19 happy juneteenth, big tech's scared

we were eating korean bbq the other night with a group of besties (and one acquaintance), and all of a sudden - bang! turns out some dude shot at our restaurant’s window, then ran off into the night. normally this is where we’d put a cheesy transition in asking for readers to refer a friend and earn yummy prizes, but we can’t think of one this week...we just really wanted to tell this story. got a problem with that? email us your comments 😉 !

big idea: juneteenth is official

1. we’d say we purposefully planned our nineteenth issue to come out around juneteenth, but let’s be real here - we’re not that smart. Joe signed a bipartisan bill to make it a federal holiday, the first new one in about 40 years. saturday celebrated the US emancipation, marking when slaves in texas were freed by union soldiers, two months after the civil war ended. last year, hundreds of national companies began recognizing juneteenth amid the BLM movement.
2. republicans largely backed the measure since it is mostly performative, especially when considering the backdrop of state republicans across the nation moving to restrict what history can be taught in schools. as usual, conservatives want to embrace a nostalgic view of ‘murica which glosses over the genocide of native americans and the enslavement of black americans.
3. activists who pushed for decades for the establishment of juneteenth as a holiday have moved onto bigger targets, like passing a new voting rights act through the senate, ending prison labor (the last form of legal forced labor), and establishing a famous black folk song as the national hymn. 

story to watch: the FTC has a new boss

1. Lina Khan was named the new head of the Federal Trade Commission, the agency most responsible for policing large national businesses in the US. she has promised to be radically transformative, pushing antitrust and consumer protection laws to their limits to go after big tech, including breaking up companies like Amazon. 
2. if she has the backing of other FTC commissioners, she will be able to block mergers and acquisitions, and sue companies to undo previous mergers. in related news, several bills were introduced last week to limit the power of big tech, some with bipartisan support.
3. don’t expect big tech to go down without a fight though. they’ve already come swinging at Lina Khan, demanding she recuse herself from any FTC decisions relating to tech companies, and reverting to the sinophobic talking point that big Chinese tech companies will take over the world if the American tech sector is regulated.

this week’s image: baby university

• (Twitter) a professor bought a crib for his office so one of his students can bring her baby into lab when she can’t find a sitter. 

this week’s number: the average vehicle age is 12 years old

1. the average age of an american vehicle hit an all time high of 12 years in 2020, as the quality of cars improve, people become more willing to stick with cars for longer, and as new cars become increasingly unaffordable. the average new car sold for more than $38,000 last month, also a record high.
2. this trend is only likely to continue into the future, as cars receive software updates online, further lengthening their lifespan, and as EVs take over. electric cars have far fewer moving parts than traditional internal combustion engines, which again will result in longer lifespans. as car companies sell fewer new cars, they’ll increase prices to compensate, which will only further depress demand.

what we’re reading: “The Ride of a Lifetime”

1. the NYT bestselling memoir by Disney’s former CEO, “The Ride of a Lifetime” will appeal to anyone interested in entertainment, corporate strategy, or the company behind big hits like Cars 2. it tracks Disney’s meteoric rise over the past two decades as it gobbled up Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. 
2. soon to be released - the Disney+ book adaptation which portrays its CEO as a complicated antihero who wants to take over all global entertainment, but for good reasons, okay!

reader mailbag:

1. last week we really went after college athletes, and (as expected) we received quite an earful, along with a couple swirlies. reader S.M. in particular took issue with our treatment of these living crash test dummies. 
2. to clarify, we don’t really care if these students are paid or not - just that they shouldn’t be in the academic system to begin with. let the free market decide (via amateur leagues) what these guys & gals are worth, not a monopoly of money-losing athletics departments.

and, in case you missed it:

• iran has a new conservative president, and israel has a new hardliner PM (as we discussed in issue 17)
• 50 cops resigned from portland’s riot squad in fear protest after one of them was charged for using excessive force
• a florida man accidentally bought his town’s water tower for $55,000

the weekly rundown is produced by Yunus, Faisal (@faisalc93), and Ahmed (@ahmedhcheema). learn more about us and email us your comments and feedback!