UK marketing spend is up, 'fruity' boy trend, female founders build unicorns and Steve Jobs' lessons for AI

Issue #16

Weekly Exhale: Summer In The City

London will hit 32º today. This is a tiny break from the 171.5 days of annual rain (over 1.5 metres). I live in the city and force myself to look up and notice its beauty. Never more so when sunlight pours onto its old and damp bricks, reflects off glass towers and causes you to walk on the sunny side in the fresh spell before the sweating starts.

Marketing spending is up, Sequoia is buying Stripe, and Google is making its biggest acquisition ever. These are some of the many green shoots popping out of the frozen snow for brands and startups. It's not 32º yet, but the macros look more hopeful.

Otherwise, only two stories are running in my feeds—the US Elections and AI.

They're dramatic, wild, and I don't know what. They're also exhausting, particularly AI, which is suddenly mundane next to assassination attempts. We get it; technology is getting smarter. That hasn't changed since we invented the wooden spoon.

What has changed is the presence of creativity, humanity, and community as ideals in our technological race, though they may feature marginally.

I looked back at an old Steve Jobs video shared this week by The Objects of Our Life, an archive and foundation put together by his late wife. It was 1983, at a conference in Aspen, when a young, dorky-looking Steve opened by saying, "Introductions are really funny. They paid me $60, so I wore a tie.".

He observes that computers and societies are out on a first date. That, in a handful of years, we'll spend more and more time with these machines (computers)—two or three hours a day interacting with them! (My average daily screen time last week was 8h 12m). So, he wants them to be more than just beige boxes.

"We feel, for some crazy reason, that we're in the right place at the right time to put something back.".

He also says that his team is solving the problems of injecting some liberal arts into these computers: proportionally spaced fonts and graphics so we can be creative. The computer revolution continues, but you don't hear words like these in all the writing about AI.

Today will be incredible in London. Of course, we'll complain that it's too hot.

But—if you're here, and if you can—grab an ice cream, find a bench, close your eyes, and feel the womb-like warmth on your face. It's a good day.

Let's rise together with every issue. 🧡

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Market Movements

Why the UK is the holy grail for investors right now | The Telegraph

UK inflation stays at 2%, lowest for almost three years | BBC

Rate cut or not, the UK is in good shape | Bloomberg

UK wage growth cools, rate cuts in the balance | The Guardian

Brand Beat

Marketing spend hits ten-year high, Q2 Bellwether | LBB

Backlash after Pret changes subscription deal | BBC

Direct Line cuts marketing and joins price comparison sites | Marketing Week

Lessons from M&S ad campaign that sparked playful copycats | Drapers

Sheer Lux’s announces a new editor: An AI woman of colour | TikTok

Agency giant Havas stripped of B Corps status for winning Shell | Campaign

Warner Bros drafts a CNN, HBO break-up plan | FT

Netflix subscribers and earnings grow again | The Independent

→ Trending: My Bum offers plant-derived hemorrhoidal care | Thingtesting

Startup Spotlight

Activewear brand Tala, by influencer Grace Beverley, lands £5m | Sky News

Love Cocoa, founded by Cadbury's great great great grandson, opens flagship store | The Grocer

→ New data: E-commerce is permanently slowing down post-pandemic | 2PM

Analysis: Heinz goes plant-based with NotCo joint venture | Forbes

Tech Tidbits

Three reasons the future of AI relies on women | Fast Company

Also, AI is a cost, not a revenue driver | TechCrunch

Elon Musk, like Novak Djokovic, shouldn't confuse fame with affection | The Guardian

‘Fruity’ boy trend shows dating apps reduce everyone to an archetype | Wired

Kara Swisher, Silicon Valley’s longtime journalist, warns of tech elite stance | Fortune

Waymo gets closer to flying taxis at San Francisco Airport | TechCrunch

Google is about to make its biggest acquisition ever at $23 billion | New York Times 

Venture Vibes

New data: Female founders rise in a study of which startups become unicorns | TechCrunch

Former R/GA Ventures exec launches new fund for female sports | LinkedIn

The role VCs play beyond investment | Maddyness

Inside Sequoia’s Steve Jobs strategy to find the unconventional | Fortune

Sequoia has also offered to buy Stripe. Full details here | Axios

Design Driven

Rolling Stone’s redesign is loved for type mixing | X

What we can learn from Swedish creativity | Creative Review

Do neighbourhood branding truly serve communities? | It’s Nice That

How Hasbro redesigned Monopoly as an addictive new app | Fast Company

Hello, Happiness

Why are 91% of small business owners so darned happy? | The Guardian

Elephants are doing something deeply human | The Atlantic

For a strong body, you need strong feet | New York Times

And the Steve Jobs video I mentioned up top | The Objects of Our Life

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Apologies for the late publish; the sun crashed the machines. I love putting these together for you. If you want to talk to me, hit the DMs on my profile anytime or jonathan@andrising.com.

Stay gold. 🙏🏼