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| Greetings N2K reader! | Elise Danielle Thralow won this week’s world famous News Haiku™ competition about Peloton’s seat post failures causing injuries with this beauty: | No gain, only pain,
when soft flesh smashes hard steel.
My butt seeks justice. | | | | ~Elise Danielle Thralow |
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| “I’m thrilled and honored to win again,” Elise emailed me. “I must also publicly acknowledge Elizabeth Mansolillo. Her line, ‘Please enjoy this post,’ is touching in the way it lingers and makes me weep.“ Congratulations, Elise! Here’s your celebratory gif, which can also double as our Monday morning mantra, Cheddheads… | | This week’s world famous News Haiku™ competition is about the last U.S. penny ever being minted (it’s true, they are no more!). Send me your entry — to our spiffy new email address, haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET on Thursday for consideration by your Cheddar peers. And now for something completely different! | —Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor | | News You Need2Know | | | What’s the stock market up to, eh? | $SPX ( ▼ 0.05% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.65% ) $NDX ( ▲ 0.13% ) | | Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter | Wheels Up, Blue Origin, $LNKD ( 0.0% ) , $AAPL ( ▼ 0.2% ) | | Do you really NEED a private jet? | | The recent turmoil in commercial air travel has been a hot topic, but fear not, help is on the way — provided you’re already sitting on a massive pile of wealth. We recently met with George Mattson, CEO of Wheels Up, one of the leading private global aviation companies. And boy, are private global aviation companies doing great.
Mattson was quick to reassure us that while the fragility of the system exposed by the government shutdown has led to “horror stories of people who were forced to drive across the country instead of flying,” his company has actually seen a spike in bookings. | Why? Because private jet travelers still need to, want to, and can afford to fly to 5,000 airports in the U.S., not the just under 500 that the commercial carriers do. Addressing the "K-shaped economy" — a pronounced economic trend where different groups of people experience vastly different outcomes, with high-income earners and companies recovering and growing while lower- and middle-income groups are struggling — Mattson noted that the segment they operate in is "really healthy," buoyed by both "markets at all-time highs" and a delightful new trend. | The K-shaped economy is an “experience-based economy,” Mattson explained, with a new "younger generation of folks who have accumulated substantial wealth" now viewing private aviation as "even more compelling as a convenience." | Please let us know what you think of the K-shaped economy in today’s poll.
Some 90% of Mattson’s clientele also fly commercial, so it’s very much a porque-no-los-dos.gif situation. Next time your commercial flight is canceled, google “how much will it cost me to get where I need to go on a private jet?” | The answer, when it comes to Wheels Up, is: | Annual Fee: $8,500 (the initiation fee of $9,995 is typically waived if you put down a deposit). Initial Fund Deposit: A minimum of $100,000 is required to gain access to guaranteed availability and capped rates.
| Then Google “rental car,” because you could get a beauty for that money. | | | Song of the day: Charlie XCX, ‘Chains of Love’ |  | Charli xcx - Chains of Love (Official Audio) |
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| Charli XCX’s new song is a big, achingly romantic ballad that combines strings with head-warping electronic effects. Just what you need when you’re thinking about a private jet you can’t afford | | Free yourself from advertising forever! | Now you can sign up for an optional ad-free version of Need2Know! Subscribe for just $5 a month, or $50 a year, and you can continue to enjoy this reasonably high-quality newsletter uninterrupted. Bonus: The immense satisfaction that comes from supporting journalism*! | *This counts as journalism, right? | | | ADVERTISEMENT | Find your customers on Roku this Black Friday | | As with any digital ad campaign, the important thing is to reach streaming audiences who will convert. To that end, Roku’s self-service Ads Manager stands ready with powerful segmentation and targeting options. After all, you know your customers, and we know our streaming audience. | Worried it’s too late to spin up new Black Friday creative? With Roku Ads Manager, you can easily import and augment existing creative assets from your social channels. We also have AI-assisted upscaling, so every ad is primed for CTV. | Once you’ve done this, then you can easily set up A/B tests to flight different creative variants and Black Friday offers. If you’re a Shopify brand, you can even run shoppable ads directly on-screen so viewers can purchase with just a click of their Roku remote. | Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply. | Use code GET5K now | | |
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| Blue Origin sticks mega-rocket landing and, even more unbelievably, Musk congratulates Bezos | Evidently, Elon Musk has gotten over being dissed by both Joyce Carol Oates and Billie Eilish (for hoarding money while nearing trillionaire status). I think he got over this by congratulating a fellow billionaire on landing his mega rocket. | | Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has reached a historic milestone in the commercial space race, having successfully landed its enormous New Glenn rocket booster on a droneship in the Atlantic Ocean. The achievement makes Blue Origin only the second company, after SpaceX, to master the technology of landing and reusing orbital-class rocket boosters. Musk congratulated Bezos and his team on the accomplishment, tweeting: “Congratulations @JeffBezos and the @BlueOrigin team!” | See, Joyce, he can be gracious! See, Billie? | The New Glenn rocket booster — standing over 320 feet tall and powered by seven BE-4 engines — touched down on the droneship Jacklyn shortly after launching from Cape Canaveral. The mission also included the deployment of NASA’s ESCAPADE satellites, designed to study the Martian atmosphere. Reflecting on this achievement, Dave “Bizkit” Limp, Blue Origin's CEO, said, “We achieved full mission success today, and I am so proud of the team. Never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try.” | The success marks a crucial step for Blue Origin in its quest to compete with SpaceX's dominance in reusable rocket technology. | | | Quote of the Day | |
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