#22 Maxi Best OF
Oblique Forecasting, that is.
Hiiiiiiiiii. Quite a few new faces have joined us in the past few weeks. If you're one of them—welcome!
Here’s how Oblique Forecasting works: I usually pick an item, concept, or person that I have strong opinions about and sort it into my dealsheet. I’ll either invest in it or divest from it, depending on the future I foresee for it. This week, I’m reintroducing five of them for you to read.
xoxo Esther 💋
PS: you know you want to share Oblique Forecasting with your hottest friends so we can all be in this little club together:
Esther’s Buy/Sell List:
💰 What I’m investing in
🗳️Brands that take a political stand. A look at the founder-brand relationship, and the politics of consumerism:
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⏳Smarter ageing. Longevity, death and a double standard:
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🔡 Good copy. An investigation into the brain rot phenomenon, and a cold hard look at how we use AI:
💸 What I’m divesting from
📴 App Monopoly. Meta vesus TikTok versus X:
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🛋️Therapy in its current state. Therapy vocab everywhere, low-cost therapy, Ai-therapy:
Esther’s Dealsheet:
📈 Bullish news
The wellness fertility boom is just getting started [Glossy]
Tinder taps TikTok influencers to lure Gen Z [Axios]. It’s true, I’ve seen several videos mentioning the vibe having changed… and I wondered how organic it could actually be 👀
Net worth of millennials has quadrupled: Why some call it 'phantom wealth' [nbcnews]
A London-based underwriting agency is selling “cancel culture” insurance to panicked celebrities. [FT] The policy includes a 24/7 hotline and a 60-day plan to manage negative media coverage.
Influencer Startup ShopMy Raises $77.5 M to Expand Into New Ad Categories [WSJ] The investment values ShopMy at $410 M, up from an $80 M valuation in its most recent round in March 2024. Spending on influencer marketing is predicted to grow 14.2% year-over-year in 2025, more than social media advertising or digital advertising as a whole.
Rhode (Hailey Beiber’s beauty brand) made $90 million in revenue from its website in the final two months of 2024—close to what the brand was once projecting for the entire year. [Puck]
Marco Bizzarri, the former Gucci CEO who took the Italian brand to new heights (€10.5B) with maximalist Creative Director Alessandro Michele, is now reportedly raising money to buy Versace. [nssmag]
Activist investor Dan Loeb is proposing a $1.7B plan to take Soho House private. [Skift]
Bloomberg’s “Where to invest $10,000” offers ETF formats of common sense investment ideas: consumer staples, healthcare, nuclear energy. [Bloomberg]
What Ozempic users are buying, a year later [The New Consumer] tl;dr GLP-1 users increased spending significantly on wearable health trackers and portable audio equipment, drinkware, and water filters. They also spent more on lip cosmetics, jeans, skincare, hair products, and fragrance.
Bryan Johnson Wants You to Have Better Boners [Interview]. What a headline!!!!! Read my take on longevity — or brogevity.
Jacquemus and Apple are working together for Paris Fashion Week. [WWD] Jacquemus Will Use Only iPhones To Capture Fall 2025 Show.
📉 Bearish news
Is the digital detox industry a scam? [Dazed]
Investors lose their appetite for the obesity trade. Read: Ozempic. [FT] Investors are beginning to question whether the market will be worth the $100B + by the end of the decade that analysts predict. Related: The race for the next Ozempic is on [Quartz]
Gen Z Americans are doing much better than their European counterparts. At least financially speaking. [FT]
Samuel Ross, former Virgil Abloh collaborator and founder of A-Cold-Wall* and SR_A, previewed his Zara collaboration over the weekend at Paris Fashion Week. [Vogue Business]
Are You Even Famous If You Don’t Have an N/A Drink Line? [PunchDrink] Is the market reaching saturation?
LVMH Sells Stella McCartney Back the 49% Stake to Founder After Downturn [yahoo! Finance] Prior to their partnership, Kering had previously owned a 50% in Stella McCartney’s namesake brand for 17 years.
A record number of CEOs left their roles last year, in part as a result of A.I. advancements and pressure from activist investors impatient for results. [FT]