📦 Amazon's next era

...and Jeff Bezos is going to space [Disclosures](   Bezos' galactic greeting committee [Donald Iain Smith via GettyImages]   Last Week’s Market Moves   S&P 500 4,352 (+1.67%) Dow Jones 34,786 (+1.02%) Nasdaq 14,639 (+1.94%) Bitcoin $34,042 (-1.31%) S&P 500 4,352 (+1.67%) Dow Jones 34,786 (+1.02%) Nasdaq 14,639 (+1.94%) Bitcoin $34,042 (-1.31%) Hey Snackers, 245 years ago, the founding fathers [wrote]( about unalienable rights, including the pursuit of happiness. For Joey Chestnut, that pursuit involved [downing]( 76 hotdogs in 10 minutes this weekend. While Americans rallied to celebrate freedom, US stocks rallied to records last week as jobless claims hit a new pandemic low. Want to start getting Snacks daily? Or prefer to unsubscribe? Manage your subscription preferences [here](. Nostalgic The King of Amazon hands over his crown: here's what's ahead for the new CEO Alexa, play "In My Life" by The Beatles... Jeff Bezos is feeling post-Prime Day nostalgia. Yesterday, [Amazon]( founder officially stepped down as CEO after 27 years at the helm. The 'Zon has come a long way since 1995, when Bezos sold the site's first book from his Seattle garage. Bezos had left a cushy hedge fund job to take a risk on his ecomm idea, [saying]( "Even if I fail, I would not have any regrets." Spoiler: he didn't fail. - Enter Jassy: Andy Jassy = Amazon's new CEO. The Amazon lifer was the CEO of AWS, Amazon's massive cloud computing service ($45B in annual sales). - Exit Bezos: Kind of. Bezos is now exec chairman, focusing on new Amazon products and special projects. - Cue investors: Amazon stock barely budged when the transition was [announced]( in February, signaling investors have confidence in the shift. Special delivery... CEO onboarding packet, coming in bulky. Jassy is inheriting an ecomm and cloud leader with side-hustles in hardware, grocery, advertising, healthcare, streaming, and Hollywood (see: [MGM acquisition](. - What’s going well: Money. Amazon's sales surged 44% last quarter, and profit more than tripled as the ecommerce boom keeps booming. The 'Zon is expected to rake in [40%+]( of US ecomm sales by the end of the year. - Not going well: Regulatory scrutiny. The FTC's new leader Lina Khan is a Big Tech critic who wrote a [major]( paper on Amazon's dominance while at Yale Law. Last week, Amazon made moves to stop her from participating in 'Zon-related antitrust investigations. Oh, and a House committee just [advanced]( major legislation to curb Big Tech's dominance. THE TAKEAWAY Bezos' focus was blistering growth... Jassy's focus might be corporate responsibility. Amazon's 14 corporate principles include: "deliver results," "bias for action," and "customer obsession." A few days before Jassy took over, Amazon renamed them Leadership Principles and [added]( two: “Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer,” and “Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility.” They're reactions to criticism Amazon has received over the years — but they're also Bezo's parting words to Jassy, to tee up Amazon's next chapter. Events Coming up this week... Space Battle of the Billionaires... Most people do summer vacays in Florida or Yosemite — billionaires go to space. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson plans to [board]( a test spaceflight on Sunday. Awkward, since that's nine days before Jeff Bezos is scheduled to embark on his Blue Origin space trip (announced before Branson's). Aside from fueling billionaires' egos, these trips are billboards for NASA-sponsored [space tourism](. The fact that CEOs are getting aboard helps build confidence in the emerging industry. Marvel returns... with a vengeance. Marvel is releasing Black Widow in theaters and Disney+ on Friday, after delaying it for more than a year. It’s the first Marvel flick to debut in theaters since the pandemic began. Now: 80% of movie theaters are open, and Covid restrictions have relaxed. The US box office is [seeing]( a strong recovery, but hasn't caught up to its pre-Covid success yet. Black Widow's ticket sales could give us a glimpse into summer demand. Zoom Out Stories we're watching... Labor shortage update... Still short. US employers [added]( an expectation-beating 850K jobs in June, the biggest gain in 10 months. Unemployment ticked up to 5.9%, in part because more Americans started job-searching. As the US economy roars back to life, demand for workers is revving up, too. Wages jumped last month as employers from restaurants to gig apps tried to attract workers. Case in point: [Uber]( and [Lyft]( are spending millions on driver incentives, and you've probably seen ads recruiting food delivery drivers. Heat waves in the middle of June... A record-breaking heat wave has been [plaguing]( the Pacific Northwest. The temp in Portland soared to 116 degrees last week, hotter than Miami, Dallas, and LA have ever been. All that sweat means more $$$ for A/C companies like [Carrier]( [Lennox]( and [Trane]( whose stocks are near record highs. But for the agriculture industry, the too-hot-handle temps could mean [smaller]( crops and fewer workers. For consumers, it could mean even pricier food. ICYMI Last week's highlights... - [Dismissal]( The FTC was disappointed when a judge failed to Like its antitrust complaint against [Facebook](. - [Tok]( TikTok is rolling out longer videos, but the real story is its Chinese sister Douyin. - [Spaghetti]( [Bumble]( is opening its first restaurant to facilitate IRL connections. But it's not about dating — it's about relevance. What else we're Snackin' - [Drive]( 23 of the most scenic road trips in America, because life is a highway. - [Watch]( Four emerging trends in the film and TV industry. - [Read]( The Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." - [Travel]( Seven rules for a happy vacation (including: don't post it). 🍪 Want to start Snacking daily? Sign up [here]( for our daily market newsletter. The Snacks Daily Podcast "Do you have try-on socks?" [On our 15-minute pod]( Foot Locker doesn't just meet customers where they are — it meets them where they decide. Now its stock is near a record high. Snack Fact Of the Day [60% of Millennials earning more than $100K/year say they're living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new survey]( This Week - Tuesday: Earnings expected from SemiLEDs Corp - Wednesday: Earnings expected from WD-40 - Thursday: Weekly jobless claims. Earnings expected from Levi Strauss and PriceSmart - Friday: Marvel's "Black Widow" comes out in theaters. Earnings expected from Greenbrier Companies Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Amazon ID: 1709868 Robinhood Snacks newsletters and podcasts reflect the opinions of only the authors who are associated persons of Robinhood Financial LLC and do not reflect the views of Robinhood Markets, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. They are meant for informational purposes only, are not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security in a self-directed Robinhood account or any other account, and are not an offer or sale of a security. They are also not research reports and are not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. 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