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- Cracker Barrel U-turns on its rebrand
Cracker Barrel U-turns on its rebrand
Plus: Nvidia's earnings report will show whether the AI boom is gaining steam
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News You Need2Know
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What’s the stock market up to, eh?
Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter
$CBRL ( ▼ 1.4% ) $NVDA ( ▼ 1.82% ) $MSFT ( ▲ 0.94% ) $AMZN ( ▲ 0.26% ) $GOOG ( ▲ 1.34% ) $META ( ▼ 0.89% ) $INTC ( ▲ 2.05% ) $MSFT ( ▲ 0.94% )
Cracker Barrel U-turns on its rebrand after all
Iconic restaurant chain Cracker Barrel has officially scrapped its $700 million rebranding effort after public criticism and a noticeable dip in sales. The major overhaul — intended to modernize the 660-location chain and attract younger customers — sparked outrage among loyal patrons, ultimately forcing the company to revert to its traditional logo.
The now-abandoned rebrand replaced Cracker Barrel's beloved "Old Country Store" logo, which features "Uncle Herschel," a man in overalls seated next to a barrel. Fans of the restaurant saw the change as erasing a key part of its identity. The company's leadership acknowledged the backlash. "We thank our guests for sharing your voices and love for Cracker Barrel," it said in a statement the day after swearing it wouldn’t go back to the old logo. “Our new logo is going away, and our ‘Old Timer’ will remain.”
Even President Donald Trump weighed in, encouraging the company to return to its roots. On Truth Social, he urged the chain to “go back to the old logo, admit a mistake based on customer response... and manage the company better than ever before.”
Cracker Barrel $CBRL ( ▼ 1.4% ) shares rose following the restoration announcement.
“At Cracker Barrel, it’s always been – and always will be – about serving up delicious food, warm welcomes, and the kind of country hospitality that feels like family,” the company said.
N2K readers advised the company to hold firm until the controversy blew over in our Monday poll, but as we all know, a day is an awfully long time in politics and at Cracker Barrel.
Song of the day: Adrian Sherwood, ‘The Collapse of Everything’
Adrian Sherwood is a long-time British reggae producer drawing plaudits for his latest genre-busting album, of which this is the title track. His new song is about the loss of two of his good friends, and also, he says, “what’s going on in the world now both politically and environmentally.” Presumably he’s happy about it all because the song is excellent.
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Learn from this investor’s $100m mistake
In 2010, a Grammy-winning artist passed on investing $200K in an emerging real estate disruptor. That stake could be worth $100+ million today.
One year later, another real estate disruptor, Zillow, went public. This time, everyday investors had regrets, missing pre-IPO gains.
Now, a new real estate innovator, Pacaso – founded by a former Zillow exec – is disrupting a $1.3T market. And unlike the others, you can invest in Pacaso as a private company.
Pacaso’s co-ownership model has generated $1B+ in luxury home sales and service fees, earned $110M+ in gross profits to date, and received backing from the same VCs behind Uber, Venmo, and eBay. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.
Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.
*This counts as journalism, right?
Nvidia’s earnings keep inflating that ‘AI bubble’
The tech world’s eyes have been on Nvidia $NVDA ( ▼ 1.82% ) this week, as the company released its quarterly earnings report — and with it, clues about whether the artificial intelligence (AI) surge is just hype or a lasting technological revolution.
The firm posted a strong quarter and set a $60 billion stock buyback, but its shares fell 4% early in post-close trading. The world's most valuable company said its adjusted earnings per share were $1.05 per share, or four cents above analysts' estimates. Meanwhile the S&P closed at a new record yesterday.
Nvidia was expected to report record high revenue and adjusted operating income. Over the past year, it has become the AI industry’s central player, powering vast data centers essential to advancements like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which sparked the biggest tech frenzy since the release of the iPhone.
Nvidia’s meteoric rise has been staggering. Its market value surpassed $4 trillion last month, leaving analysts and investors awestruck. Yet some industry leaders are cautioning against overconfidence. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently floated the idea that we might be in an “AI bubble,” stirring concerns that this boom could echo the dot-com mania of the late 1990s. Adding to the skepticism, an MIT report indicated that 95% of AI pilot projects fail.
It’s worth noting that the NASDAQ $NASDAQ ( 0.0% ) is still up tremendously since 2003 when the dot-com bubble last burst. So if you’re a long-term investor, this is all just grist to the mill and won’t affect your long-term prospects. Booms and busts aside, the S&P 500 index has still averaged 10 percent a year since its 1957 inception.
