This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how Bitcoin and Gold are surging against the dollar, following the Treasury’s interventions in the bond market and our national debt surpassing $40 trillion. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• Meta Pays Billions To Settle Addiction Claims

• New Approval for "Life-Altering" Cancer Drug

• Oura: The Smart Ring Eyeing a $16 Billion IPO

• Song of the Day: Weezer, ‘Say Yes’

• Surviving the Back-To-School Shakedown

• How Chicken Conquered the World

• Poll of the Day: Playing Chicken

• Poll of the Day: Birds Of A Feather

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.02% )  $DJI ( ▼ 0.21% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$META ( ▲ 1.07% )  $SNAP ( ▼ 8.45% )  $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.43% )  $RVMD ( ▲ 1.92% )  $OURAZZX ( ▲ 0.11% )  $PYPL ( ▼ 0.74% )  

Meta Pays Billions To Settle Addiction Claims

Meta $META ( ▲ 1.07% ) has agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to settle claims that it designed its platforms to addict children. Ironically the company’s stock rose considerably on the news, at one point adding around $54 billion, or close to 5%, to the company’s value, so it’s almost like capitalism rewarded the bad behavior:

Stick that on your Instagram story, baby!

Meta is graciously agreeing to silence notifications at night, limit usage between midnight and 6 a.m., and interrupt the endless scroll. 

Colorado's Attorney General, Phil Weiser, said that “the focus of this case was to protect our kids: stopping notifications and alerts at night and when they are in school.…” Meanwhile, Meta’s Chief Legal Officer, C.J. (what, from The West Wing? —Ed.) Mahoney, tried to spin this multi-billion-dollar retreat as a collaborative choice, claiming Meta simply wants to ensure “teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms.” 

I mean, sure. Remove harmful features only after you’re sued for roughly $200 billion. That’s how I define “collaboration,” personally.

Stanford law professor Nora Freeman Engstrom told the New York Times, “Meta wouldn’t settle unless it sees the writing on the wall and feels really exposed.” 

Ya think?

Under the agreement, Meta will initially pay $12 billion, but it is trying to drag TikTok, Snap $SNAP ( ▼ 8.45% ) , and YouTube $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.43% ) into the settlement to avoid being singled out. As Mahoney implored, “This framework will only work if all our peers join us.” 

Misery loves company….

While D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb hailed this as a “monumental public health victory,” the cynical truth remains. Meta finally realized, as Duke Law professor Stuart Benjamin noted, that “the cost of maintaining infinite scroll, auto play, filters, etc., is just too big a risk for the company.” 

Back in my youth, teenagers just smoked cigarettes. The good old days….

Quote of the Day

New Approval for "Life-Altering" Cancer Drug

Pancreatic cancer is one of the really nasty ones, killing about 50,000 Americans every year. But finally, some good news: The FDA has finally approved a drug to tackle the mutation that drives pancreatic cancer. Revolution Medicines’ $RVMD ( ▲ 1.92% ) new treatment, Rasonque, has achieved the seemingly impossible by using "molecular glues" to bind to a notoriously slippery, flat protein, the biological equivalent of superglue. Wall Street is salivating, forecasting over $20 billion in annual sales and the firm’s stock has risen from $36 to $215 over the past year as a result.

When clinical trial results were presented last spring, revealing that subjects lived over 13 more months, nearly double the survival rate of chemotherapy alone, the drug received a "nearly minute-long standing ovation" from researchers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Oncologist Carla Kurkjian hailed the drug as “life-altering,” noting it allows doctors “to have a different conversation than we’ve had for so long.” Of course, that new conversation will have to address the body-wide rashes and gastrointestinal issues caused by side effects of the drug. But still. Death is an unpleasant side-effect of pancreatic cancer. So, I’d settle, I think, for the blotches. Patient Jay Williams noted, “What it does is buy you time, and that’s one thing you don’t always have with pancreatic cancer.” 

RevMed Chief Executive Mark Goldsmith is in a hurry: “This is a monumental opportunity for patients and their families, and we need to do everything we can to clear the decks and make that happen as quickly as possible,” he said.

Oura: The Smart Ring Eyeing a $16 Billion IPO

Oura $OURAZZX ( ▲ 0.11% ) , the smart ring maker, is reportedly planning a U.S. IPO that values the company at north of $16 billion. That is a stunning jump from the $10.9 billion valuation Oura was assigned last September.

Once a niche gadget beloved primarily by biohacking CEOs and my weird mate Ken, Oura has successfully rebranded itself as a mainstream sleep-and-recovery brand. Financial growth has been spectacular, soaring from $500 million in revenue in 2024 to an expected $2 billion in 2026. Who knew charging people hundreds of dollars to tell them they are tired could be such a goldmine?

But it isn’t all peaceful slumber in Oura-land. A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in San Francisco has rudely awakened the company, accusing it of misleading consumers about its sleep-tracking precision. According to the filing, Oura is accused of claiming “To measure a heartbeat or a temperature, but the exact stage of sleep the wearer is in, which in reality requires electrodes in the scalp and sensors on the eyes, as only a hospital or other clinical setting can do.”

