The Profile: The Kardashian transforming into a private equity titan & the luxury hotel run by the Taliban

This edition of The Profile features Kim Kardashian, Monica Lewinsky, Jennifer Doudna, and others.

Good morning, friends!

One of the profiles I’m sharing this week features reality TV star Kim Kardashian’s latest foray into private equity. She and her partner Jay Sammons are planning to launch a billion-dollar PE firm to invest in consumer businesses.

The Kardashians are often dismissed as being "famous for being famous,” but Kim, in particular, has parlayed that fame into becoming a legitimate businesswoman. Her apparel company Skims is valued at $4 billion after raising $670 million from investors including D1 Capital Partners and Imaginary Ventures.

After reading the profile, this part stood out to me:

Kardashian is used to taking herself seriously, even when others don’t. When asked how she’s dealt with nearly two decades of doubt, she lights up: “Maybe that’s part of my drive, always feeling like people have underestimated me; maybe that’s what keeps me going.”

I felt this deep in my bones. One of the best things someone can do for you is underestimate your level of ambition, your skillset, or your … entire existence. For the right type of person, that degree of disrespect fuels them in ways that are hard to describe in words.

Kim seems to be that type of person. The key is that she took herself seriously even when others didn’t. It reminded me of this Oprah Winfrey quote: “When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are.”

It all starts with you.

(If you’re interested in reading more about the Kardashian-Jenner complex, I wrote a Profile Dossier on ‘momager’ Kris Jenner. In the last 14 years, she has used her incredible business acumen to turn each of her children into bonafide celebrity entrepreneurs. I was just like you — I thought there would be nothing to learn from someone like Kris Jenner, but I was genuinely surprised.)

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THE PROFILE DOSSIER: On Wednesday, premium members received The Profile Dossier, a comprehensive deep-dive on a prominent individual. It featured David Sedaris, the writer fusing humor with pain. Read it below.

The Profile Dossier: David Sedaris, the Writer Fusing Humor with Pain

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PROFILES.

— The Kardashian who wants to turn into a private equity titan [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The biochemist taking on the biome
— America's infamous White House intern
— The artist who turned heartbreak into art
— The luxury hotel run by the Taliban

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The Kardashian who wants to turn into a private equity titan: A year ago, reality TV star Kim Kardashian and Carlyle veteran Jay Sammons announced their plans to launch SKKY Partners, a private equity firm reportedly aiming to raise a $1 billion fund to invest in consumer businesses. The industry was intrigued by Sammons’s decision to leave behind a well-respected career to partner with a member of reality TV’s most famous family—and by Kardashian’s interest in this usually stuffy corner of the financial world. Can she make the unlikely leap from celebrity startup founder to private equity titan? (FORTUNE)

“When she sees something she really believes in, she sinks her teeth in and goes all in.”

The biochemist taking on the biome: We’re all obsessed with the biome, or our “gut health.” There have been claims it could treat everything from immune disorders to mental illness. Now, UC Berkeley biochemist and gene-editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna, who won a Nobel Prize in 2020 for co-inventing Crispr, is joining the pursuit. Doudna wants to fine-tune our microbiome by genetically editing the microbes it contains while they’re still inside us to prevent and treat diseases like childhood asthma. Can it be done? (WIRED)
“How do you use a gene-editing tool like Crispr in a natural setting like the human gut?”

America's infamous White House intern: Monica Lewinsky's name has become synonymous with one of the most enduring political scandals of our time. Her relationship with Bill Clinton when he was president and she was a 22-year-old intern turned her identity from aspiring forensic psychologist to someone known as "that woman." She’s spent the past 25 years learning to be nicer to herself, and in the past decade, she’s become perhaps the highest-profile advocate against bullying—physical, emotional, online, and otherwise. And now, with the new Stand Up to Yourself campaign, she’s inviting people to think about the way they talk to themselves in their own minds. (Cosmopolitan)

“Self-bullying is still bullying, and if you wouldn’t say it to someone else, don’t say it to yourself.”

The artist who turned heartbreak into art: After her breakup with Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué, Shakira landed two No. 1 songs. And in the past 12 months, she has placed six hits on the chart, all of them alluding to her separation and the range of emotions it has generated, from intense rage to deep sorrow to faint hope. However torturous the process of setting those emotions to music has been, the result is that the now-single mother of two is once again one of the world’s hottest artists in any language, with 2024 plans for a new album and a global tour. (Billboard)

“I feel like a cat with more than nine lives; whenever I think I can’t get any better, I suddenly get a second wind.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The luxury hotel run by the Taliban: In 1969, the Intercontinental Hotel, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel, opened. Today, the hotel is run by the Taliban. They entered Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021. Although they have been in power for two years, they have remained enigmatic. The Intercontinental does not accept credit cards, since Afghanistan is largely cut off from international banking. A guest arrives with a plastic bag full of cash. Only every second chandelier in the lobby is lit. Take a look inside the place where history and the present come together. (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)

“At first, the employees were afraid of us, but we had orders to be nice to them.”

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