Weekend Briefing No. 591
Drones Beat Battleships -- The Cult of Creativity -- The Mass Trauma of Porn
Welcome to the weekend.
Prime Numbers
16 — Tom Cruise holds the Guinness World Record for most burning parachute jumps at 16 during filming of "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning," which helps explain the film's staggering $400 million budget.
160,000 — A single truckload of bees is worth over $160,000, with the USDA valuing each honey bee colony at $129 and each wooden hive at $230.
165,600,000 — The Thunder ($165.6 million payroll, 25th in NBA) and Pacers ($169.1 million, 18th) represent the first NBA Finals in two decades where neither team paid luxury tax.
Introducing the Acquired Briefing
If you're familiar with the Acquired podcast, you know why it's captivating. For those who aren't, Acquired tells the stories and strategies behind great companies, hosted by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal. It's the #1 Technology show on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify, reaching over one million listeners per episode. The Wall Street Journal calls it "the business world's favorite podcast."
These aren't typical podcast episodes—they're better described as "conversational audiobooks" that prioritize depth over brevity. Recent guests have included the founders and CEOs of NVIDIA, Berkshire Hathaway, Starbucks, Meta, Spotify, TSMC, and CAA.
The Challenge
Every Acquired episode is packed with brilliant business insights. While I love the audio format, I face a constant challenge: I'm usually listening while running, doing dishes, or commuting. I find myself pausing repeatedly to jot down key insights on my phone. Since there are no written episode summaries available online, I started creating my own detailed briefings after each listen.
The Solution
I realized other fans might want a written reference to review and reinforce their learning. That's why I'm launching the Acquired Briefing—a newsletter that distills each episode's key insights into an accessible, searchable format.
Here's what to expect:
Fresh episodes: Briefings released shortly after new episodes drop
Back catalog series: One briefing every Thursday morning covering their greatest hits
Starting strong: A series of 11 standout episodes, beginning with their most popular
Taylor Swift
What better way to kick things off than with their Taylor Swift episode? Not only is Taylor Swift the biggest music artist of our generation by nearly every metric (it’s not even close!), with the re-recording of her original albums she’s in the process of reshaping the entire music industry in a way no band or artist ever has before. And oh yeah — she’s still only thirty-two.
Click below to read the fascinating story of the business side of T-Swift’s empire and subscribe to get future Acquired Briefings.
Thanks for reading.
Drones Beat Battleships
Plastic toys just destroyed Russia's nuclear bombers, proving that military revolutions happen overnight and render expensive weapons obsolete. Ukrainian forces packed battery-powered drones into trucks, drove them across Russia and eliminated a significant portion of the strategic bomber fleet that cost billions to build. America's $350 million F-22 fighters and $13 billion aircraft carriers face the same vulnerability to swarms of cheap Chinese-made drones that cost mere hundreds of dollars each. The U.S. military's reliance on expensive platforms mirrors Britain's fatal faith in battleships before Japanese aircraft proved air power had changed warfare forever, and current Republican policies are dismantling America's battery manufacturing capacity just when drone warfare demands it most. Noahpinion (9 minutes)
3 Changes to Level-Up Your Newsletter
Your newsletter is not just an email. It’s a product that should solve a problem for your audience. Want to be in the top 1% of newsletters? Make three changes: 1) Put the reader first. The most common mistake companies make with their newsletter is making it all about them. 2) Make it worth a damn to read. Is your newsletter something you would open and read? If you don’t find it interesting or insightful, your audience won’t either. 3) Make it human. To build trust, make it human and personal. See how your newsletter stacks up with this Newsletter Health Check: 10 proven ways to optimize your newsletter. Future Forest (Sponsored)
The Cult of Creativity
Creativity became society's unquestionable religion because it lets companies disguise economic exploitation as personal empowerment while everyone accepts its vague, unmeasurable promises without question. The "follow your passion" economy masks deteriorating working conditions with feel-good rhetoric, while Silicon Valley uses creativity claims to avoid scrutiny for prioritizing profit over human value. Break free by questioning why we all supposedly need creativity, recognizing that "creative economy" often means unstable low-paying work, and focusing instead on wisdom, care and craft that actually sustains society. Stop chasing abstract creativity and embrace meaningful work that serves real human needs through our full humanity — emotions, ethics and genuine social connection. MIT Technology Review (5 minutes)
The Mass Trauma of Porn
Imagine you meet a teenage girl who starts telling you about her childhood. Then, she mentions, somewhat casually, that she was shown porn by a strange man. He introduced her to it when she was nine, before she had even held hands with a boy, before she had gotten her first period, without her parents knowing. Week after week, he showed her more, each time something more extreme. By 10, it seemed normal. By 11, she was watching regularly on her own. She is calm about this, reassuring you that this has happened to most of her friends. Would anyone think this was normal? Part of coming-of-age, her healthy development? Exploring her sexuality? Or would we call this abuse? This is exactly what is happening to children today when we hand them a smartphone. But instead of one stranger introducing them to porn, it is a billion-dollar industry, profiting from their trauma. After Babel (7 minutes)
On Boredom
The deepest creative wells only open during the "crushing silences of boredom" when you eliminate all digital stimulation and force your brain to fill the void with original thoughts. A daily practice of walking 20-40 kilometers through rural Japan while avoiding phones, podcasts and social media transforms ordinary encounters with strangers into flowing words and profound connections that reshape your understanding of human stories. This ascetic approach — photographing strangers, dictating observations, then spending hours each night writing thousands of words for temporary newsletters — creates "max full" days where every moment gets wrung for texture and meaning. After hundreds of such days, you develop an archetype for complete fulfillment that carries into regular life, proving that the most banal itineraries contain infinite creative potential when experienced without the dopamine-murdering distractions of modern technology. LitHub (12 minutes)
High and Dry
Festivals promise transcendence through chaos, but the most profound transformations happen when you strip away the chemical shortcuts entirely. At Bonnaroo's sober camp, recovering addicts discover that staying present amid 80,000 intoxicated revelers requires a different kind of courage — one that doesn't flee from discomfort but transforms it into genuine connection. While others chase pharmaceutical enlightenment through DMT shamans and designer drugs, these former addicts practice the unglamorous daily work of showing up clearheaded for each other. Their secret isn't positive thinking or spiritual bypassing, but the radical act of remaining awake in a world designed to numb us into unconsciousness. Harper’s (15 minutes)
Should We Work Together?
Hi! I’m Kyle. This newsletter is my passion project. When I’m not writing, I run a law firm that helps startups move fast without breaking things. Most founders want a trusted legal partner, but they hate surprise legal bills. At Westaway, we take care of your startup’s legal needs for a flat, monthly fee so you can control your costs and focus on scaling your business. If you’re interested, let’s jump on a call to see if you’re a good fit for the firm. Click here to schedule a one-on-one call with me.
Advertise With Us
Elevate your company's profile by sponsoring the Weekend Briefing, delivering your message directly to over 200,000 discerning professionals, entrepreneurs and decision-makers each week. Our highly engaged community represents an ideal audience for quality brands seeking growth. Click here to see the details. Reply to this email to discuss our limited sponsorship opportunities.
Weekend Wisdom
Adventure is not outside man; it is within. - George Eliot