💬 Zuck’s OOO ping

…and student loans get pricier (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) “What’re they saying about my fit?”   Sponsored by Yesterday's market moves Dow Jones 39,908 (+0.88%) S&P 500 5,308 (+1.17%) Nasdaq 16,742 (+1.40%) Bitcoin $65,896 (+7.07%) Dow Jones 39,908 (+0.88%) S&P 500 5,308 (+1.17%) Nasdaq 16,742 (+1.40%) Bitcoin $65,896 (+7.07%) Hey Snackers, At last, you can watch Orlando Bloom’s new travel show while parked at the airport. Google [added]( Peacock, Max, and “Angry Birds” to cars with its infotainment systems. All three major US stock indexes closed at [record highs]( yesterday after the latest inflation report showed that consumer-price growth cooled in April. Core prices (which exclude food and energy) had their lowest increase since 2021, raising investors’ rate-cut hopes.   WORKMOJI [Meta’s shutting down its Teams competitor, Workplace, after spreading itself too thin]( Ending the chat… Meta’s [giving up]( on Workplace, its office-communications platform. Launched in 2016, the Slack rival had 7M paying subscribers by 2021 (when it last shared the metric). This summer, Workplace users will be migrated to Zoom-owned Workvivo and Workplace will be OOO as of summer 2026. Meta’s reportedly deprioritized Workplace for a while as it shifted focus to buzzier endeavors. Yesterday, Meta said it was ditching Workplace to lean into AI and the metaverse, tech that it said would “fundamentally reshape the way we work.” - Meta’s still keeping a foot in the office door with its Horizon Workrooms VR platform, which lets coworkers join meetings virtually as avatars (now with [legs](!). - Looking for the normal search bar: Meta recently rolled out an AI-assistant chatbot (“ask Meta AI anything”) on its apps. It could have a role in the workplace. Competing for your pings… Slack’s success inspired Microsoft to launch Teams and Google to Slackify its workplace-chat function (removing SMS, adding Spaces for group chats). The pandemic caused workplace tools to surge in popularity as everybody went WFC (#WorkFromCouch): Salesforce acquired Slack for $28B in 2021, while Zoom revenues doubled for five straight quarters. Postpandemic, Zoom’s sales tightened to single digits as the # of couch-based workers stabilized. Meantime, Meta reportedly saw growth of its Workplaces service slow. As work tools get squeezed, there’s less room for competition. THE TAKEAWAY It pays to pick a lane… Zuck’s newfound [swaggy]( style hasn’t distracted investors from Meta’s ballooning expenses. Last quarter, its metaverse division lost nearly $4B, and the tech titan projected it’ll spend as much as $40B on AI this year. Still, it managed to double its profit last quarter by focusing on “efficiency” in other areas. Cue: layoffs and shutting down side projects — like Workplace. Sponsored by RYSE Take a Peek Behind the (Smart) Curtain Early doors… More than once, Best Buy has been an early distributor of home-technology products that go on to dominate the market. That’s what happened with the smart doorbell Ring, acquired by Amazon for $1.2B, as well as the Nest smart thermostat snapped up by Google for $3.2B. A new window… Best Buy recently started stocking a new smart-home product in 100+ retail stores: [RYSE Smart Shades](. RYSE is poised to gain in the smart shades market (currently growing at 50% annually) and has recently opened a [public offering of shares priced at just $1.50/share](. Current shareholders have already seen their value increase 20% year-over-year, with strong upside potential remaining as they scale into retail. Secure your stake in the smart home market — invest [in RYSE’s vision](.* Sponsored by RYSE Take a Peek Behind the (Smart) Curtain Early doors… More than once, Best Buy has been an early distributor of home-technology products that go on to dominate the market. That’s what happened with the smart doorbell Ring, acquired by Amazon for $1.2B, as well as the Nest smart thermostat snapped up by Google for $3.2B. A new window… Best Buy recently started stocking a new smart-home product in 100+ retail stores: [RYSE Smart Shades](. RYSE is poised to gain in the smart shades market (currently growing at 50% annually) and has recently opened a [public offering of shares priced at just $1.50/share](. Current shareholders have already seen their value increase 20% year-over-year, with strong upside potential remaining as they scale into retail. Secure your stake in the smart home market — invest [in RYSE’s vision](.