In today’s newsletter we discuss how Mark Zuckerberg is building a $240 Million dollar 1,400-acre Hawaii compound with a secret bunker, Costco sells $100 Million dollars worth of 1-ounce gold bars, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of my favorite Christmas movies, the U.K. to get a new spaceport but still doesn’t have a rocket to launch from there, and Adobe and Figma end their $20B acquisition plans after the U.K. gets all protective of innovation.

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How Much Is Mark Cuban Selling The Dallas Mavericks For?

Business

There’s gold in these-here-hills…that is if you’re referring to Costco which started selling 1-ounce gold bars through their website in September, and for the last quarter they’ve sold $100 Million dollars worth of gold!

As of Friday a 1-ounce gold bar was going for $2,069.99, with a limit of two bars per Costco membership. Get them before this gold rush is up!

Costco sold more than $100 million in gold bars last quarter

Tech

This could be an expensive breakup before they even officially got together. Adobe has ended their planned $20B acquisition plans of Figma, after the EU does what the EU does - object to the planned acquisition on the grounds that it would “harm innovation”. Something about a bigger company buying a smaller competitor.

This logic doesn’t pass the smell test for anyone that has ever used Adobe products, which are known for pushing the limits of innovation. So the idea that Adobe would sit around after acquiring Figma and not continue to innovate is ridiculous IMO.

Now the two companies will need to figure out who pays the deal’s $1 billion dollar termination fee, unless it really was a mutual decision to call off the acquisition.

Adobe and Figma end $20B acquisition plans after regulatory headwinds in Europe

Entertainment

Did you know there are actually 3 versions of the movie ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ and 1 musical?

The live-action Christmas movie ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’, starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch, debuted in 2000, and grossed $260 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $85.1 million internationally, for a total of $345.1 million worldwide.

But the original cartoon version of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ was a TV special that aired on Sunday, December 18, 1966 on CBS, and has gone on to become a classic Christmas special.

The TV special version of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ was created after the surprise success of ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ a year before, and was given a big budget by MGM of $315,000 budget, which was a lot back then, and today would be the equivalent of $2,841,000.

Smelling Holiday gold, a couple of other spinoffs of the Grinch were rolled out, including a TV special called ‘Halloween Is Grinch Night’ that debuted on ABC in 1977, only 11 years after the original Christmas special. The plot is a little sketchy, but involves a tale of the Grinch coming down to haunt the Whos every Halloween. It was nowhere near as successful as the original version of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’, but it did win an Emmy. Then, they tried their luck again with ‘The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat’, which was then retitled as ‘The Cat in the Hat Gets Grinched’, and that debuted on ABC in 1982 to lackluster reviews. Go figure.

This brings us to the most recent 2018 version entitled ‘The Grinch’, which is an animated Christmas comedy film produced by Illumination (you know, the company behind the Minions franchise. I won’t bore you with the plot, which lacked in creativity and pretty much stuck to the original version of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’. What was most impressive about this new version ‘The Grinch’ was that it grossed over $526 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing Christmas film of all time, as well as the highest-grossing Dr. Seuss film adaptation, as in ever!

There’s also a ‘Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical’ on Broadway that debuted on November 8, 2006, but sadly it closed on January 7, 2007 before I could ever go see it. That hasn’t stopped them from taking the musical on tour across the country to a host of cities including Minneapolis, San Diego, Los Angeles, Providence, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, St. Louis and San Francisco. There was even an international tour to the United Kingdom in 2019.

Today ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ lives on in all of its marvelous reincarnations, and truly is a must-watch movie during the holiday season.

Where to Watch Every Grinch Movie This Holiday Season

Space

You know what goes really well with a spaceport? How about a rocket to launch from there?

That’s exactly what the U.K. is missing from their newly approved SaxaVord Spaceport, located on the island of Unst in the Shetland Islands. This approval is unique, because the U.K. currently doesn’t possess their own vertical launch spaceship, although a number of companies are currently developing their own rockets including ABL Space Systems, HyImpulse, Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) and Skyrora.

SaxaVord won’t be the only spaceport in the U.K for long. Sutherland Spaceport in northern Scotland is being developed, although as usual funding issues have delayed the project. I guess there’s one thing rocket science and startups have in common - raising capital.

SaxaVord Spaceport receives U.K. license 

Real Estate

Mark Zuckerberg owns a 1,400-acre Hawaii estate comprising of 12 buildings, including plans for 2 mansions that will be connected by an underground tunnel that leads to a 5,000 square foot bunker. Yup, you read that correctly!

Other amenities of the estate will include numerous guest houses and structures associated with agriculture and ranching that together will have 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms, as well as housing luxuries including a gym, pools, sauna, hot tub, cold plunge, and tennis court.

It’s the bunker that is raising some eyebrows, and how it will include living spaces, rooms for mechanical equipment, an escape hatch, and a blast door filled with concrete. The compound is already completely self-sufficient, with an 18-foot-tall water tank and pump system, and extensive food production already in place on the land including a cattle ranch and farming.

So I know where I want to be when the AI take over.

Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Top-Secret Hawaii Compound

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

— Chris