The Weekend  | Nov 30, 2024 | | | | | | | Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter: | | • Shopping: The Information's 2024 Holiday Gift Guide | | * E-commerce: A bet on Big Brother billboards | | • The Top 5: What to wear to Silicon Valley's holiday parties | | • Plus, we feast!: A lover scorned and scorched; a buddy film seasoned with punchlines and pathos; the TikToker who cheeses for the camera; and a Campari-nixed Negroni. | | | | Reid Hoffman may leave America. | | Hoffman, one of the most active Kamala Harris donors, who has also financed private litigation against Donald Trump, has been mulling over whether he'll stay in the U.S. when Trump takes office next month, according to The New York Times. Hoffman fears Trump will seek revenge against him; Trump, indeed, has promised to retaliate against his opponents. | | To some degree, Hoffman seems to be considering doing what many Republican tech moguls have done over the last few years: enter self-exile as a political statement. Much of the Peter Thiel crew has decamped for either Florida or Texas since 2020, using their moves to draw attention to the Democratic politics they dislike in their former home states. (Well, home state, really. Most were leaving California, citing a mix of discontent over laws around transgender rights, taxes, housing, Covid-19 and regulation.) | | Hoffman wouldn't speak to me this week, but I imagine he'd draw a distinction between his move and the Thiel crowd's by arguing that Trump is a lot more likely to pursue retribution than Gov. Gavin Newsom or any other Democratic politician. I suspect most of the 75% of you who said you planned to vote for Harris in the election would agree with Hoffman's point of view, though I'm equally sure Trump voters reading this would insist that the Democrats aren't a barrel of peaches themselves. For instance, a reasonable argument could be made that Newsom is seeking a small measure of revenge on Elon Musk by possibly excluding Tesla from the state's proposed electric vehicle tax credits. | | To be sure, a self-exile like the one Hoffman may pursue is about politics, not business. By that I mean that even if Hoffman decamps for some bunkered manse in New Zealand, it's hard to envision him ending his day job as a venture capitalist. Why should he? The nature of our post-pandemic, Zoom-linked world means business goes on. Besides, a person with Hoffman's wealth and profile tends to not really live in any one place: They have multiple homes and travel a great deal. (After all, the concept of the Jet Set has existed for almost a century.) When I was thinking about this, I reflected back on my visit to Austin, Texas, in August when I went to see Joe Lonsdale, a Thiel friend who is living there in self-exile from California. Still, he makes frequent trips back to California, where he co-owns a winery and where his venture firm, 8VC, still has around half its portfolio companies.—Abram Brown | | | |  | | | Even in the tech-verse, no one truly has it all, and the entire Information staff has turned out with a sleighful of gift suggestions. Our Jessica Lessin suggests the weighted vest her husband, Sam, gave her. Anita Ramaswamy, our financial columnist, has an idea for extracting a fuller-bodied ROI from her expensive Napa Valley wine purchases. Reporter Akash Pasricha has a gamified thought about home fitness, while Jamie Clark, our director of brand partnerships, tracked down possibly the best thing we've seen Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg sport lately. All that and more! | |  | | | In the 2010s, consumer startups boomed thanks to low-priced digital ads. Much has changed since then. For one thing, those ads are pricier now, forcing newcomers to consider different strategies. A disruptive ad tech startup, Adgile, has an increasingly appealing one: billboards plastered on moving vans that come with customer-tracking analytics coordinated through GPS locators and data brokers. It's a small part of the advertising world right now but an extremely intriguing one, as our Ann Gehan explains. | | "I have a lot of crazy shit I want to do with something on wheels," Adgile CEO and co-founder Tom Shea, 30, told Ann. "It's sort of endless in terms of what we can do." | |  | | | A good holiday party outfit these days has to be a bit of a workhouse: capable of traversing time zones, dress codes and perhaps even multiple wears. Esther Achara, a former Vogue writer who has also contributed to publications like The Wall Street Journal, has a cheery guide for us full of embellished blazers, comfortable but chic mocs and the only bag that makes sense this season. | | Abram Brown, editor of The Information's Weekend section, thinks Santa should make it easy on himself: Just send bitcoin. You can reach him at abe@theinformation.com or find him on X. | | |  | | Acquiring: Grade-A Aperitivos | | I'd like to make a case for two things. First, a Negroni is not just a summer drink. It's a wonderful wintertime tipple, too. The hue of a well-made Negroni—ruby red or thereabouts—fits snugly among the season's colors, while the cocktail's bitterness brings a satisfying cleanse during indulgent meals. | | Now on to the other matter: Real Negronians ditch the Campari. Instead, get a bottle of Faccia Brutto's Aperitivo. (Faccia Brutto, a Brooklyn-based spirits startup, sells it nationwide.) Obviously, Faccia Brutto lifted the name for its product from the Italian word for pre-dinner drinks, aperitivos, a category that traditionally includes Negronis. But unlike traditional Campari Negronis, Faccia Brutto's red liquor makes the cocktail lighter, more floral and sweeter, with obvious notes of rhubarb, a little like Aperol. Sounds good, right? Pour 'em out, pass 'em around.—A.B. | | Following: Say "Cheese!" | | This holiday season, I'm outsourcing my charcuterie board to Madelyn Varela, a cheesemonger whose delightful bite-size videos on TikTok and Instagram have captured my heart (and stomach). | | Though I would consider myself a bona fide cheese freak, Madelyn has recommendations for techniques and pairings that never would've crossed my mind, I never would have thought of, like unique ways to cut and style cheese on a board, as well as the power of a cheese wire. Make sure to check out her umpteen videos about unconventional cheese and jam pairings before you make your next holiday board.—Paris Martineau | | Reading: Batter and Betrayal | | In my mid-20s, I briefly worked for "Bon Appétit," where I constantly struggled to find novel ways to describe food. The day I found myself desperately consulting a thesaurus for a synonym for "sandwich," I decided I probably wasn't cut out for the job. Lottie Hazell encounters no such problems in her debut novel, "Piglet." It follows the titular Piglet, an unfortunately nicknamed cookbook editor, who eats and drinks her way through a stunning betrayal by her fiancé. | | As Piglet concocts dishes with "glinting shards of praline" and watches "slicks of batter rise and bloom" in the oven, she wrestles with the question of whether to go through with her impending wedding. Hazell's luscious prose vividly reflects Piglet's roiling emotions over class anxiety, anguish, obsession and lust—feelings further reflected in her messy, creative meals.—Julia Black | | Watching: Sole Food | | When I first sat down to watch "The Trip," a 2010 comedy starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, I expected a flick centered on gourmet meals and witty banter. It certainly contains those elements. (I especially enjoy the lunch scene where both actors dish up impersonations of Michael Caine's distinctive cockney accent.) But it's a deeper film than I had initially imagined, a tale of how men in their 40s derive meaning from both work and personal relationships. | | Coogan, who plays a version of himself, is a British comedian at a career crossroads who's been hired by a newspaper to visit gourmet restaurants as he also navigates a breakup with his American girlfriend. He has a high opinion of himself and a high libido, both of which can be self-destructive. Meanwhile, Brydon is a slightly lower-tier celebrity who's more content with his family (wife, baby) and career, but who still suffers from his own insecurities, challenging Coogan in endless one-upmanship. Still, Coogan and Brydon together convey a warm authenticity as their improv swings from petty disputes to real talk to entertaining each other.—Josh Koehn | | | | | Go on, Your Honor, ham it up. |  | | | | | | | | |
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