Good morning,

It’s Thursday, August 28. And honestly we’re stumped. No legendary birthdays, no quirky anniversaries—apparently the calendar ran out of fun people today.

But that’s the thing: it leaves the day wide open for us to do something that makes it memorable. Whether that’s treating yourself to a second croissant, texting someone you actually miss, or just finally putting your phone down for ten minutes—today’s yours to shape.

So here’s to making a not-so-famous date a little more special. Grab your coffee, hide from your inbox, and enjoy the read.

Today’s stories:

• Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce announce engagement

• Joby buys Blade’s passenger flights business

• Freediver sets 29-minute breath-hold record

• Bill Gates launches $1M Alzheimer’s AI prize

• Princeton expands free tuition up to $250K

• Canva’s $42B valuation mints millionaires

• China tests pig-to-human lung transplant

• Anthropic brings Claude AI into Chrome

• Dr Pepper drops $18B on coffee

• Lease an EV for under $100

  and more…

The S&P 500 nudged up 0.24% to a record close on Wednesday, while the Nasdaq added 0.21% and the Dow climbed 147 points, or 0.32%.

All eyes are now on Nvidia, which makes up nearly 8% of the S&P and could decide whether the rally keeps running or stalls. Its stock barely budged, but the stakes are sky-high.

Meanwhile, Wall Street mostly shrugged at Trump’s unprecedented move to oust Fed Governor Lisa Cook, with markets brushing past Tuesday’s flat session.

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Canva Prints New Millionaires

Canva’s $42B valuation turned its staff into lottery winners. The Australian design-software giant launched an employee share sale, letting current and former workers cash out up to $3M each. The company pulled in $3.3B in annualized revenue from 27M paying users, and the share sale is already oversubscribed. Investors are drooling, employees are refreshing bank accounts, and the founders—billionaire couple Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins—are sipping champagne while calling their workers “Canvanauts.” The move looks like a warm-up lap for a possible IPO. For now, Canva is handing out millionaire badges like design templates.

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Dr Pepper and Peet’s tie the knot (briefly). Keurig Dr Pepper just dropped $18 billion to buy JDE Peet’s — the company behind Peet’s Coffee plus a bunch of Euro coffee brands no one can pronounce before caffeine. The plan: smash them together, then split into two companies. One will handle coffee ($16B in sales), the other will sling Dr Pepper, 7Up, and whatever energy drink keeps accountants awake ($11B). CEO Tim Cofer is hyped about creating a “global coffee giant.” Translation: Starbucks’ legal team just started stretching. Cofer himself will run the soda side from Texas, while his CFO heads up the coffee biz from Massachusetts and Amsterdam. Basically: spend billions, build a mega-coffee empire, then pull a conscious uncoupling before the ink dries.

Princeton hands out free tuition (sort of). Princeton will now cover tuition for families making up to $250K a year. Households under $150K get the full package—tuition and expenses wiped out. The school is cranking aid spending up to $327M for the 2025–26 year, flexing alongside Harvard, Penn, and MIT with their own “free tuition” schemes. Of course, the fine print still includes room, board, and fees. Universities keep crying about budget cuts and shrinking international enrollment, but the Ivies remain cash-rich and applicant-heavy.

Drive electric for under $100 monthly. You can now lease an electric car for less than $100 a month. A Mercedes EQB that lists for $53K is suddenly cheaper to park in your garage than most used sedans. In July, leases on the EQB averaged $352 a month with the down payment, ranking it among the cheapest rides in the country. EVs are now, on average, cheaper to lease than gas cars — $624 vs. $670 a month. That’s thanks to dealers desperate to clear old inventory, squeeze in federal tax credits before they vanish, and move metal before next year’s models roll out. Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 is going for $260 a month, Volkswagen’s ID.4 for $264, and Honda’s new Prologue is $200. Leasing now makes up three-quarters of EV deals, because it lets buyers dodge fears about dying batteries, plummeting resale values, and getting stuck with obsolete tech. The auto industry hates to use the word “unprecedented,” but these discounts are basically the Black Friday of EVs.

