President Biden to delay the law that requires TikTok to divest itself from Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance or face a ban in the U.S. from taking effect. But it’s unclear if Biden has the authority to do so, since under the law, the president can only extend the deadline if there’s a clear path toward divestiture or significant evidence that the company is in the process of divesting itself from ByteDance—which so far isn’t the case. |
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 | | Tomas Ovalle/Raw Farm |
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| Even as federal health regulators have repeatedly warned about the risks of raw milk, Raw Farm, the country’s largest producer at the center of raw milk recalls in California, has seen its sales grow exponentially to more than $30 million. And with raw milk proponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, it hopes to sell even more. The firm’s CEO and cofounder is in discussions to become the chief advisor on raw milk in the next Trump Administration. |
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| The next two FIFA Women’s World Cup tournaments will be streamed exclusively on Netflix in the most significant deal FIFA has signed with a streaming service. It’s also a major victory for Netflix as it works to break into the world of live sports: |
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2027 and 2031 | When the tournaments will be held | |
| 32 | The number of teams from across the world that will compete in cities throughout Brazil for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup | |
| 1.12 billion | The number of people who watched the 2019 Women’s World Cup across the world, per FIFA |
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| To ensure that your family’s wealth passes down from generation to generation, it’s critical to have strong communication and trust. It helps to verbalize your family’s values through a mission statement and to discuss your estate plan, even if it might feel awkward. Ensuring your children and grandchildren are financially literate is key to preserving and growing the wealth you already have. |
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