Rainbow Goldstein

@MehtabKarta have either of them had any bangers aside from (potentially) reebok?

@technorural Yes but their bangers involve the IP warming up concurrently/headed in the right direction. They still get the phat tail

Apparel is really tough. I think the approach taken by "brand management platforms" like WHP & Authentic Brands Group makes a lot of sense. Basically buy these brands when they are cold, let them get warmer and enjoy PMF coming back.

@MehtabKarta in some cases like reebok the previous IP owners mismanaged so badly there is growth available

@MehtabKarta That’s not really what they do. They take the IP/asset, divide it into categories as well as distribution channels (all the DTC sites are licensed) sign multi year deals with guaranteed minimum royalties, and then borrow against that guaranteed revenue stream to buy more brands

@otter401 @hitsamty do you think the branding attempt / vibes premium would be possible if it was tied to a non rental housing brand? your example of soho house is a good one, if they actually developed multifamily, could they charge more?

I built my first apt project in 1983 as TCR partner. I've developed over 30k units since. There's a lot in this world I don't know about, but i do know the rental apartment business and its history over decades -Branding attempt is nothing new. We and many of our large competitors tried to create premium value by branding. And it's been attempted again over the years. The reality however has been that apt renters don't give a $hit about whether their bldg is branded. If I'm $15/mo higher than the property down the street I lose the tenant. -Attempts at achieving a vibes premium: Again nothing new. We've all tried this too. The reality is that our residents don't emerge from a cocoon with no existing relationships or social circle. They have friends who live elsewhere who they congregate with. They form their social networks organically and based on fit, not artificiality from happening to live in the same bldg. We've found that our residents actually prefer some separation and personal space in their lives rather than replicating their college dorm experience. It's like SoHo House brought the rental apartment business. Might sound good in concept but a big money loser in reality.

The rules of gravity DO NOT apply to Adam Neumann. We know that by now. His ecosystem of enablers – from VCs to the media – understand this very well. But they DO apply to real estate investors putting money into his stuff. Let’s look a bit more closely at Flow. Flow, with all the romance stripped out, is basically a multifamily holdco & property management company. Both are very nice businesses when done right. But doing them right takes extreme fiscal discipline and a tight grasp of ops – these are not things one associates with Neumann cos. Flow made a good chunk of its acquisitions during peak multifamily pricing w/ floating-rate debt. Paying top dollar in an overheated market is not a competitive advantage. And that debt, after rates turned, is pretty burdensome. Some deals have already tanked. To wit: 3005 Peachtree (Buckhead): Cortland did a rescue pref injection into this 400-ish unit Atlanta project and has basically taken it over. Flow prob has a hope note but most of the equity is in the ether. Stacks on Main (Nashville): Turned to crowdfunder Yieldstreet (the artist now known as Willow Wealth) for rescue capital. Retail investors put in $18M of equity at a promised annual return of 16.4%, plus another $2M in debt. “Your equity investment is expected to incur a full loss,” Willow Wealth told investors in late Nov., and debt investors would lose up to 60%, the company said. Trace Midtown: This Atlanta property was also seeking rescue pref as of this summer- unclear where that one now stands It’s worth noting that a16z doesn’t just have a trad VC equity stake in Flow, which is its largest single investment ($350M ++ follow-on funds). It also has a stake in Flow’s real estate portfolio, per WSJ. So there is even more of an incentive for David George to go on Harry’s show and say stuff like this. Do I think any of these troubles will matter for Neumann in the long run? Probably not; he’s a preternaturally talented salesman and there will always be plenty of buyers for whatever wares he peddles. But others who see all this momentum shouldn’t just eat up the 10,000-foot-view that Neumann Inc. is so great at providing. Zoom in a tad, too.

@otter401 @SactoGeoff my dad was a huge j zink fan and now I'm reading his books as I raise my own three sons. thanks for all the wisdom you drop on here - learn a lot from ya.

@SactoGeoff 35 yrs ago my wife and I heard Dr Jay Zink speak at a retreat. His ideas resonated with us and informed how we dealt with this issue with our kids x.com/i/grok/share/7…

Friend said he’s gonna pay his 7th grader $200 wk for a litany of chores. But the kid has to pay for everything himself except rent/fuel. Clothes, food/groceries, lunches, sports, entertainment. Everything.

@EllliotttB Amelia Island

Just once I want to hear of one of these people moving to Florida but it’s Jacksonville

@drewfallon12 @mbertulli I mean, there’s also “it helped me decrease my operating expenses”

@mbertulli the only good answer to this in consumer products is as follows. it helped me sell more products or it helped me plan my inventory better everything else is a distraction. maybe fun! but a distraction the business model rewards nothing else, full stop

What’s the most valuable use of AI in your brand? Seriously. What’s making you more money or cutting costs?

