Basically, Everything's on ESPN

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Hundreds of investing and finance newsletters hit my (and maybe your) inbox every week. This is the best of the best of tech from the past week. Every Monday, we’ll tackle policy, and every Wednesday, we’ll recap finance.

This week, we’ve got…

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When the founder who sold his last company to Zillow for $120M starts a new venture, people notice. That’s why the same VCs behind Uber and eBay also backed Pacaso. They made $110M+ in gross profit to date. They even reserved the Nasdaq ticker PCSO. Now, you can join, too.

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.}

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ESPN and the NFL are officially making it official. ESPN, owned by Disney $DIS ( ▼ 0.71% ), has a non-binding agreement to acquire the NFL Network, the RedZone Channel, and other media assets. In return, the NFL gets a 10% equity stake in ESPN, and the fans get… well, that remains to be seen.

This move streamlines operations for both sides. The NFL offloads the costly business of running its own broadcast arm, while its product gets wider distribution through ESPN’s massive platform. Meanwhile, ESPN (and thus Disney) bulks up its content library (and subscription prices) for its much-anticipated direct-to-consumer streaming service—which, by the way, now also includes the WWE.

As ESPN prepares to package more content, Spotify $SPOT ( ▼ 2.04% ) announced yet another price hike for its premium subscribers in several international markets. The move, which boosted its stock price, came just after a rough earnings report, reminding us that when growth stumbles, raising prices on loyal users is the go-to play.

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The tech gold rush, now greased by AI, is churning out numbers that suggest either infinite progress or a bubble ready to burst.

OpenAI just launched GPT-5 and is reportedly seeking a $500 billion valuation in a potential employee share sale, and Palantir, fresh off $1 billion in quarterly revenue, has already hit a logic-defying $420 billion market cap, surpassing what even the Magnificent Seven were worth at the same milestone.

The frenzy has triggered a compensation arms race. Tesla’s board handed Elon Musk a $29 billion pay package for simply sticking around two more years. Other companies are racing to prove their AI-first credentials, and not always gracefully; Duolingo’s CEO faced backlash after mandating AI fluency for staff, but the bird bounced back this week on meme strength alone.

As for the old guard, President Donald Trump said Apple will invest another $100 billion in US manufacturing and supply chain expansion, conveniently avoiding new tariffs. Lofty promises and big moves are everywhere, and for now, they’re still working.

This episode of The Best One Yet looks at how a cheesy jingle turned Jet2 into the soundtrack of the summer, why the NFL just teamed up with ESPN, and how Uber is riding high while Airbnb looks checked out.

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