Naturally, Oura’s PR machine has, er…awoken. A spokesperson pushed back, claiming, “While Oura Ring is not a medical device or a substitute for a clinical sleep study, Oura’s sleep staging has been validated and compared favorably in multiple studies against polysomnography, the gold standard.” The company insisted that “Multiple third-party, independent studies support our claims of accuracy.”

Personally, I’d pay well for a ring that insists I slept well and “don’t even look tired” despite all evidence to the contrary, just to cheer myself up. But I prefer to wear my Whoop wrist band, which only has a $10 billion valuation after its series G financing. Let’s hope they catch up with Oura, soon. Because I feel like a bit of a loser, now, honestly.

Song of the Day: Weezer, ‘Say Yes’

Here’s an infectious, high-energy track that captures the classic 1990s power-pop essence of Weezer. “Say Yes, like Yoko to Don,” goes one of the lyrics. You get the idea. It’s just like this newsletter!

Surviving the Back-To-School Shakedown

According to a PayPal $PYPL ( ▼ 0.74% ) study of over 3,000 parents, 60% of parents are indicating that their kids are asking for more expensive items to go back to school and, predictably, parents are “bending to that.” Enter Trae Bodge, smart shopping expert at TrueTrae.com, here to save us from our weakness. Bodge notes that “social media is creating a lot of pressure on parents because kids are seeing hauls from their favorite influencers.”

How do we fight back? Bodge suggests making teenagers contribute to the damage: “Get your kids involved, have them contribute to that financial outlay. If your kids feel the pinch, they will shop much more carefully,” she says.

Nothing cures a teen's burning desire for a $150 hoodie faster than realizing they’ll need to work a 10-hour shift at Chick-Fil-A to pay for it, huh? Then start talking to them about the tax they’ll pay on that income and before long, I bet, they’ll be begging you to move to Florida. Be careful what you wish for, folks. They have alligators down there.

Next, dig through your closet graves. Bodge advises to “go through the house first, see what you have from last year, see what can be reused.” If you must buy, Bodge’s golden rule is to embrace the retro aesthetic: “Buy secondhand,” she urges. “Thankfully, it's really popular right now, especially with teens.” 

Yes, buying used clothes at Goodwill is suddenly cool, apparently, so feel free to mask your frugality as a fashion statement. Finally, don't buy everything at once. Spreading out your shopping is “less impactful if you're being paid every two weeks,” Bodge helpfully notes. It also gives you budget wiggle room when your child returns in October realizing they need different gear once they decide “who they’re gonna be this year,” Trae said.

Miaowwww!

Free Yourself From Advertising Forever!

How Chicken Conquered the World

Speaking of chicken? Forget the Roman Empire, British Imperialism, or Silicon Valley. The true ruler of the modern world is a flightless, dim-witted bird that we have selectively bred to have freakishly massive breasts. And no, this is not about to segue into a fawning Dolly Parton obituary. Although: May she rest in peace.

As a recent, in-depth investigation by the Financial Times reveals, the global chicken takeover is complete. In 2022, chicken officially dethroned pork to become the world’s most produced meat.

We fry it, shred it, and reconstitute it into shapes only distantly resembling a bird. But how did this happen? Historically, farmers kept chickens for eggs; meat was an afterthought. As U.S. food historian Roger Horowitz told the FT’s reporters, there is “no question that in the food business, the egg came first.” Then came the 20th century, where armed with antibiotics, selective breeding, and industrial slaughterhouses, we built a bird engineered for mass retail.

Now, poultry is “a truly global industry,” according to Richard Griffiths, president of the International Poultry Council. We are so thoroughly addicted that Glynn Tonsor, an agricultural economist running something amazing called the “Meat Demand Monitor,” declares, “We’re a long way off peak chicken.”

Yet, our love affair is steeped in classic human hypocrisy. We demand endless cheap nuggets but recoil at the nightmarish industrial farms required to produce them. Mayenne poultry farmer Jean-Yves Guérot sums up the cognitive dissonance perfectly: “There is an incompatibility between what people say and reject as citizens and what they want to eat as consumers. We live with that contradiction every day.”

It’s like a game of chicken, in fact. He did not say.

Still, don’t expect us to stop eating the stuff. Nan-Dirk Mulder, poultry specialist at Rabobank, admits he "struggles to find any market where consumption is falling." 

The chicken empire is unstoppable!

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️ 

Yep.

Poll of the Day: Playing Chicken

Poll of the Day: Birds Of A Feather

We asked: What do you think of Flock cameras?

You answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Love them. If someone steals my catalytic converter, I at least want a high-definition digital keepsake of the getaway car's license plate to frame over my fireplace. (60)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Terrible. I don't need a high-tech robotic panopticon logging every single time I drive past the gym, make direct eye contact with the entrance, and proceed straight to the drive-thru instead. (217)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Mixed feelings—it’s great knowing neighborhood porch pirates are being watched, but I’m slightly nervous the algorithm will eventually report my aggressive lack of turn signal usage to my mother. (240)
517 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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