Hey there weekday warriors,

Imagine working in Private Equity and making less than a Walmart store manager. Under Wally World’s new comp plan, a store manager could bring in $400k per year.

Here’s what else we’re getting into today…

• Roomba is on the ropes

• Smartless just secured the bag

• Flutter gets called up

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 12 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

- tyler

+ Markets “surged on Monday, with the S&P 500 closing at a new record close and European shares hitting a two-year high.” (Reuters)

+ The 10-year Treasury yield “declined Monday as investors looked ahead to a week of key economic data and the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate decision of the year." (CNBC)

+ Oil prices “fell more than a dollar a barrel on Monday as China's ailing property sector sparked demand worries, causing traders to reassess the supply risk premium from escalating tensions in the Middle East.” (Reuters)

+ Bitcoin rose above $43k.

+ The three most talked about stocks on WallStreetBets in the past 24 hours were: 1) Sofi +20.21% 2) Nvidia +2.35% 3) AMD +0.33%.

Coverage of the market movers you need to know about every day…

+ Coinbase jumped 6.2% Monday. Thanks, bitcoin.

+ Lucid rose 25% because… *checks notes*… it signed a deal with an aluminum sheet manufacturer.

+ The worst part of SoFi rising 20% is that Chamath can go all “I told you so.” Shares mooned thanks to a Q4 that showed pretty impressive growth.

That totally sucks

iRobot (the maker of Roomba) really do be suffering from success…

You see, the company was so damn good at making and selling robot vacuums to people who have just kinda given up on life that it gained the attention of Amazon.

So where did it go wrong?

Its only mistake was caring too much.

iRobot followed the dreams of every little boy and girl who hopes to grow up and sell their floorcare startup to a big tech company one day…

Amazon’s $1.7B acquisition of iRobot attracted attention from the EU (and not the good kind).

The European antitrust police felt that Amazon would box out iRobot’s competitors (they probably aren’t wrong) on the online marketplace. That would stifle competition and allow iRobot to take its foot off the gas when it comes to innovation and competitive pricing.

So, yesterday, the two sides decided they’d go their separate ways.

And iRobot did not take it well…

The company that makes the product of Consuela’s nightmares cleaned house. It laid off 350 employees and announced that its founder and CEO would step down.

iRobot will also press pause on all of its non-Roomba products. Just terrible news for everyone holding out hope for the AI-powered iRobot pube trimmer…

Shares fell 8.7%… which seems about right.

+ The top 3 things bosses should get rid of in 2024, says CEO—remote work isn’t one of them (Read)

+ The 15 most expensive U.S. neighborhoods per square foot—No. 1 is 2,000% higher than average (Read)

+ ICYMI... In many ways, Gen Zers are better off than their parents were 30 years ago, but fewer are financially independent — here’s why (Read)

+ “Hear me out… The Joe Rogan Experience for people that haven’t discussed the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis while eating Traeger-grilled elk.” - SiriusXM execs convincing the board to buy the rights to Smartless

Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes are taking their podcast Smartless to SiriusXM… which means everyone will really enjoy it for 3 months when they get a new car, then decide SiriusXM isn’t worth the monthly subscription. The three actors will get Call Her Daddy money ($100M over 3 years) to leave Amazon.

Shares of Sirius fell about 1% on the day. (Read)

+ Imagine not letting Gronk ‘Gronk spike’ the NYSE opening bell (at least we got this)…

Gronk helped Flutter Entertainment celebrate its US listing at the NYSE. For those of you who don’t gamble on the Special Olympics, Flutter owns FanDuel, the biggest online sportsbook in the US.

Flutter already trades in the UK but finally got called up to the big leagues. The move probably had nothing to do with shares of its biggest rival, DraftKings, rising 150% over the past year. (Read)

+ What happened over the weekend is just the origin story of the next Marvel villain. Elon’s Neuralink implanted (installed?) a brain-computer interface in a real-life human. The patient is “recovering well”… which I’m pretty sure is what they said about Harvey Dent right before he became Two-Face.

It’s probably best to hold off on shaving your head and thinking about what the first tweet posted directly from your brain will be. This is just the first of Neuralink’s in-human trials.

Oh, and the company’s initial goal is to help patients with severe paralysis.

Also, Elon’s gotta chill with the misleading product names. First, there was Full Self Driving in Teslas, which isn’t actually full self-driving. And yesterday Elon said that Neuralink’s first product is called Telepathy… (Read)

Here's what I'm keeping an eye on today...

+ General Motors, UPS, Sysco, Pfizer, Alphabet, Microsoft, Starbucks, Mondelez, and AMD report

+ Sh*t is hitting the fan in China

Yesterday, I asked What’s the best font in the game?

Times New Roman claimed the top spot with 27.4% of the vote, followed by Calibri and Arial. Wingdings got some write-in love.

Here’s today’s question…

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