In today’s issue we discuss Red Bull makes bank every time their Oracle Red Bull Formula 1 team wins a race, full-body MRI scans can reveal cancel while making you broke, SpaceX to send their 2nd Starship flying into the heavens this weekend, André ‘3000’ is releasing an experimental instrumental flute album (yes, you read that correctly), and Patrick Mahomes  wants to play Flag Football in the 2028 Summer Olympics

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How Nvidia Became a $1 Trillion Dollar Powerhouse in AI Tech

Business

There's an old expression in racing that goes ‘Win on Sunday, and sell on Monday’. Turns out that couldn't be more true for Red Bull, but how does racing convert into sales? Let's get into it.

First, let me just say I’m not only a big fan of Red Bull’s drinks, but I’m a huge Formula 1 fan of the Oracle Red Bull Racing team. Ok, now that I got that out of the way, let’s talk about the impact that the Red Bull Formula 1 race car has on the parent company Red Bull’s sales.

According to the Oracle Red Bull Racing team’s principal and CEO Christian Horner the team’s dominance in Formula 1 this year is translating directly to higher sales of the energy drink

Out of 20 races this season, Oracle Red Bull Racing have won 19 of them, with Max Verstappen winning 17 of those races, with his team mate Sergio Perez winning the other 2 races for a clean sweep by the Oracle Red Bull Racing team in 2023! A simply amazing showing for the energy drink sponsored team.

Red Bull is the second-most popular energy drink brand in the world with 13% market share, trailing only Monster Beverage who commands a 30% market share. Red Bull sold an insane 11.58 billion cans worldwide in 2022, which was an increase of 18% from their already incredibly successful 2021.

While Red Bull declines to reveal their sales metrics following a race weekend, a company spokesperson has mentioned that they see a clear “uplift” in sales following a Formula 1 race weekend in the corresponding race market. I guess Formula 1 does give Red Bull wings. 

Red Bull F1 dominance boosts energy drink sales, team's principal says

Tech

I’ve heard of a thorough exam, but this full-body MRI scan takes your yearly physical to a whole new level.

A new company named Prenuvo has created a full-body MRI that takes about 1 hour to complete the scan, then the patient typically receives their results, which are reviewed by one of the company’s 30 licensed radiologists, within 5-10 business days.

The company has already opened 9 clinics in the U.S. and Canada. There’s so much demand that the 5-year-old Silicon Valley-based company has announced 11 more locations opening by 2024, including one in London and another in Sydney.

Before you get too excited and rush to book your own full-body scan you should know they have a back-log of 3-5 months, and the costs aren’t cheap and typically aren’t covered by your insurance either.

The full-body exam costs $2,500, and they also offer a lower-cost head and torso scan for $1,800, with a scan of just the torso for $1,000.

So far the company has raised $70 million in a funding round led by Felicis Ventures. Plenty of celebrities and business people have invested in the company, or in the case of Kim Kardashian she called Prenuvo a “life saving machine” in an August post on Instagram that’s generated more than 3.4 million likes. Actress and model Cindy Crawford is an investor, alongside Google ex-Chairman Eric Schmidt, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki and Nest Labs founder Tony Fadell.

Scan me up for that.

Patients are lining up for $2,500 full-body MRI scans that can detect cancer early 

Space

SpaceX is aiming to light this candle and send their 2nd Starship flying into the heavens, if it doesn’t explode in a fiery ball of flames and rain debris down on the launch site like it did the 1st time it launched.

After moving the launch date back 1 day SpaceX is now planning to launch Starship on Saturday, November 18, 2023. If everything goes according to plan, which it never does with spaceflight, the rocket will take off, fly through the atmosphere, then hopefully separate (because it didn’t do this last part on the 1st flight), then when it reaches the apogee of its flight it should coast back to earth on its belly before righting itself, firing its thrusters, and do a controlled landing descent into the ocean; because they aren’t trying to land this flight on a launch pad with this 2nd attempt. That is if they don’t experience a RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly) in space geek speak.

Musk: SpaceX now aiming for Saturday for Starship’s second flight test

Entertainment

The slogan of our media company irl Media NEWS is “The business behind the news (and some fun stuff thrown in there to make you smile).”, so consider this next story the second part of our slogan.

One half of the famous Atlanta HipHop group Outkast, André ‘3000’, is releasing an experimental instrumental flute album, and no we’re not kidding (even I couldn’t come up with something that sounds this outlandish).

André ‘3000’ is what you might call eccentric, which he’d probably take as a compliment (as just about everyone should IMO). He has had a lot of side-projects over the years apart from his group Outkast, but this new solo album, “New Blue Sun,” is an entirely instrumental album centered around woodwinds.

Yea, doesn’t get more eccentric for a HipHop artist than that.

OutKast’s André ‘3000’ is releasing an instrumental flute album

Sports

Flag Football will make its Olympic debut in 2028, and the Kansas City Chiefs star Quarterback Patrick Mahomes is dying to get his shot at a Gold medal.

The 2028 Summer Olympics are coming to Los Angeles, California, and what better Hollywood story than to have the GOAT Patrick Mahomes play for Team USA. Think about the marketing buzz this would generate!

Flag football is one of the 5 sports that have been added to the Olympic rotation starting with the 2028 Olympic games by the International Olympic Committee, as well as Cricket, Baseball-Softball, Lacrosse and Squash; which I had to look up because I thought that was a made up game, but apparently Squash is defined as a “racket-and-ball sport played by two or four players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow, rubber ball.” Why didn’t they just refer to it as Racquetball, which everyone knows is a sport that rich people play in their private country clubs. Then everyone would have known what they were talking about.

I’m just waiting for Pickleball to be picked up by the Olympics, then a geriatric Gen-Xer like me would have a shot at being in the Olympics. Until then I’ll just have to continue pursuing my dream of medaling in the Winter Olympics sport of Curling.

Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes 'Definitely' Wants to Play Flag Football in 2028 Olympics

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

— Chris