TOGETHER WITH

Today, we meet a legendary Silicon Valley character, a tariff deal-with-it, and Elon continues to be his own worst enemy. But first...

In the July 8, 2020 edition of The Water Coolest, we applauded Walmart for finally getting into the membership game… 15 years too late.

A decade and a half after the launch of Prime, Walmart finally launched Walmart+. And all it took was a global pandemic.

Walmart+ offers free shipping, same-day grocery and retail delivery (…with a $35 minimum), free Paramount+ access, and some other perks that are mostly worthless. Don’t believe me? Apparently, you can get a free Burger King Whopper once per quarter, which just screams “People of Walmart”…

It hasn’t exactly been the Amazon Prime killer Walmart hoped it would be, but according to Wally World, it’s got nearly 25M paying members. To put things in perspective, Prime is more expensive... and has more than 170M members.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 40 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

PS, loving The Water Coolest? Forward it to someone who can barely handle one job, let alone 3-4. If you CC me ([email protected]), I’ll send you both something.

PPS, did someone with great taste (who thinks you complain about your job too much) forward this to you? Subscribe here.

Today in plot lines straight out of HBO’s ‘Silicon Valley’…

While you were busy consuming more glizzy’s than Joey Chestnuts and mainlining more light beers than Stone Cold Steve Austin (during the Attitude Era) over the July 4th weekend, an absolute legend was born in the Bay Area…

Meet Soham Parekh

Last week, Soham was outed as an economic polygamist of sorts…

“You gotta pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers.” - Soham, probably

Because the virgins in Silicon Valley can’t help themselves, they launched SohamTracker.com to keep tabs on the hero of the r/overemployd subreddit. At last count, Soham “spoke” with at least 55 companies and started 19 jobs. That doesn't count all the CEOs too embarrassed to admit they hired the Bonnie Blue of JavaScript.

Most of the startups that interviewed/hired him gave rave reviews. They said he crushed technical interviews and was pretty damn talented. Soham wasn’t no personality hire, you guys.

Explain yourself, Soham…

In Soham’s defense, he admitted to being guilty of wanting to create shareholder value holding multiple jobs at a time…

Last week on the Technology Business Programming Network, the employee of the month claimed he worked 140 hours per week (we get it, dude, you like the smell of booger sugar) and that he wasn’t using AI or other programmers to complete his work. In fact, he was pretty stoked about all the experience he was getting.

Of course, he didn’t last long at most of his gigs because he was caught in lies or expected to be in the office. Did I mention this dude was applying to/working at in-person jobs… from India?

Ok, but why?

According to Soham, he was in “financial jeopardy” and hoped that working more jobs would help. Which, ok, fair.

Ok, who’s going to tell him that Zuck is handing out Shohei Ohtani-type contracts?

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+ Me, showing my wife screenshots of the tariff letters sent to Japan, Korea, and 12 other countries: “That's bone. And the lettering is something called Silian Rail.”

On Monday, POTUS made it official: he planned to pump the brakes on speed-running a global trade war. The 90-day tariff reprieve offered to America’s trading partners (which was set to expire Wednesday) was extended through August 1st. According to Donny Duties, the decision was made “based on additional information and recommendations from various senior officials.”

Also, on Monday, at least 14 countries learned their fate come August 1st. It was a who’s who of countries that the average American (hand up) couldn’t point to on a map: Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Myanmar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tunisia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Cambodia, and Thailand… plus Japan, Korea, and South Africa.

All the tariffs were in and around the ballpark of the Liberation Day figures.

+ Tesla investors rn…

Just when Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 3.5% ) investors thought it couldn't get worse than Elon spending too much time on the campaign trail spending too much time on DOGE beefing with the sitting President, the South African native launched his own political party. But look on the bright side, TSLA shareholders… Elon can’t become President.

The decision to form the America Party (super original name, Elon…) vaporized $68B (so close…) worth of Tesla shareholder value. The stock lost 7% on the first trading day since the announcement (Saturday). And I think we can all agree that for a supergenius, it was pretty f*cking dumb not to make the announcement on the 4th, right?

+ We are so close to the first Waymo drive-by, you guys. Waymo said on Monday that it’ll begin testing in Philly… with a safety driver behind the wheel.

+ Everyone: “2025 will be the year of artificial general intelligence.”

Jack Dorsey: “Have you guys heard of Bluetooth?”

What’s that? You thought Bluetooth technology was only for your Uber driver to speak loudly in their native tongue despite having requested a quiet ride? Think again…

Instead of spending his weekend doing hood rat stuff with his friends, Jack Dorsey built Bitchat, “A secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks. No internet required, no servers, no phone numbers - just pure encrypted communication.”

I’m not sure what any of that means… but I do know that it can’t be a worse use of his time than Bluesky.

+ These guys took the 'tip your landlord' jokes seriously and ran with it…

In what will be the most confusing acquisition some M&A lawyers will ever overcharge for… newly public CoreWeave $CRWV ( ▲ 1.74% ) is buying Core Scientific $CORZ ( ▲ 1.16% ). The AI cloud infrastructure company will buy the data center provider for $9B. For those of you without a Computer Science degree, that means CoreWeave is buying its data center provider instead of paying it rent…

+ US stocks “closed lower on Monday, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq each shedding just under one percent.” (Yahoo! Finance)

+ The 10-year yield “rose Monday as investors monitored trade tensions amid an extension of the 90-day tariff reprieve deadline and as U.S. President Donald Trump threatened more tariffs.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “rose nearly 2% on Monday as signs of strong demand more than offset the impact of a higher-than-expected OPEC+ output hike for August and fresh concerns about the potential impact of U.S. tariffs.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin “edged lower on Monday after rising in early trading on optimism around the upcoming "crypto week" in Washington. The broader market sentiment also remained cautious due to uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s shifting tariff timeline.” (Investing.com)

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ Aehr Test Systems reports after the bell

+ The four-day Amazon Prime Day event begins… which means a bunch of other major retailers, like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Kohl's, Newegg, Macy's, and Dollar General will hold copycat events

Thursday, I asked, “You can only have one 4th of July BBQ food for the rest of your life. What one are you keeping?”

56.4% of you said “Burgers.”

Here’s what some of you guys had to say…

Here’s today’s question…

Some real talk today…

There are a LOT of people out there that aren’t doing ok (mentally) and are too afraid/proud/embarrassed/whatever to say anything (especially a lot of the fellas).

You don’t have to answer the question below, but know that someone gives a damn (me) and it’s OK to ask for help. And if you are doing ok, go check in with someone.

In case this seems out of left field, here’s why I’m bringing it up: I lost my dad 12 years ago today to mental illness (I heard someone call it that instead of suicide, and it feels like a much better way to explain it). And if I can use this platform to so much as set someone on the path to getting help, it’ll be worth all the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve put into building this thing.

Oh, and one more thing…

Does this look like the face of a guy you should take financial advice from?

No, it’s the face of an individual who is financially irresponsible/dumb enough to be talked into spending money on a family photo shoot that he could have just done with his iPhone. So, act accordingly...

This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter is an investment recommendation. All content is created for entertainment, educational, or informational purposes only. Do your own research, or do yourself a favor and hire a professional.