OP #243: Peak Hollywood, Topgolf's Tiger Woods Pitch, and More Biz Reads

Author

Darren Herman
January 23, 2024

Welcome to another OP letter, OP Community! 

If you know me well, you know I’m a huge NY Knicks fan.  I became a Knicks fan in the 80s and remember going to games with my “Uncle” Stu and hearing the Go NY Go NY Go song.  Thanks to my Instagram algo, I recently learned there’s a whole entrepreneurial story behind that song. Read the story, it’s both inspiring and all of us entrepreneurs/investors could learn from it, regardless of whether you like basketball.  Staying on the Knicks topic, I was glad to see the Garden give both Quickley and Barrett a warm NYC welcome on Saturday evening, their first game back since being traded.

A major piece of marketing news dropped a few weeks ago in the golf world where Tiger Woods and Nike broke up after a 27+ year relationship.  For those unfamiliar with this relationship, Tiger essentially established Nike as a premier player in the golf world. I saw this timely job posting for Topgolf to try and attract Tiger Woods, or at least capitalize on the news. I know there are a bunch of Topgolf subscribers in the OP community… really well done!

I do not listen to many podcasts. Maybe you do. However, I do find myself listening to these three business-ish podcasts:  All-In, 20VC, and Capital Allocators. I do not always agree with the All-In guys but do find that podcast to be special.

Last week, I shared a link to an AI demo by Professor Ethan Mollick (Wharton).  I apologize because the demo was pulled down just after I sent the OP letter.  Ethan Mollick does it again with another strong AI video, this time, prompting “Write a Harvard Business School case about Tesla.” Hopefully this does not get pulled down.  Mollick is one of the more practical AI thinkers today and really enjoy watching his demos.

Here are some articles to get us started:
Bad Hotels and Not Enough Wine: A Week with Billionaires (WSJ)
2025 Porsche Macan EV First Look (Motortrend)
How Pop Culture Could Shape Your Next Campaign Supernova (Contagious)
How to Score a Private Club Membership, According to Zero Bond Creator (Barrons)

I hope you enjoy the OP this week! As always, please reach out with any feedback.
Darren

P.S.
If someone forwarded this OP to you, you can sign up to receive it for free here.

P.P.S
My friend Tony Haile is looking to add a founding product designer to his team. He’s impressive and you’ll want to check this out.

Quotes That Intrigued Me This Week

Uncookied Chrome users appear to be monetizing about 30% worse than those with cookies. That seems bad, but it's far better than the 60% worse performance of Safari users. Considering that this is just the beginning we think this is a really positive result. We also think much of that 30% gap can be made up this year with continued investment in Privacy Sandbox, ID solutions and more. 

Detroit’s Big Three automakers, arguably the most formidable manufacturing troika in history, had their backs broken, and toggled in and out of bankruptcy for the next few decades, becoming symbols of American decline. Today a similar shit-kicking is taking place. Hollywood’s dominance over film and TV is at risk from another Asian marauder. ByteDance is the Datsun/Honda of the era. Will Hollywood be the next Detroit, an abandoned shell of its former glory? Probably not. In-N-Out Burger, the Hollywood Bowl, and the weather are formidable moats. However, it’s beginning to smell like teen spirit. If teen spirit is an industry that’s coming off a sugar high of cheap capital. The coming withdrawal will feel more like trying to kick an opioid addiction.

Peak Hollywood (Prof. Galloway)

Indicators That Matter

I have not included this section before but figure I’ll test it out and see how it goes over. Keep your eyes on these indicators…

  • Consumer Price Index: +0.3% in Dec 2023 (next release: Feb 13, 2024)

  • Nasdaq Composite: +1.90% L30 (as of Jan 22, 2024)

  • S&P 500: +1.59% L30 (as of Jan 22, 2024)

  • Effective Federal Funds Rate (interest): 5.33% (as of 1/19/24)

  • Bitcoin to USD: -8.87% L30 (as of 1/19/24)

An interesting index to track: the Big Mac Index (Economist)

We should maybe see some Fed cuts coming in 2024… this may mean lower interest rates. To the contrary, check out this WSJ piece.

Job Opportunity

Some of you may have seen that Bain Capital (my employer) recently invested in 1440 Foods, a sports and active nutrition company, the parent business of Pure Protein, MET-Rx, Body Fortress, and Balance Bar.

1440 Foods is looking to hire a Brand Manager of Body Fortress: will lead brand growth by developing brand vision, strategy and direction; shaping consumer and retailer engagement strategies; building product innovation roadmap, launching innovations and executing go to market strategy; and executing key brand growth initiatives.

As you can imagine, there are a lot more details about the role. You can learn more (and apply) here.

I've done extensive reading this week and I hope you'll enjoy the following links that I've curated. If you come across an article that you believe would be a great addition to future OP letters, don't hesitate to share it with me. However, please note that I retain the discretion to decide on the content that goes into each OP letter.

Peak Hollywood (Prof Galloway)

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