I’m not sure my wife knew what she was getting into.
When I made the move directly from a filthy group house into her pristine condo upon our engagement, it became clear to both of us: This shared life is going to be a whole new thing for both of us. Katie Runkle is Dez’s newest fiancée, and her submission this week puts marriage into an interesting perspective: think start-up, not merger. It’s a good rule of thumb to read anything Arthur Brooks writes, and his Atlantic column kicks us off this week.
Colby Nelson is a good Ohioan and thus suggests that we eat more domestic venison. See the AI-generated header image for an idea of what Colby the Venison King might look like.
You may not know that Dez CEO comes from an Oscar Mayer family and was picked up from her fifth-grade graduation in the Wienermobile. Literal coolest kid on campus stuff. Helen Taylor lives out that heritage with an homage to the Weenie 500, which I will be gambling on this year.
MaryGrace captures the zeitgeist around Alex Honnold’s historic climb in Taipei, and Jen Hirshon features a $32,000 stone pot that was almost sold at a garage sale for twenty bucks. Jen, sign me up for your family’s next Antiques Roadshow pop-up!
This is a fun one; thanks, as always, for reading along with us.
Here we go.
The Startup Model
The Atlantic. Why the Most Successful Marriages Are Start-Ups, Not Mergers
This is an old article, but the Atlantic suggested it to me… so I guess my algorithm is working.
In professional terms, Arthur Brooks posits marriages are more successful as ‘start-ups’ than mergers. As a young 20-something engaged to be married to another young 20-something, I found this extremely encouraging and appealing.
“The sweet spot for a durable romantic partnership, then, is a new venture between two mature co-founders who are not so set in their ways that they act like entrenched corporations…. long-standing corporate cultures are very hard to integrate, with the result that productivity and morale fall off after a merger. Mixing them can be difficult or impossible. This could be analogous to two independent 30-somethings—with established habits, tastes, beliefs, and careers—trying to become a single married unit.”
Because I think a lot about the way companies work (or fail to work), which comes with the territory of working at Dez, I found this metaphor appealing and understandable. Or maybe I was just lapping up the confirmation bias.
Either way, an interesting take. Here’s to love that lasts (i.e. a new venture that creates a single corporate culture instead of the merger of entrenched corporations).
– Katie Runkle
The Venison King?
The Atlantic. Eat More Deer, America is letting good meat go to waste.
America is swimming in white-tailed deer in this country—chewed-up forests, busted cars, hired sharpshooters in densely populated urban areas cleaning up a mess we pretend not to see. The Atlantic’s recent article titled “Eat More Deer” outlines how we’ve built a system where that animal, living a better life than any feedlot steer, can’t easily end up on our dinner plates. Instead, we import millions of farmed venison from New Zealand and call it civilized?
One thing that is hard to disagree with: if you’re going to eat meat, wild venison is about as honest as it gets. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good steak. But there are no feedlots, no pink slime, and no comforting lies. Just an animal that lived free, died fast, and became dinner.
– Colby Nelson
Peak Americana
AP. Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile race is coming back to the Indy 500
I have officially become a racing fan, and it’s entirely the Weenie 500’s fault. I didn’t even watch last year’s inaugural race. Just read about a pack of Wienermobiles battling it out at Indy and realized, “Oh. This is my Super Bowl now.”
There’s something deeply compelling about six giant hot dogs lining up on a famous racetrack like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I’ve never cared about tire strategy in my life, but suddenly I’m wondering which frankfurter has the best cornering and whether bun drag is a thing.
So this year, I’m all in. I will be parked in front of my screen, emotionally invested in tubular meat on wheels, yelling at inanimate hot dogs to “hold the line” like I’ve been following motorsport for decades. Other people have a Ferrari. I have the Weenie 500.
– Helen Taylor
Impressive, But…
The Wall Street Journal. He Climbed a Skyscraper Without a Rope on Live TV. Why?
When legendary free solo climber Alex Honnold teamed up with Netflix to climb Taipei 101, he turned it into something rare: a unique live event I could actually watch with my kids, a good-natured person aiming for a goal with cameras swooping in from drones, crews high above the earth in harnesses, and rooftop shots making it a heart‑in‑your‑throat moment from every angle. It was just kinda cool. And Honnold looked stoked.
But of course, as soon as someone gets a big yum, someone shows up to yuck it.
Urban climber Dan Goodwin, who free soloed Toronto’s CN Tower in 1986, was quick to drop his equivalent of a pursed-lip gif.
“I would probably have upped the ante,” Goodwin told the Journal. “I probably would have blindfolded myself.”
You know what? Why stop there? How about climbing it while on fire with a rabid alligator moat below and your least favorite song blasting on repeat? I digress.
Honnold himself says he knew he’d get grief from other climbers for making it into a whole Netflix thing.
But his answer was basically… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
“Anyone who’s like, ‘Why would you do that?’ You’re kind of like, why wouldn’t you?”
– MaryGrace Lucas
Hidden in Plain Sight
WaPo. She planned to sell her old pot for $20. It sold for $32K at auction. – The Washington Post
WHAT A CROCK OF…
Sometimes the most valuable things are hiding in plain sight – so familiar you stop seeing CC them altogether.
For three decades, a Nebraska grandmother had a stoneware crock on her porch, weathering sun and snow, completely unremarkable to everyone who walked past it. Turns out it was a rare piece of 19th-century pottery that just fetched $32,000 at auction. She was ready to sell it for $20 at a garage sale. I love stories like this because they flip the script on what we think we know. We obsess over things we’re sure are valuable while ignoring the quiet treasures gathering dust in corners or in this case, on the front porch.
My family has hosted our own version of The Antiques Roadshow, where guests bring items for auctioneers to evaluate. Every year, I’m floored by what people discover about their treasures. One woman learned her “costume jewelry” ring was worth far more than she ever imagined. One couple found out their Garbage Pail Kids collection could fetch serious money only if they could track down that one missing card. And plenty of folks arrive with their treasures only to hear the auctioneers say, “What do you know about this? Do you love it? Good, because that’s the value right there.”
That’s the thing about value: it surprises you in both directions. So maybe take a second look at that weird thing in your basement you inherited from family. You never know.
– Jen Hirshon