Happy Saturday Besties,

The Wall Street Journal ranked the Top colleges and universities in the US…

• Overall: Princeton, Babson, Stanford, Yale, & Claremont McKenna.

• To make you rich: MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Georgia Tech, & UPenn.

• With the best parties: Tulane, Dayton, FSU, Michigan State, & Alabama.

40% of Tulane students say they can easily find a party 7 nights a week. The “easily” feels like it’s showing off.

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FACT

 🎾 Tennis is healthier than Pickleball, according to data from Apple Watches.

Results are in: the average heart rate playing PickleBall is 143 beats/min vs. Tennis’ 152 beats/min. Tennis players also spend 9% more time in high-intensity heart rates. Not just the data: 73% of fitness coaches agree tennis is supreme too.

Table shows: The mean percentage of time spent in heart rate zones 1 (light), 2-3 (moderate), and 4-5 (vigorous) for pickleball and tennis. Read the study. 

(Reply if you’re #TeamPickle, #TeamTennis or #TeamNeither)

ICYMI

• 💍 Man engagement rings are trending (we call them “Man-gagement Rings”).

• 🤖 Chipotle just unveiled its 1st burrito-bowl-making robot.

• 😪 JPM will now cap junior bankers at 80 hours/week.

• 👯‍♀️ The Olsen twins’ logo-less brand is worth $1 Billion. 

• 🎢 DisneyWorld prices have risen 2x faster than inflation in the past 10 years.

STOCK STORY

😱 Amazon’s CEO just ordered full Return-to-Office.

Andy Jassy’s (CEO) letter was titled “Strengthening our culture and teams.” It said employees need to be in office 5 days/week, up from their current 3 days/week. He’s even bringing back assigned desks at all US offices. The BIG thing the letter said was that he wants to increase the “Individual Contributor Ratio"…aka Amazon has too many managers and not enough people doing the core thing the company does.

• In football terms: Tom Brady = Individual Contributor. Bill Belichick = Manager. Amazon wants more players and fewer coaches.

(From our Amazon’s Return-To-Work story)

MACRO

📉 The Fed cut interest rates a jumbo 0.5%.

This is the first rate cut since 2020 and Jerome Powell (Chairman of the Fed) went BIG. Economy-wise: the focus is pivoting from crushing inflation to growing jobs. Stock market-wise: the S&P 500 hit an all-time high. Housing-wise: the interest rate on a 30-year mortgage is down to 6% (2-year low). Everything else: Rates are already tracking the Fed’s cut, dipping for car loans, small biz loans, & credit cards too. Although the interest rate on your High-Yield Savings Account fell too.

And the Fed signaled 2 more cuts are coming by the end of the year. Celebrate the wins.

(From “The Fed’s Poseidon announcement” story)

BEST TAKEAWAY

☎️ Just call ‘em on the phone.

The CEO of Mission Produce said this on a recent earnings call: “We built relationships & know folks with ranches. Frankly, we made phone calls.” Thanks to Mission’s network of avocado farmers — the stock added $200M of value last week because they recognized a big harvest in California and called up farmers to buy the crop.

Your network is your net worth.

(From the Mission Avocado’s surprise story)

TELL A BESTIE

• 🦈 Amazon is making its own version of Shark Tank.

• 🍕 Pizza Hut will put your resume on a pizza box.

• 🤬 Formula1 has an “f-word” problem.

• 🦛 Thailand’s viral baby hippo getting IP protection.

(BTW — this is exclusive newsletter content)

And one more thing. We’re heading to Seattle next week for our next Hotline show, which is live. Nick has never been and Jack has (unusual for us).

Reply if we’re going to see ya there… And we need a good restaurant rec for Tuesday or Wednesday night :))

— Nick & Jack