In today’s issue we discuss Elon Musk goes for a walk with Tesla’s Optimus Bot, Starbucks introduced their extra virgin olive oil-infused Oleato drink, Universal Music Group pulls their music from TikTok, Formula 1’s Lewis Hamilton is leaving Mercedes for Ferrari in 2025, and EDM DJ Marshmello sold his $15 million dollar mansion. 

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I’m Prepared For Top Gun 3 To “Take My Breath Away”. Are You?

Business

I’m a big fan of Starbucks, but their new extra virgin olive oil-infused drink has me questioning what their baristas are thinking.

Starbucks’ new drink is called an Oleato, and it comes in two different flavors. According to their menu, you can get an Oleato as “An oat milk latte infused with the extra virgin olive oil; and a new toffeenut iced shaken espresso with golden foam, which is vanilla sweet cream infused with extra virgin olive oil into a cold foam.”

Starbucks just launched this new Oleato extra virgin olive oil-infused drink across all of its US and Canada locations.

The drink first debuted in Italy in 2023, with Starbucks executives claiming the new drink would be its “biggest launches we’ve had in decades.”

So where did the idea for this extra virgin olive oil-infused drink come from?

The answer is none other than former CEO Howard Schultz, who fell in love with the idea of adding a tablespoon of olive oil each day after meeting with olive oil producer Tommaso Asaro who introduced him to the practice. Howard Schultz immediately asked his Starbucks’ beverage team if they could come up with a drink that included extra virgin olive oil. The rest is history as they say.

How are Starbucks customers receiving the new drink?

Not well, if subpar reviews from customers and critics are to be believed.

Reviews have ranged from instant regret that they tried the new drink, to others that feel like the drink is more of a marketing stunt. On the extreme end of reviews include some customers who have said the drink made them have to run to the bathroom.

There is some science that supports drinking a tablespoon of olive oil each day. There is research that links drinking olive oil to lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as lowering blood pressure. Dieticians have long toured the Mediterranean diet that replaces unhealthy fats like butter with olive oil.

So maybe Starbucks is onto something with their olive oil-infused drinks, but word of caution: only try the new Oleato when you’re close to a well ventilated bathroom.

Starbucks is launching its olive oil-infused beverages nationwide

Tech

What happens when one of the world’s richest Billionaires goes for a walk with one of his Tesla Optimus Bots?

It turns out the Internet has a field day with jokes.

On Tuesday, January 30th, 2024 Elon Musk posted a video to his 170.9 Million Followers of his Tesla Optimus Bot going for a walk.

The video shows the Tesla Optimus Bot walking at a leisurely. Nothing to see here. Just the first steps of AI Robots taking over the world.

Just a few weeks ago another video was released showing a Tesla Optimus Bot folding laundry, not very well I might add, but give it time and I will happily give up doing laundry if I robot wants to take that over.

And that is the point after all.

Elon Musk is on the record saying he sees a future where robots are “capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring.”

Social media sites like X joined in on the fun, with some users posting funny robot memes from the Terminator movies, while others took the low road and made Joe Biden jokes, which from a comedian standpoint were actually pretty funny regardless of what you might think about politics.

Elon Musk has said “I think Optimus is going to be incredible in five or 10 years.”, and that he estimates the Tesla Optimus Bot will someday have a price tag of $20,000 per robot.

While we’ve all learned to take Elon Musk’s timelines and price predictions with a grain of salt, I really do hope he’s right!

Elon Musk takes Tesla's life-size robot Optimus for a test walk: 'Kill it with fire'

Entertainment

What happens when you remove all of a music label’s music from TikTok?

Turns out when you strip out all the popular music from artists like Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Bon Jovi, Billie Eilish, Tears for Fears, and Lana Del Rey it’s just a bunch of people dancing to silence.

This all happened when Universal Music Group (UMG) and TikTok’s discussions regarding licensing their music collection collapsed, forcing UMG to remove their music resulting in millions of videos on TikTok being muted. 

As you can imagine, some TikTok content creators are melting down and don’t know what to do with themselves. In some cases we’re talking about their only source of income disappearing overnight.

A word of caution: maybe don’t build your business on content you don’t own and control. This same thing happens when someone sells 100% of their products on Etsy, and then their account gets banned. Diversify people!

No word yet on how long UMG will pull their music from TikTok for, but negotiations are ongoing.

The heart of the issue comes down to the licensing of music by TikTok from Universal Music Group. As you can imagine both sides see the issue differently.

UMG put out a statement saying “Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music.”

Then TikTok put out a statement saying “It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”

Who’s right, and who’s wrong? It’s tough to come out and say either side is categorically right or wrong in my opinion.

On one side, artists should 100% be compensated for their music, which is essentially art that they created. On the other hand I can see TikTok’s perspective that they want to reach a fair financial deal to license music.

In the end it’s not only the content creators on TikTok, as well as the consumers of that content, that are getting hurt while two big corporations negotiate over royalties.

See, I told you the issue wasn’t so cut-and-dry.

Taylor Swift's label UMG to pull music from TikTok, accusing the app of bullying

Sports

The world of Formula 1 was shaken up on Thursday, February 1, 2024 when Lewis Hamilton would be leaving Mercedes and joining Ferrari for the 2025 season.

I can safely say that NO one saw this coming, and I mean No one including Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff.

That’s because Lewis Hamilton just signed a 2-year contract extension with Team Mercedes in August of 2023, but he negotiated a clause that would allow him to leave the team after only 1 season.

Did Lewis Hamilton know something the rest of the Formula 1 world didn’t know at that time? Tough to say, but I’m guessing he saw the writing on the wall at Mercedes and wanted to be safe and include an exit clause in case a certain prancing horse wearing Ferrari racing red made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

No terms of Lewis Hamilton’s contract with Ferrari have leaked yet, but give it time. Formula 1 is nothing if not a very exclusive group of billionaire owners and social media influencer drivers, and fans who love to gossip.

Lewis Hamilton to leave Mercedes and join Ferrari for 2025 Formula 1 season

Real Estate

One of the most famous and mysterious EDM DJs, Marshmello, is selling his mansion for $15 Million after only owning it for less than 4 years for a nice profit of $4.2 million. The home is located in the Mulholland Estates section of Beverly Hills, California, home to such celebrities as Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton, Kendall Jenner, DJ Khaled, Tyler Perry, and Charlie Sheen.

In an unusual turn of events we actually know a lot more than usual about the buyers, who dropped an all-cash offer on the house according to tax records. The new owners are named Hovig and Annie Safoian, and they are the married co-founders of the cloud solutions provider SADA Systems, which was just acquired for approximately $800 million. So good for them.

Marshmello originally bought the home during the Summer of 2020 for $10.8 million. The home was built in 1992, it’s 7,818 sq ft, and has 5 bedrooms, 7 baths, and site on 0.68 acres, but does not have a gated fence around the home because its situated within within a 24/7 guarded community with security that patrols the neighborhood and has a ton of security cameras watching over everything.

Before you start feeling bad for Marshmello now that he’s homeless, you should know he still owns 3 other smaller multimillion-dollar homes around Los Angeles, so yea he’ll be just fine.

Marshmello Spins Out of His $15 Million Beverly Hills Mansion

So much news, so little time. Until tomorrow we’re signing out.

— Chris