Taylor Swift dropped $20M for her MSG wedding, Starbucks is building an oat milk influencer army, and I'm officially in my World Cup era

Taylor Swift upgraded her fairytale ending to a sports stadium wedding and an iron-clad prenup, China is gaining ground in the AI price wars, and baristas are getting paid to go viral.

Let's get into it.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce said "I do," and economists are calling it a $20 million power move.

Taylor and Travis took nuptials to the next level with their wedding at Madison Square Garden, which reportedly ran about $20 million. No big deal. Forbes has a whole thesis on why that number matters less than the fact that Taylor married at 36, at the height of her wealth, to a man worth roughly 4% of her net worth and kept her name, her masters, her real estate, all of it. Apparently the prenup was non-negotiable, which, iconic. Meanwhile, The Knot is projecting $2.2 billion in the "Swiftification of Weddings" spending over the next two years. But honestly the more interesting stat is the one about women who marry later out-earning women who marry young over their lifetime. I’m sure the internet has many more think pieces on the wedding of the year’s impact from every possible angle, but as a recent bride, all I care about is how her wedding planner pulled all of this off.

AI subscriptions are about to get a lot more competitive, and your favorite chatbot might not win. 

Chinese AI models are eating into OpenAI and Anthropic's market share as companies get cost-conscious about their AI bills. We're talking models that are 60-90% cheaper and, in some cases, performing almost as well. One Chinese company's new AI model came out swinging: it performs nearly as well as Anthropic's top model on tricky tasks, but costs a fifth of the price, and saw its adoption grow 27x in its first week alone. The takeaway? Companies genuinely don't seem to care as much about which AI is "the best" anymore—they care about which one gets the job done for less, which, relatable, that's how I shop for everything.

Starbucks is turning baristas into paid TikTok talent, and honestly, it’s about time.

If your algorithm is anything like mine, you’ve seen your fair share of Starbucks baristas whipping up some secret menu magic to millions of views. And apparently corporate has taken notice as well. The coffee giant announced they are partnering with TikTok to launch a Creator Network that sends select baristas content briefs and pays them a cut of ad revenue when their videos run, making Starbucks the first brand to pilot the program. Their employees already post about the company three times more than workers at comparable chains, so this is less "brilliant marketing idea" and more "finally paying people for content they were making for free anyway." Not everyone's thrilled though. Starbucks Workers United called it an attempt to buy goodwill instead of settling a fair contract at the bargaining table, which, fair point. Pay the people what they're owed AND give them a share of the revenue they bring in. We’d love to see it!

Girl goes to Italy once, and all of a sudden she’s a calcio convert (that’s Italian for football, aka soccer, FYI). It’s me, I am girl. I went to a World Cup game last week and have officially entered my soccer stan era. Or maybe it’s my professional work-avoider era? I fully took advantage of the long weekend a little earlier than expected to catch a Thursday flight to LA for a same-day soccer immersion. Totally worth it. I became a die-hard fan somewhere between the national anthem and the first goal, so if I start casually dropping “hat trick” and “offsides,” into conversation, don’t ask questions, this is who I am now.

Missing Italy extra today, so here's one of my favorite fits from the trip. Conveniently, the blue and white understood the Fourth of July assignment without even trying. There’s something so whimsical about these swirly-patterned shorts and the open-back top is everything you could ever ask for during a nationwide heat wave. Plus, the platform sandals added at least four inches and I swear I caught a little breeze at my new altitude. I’d like to accept thoughts and prayers as I mourn my European wardrobe, but I have a feeling this fit will be in the rotation all summer long.

It's that time of year when everyone's out of office, so you're either staring at a spooky silent Slack channel or sprinting through all the work you’re handling while half your team is OOO. All the while you’re wondering if you’d rather power through your to-do list to enjoy the outdoors or drag things out and savor the AC. Whatever you decide, let's be honest about the fact that summer season FOMO is not allowing you to focus the way you normally would.

Here are some ways to balance locking in and laying back while you work this summer:

Block your calendar for an "outdoor work hour" once a day, even if it's just answering emails from a park bench or taking a call while you take a walk to the beach and back. .And if you're able to work remotely, do a little research into some WiFi-equipped outdoor restaurants or common spaces. You can try a new one each week and count it as a little offsite.

If half your team is out on PTO and nothing is moving on your endless to-do list, take a deep breath and remember: If you can’t make progress on something until someone returns, it’s not worth your energy right now. Use this lull to knock out the boring stuff you never have time for when everyone's around: the file cleanup, the process doc nobody wants to write, the backlog of "I'll get to it later" tasks. Low-stakes season is exactly when to do low-glamour work.

And if you find yourself completing all those little tasks? First of all, give yourself a round of applause. And then give yourself a little break to shamelessly scroll social media. Because rationed TikTok time beats the slow leak of checking every 10 minutes and getting nothing done in between. Set a 30-minute block, ideally with an end time alarm set, to indulge in a guilt-free scroll session. Fully allow yourself to live vicariously through everyone's vacation Instagram Stories, and then close the apps, get your work done, and get out of the office and enjoy the extra hours of sunshine.

Thanks for reading!