Closing time

 Gather all your assets, move into the exits. [The Hustle]( Thur, Apr 27 Home off the range In a blog post titled “[Hanging up my spurs]( Chris Sacca, the VC cowboy and founder of Lowercase Capital (amazing name), announced he’s retiring from investing, to his house on the prairie. “I don’t know who Chris Sacca is” *Pulls head out of Silicon Valley bubble* Oh right, ok. So professionally, Sacca is a known for being one of the earliest investors in Uber and Twitter. Personally, he’s known for splitting his time between LA, the mountain town of Truckee, and Big Sky, Montana while wearing exclusively cowboy shirts and boots. Before you ask, he’s from Lockport, New York. [Lowercase’s website]( is completely wild-west themed, down to the instructions on how to “saddle up” with them, and liberal use of the word “[posthaste]( to his sharpshooting, he’s worth $1.2B, and his fund has [returned $5B to investors]( from Twitter alone. But it wasn’t always blue jeans and sunshine As a law student at Georgetown, Sacca, used $20k in student loans to start day trading, [growing it to $12m]( by age 22. Then the dot com bubble burst, and he found himself $4m in the hole. Whoops. For the next several years, he hustled at Google, started a rent-a-lawyer business, and wrote a $25k check when his friend Evan Williams pitched him a “microblogging” platform called Twttr. Yadda yadda yadda, now he’s #2 on [Forbes’ Midas List]( of top tech investors. But he’s putting all of that behind him… So what’s he gonna do instead? Probably not just whittling canoes out of tree trunks and eating beans out of a can. While he’s not returning to [Shark Tank,]( he’s expressed interest in building his presence in media/entertainment, kicking things off by playing himself in Zach Braff’s [new pilot]( for ABC, based on the Startup Podcast. But whatever he does next, you can bet he’ll go at it full-steam, because like he says on the Tank, if you’re not all-in, you’re out. [Go on, git!](  “Layoffs?! You kidding me? Layoffs?” Yesterday, ESPN [announced]( it was letting go of 100 journalists and on-air personalities, after losing 10m subscribers over the [last 5 years](. Pair cord cutting with increasingly expensive licensing costs for the rights to air games, and it’s not a great equation for the country’s biggest sports broadcaster. And, because they’re locked into expensive, long-term contracts with various leagues (we’re talking $15.2B over 10 years for the NFL), the only way to stay afloat is to cut costs and hopefully figure out how to charge their remaining customers more. Or maybe it’s time to switch up the playbook Bleacher Report, Time Warner’s digital answer to Disney’s analog ESPN, pulled back the curtain yesterday on their new logo, app, and attitude for engaging their young, overwhelmingly male audience. According to founder and CEO, Dave Finocchio, [the media game’s changed]( and it takes more than a good commercial to reach viewers. So they’re focusing on mobile-first, short video clips and doubling down on sports culture -- not just reporting scores and highlights. Between BR’s fresh approach, ESPN unloading their bench, and tech giants like Twitter and Amazon winning bids on broadcasting rights, sports media looks like it’s doing some much-needed substitution. [Take that for data](  Not bad, Twitter Well, not good either, but better than everyone expected. According to their [earnings call]( the flightless bird’s revenue declined about 8% over this time last year -- which is better than the -14% [Wall Street predicted](. They also added 9m users last quarter (their best since early 2015) for a total of 328m monthly active users. Meanwhile, at the adult table... Instagram also announced they just hit 700m monthly active users, twice as many as they had just 2 years ago (and twice as many as Twitter has now). Crazy part is, their growth is actually accelerating -- their last 100m took just 4 months to hit, faster than the 6 months it took for the previous hundo. That means they’re on pace to be Facebook’s [4th billion-user platform]( by late 2017, which is when Zuck says products start to get interesting as businesses. 