The Profile: Spotify's new CEOs, Japan's richest man, and the startup using robots to make human embryos
This edition of The Profile features Daniel Ek, Tadashi Yanai, and others.
Good morning, friends!
You may remember when I wrote about how to improve your ‘content diet’ in the new year by by auditing what kinds of information you’re consuming and noticing what it’s actually doing to your brain.
It’s a useful exercise to return to periodically, especially when you realize that mindless scrolling on social media has become a pacifier for your nervous system.
So on Wednesday, I decided to take a break from all the apps that exist mainly to distract me and use my phone as … a phone. Just calling and texting. (The irony, of course: Verizon had a massive outage, which meant I couldn’t even do that.) I used my laptop only to check email and read profiles for this newsletter.
The effects were more profound than I expected. I became acutely aware of how automatic it had become to reach for my phone and open Instagram. I noticed how much low-value information I’d been feeding my brain. I also noticed that my Kindle and Audible apps hadn’t been touched in a very long time.
Anyway, just a reminder that you are what you think. And as I wrote in that piece: don’t let yourself run on autopilot. Make sure you are the one choosing what gets to occupy your mind.
— Polina
PROFILES.
— The CEOs turning Spotify into an ‘everything app’ [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— Japan’s richest man
— The startup using robots to make human embryos
— The professor teaching a course on existential despair
— The meatless companies that got cooked
PEOPLE TO KNOW.
The CEOs turning Spotify into an ‘everything app:’ Daniel Ek is stepping down as Spotify’s CEO, and handing the controls to two longtime lieutenants. He’s doing this right as the company tries to evolve from “music app” into an “everything” audio-and-video platform. Spotify is finally profitable and more powerful than ever, but it’s still dogged by the same old fight: artists and songwriters say streaming shortchanges them, while Spotify argues the pie is bigger than critics admit. The next era is a tightrope walk. How will the company fend off TikTok/YouTube attention, manage the flood of AI-generated music, and keep Gen Z from seeing Spotify as the establishment? (Bloomberg)
“For Gen Z, Spotify just looks like NPR—it’s part of the establishment, the old guard.”
Japan’s richest man: Tadashi Yanai built Uniqlo into a $22.9 billion giant by obsessing over how customers actually experience a store, down to folded stacks and fabric feel. The founder of Fast Retailing still shops his own aisles like a regular customer — and pays at checkout — to pressure-test every detail. Here’s how he plans to triple sales in the coming years. (Bloomberg; alternate link)
“How would the customer actually perceive this? You won’t really get the customer’s opinion looking down from above.”
The professor teaching a course on existential despair: A Penn professor has hacked the attention economy by turning reading into an almost monastic ritual: no phones, no notes, and hours of silent, start-to-finish books in a dark classroom. His cult-adjacent rules — sometimes including bans on sex — are designed to rebuild students’ tolerance for boredom, loneliness, and deep focus. Students are shocked at how effective his methods are. Students who hadn’t finished a novel in years leave with a nightly reading habit and a new comfort with being alone. His thesis is that great literature is a survival practice, and discipline can be a kind of freedom. (New York Magazine; alternate link)
COMPANIES TO WATCH.
The startup using robots to make human embryos: A startup has built a 17-foot robotic “IVF factory” that can automate nearly every step of creating embryos outside the body. It promises more consistency, higher success rates, and eventually lower costs. In Mexico City, its founders are running human trials and pitching a future of “superlabs” where a handful of technicians and AI robots can do what today takes scarce, highly trained embryologists. The first American baby from the system has already been born, but critics warn automation could scale mistakes, shift savings to clinics, and further distance humans from reproduction. What a fascinating story. (Bloomberg)
“People should be as excited about this as they were about the moon landing.”
The meatless companies that got cooked: Isa Chandra Moskowitz once symbolized New York’s vegan boom, but now her shuttered restaurants mirror a broader collapse of vegan dining, plant-based hype, and faux-meat optimism. After peaking in the 2010s, vegan restaurants are closing faster than they’re opening, sales of plant-based meat are down, and even champions like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are rethinking their pitch. Meat is back, while veganism remains a committed but tiny minority. (New York Magazine; alternate link)
“Maybe behaviors are changing, but maybe the market is not big enough for us to have a thousand companies all thriving.”
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