PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS | | | | | PRESENTED BY WISPR FLOW | | | It's a new week, Future Party. A US District Judge has finally put to rest one of the most pressing questions of our time: are boneless wings really, legally wings — or just a fancy term for chicken nuggets? Judge John Tharp has declared that, yes, boneless wings are indeed wings, and that anyone familiar with both wings and chicken nuggets should be able to tell the difference. | With that debate settled, plenty of you may suddenly be considering wings for lunch — especially if they're on the menu at the company cafeteria. You're not alone… and there's more on that below. |
| |
| | |
| | | | | | Lunch Is The Most Important Part Of The Job |  | The new benefits package // Illustration by Kate Walker |
| Blue-chip tech firms and buzzy AI startups are competing not just over who has the most innovative systems or the largest stockpile of GPUs… but over who can claim the best free lunch menu. | Why It Hits: While the overall job market may be pretty bleak, it couldn't be a better time to be a top AI researcher, machine-learning specialist, or finance wiz — they're commanding record-high pay packages and unprecedented autonomy to experiment. Companies looking to sweeten the pot are even touting next-level lunch offerings. After all, the best way to someone's heart really is through their stomach. | Behind The Plates: Firms across Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Madison Avenue are upgrading their cafeterias. | Corporate catering has become the top revenue stream for major catering companies, especially as firms transition from offering only snacks to serving regular meals. And these aren't run-of-the-mill burgers and salads — there's cuisine from nearly every culture, high-end ingredients, and Michelin-starred chefs. There are still plenty of snacks, too, including juice bars and craft coffee. Workers are salivating over the goodies, with some telling Business Insider they'd rather work somewhere with top-notch food and beverages than earn higher pay. That doesn't mean every company is buying into the hype — Amazon, for example, only offers bananas for free. How rude.
| Last Bite: Beyond winning over talent, companies have realized that offering good food is one of the easiest ways to lure people back to the office, get them talking with their teams, and keep them at work longer. It's a lot easier to burn the midnight oil when dinner is provided. | And with perks like gym memberships and travel stipends disappearing, the in-office meal may be the last reminder that work is more than a simple exchange of labor for money. A study out of the University of South Florida found that workers prefer the food perks anyway. No wonder OpenAI and xAI recently sparred over who has the better pizza. | Next Meal: Prepare for companies to R&D a signature dish that becomes a deciding factor for some workers when choosing to join their ranks. |
| |
| | |
| | | | | Together with Wispr Flow | | "The Best AI I've Used Since ChatGPT" | | You talk 4x faster than you type — so why are you still banging away at your keyboard for every email, text, and Slack message? | Wispr turns your voice into polished, ready-to-send text instantly. Speak naturally, and Wispr cuts filler words, fixes grammar, and formats everything perfectly for whatever app you're using — Slack, Google Docs, and more. No edits required. | Whether it's for work or everyday productivity, over 100K people use Wispr to save hours each week. | Try Wispr today on Mac, iPhone, Windows, and Android — free to start. |
| |
| | |
| | | | | Creator Camp Makes A Marketing Move |  | Fullproof pitch? // Illustration by Kate Walker |
| Creator Camp, the internet-native incubator focused on helping digital creators make premium film and TV, is launching an in-house ad agency. | The Big Picture: With Hollywood contracting, Creator Camp recognizes the need for a sustainable revenue stream to scale — and for more opportunities for the talent it supports to create content with higher production value. An ad agency is a natural solution. | Behind The Curtain: Creator Camp is sending an invite to brands, according to Tubefilter. | Creator Camp has already produced several brand campaigns for companies like Anthropic and Spotify, so launching an in-house agency allows it to grow that business and centralize operations. It also gives Creator Camp more flexibility to experiment with marketing campaigns, like the one it ran for the Swiss tourism board in 2024, which enlisted 80 creators to make short films in the Alps. It also enables digital creators to get in their "reps of working with their first crew" before graduating to indie films or series, per co-founder Max Reisinger.
| Last Post: With top influencers now A-list celebrities and seemingly everything ad-supported, it's no surprise that nearly every creator-focused startup is moving into advertising. Viral Nation dominates from a social-media-first perspective, Alex Cooper is bringing a singular female lens with The Unwell Creative Agency, and Night is entering the space alongside some of the most popular creators in the world. In other words, advertising execs are starting to look more like MrBeast than Don Draper. | The Future: Young people are pretty adept at tuning out advertising these days (unless it's for the Super Bowl), but creator-focused agencies like Creator Camp may actually make audiences seek it out. |
| |
| | |
| | | | | Together with Marketing Against The Grain | | How Marketers Are Scaling With AI in 2026 | | 61% of marketers say this is the biggest marketing shift in decades. | Get the data and trends shaping growth in 2026 with this groundbreaking state of marketing report. | Inside you'll discover: | Results from over 1,500 marketers centered around results, goals and priorities in the age of AI Stand out content and growth trends in a world full of noise How to scale with AI without losing humanity Where to invest for the best return in 2026
| Download your 2026 state of marketing report today. | Get Your Report |
| |
| | |
| | | | | | Does your workplace offer free food? | | 52% of you voted A mix of intuition and analysis in Friday's poll: How much do you rely on intuition when making decisions? | "I always do my due diligence, but every decision ultimately comes down to intuition." | "A psychologist friend told me that I have very good intuition but don't believe it. He said I'd be 85% correct if I trusted it. Now I do — and he was right. :)" | "I don't listen to my intuition enough, which is a problem because it's usually right. I ignore it, and then something bad happens because I didn't trust that sixth sense." | Let's keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers', check out cool insights, and have some fun. It's data with personality. |
| |
| | |
| | | | | QUICK HITS | → Entertainment / Media | 👔 Phil Spencer is stepping down as CEO of Microsoft Gaming and will be replaced by Asha Sharma, president of product development for Microsoft's CoreAI division. | 🎮 Sony's PlayStation 6 may be delayed until 2029 due to a shortage of memory chips. | 🎵 Universal Music Group and Virgin Music Group have completed their $775 million acquisition of Downtown Music. | → Technology | 🚀 NASA is aiming for March 6 for its Artemis II mission around the Moon. | 🧭 Navigation startup ZaiNar raised $10 million to build out its alternative GPS system that uses Wi-Fi and 5G. | 📱 Meta has removed VR from its Horizon Worlds metaverse, now making it an "almost exclusively mobile" experience. | → Creator Economy | 📉 TikToker Khaby Lame's $975 million all-stock deal for his NIL has lost most of its value in a month. | 🤳 You can now post your Threads posts directly to Stories. So, when do these two platforms finally merge? | 🧸 YouTube has unprecedented "pester power" — kids pressuring their parents to buy them products they see in videos and related ads. |
| |
| | |
| | | | | Let us know how we are doing... | |
| |
| | |
| PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS | Today's email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar. |
|