900m? Yawn. And, in the wake of Instagram stories, they reported over 200m daily actives this month, [surpassing Snapchat’s 161m](. [Playing chess instead of checkers](  About.com is shutting down and no one cares Don’t believe us? Ask Neil Vogel, the CEO, who said -- and we quote -- “Who thinks of About.com? [Nobody]( On that note, he’ll be shutting down the IAC-owned site as of May 2nd. Hmm About.com, sounds familiar… Probably because you Googled something and one of their 3.5m informational blog posts popped up in the top search results. The $100m information site got its start back in the late ‘90s, when people still entered searched queries with question marks. But, they haven’t done much to revamp their site since then. In fact, they spent so long focusing on gaming search rankings, they forgot to create quality content for actual people. Which Google hates. So, give or take a few algorithm updates and the rise of Wikipedia, it’s no wonder why the site was [bought for]( $690m in 2000, $410m in 2005, $300m in 2012, and now they’re pulling the plug. Time for an ‘About’ face Vogel plans to break About up into a number of dedicated verticals while taking a large risk on whether they can keep their existing search-based traffic. But, even if they can’t, Vogel doesn’t seem to care. As he says, “[he’s] not going to be the guy who ruined About.com… It's already ruined.” [All uphill from here, Neil](   things you should... WATCH: The insane artist behind the original Alien, 6 minutes Surreal, mechanical, sexual, and macabre. The only time those words will ever be used together is to describe that awesomely terrifying art of H.R Giger, the inspiration behind the monster in Alien. [IT WAS A GOOD CALL RIPLEY →]( DREAM ABOUT: Steve McQueen’s electric supercar, $1.1m Hands down own of the coolest street-legal cars to ever rock pavement. Made famous in McQueen’s ‘Le Mans’, the Porsche 910 is a classic super car, now turned electric beast by 3 crazy Austrian brothers. [SERIOUS HUSTLE GOALS →]( WITNESS: A hidden underground city of 1 million people, 2 min 50 feet underground, and guarded from foreign entrance, lies one of Bejing’s most obscure communities. Surviving in repurposed nuclear bunkers, citizens who can’t afford rent aboveground, set up in the concrete tunnels below. [WE THOUGHT SF WAS BAD →]( USE: Bamboo smartpads, starting at $129 You didn’t hear? Keeping track of your notes and doodles is totally in right now – and is extra easy thanks to Bamboo smartpads. Send your handwritten ideas to the cloud with the click of a button and organize, edit, or share at your leisure. [START WINNING YOUR MEETINGS →]( COOK: Spicy Korean Chicken Wings from Blue Apron, $8.74/meal Blue Apron’s all-in-one boxes come with everything you need to make sweet and spicy wings that blow BW3’s out of the water. Save your takeout money, and stop dragging your date to wing Wednesdays. [BLUE APRON, A REAL WINGMAN →]( This edition of The Hustle was brought to you by Andy Richter has a point… "You made a shorter shirt, calm down." That’s what Conan’s couch buddy [tweeted]( to UNTUCKit about their “designed to be untucked” line of shirts. And well, he’s not wrong. Creating a shirt with waist-length hems is pretty simple. But so are many greatest ideas. Think butter on popcorn, backwards baseball hats, or limiting talk shows to just one host… oh, we went there. But if it’s so easy, why do old-school brands still make shirts that fall to our knees? When said we wanted a “dress” shirt, we didn’t mean literally. Gets shirts that fit right, every time It’s that simple. With [UNTUCKit]( your shirt will always look good, so you can wear dress shirts straight to the bar, without looking like a traveling vacuum salesman. Not to mention it’s perfect for everything from dinner parties to those ambiguous “business casual” networking events you’re never quite sure how to dress for. And if you’re looking to take it a step further, check out UNTUCKit’s line of [polos and tees](. They even have a women’s line coming out in May. So, if you want a baller shirt you can truly wear anywhere, check out [UNTUCKit]( and save 20% using the code: “[UNTUCKitHustle](. P.S. We love Andy, and he [loved]( his UNTUCKit shirt.  [SUBSCRIBE]( [JOBS]( [ADVERTISE]( [EVENTS]( Lindsey Quinn WRITER Kamran Rosen WRITER Carmella Highwater COFFEE BREAK MANAGER John "Don't squat with spurs on" Havel BACKSEAT EDITOR You opted in by [signing up]( entering a [giveaway]( or through [divine intervention](. [1381 9TH AVENUE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, UNITED STATES]( • [415.506.7210](tel:+1-415-506-7210) Never wanna hear from us again? Break our hearts and [unsubscribe](.