Despite the murmurs, Nvidia’s financials remain strong, reflecting the AI arms race spurring Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.94% ) , Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 0.26% ) , Alphabet $GOOG ( ▲ 1.34% ) , and Meta $META ( ▼ 0.89% ) to pour over $325 billion into AI initiatives this year.
Today on the ‘gram: A new robot brain
Post of the day: Higher incomes
The American Middle Class Has Shrunk Because Families Have Been Moving Up
The proportion of families with high incomes (over $150K in 2023 inflation-adjusted dollars) "grew from about 5 percent in 1967 to well over 30 percent in the most recent years"
— Jeremy Horpedahl 🥚📉 (@jmhorp)
4:55 PM • Aug 27, 2025
Quote of the Day
I will make deals like that for our Country all day long… I want to try and get as much as I can.
A group of book authors has settled their lawsuit against Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, after accusing the firm of copyright infringement. According to a federal appeals court filing on Tuesday, both parties “negotiated a proposed class settlement,” with final terms expected next week.
The lawsuit centered on Anthropic’s use of millions of copyrighted books to train its AI system. U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s June ruling played a key role, finding that Anthropic’s AI training qualified as “fair use” under copyright law due to its “transformative” nature. Alsup explained, “Like any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic’s [large language models] trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them — but to turn a hard corner and create something different.”
Despite the fair use ruling, the case moved forward over allegations that Anthropic acquired the books from “shadow libraries” of pirated copies. Plaintiffs, including authors Andrea Bartz and Charles Graeber, described this as “large-scale theft.”
Commenting on the settlement, attorney Justin Nelson said the “historic settlement will benefit all class members.” Anthropic declined to comment.
Should you check your 401(k) today?
👍️
Sure.
Trump vows to buy more stock in chip companies
President Donald Trump continues to shake up the Republican playbook with his controversial move to transform the U.S. government into a major stockholder of Intel $INTC ( ▲ 2.05% ) . By converting $11.1 billion in CHIPS Act funding into a 10% equity stake, the U.S. now holds significant influence over one of the nation’s most critical semiconductor companies. Trump defended the decision on Truth Social this week, saying, “I will make deals like that for our Country all day long… I want to try and get as much as I can.”
The move has sparked fierce debate within Trump’s own party. Critics like Senator Rand Paul slammed the decision, posting on X, “If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea.” Others, like Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute, warned that the deal might undermine Intel’s innovation. “Ruthless competition drives innovation… Now they might accept a disadvantage because they need the political win,” he said.
Even prominent conservatives are questioning the ideological shift. “For so many of my self-described true conservatives… explain how this reconciles with free-market capitalism,” Republican Senator Thom Tillis said.
Love it or hate it, Trump’s equity deal marks a major paradigm shift.
Microsoft protesters occupy president’s office over middle east work
Tensions at Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.94% ) headquarters reached a boiling point Tuesday as police arrested seven protesters, including current and former employees, who occupied the office of company President Brad Smith. Organized by the activist group “No Azure for Apartheid,” the protest aimed to denounce Microsoft’s alleged role in providing cloud computing support to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the ongoing war in Gaza.
The controversy follows reports, including one from The Guardian, accusing Israel of using Microsoft’s Azure platform to store surveillance data on Palestinians. In response, Microsoft stated it had hired an outside law firm to investigate the allegations and emphasized that its “terms of service would prohibit such use.” During a media briefing, Brad Smith addressed the company’s stance, saying, “There are many things we can’t do to change the world, but we will do what we can and what we should. That starts with ensuring that our human rights principles and contractual terms of service are upheld everywhere by all of our customers around the world.”
Protesters, however, described Microsoft’s actions as facilitating “the genocide of Palestinians” and demanded the company sever ties with Israel and provide reparations to Palestinians. This marks the latest in a series of protests at the firm over these issues, with tensions continuing to escalate. Microsoft said further findings from its investigation will be shared publicly.
Poll of the Day: When the chips are down…buy the dip?
Do you think it's a good idea for the U.S. Government to take a 10% stake in Intel? |
Poll of the Day: You’re alarmed by the Fed move
We asked: Are you alarmed by the president attempting to fire Federal Reserve Governor, Lisa Cook?
You answered:
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No, I think it's fine. She committed mortgage fraud. (116 votes)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes, I'm alarmed that the president seems to be pushing the limits of his constitutional authority on this issue. (890 votes)
1006 Votes via @beehiiv polls
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