@redl3tters grizzard was the king!!!

While I briefly have the attention of Deep South twitter: I was channeling the spirit of Lewis Grizzard in this post. Lewis loved to talk shit about New York. He made a career out of anecdotes and one-liners about how cold and impersonal it was relative to what he was used to. So when he once traveled there only to encounter warmth and friendliness throughout his visit, he found it story worthy and wrote an essay about the trip. A couple days ago, when I noticed everyone kept being super cool to me, I thought back on his story and realized I was in a reverse Lewis Grizzard situation: so much time spent in New York, I'd forgotten how normal that level of friendliness is back home. Fascinating to consider the stories that stay with you and the moments at which they choose to resurface.

@Liamjsm had the same thought

Seems weird to report the gross revenue of a contractor who pays a ton in overhead like it’s a salary

@RGA @frynaomifry lightning on the sun is even better

@frynaomifry Ah idk about his Henry Davis connection. "Pure Slaughter Value," his story collection, was quite good.

@CSandbatch it’s almost like the only way it could be and ultimately immortality is the right side of the trade. my kids know all the words to this song

Ariel Pink, though remains the most persecuted artist of the woke era.

@GoodGuyGuaranty yes

Eli and I spent an hour on the phone last night going over this site. We worked every angle of zoning, building, and tax codes we could think of to figure out the highest and best use. If we did a Twitch stream where we went over weirdo NYC development deals - would you watch?

@CSandbatch pynchon is great when you’re 16-28. still good after but you see it for what it is (Art Garfunkel not bob Dylan) would include on list above: haruki murakami Radiohead

Flannery O'Connor Arthur Schopenhauer Malcolm Gladwell Curtis Yarvin Pynchon (except as light seasoning) Marshall McLuhan Anais Nin (deep breath)

@CSandbatch Hong Ta Shan Mild Seven Shepheard’s Hotel Nat Sherman Fantasia

1. Zhonghua 2. Embassy 3. Gauloises 4. Lucky Strikes 5. Pall Malls

@davidclowery have you messed around with vibe coding? it's pretty wild stuff - just as the barrier to distribution went to zero with amazon marketplace / Etsy, think the idea is that the barrier to starting a software company may be similarly knocked down

@davidclowery I think it's being looked at through a software prism - and it does seem that a lot of software may be... if not well and truly cooked... forced to accept lower margins

The current round of AI doomerism is an info op. I mean it’s complete bullshit. LLMs just can’t do what is being claimed. So what is the trade?

@ChrisMargolin @davidclowery @LionelArtomG I listened to that song on my discman (plugged into the tape deck of my 91 ford bronco on the way home home from my high school pizza job at Noble Roman’s) on repeat, every night on the drive home while smoking some northern lights. It was #1 regardless of the official charts.

@Seanfrank people are paying 50 cents on the dollar for tariff refund claims...so if your working model is you will not get your money back and you have a claim over $10M get on it stat! :)

Tariffs and Section 321 and De minimis: - in the BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, section 321 was made illegal starting 7/1/2027 so that is law, on the books, and was not litigated today at the supreme court no way around it, de minimis is currently set to sunset on 7/1/27 - BUT is it back for now? Id bet it never comes back, or it comes back for 4 weeks and gets banned again - the media does a poor job of explaining what happened today. people talk in brush strokes: "tariffs are ON!" "Sorry tariffs are OFF!" there are actually dozens of individual tariffs, all stacked on top of each other like a 7 layer dip today, the supreme court just overturned the sour cream layer for instance, steel and aluminum tariffs (currently 50% world wide for everyone), wasnt litigated that tariff is still here and active. - and the court system is slow by design it took 10 months to go from liberation day to supreme court ruling. that is VERY FAST by the supreme court standards what stops trump from passing 50 new tariffs tomorrow, and restarting the tariff shot clock that would take the whole thing back to square one - today the supreme court DID NOT RULE that the president has NO power to make tariffs they ruled this particular tariff was an overreach PREDICTION: just get used to living with the tariff you will not get your money back I think they will "refund" the tariffs as trump checks to every american earning under 100k $1000-$2000 trump checks landing right around october... And the administration plays the shell game of a new tariff added for every one the supreme court strikes down

@Seanfrank there was another executive order specifically calling this out whitehouse.gov/presidential-a…

@BowTiedYukon @ccmembersonly personally do coconut sugar and maple syrup but not white or brown sugar - works well as a filtering mechanism

@technorural @ccmembersonly What are your thoughts on brown?