If Warren Buffett asked the US to change every star on its flag to pictures of his face, it’d be hard to say no: Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holds a $234.6B stash of US Treasury bills, which Buffett has called “the safest investment there is.” That stockpile is so impressive, it actually tops the Federal Reserve’s $195.3B T-bill holdings.
In today’s email:
Bus stops: If you build and beautify them, they will come.
Proof: There really is no such thing as a free lunch.
Across the board: What’s got execs in a tizzy?
Around the web: Spielberg face, behaviors we share with animals, and more.
👇 Listen: Public transit’s potential moneymaker: make it less ugly.
The Big Idea
Travelers would pay more for better, beautiful bus stops
A study found some travelers would pay more and wait longer for a better, prettier bus stop.
2024-08-08T00:00:00Z
Juliet Bennett Rylah
Let’s face it: many bus stops are ugly. Boring benches — often designed with hostile architecture — inside plastic huts that sometimes offer shade, depending on where the sun is. And that’s if you’re lucky.
But what if bus stops were aesthetically pleasing? Could cities get more people onto public transit, reducing pollution and traffic?
In a new Italian study…
… ~300 people at a bus stop near Milan were shown a VR version of a colorful stop with better seating and shopping. It found that they’d be willing to pay an average of $4.71 more and travel ~28 minutes longer to use a more attractive stop.
Armando Cartenì, the study’s lead author and a transportation planning professor, toldBloomberg that “investing in beauty is always a good move both for private operators and public administrations.”
However, the participants were tourists, not daily commuters whose priorities involve getting to work quickly and affordably.
For commuters…
… it’s the convenience that counts; they want to be able to walk to their stop safely and wait comfortably.
A University of Minnesota study found that better bus stops impacted how long riders felt they’d waited. Riders who:
Waited at stops with shelters, benches, and real-time arrival info for 10 minutes perceived their wait to be 11 minutes.
Waited at stops with no amenities perceived their 10-minute wait to be 21 minutes.
A study from the University of Utah found that ridership grew at walkable stops with shelters and benches, though it couldn’t determine if it was existing commuters choosing the better stops or new users enticed by improved service.
None of that is to say…
… both form and function aren’t important: Cities often look to public art to add vibrancy, and well-designed transit stations can act as both.
Buses in the US are often associated with a stigma — something only a person without access to a car would choose — and not a normal part of everyday life. Attractive and well-appointed stops couldn’t hurt.
For the killjoys: If you were thinking, “I bet there’s a lot of bureaucracy involved in all this,” you weren’t wrong. Here’s a story about how an advertising deal and red tape led to a crappy situation for riders in LA.
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Let’s take good news wherever we can get it this week: America’s 30-year mortgage rates declined last week to 6.55%, its lowest point since May 2023. This year’s peak rate hit 7.29%, a mark we pray isn’t topped anytime soon.
SNIPPETS
Escaping “Facebook jail” is getting easier: First-time violators of the social network’s community standards will be offered a training course in place of a formal warning. Jail time won’t be lifted for more severe offenses like sexual exploitation and drug sales.
Disney’s streaming business actually made money last quarter, bringing in a $47m profit. Less than two years ago, it was regularly losing ~$1B per quarter.
… However, it’s not all smiles at the happiest places on Earth — Disney’s Experiences division, which includes its six theme parks and cruise line, came in below expectations and profits dropped 3.3%.
Automattic, which owns WordPress.com, launched a new AI-powered writing assistant called Write Brief with AI. The tool will help WordPress users create content with text-based prompts.
HarrisWalz.com sold for $15k. Jeremy Green Eche, a notorious cybersquatter, bought the domain four years ago alongside 15 other Harris-related domains and, well, it paid off.
Lyft is testing Price Lock, a subscription that caps prices for specific routes and times. CEO David Risher said it will “open up a can of whoop ass” on surge pricing. It will cost less than $5/month when it officially rolls out in the US next month.
Shopify shares surged 20%+ Wednesday morning after the ecommerce company reported that gross merchandise volume rose 22% in Q2 to $67.2B.
Beauty company Madison Reed is partnering with the University of Connecticut on a deal that includes court-naming rights and name, image, and likeness deals for players on the UConn women’s basketball team.
It was a tough quarter for your nearest strip mall: Sales declined at both Applebee’s (-1.8%) and IHOP (-1.4%). Both decreases represent a QoQ improvement, though.
Don't miss this...
Don’t mind this link, it’s just a treasure trove of copywriting hacks backed by behavioral science.
Data Point
Lunch and learn: We all know that employees love food (especially when it’s free), but stocking a cafeteria can put serious strain on a workplace.
In ezCater’s survey of 601 cafeteria decision-makers, 40% report spending $1m+ annually on operating a corporate cafeteria and 55% feel they’re too costly. Cafeterias don’t just eat up budget — 80% say they take up 5k+ square feet.
For all that space and money, operators don’t feel that cafeterias are worth the hassle: Nearly40% said they aren’t used enough, and 50% said they waste a lot of food. With new hybrid work structures leading to larger fluctuations in in-person attendance, employers must figure out if cafeterias are worth it.
Employees aren’t sure either — three in 10 only go to their cafeteria if given no other choice, and 75% want tastier options. But high-quality, free meals could be the secret for successful return-to-office policies, with 81% of employees saying free food incentivizes them to work on-site and 71% saying they’ll change their schedule for free food.
Fit the bill
There are thousands of companies valued at $1B+. How many clues do you need to identify today’s billion-dollar brand?
Clue 1: This restaurant chain was founded in 1960 by two Michigan brothers, one of whom sold his share in the business eight months later in exchange for a VW Beetle.
Clue 2: It found success in simplicity. Though it boasts a broader menu today, it initially offered only one type of food in two sizes and one brand of soda for 30+ years.
Clue 3: In the 1980s, the chain introduced advertising featuring a bizarre antagonist (akin to McDonald’s Hamburglar) who interfered with its drivers’ famously quick delivery. The character returned in 2021.
👇 Scroll to the bottom for the answer 👇
The view from above
If we were corporate board directors, our chief concern would be spending an inordinate amount of our lives in sterile, overly air conditioned conference rooms. As for the people who actually sit on public company boards, their active priorities are fortunately a bit more global.
Earlier this summer, Agenda and Charterteamed up to surveythe US boardroom crowd on their organization’s most pressing needs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, especially during a week rife with economic turbulence like this one, the most-common shared priority was sailing their companies through choppy economic waters.
When they turn inward, executives are fretting over how to retain top talent and keep their employees both productive and engaged (those concerns were also atop Chief Executive’s January 2024 survey).
AI, refreshingly, narrowly missed out on the urgent-priorities medal stand, but Lord knows there are plenty of otherplaces you can turn to if you’re desperate for executive sentiment about the emerging tech.
AROUND THE WEB
⚖️ On this day: In 2009, Justice Sonia Sotomayor became the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.
🐵 That’s interesting: Some surprising things we have in common with animals.
😮 Haha: The Spielberg face, a hallmark of the filmmaker’s movies.
⛺ Game: A chill puzzle in which you place tents on a grid and listen to lo-fi beats.