Joby buys Blade’s passenger biz. Electric air taxi startup Joby Aviation is buying Blade Air Mobility’s passenger business for up to $125M. Translation: your bougie heli-rides to JFK are about to get quieter, cleaner, and maybe electric. Blade’s organ-transplant flights spin off as a new company called Strata Critical Medical, but will still team up with Joby for medical transport. Joby is racing toward FAA certification for its eVTOL aircraft and plans to start inspection flight tests early next year. The deal gives Joby Blade’s customers, terminals, and ten years of experience shuttling city people who refuse to sit in traffic. Blade flew 50,000 passengers in 2024 from 12 hubs, including Manhattan rooftops and NYC airports. For now, helicopters and Joby craft will fly side by side, before phasing out to all-electric taxis.

Pig Lungs, Human Test Run

China just tested the first pig-to-human lung transplant. The patient was brain-dead (low pressure trial, you could say). The lung worked for a bit, broke down, and was yanked out after nine days. Pigs have already donated hearts and kidneys in other experiments, but lungs are tougher — high failure rates even between humans. Still, scientists are calling it progress. 

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Bill Gates launches $1M Alzheimer’s AI prize. The Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative — backed by Bill Gates and partners — just launched the Alzheimer’s Insights AI Prize, a $1M global competition to supercharge dementia research. The challenge: build the most innovative agentic AI tool — software that can plan, reason, and act on its own. Unlike traditional AI, this stuff can dive into massive datasets, speed up drug discovery, find new biomarkers, and sharpen trial designs. The winning tool won’t get locked away. It’ll go live on the free AD Workbench platform, where researchers worldwide can access it. With Alzheimer’s cases projected to hit 152M by 2050, the prize aims to mobilize the global innovation crowd. Applications opened August 19, 2025. Bill Gates’ science advisor Dr. Niranjan Bose says the bet is simple: AI can do the grunt work of analyzing billions of data points faster than humans, and maybe, finally, turn all that research into real breakthroughs.

Anthropic launches Claude AI agent inside Chrome. Anthropic just shoved its Claude AI into your browser. The new “Claude for Chrome” launches as a research preview for 1,000 subscribers on the $100–$200 Max plan, with a waitlist for the rest. The extension opens a sidecar chat that keeps track of what you’re doing online. Give it permission and Claude can even take actions in your browser — basically your nosy coworker, but digital. Browsers are the new AI war zone. Perplexity rolled out Comet, OpenAI is rumored to be building its own AI browser, and Google is busy stuffing Gemini into Chrome. Anthropic just joined the food fight.

Big investors are buying this “unlisted” stock

When the founder who sold his last company to Zillow for $120M starts a new venture, people notice. That’s why the same VCs who backed Uber, Venmo, and eBay also invested in Pacaso.

Disrupting the real estate industry once again, Pacaso’s streamlined platform offers co-ownership of premier properties, revamping the $1.3T vacation home market.

And it works. By handing keys to 2,000+ happy homeowners, Pacaso has already made $110M+ in gross profits in their operating history.

Now, after 41% YoY gross profit growth last year alone, they recently reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO.

Invest for $2.90/Share

_{Paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com. Reserving a ticker symbol is not a guarantee that the company will go public. Listing on the NASDAQ is subject to approvals.}

Freediver Holds Breath 29 Minutes

Croatian freediver Vitomir Maričić just shattered the world record for holding his breath: 29 minutes and 3 seconds. That’s nearly five minutes longer than the last record and about 28 minutes longer than the average hungover human can manage. The stunt was “oxygen-assisted,” meaning he pre-gamed with ten minutes of pure O₂ before dunking himself in a hotel pool. After 20 minutes, he said it got easier mentally, harder physically, with his diaphragm basically throwing a tantrum. The record doubles the best of bottlenose dolphins and brushes up against seals, but whales still win. Cuvier’s beaked whale can stay under for three hours. Humans are just playing dress-up. Maričić says he did it for the challenge and to raise awareness for ocean conservation. Nothing says “save the seas” like nearly passing out in one.

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Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announce engagement. Taylor Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce are officially engaged. The couple announced it on Instagram August 26, sitting under a pink-and-white floral arch straight out of Pinterest. She wore a striped sundress, he wore shorts, and somewhere a stylist cried. Kelce proposed with an Old Mine Brilliant cut diamond by Kindred Lubeck. The post racked up millions of likes in minutes and gave Swifties a new era to obsess over. Wedding album incoming.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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