🍋 Art Basel ATM Has a Winner

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Good morning! Despite what your boss might think, remote workers are more engaged than ever. Virtual meetings in 2022 jumped by 60% compared to 2020. Impromptu Zoom meetings are starting to mirror in-person interactions - albeit with a few more awkward silences and the occasional interruption from your barking dog or meowing cat.

Demand for contract workers is on the rise - it seems everyone wants a piece of the gig economy pie. LinkedIn saw a 26% increase in contract positions listed on the site, compared to just a 6% increase for full-time jobs.

Morocco made World Cup history as the first African country to reach the semi-finals in a Cinderella story for the ages. And don’t forget to tune in tomorrow when SBF testifies to Congress. If his recent interviews are any indication, it’s bound to be prime-time entertainment.

Want to win an unforgettable dinner for 2 at a Michelin-Starred restaurant? Enter giveaway here. (only buyside professionals are eligible to win)

1. Story of the Day: Art Basel ATM Has a Winner

Turns out there's a new way to flex on your friends who don't work in banking, even despite a looming economy. The latest art project to go viral on social media, an ATM in Miami, can help. The "ATM Leaderboard" takes a user's bank account balance and displays it on a big screen for all to see, ranking them against the other ATM users in a "high score" list that would make even Pac-Man jealous.

The art piece was created by Brooklyn art collective MSCHF, known for trolling the rich and making edgy art and fashion pieces designed to go viral.

The ATM Leaderboard was revealed at Art Basel in Miami this year. It quickly made the rounds over social media, and even celebrities got in on it.

Musical artist and DJ Diplo tweeted a "high score" of over $3 million in his bank account, declaring he had "just won Art Basel." However, he was later bumped by a user with a whopping $9.5 million in their bank account, becoming the top scorer of the entire event.

The art piece also wasn’t just counting cash; it also collected it, and sold for $75,000 to a South Florida collector.

Takeaway: This ATM is giving out more than just cash - it's also dishing out some harsh truths about the wealth disparities in the art world, as well as the psychology of money as a whole. Art Basel is calling attention to how social media has become a ‘rat race' of sorts. The ATM is a parody of this and distills the flaunting into the cold, hard numbers in the bank account.

2. Markets Rundown

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Stocks closed lower on Friday following their worst week since September.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) DocuSign ($DOCU) +12% after upbeat quarterly results and subscription data.

• (–) Beyond Meat ($BYND) -8% after weak economic outlook, shrinking demand.

• (–) Lululemon ($LULU) -13% after a weaker-than-expected Q4 outlook.

Private Dealmaking

• Keurig Dr. Pepper bought a 30% stake in Nutrabolt for $863 million 

• Apogee, a biotech company focused on immunological therapies, raised $169 million

• Customcells, an energy storage platform, raised $63 million

• ZincFive, a battery materials developer, raised $54 million 

• MarginEdge, a restaurant management platform, raised $45 million 

• Slingshot Aerospace, a space data analytics startup, raised $41 million 

A Message from Daloopa: Win an Unforgettable Dinner for Two

Our friends over at Daloopa are giving away an unforgettable dinner experience for 2 at a Michelin-Starred restaurant.

You must be a buyside professional to be eligible to win.

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is fill out this form.

Winners will be decided and contacted next week.

Top Reads

• 4 themes that will steer global economy through 2075 (YF)

• Binance wants to prove it’s no FTX (WSJ)

• The Facebook collapse case study (Substack)

• Credit market investors are watching for a Fed pivot (YF)

• SBF secretly funded crypto news site (Axios)

• Economists think inflation has peaked - but Main Street braces for more pain (CNBC)

• Could lower stocks be a good thing? (Axios)

• Just 8% of Americans have a positive view of cryptocurrencies (CNBC)

• SBF: “I hope to make money to pay people back” (BBC)

• Passive investments aren’t green (Axios)

4. Book of the Day: Visible Hand

To most people, the word "economics" sounds like homework.

In Visible Hand, Wall Street Journal op-ed editor Matthew Hennessey brings basic economic principles vividly to life in plain English, without resort to numbers, graphs, or jargon.

This isn't Fed policy or the stock market. This is the essential stuff: supply and demand, incentives and tradeoffs, scarcity and innovation, work and leisure.

A teenager should be able to discuss these things intelligently. Sadly, too few of us can explain them even in adulthood.

Visible Hand equips readers with the essential vocabulary necessary to understand and explain how we make the choices we do.

In Hennessey's hands, economics is far from the dismal science. It's the sparkling art of decision making. No homework necessary.

“Visible Hand is a wise reminder that free markets are essential to human flourishing.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• Why variability, not repetition, is the key to mastery

• 10 Google Chrome extensions to accelerate productivity

• How to effectively wrap a charging cable

• Would you sleep in Twitter HQ’s bedrooms?

• We can’t upgrade our lives - we can only live them

A Message from Remi: Do You Grind or Clench Your Teeth at Night?

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6. Daily Visual: Oil Prices Fall to Lowest Level of the Year

West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen

Diana Chapman on embracing tension:

“We’re all scared kids trying to figure it out.

And so, so many of us get caught in, let’s be appropriate. Let’s do it right. Let’s not offend anybody.

And what I see is, the neater we try to get, the less growth we actually get to experience most of the time.

We can certainly create environments that are too edgy where people are so anxious that they can’t learn and grow.

And that’s not the kind of mess I’m talking about. But I’m talking about, can it be okay to have some tension sometimes?”

8. Memes of the Day

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