The $2.2T clue to tomorrow’s wealth.
AI reshapes mornings, Sephora rewrites retail, Rich Future adds Roundup.
This week marks a milestone.
On March 23, I published the first Weekly Brief. Today brings us to #28. This practice has sharpened how I see the shifts of AI, money, and media… and how many of you are using them to sharpen your own edge.
It feels like the right moment to check-in.
I’ve been tracking how often you return to these Briefs throughout the week and even later in the month. This tells me they’re not quick reads… they’ve become reference points for navigating the future of work and wealth.
With that in mind, I’ve redesigned the paid tier.
On Tuesday, I’ll release the first Monthly Roundup: one report distilling the month’s top insights, with expanded analysis that connects each signal from first mention to its latest developments.
Monthly Roundup is designed to make the biggest arcs across AI, Money, and Culture (ie: AI boom or bubble?) easier to follow, while saving you time.
The first drops September 30th.
You’ll also find two quick polls below.
Your participation directly shapes the direction of Rich Future.
The first…
This helps me understand which parts of the Weekly Brief are most valuable to you, so I can refine as we head into October.
And the second…
This helps me prioritize topics that are most relevant to your generation.
Please take 10 seconds to respond. It directly improves what you get out of this space.
Alright, admin complete.
Let’s get into what moved this week across AI, finance, and the future of work.
Future of AI
OpenAI just launched ChatGPT Pulse, a daily digest that runs research for you overnight and delivers personalized visual cards in the morning. It pulls from your chats, feedback, and even connected apps like Gmail and Calendar to surface reminders, recommendations, and next steps. For now, it’s only available to users on the $200/month Pro plan. I’ve been waiting for a product update that would differentiate Pro from Plus with a real value prop beyond just “more compute.”
Pulse is the first clear step in that direction.
I also think it’s smart product strategy. Pulse creates deeper data lock. The more history, context, and app integrations you feed it, the more useful it becomes. That utility compounds over time, which raises switching costs and makes OpenAI harder to walk away from.
Pulse also sets the precedent for new morning rituals.
Instead of opening a feed or inbox, you may soon begin your workday with an AI-curated digest. Pulse positions itself as a tool that’s not built to keep you scrolling. If speed of resolution (not time spent) becomes the new value metric, that’s a paradigm shift from today’s engagement-driven platforms.
But we also need to think about what comes next.
As I wrote earlier this week, Pulse sets the stage for ads. Conversational influence will face heavy scrutiny (from users and regulators) because people are craving marketing they can trust.
Once ads are baked into ChatGPT, I bet the pendulum will swing back toward humans wanting to hear from humans they actually connect with, not faceless brand copy dressed up as AI. This is bullish for the creator economy.
In other AI news…
OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank just announced plans to spend up to $500B on five new U.S. data centers under their Stargate project.
Combined with Nvidia’s commitment to invest $100 billion and supply chips, the build-out is expected to create ~10 gigawatts of compute capacity and 25,000 jobs.
The scale here is absolutely mind-bending.
In dollars. In energy footprint. In labor demand. This is physical infrastructure on par with the largest industrial projects in history, built entirely to power AI.
I’ll dive deeper into what this means for global markets, capital flows, and tech strategy in the upcoming Monthly Roundup.
Future of Media
On Thursday, Meta rolled out Vibes, a new feed of AI-generated short-form videos inside the Meta AI app. It’s being pitched as a new way to spark inspiration by remixing, generating, and sharing AI video directly to the feed.
Reactions online are brutal.
As one of my favorite thinkers, Naval Ravikant, put it:
We’re at a fork-in-the-road moment.
Meta is betting on synthetic feeds. So far… culture is rejecting it. If that trend continues, the premium on human connection and trusted creators only grows.
I’m bearish on Meta as the future of media. I remain bullish on the creator economy.
You can read more about my thesis in previous briefs:
Don’t sleep on the anti-algorithm era. It just got $100M. (July)
AI matchmaking will replace LinkedIn. (September)
Full archive access available in Substack’s app for paid readers.
Future of Money
Speaking of the creator economy…
A new study by HTF Market Intelligence projects the global IP valuation sector will nearly triple by 2033, growing at 14.6% annually.
The signal: intellectual property is moving from intangible idea to bankable asset.
Policymakers and banks are warming to patents, trademarks, and copyrights as acceptable collateral. In some industries, the weight of an IP portfolio may soon rival early revenues in shaping a company’s valuation.
This opens up an entirely new market of financing opportunities for founders and creators.
If you’ve followed my creator journey the past year, you’ll know that I stopped producing content for Instagram in April, despite having a very active 45K audience. I dive into the long-term strategy behind that decision [here].
Do you have a bank of ideas, code, and content libraries? It might become your ticket to capital.
There’s an economic reordering underway. If IP is standard collateral, the definition of wealth itself changes.
Valuations tilt toward ideas. Credit tilts toward creators. Countries tilt policy to compete for innovation. We’re entering a world where the most bankable resources aren’t physical at all… they’re intangible, cultural, and compounding.
Zooming out, here’s a few quick Rich Future signals to add to your radar this week:
Germany tested a 4-day workweek and 73% of companies aren’t going back. Productivity held steady or improved. A blueprint for the future of work.
Siri’s glow-up is (slowly) happening. Apple staff are using an internal ChatGPT-style app to test the new features. Big launch is pushed until 2026.
Robinhood rolls out banking. I love CEO Vlad Tenev’s vision. It’s giving J.P. Morgan for Millennials/Gen Z. A financial OS where you earn, store, spend, and reinvest inside one seamless loop.
Sephora is betting on creator storefronts as the future of beauty retail. RIP affiliate links. When creators become the distribution channel, they also become revenue infrastructure.
Fidelity puts more trading tools in retail hands. Retail already makes up ~8% of U.S. equity trading volume. The lines between professional and amateur participation are blurring fast. I’ll cover this more deeply in the new Monthly Roundup.
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