*   IOU-MORE [Interest rates on federal student loans will be the highest in a decade]( Congrats, recent grad… You just missed the student-loan rate hike. This week, the US Department of Education [set]( interest rates for federal undergrad student loans to 6.53% for the coming school year. That's the highest rate in at least a decade. FYI: The gov’t sets student-loan rates once a year, and the new rates don’t apply to people with older loans because most federal rates are fixed. Meanwhile, rates for grad students and parents were hiked to over 9%, the highest since 2006. - Summa cum loande: The cost of attending some four-year colleges is nearing $100K/year without financial aid. Incoming college freshmen are expected to have $37K in federal debt by the time they graduate. Degree anxiety… Student loans are the second-largest contributor to consumer debt after mortgages. While the Biden admin has canceled nearly $140B in student debt, Americans still have around $1.8T in outstanding student-loan balances. Higher federal borrowing rates could pile on the burden. The new FAFSA financial-aid system has been plagued with delays and glitches, leading to a drop in overall applications. To fill the financial gap, families could turn to private lenders, which often charge even higher interest rates than Uncle Sam. THE TAKEAWAY High interest can fuel disinterest… in higher education. Tuition is rising faster than inflation, and higher interest could contribute to already falling enrollment. Freshman enrollment dropped last fall as college-tuition costs jumped last year. While US college enrollment has rebounded from the low it hit during the pandemic, it’s still down 8.5% from 2010.   What else we're Snackin' - [TD](: Netflix is said to be paying $150M to stream two Christmas NFL games, with plans to stream more matchups. YouTube and Peacock aired NFL games last season as streamers double down on #live. - [Popcorn](: After its shares more than 2x’d, AMC is capitalizing on the rally by swapping its stock for $164M in debt that’s due in 2026. That could help it through what’s expected to be a slow box-office summer. - [TikToff](: TikTok creators sued the US gov’t over its law that could ban or force a sale of the app within a year. ByteDance-owned TikTok said it’s paying the group’s legal costs as it fights to stay in the US. - [Boiled](: Seafood icon Red Lobster could soon file for bankruptcy as it struggles with high rents and declining sales. The biz just shuttered 50+ of its 650 US stores as fast casuals contend with customer cutbacks. - [RestMode](: Sony’s sales outlook was lower than expected as PS5 demand slows (the tech co expects a $440M drop off in its gaming biz). Still, shares rose after it announced plans to buy back up to $1.6B of its stock.   Snack Fact of the Day 31% of US companies require full-time in-office work, down from 49% last year](d//link.sherwoodmedia.com/click/35394792.348642/aHR0cHM6Ly9zaGVyd29vZC5uZXdzL2J1c2luZXNzL3dmaC1yZW1vdGUtam9icy1mZXdlci1jb21wYW5pZXMtcmVxdWlyZS1pbi1wZXJzb24td29yay8/65a83c0d58588007824b1371Ec2416991   Thursday - Weekly jobless claims - Country Music Awards - PEN America Literary Gala - Earnings expected from Walmart, John Deere, Under Armour, Baidu, JD.com, and Take-Two Interactive Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Alphabet, Microsoft, and Walmart Advertiser's disclosures: * This is a paid advertisement for RYSE's Regulation A+ Offering. Please read the offering circular and related risks at: [( Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Start-up investments are speculative and involve a high degree of risk. Those investors who cannot afford to lose their entire investment should not invest in start-ups. Companies seeking startup investment tend to be in earlier stages of development and their business model, products and services may not yet be fully developed, operational or tested in the public marketplace. There is no guarantee that the stated valuation and other terms are accurate or in agreement with the market or industry valuations. Further, investors may receive illiquid and/or restricted stock that may be subject to holding period requirements and/or liquidity concerns. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. 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