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They donât make any sense and their blood costs, like, a jillion dollars.
[The Hustle]( Wed, May 31
Icelandâs new Costco is on fire
Not literally, but the first Costco branch opened in Reykjavik, Iceland last week and people are. Jacked. Up.
No exaggeration, [1 in 8 Icelanders]( signed up for a membership before the doors even opened and Costcoâs Iceland Facebook page has over 62k members (about 1/5th of the countryâs entire population).
Are they just pumped about $1.50 hot dogs, or what?
Well itâs not just the dogs, itâs the toilet paper, the huge tubs of Pub Mix, the giant teddy bears⦠we could go on. But even those arenât the whole story -- itâs about sending a message.
Icelanders are jazzed because they finally have a choice in where they buy consumer goods, outside of the existing chain stores.
Why? Because 3 main grocery chains, Bónus, Krónan, and Nettó have been taking advantage of limited competition for far too long, inflating prices as much as [70% over US equivalents](.
That means -- brace yourselves -- a regular old domestic beer will cost you about $10. Those are stadium prices, people!
And sure, shipping hot dogs to a remote island costs more
Icelandâs location smack dab in the middle of the Norwegian Sea doesnât help with shipping and labor costs.
But, the fact that Costco is coming in hot, charging a dollar less per gallon of gas than any supplier on the island, is raising some eyebrows from price-fixing conspiracists.
And, even as Icelandic stores lower their prices to compete, Costcoâs showing [no mercy]( by going even lower.Â
As their managing director in Iceland puts it, theyâre making good on their word that theyâll deliver the lowest prices in town.
[Thatâs not a threat, itâs a promise](
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Uber gets buyerâs remorse
Remember [Anthony Levandowski]( Heâs the new head of Uberâs self-driving division, accused of stealing 14k documents of info from his former company, Waymo.
Well after only 10 months, Uber fired him yesterday for [failing to comply]( with a judgeâs order to turn over said documents.
Turns out Uber doesnât like stealing after all...
Or they just donât like getting caught
Letâs be honest: Uber knew what this guy was doing. Itâs why they bought his months-old [startup for $680m](. He was their inside driver, their hunchback from 300.
And, up until now, they could play dumb by making Levandowski [sign a contract]( where he âpromised he wasnât disclosing any trade secrets or proprietary information from his previous employerâ (wink).
Facing mounting legal pressure from Waymo, however, Uber has to play ball. Which means doing their part to ensure the âconditions of the order are met, even if that includes firing Levandowski.â Bye bye golden goose.
What about the Lev?
He seems to be doing alright. Not only are there no criminal charges against him, but so far heâs pleaded the fifth on everything theyâve thrown at him.
All in all, Anthony seems to have avoided any consequences -- aside from earning half a billion dollars for a little under a yearâs worth of work.
[Study robotics, kids](
Â
Thanks, James Cordenâ¦
Apparently recording yourself singing along to popular songs is a thing now. Just look at Apple [picking up]( Carpool Karaoke for a 16 episode season, or the success of lip-syncing apps like Dubsmash and musical.ly, which have 100m+ users each and a combined $162m in funding.
And while our first reaction was equivalent to an old guy yelling at the squirrels to get off his lawn, the numbers here are pretty ridiculous.
*Slowly stops furiously shaking fist*
Founded in 2014 as an education social network, musical.ly lets people record 15-second lip-syncing clips and post them online.Â
To date, itâs [garnered]( the attention of over 200m users (mostly between ages 13 and 21), and a notable [$130m Series C]( last May.
Most importantly, theyâve [signed deals]( with Viacom, NBC, Billboard Music, Hearst, Apple, and Warner Music to license, distribute, advertise, and create content for and from their highly-engaged audience.
More than most others can say
While they may seem gimmicky, the path to monetization for these companies is pretty obvious compared to other viral fads.
For instance, in 2015 musical.ly did an advertising campaign for Cokeâs name-on-the-bottle thing, and users posted 1m clips in just 12 days.Â
And then you have Rihanna, who promoted her album by releasing a new song to the rabid lip-syncing fans of Dubsmash.
[Got Steely Dan on there?](
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âThis ink-justice will not stand, man!â
Yesterday, the Supreme Court [officially ruled]( that printer companies can no longer block retailers from re-selling their stuff at a discount, as their [patent rights]( end at the first point of sale.Â
Who cares about this? You should. That is if you enjoy cheap ink and donât want to start dipping into your retirement account to print that color report.
Yeah actually, why is ink so expensive?Â
Itâs kind of by design. Printers are sold at cost, or even at a loss to the manufacturer.
Which means the moneyâs gotta come from somewhere, hence charging [premium prices]( for ink and cartridges to offset the initial deficit.
Some printers (*cough cough* Lexmark), even have microchips in their âofficialâ cartridges to prevent people from using third party products
Itâs a lot like the razor model, where the first razor is cheap, and replacement heads are about 1 gold bar per blade.
But thatâs all over now. Weâre free!
For now. Manufacturers can (and probably will) still hike up new printer and cartridge prices. But for those of us who already own one, looks like weâre sittinâ pretty.
At least until the next paper jam.
[Any second nowâ¦](
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hustle con-tent
Like Clippy, but not annoying
When you launch a company in the Ukraine, you donât have eager VCs waiting around every corner to give you millions.
Instead, you have to do what Max Lytvyn did: Bootstrap, become profitable early, and then hit growth numbers so high, when you show investors, they spit out their Soylent even when they arenât drinking any.
And over the past few years, their AI-powered spelling and grammar checker, Grammarly, has grown to 6.9m daily users and 110 employees. Pretty imrpressive.
(Catch that one? Grammarly wouldâve...)
If you want to learn how to spell good and maybe do other stuff good too, grab your [ticket to Hustle Con]( on June 23rd (3 weeks people) and hear Lytvyn whisper sweet business nothings to you and 2,000 of your closest friends.
Actually, heâll be speaking at regular volume. But [get your ticket]( soon because timeâs running out.
This edition of The Hustle was brought to you by
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Only, sometimes in a small company, you are IT. Yikes.
Youâve never had formal training, but ever since that time you fixed the printer, people come to you for all their technology problems.
Okay, donât panic. You can Google your way out of this. Dear Google, what is a keychain access and how do I authenticate it??
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WRITER Kamran Rosen
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