Guest Lecture: Reggie James
Guest Lecture: Reggie James
An interview with Reggie James.
Good morning everyone. We have news AND a Guest Lecture today.
NEWS:
Why are seemingly vanilla men getting so into choking? This year both Business Insider and the New York Times warned of the “trend” of choking among Gen Z and teenagers alike. I’ve read a lot of stories about this, and I’ve written about it for Feed Me before and the reasoning often oscillates depending on the story — porn, music, movies, male rage, clout, or outright confusion about pleasure. To answer the headline questions (Has casual sex always been this bad?), I think the answer is yes. What do you guys think?
For the past few Sunday nights, I’ve been discussing new episodes of Industry in the Substack Chat. The team over at GQ asked me to start recapping episodes over on their site, so you can start reading those this week.
On the third of September, we are pronouncing rosé dead. The worst hangover of my entire life was from a celebrity rosé brand. And I’m not going to mention which one on here, because I actually like the celebrity behind it. But it was rough. Air Mail published a story that outlined the trajectory, and eventual peak of the pink wine. “The small and limited pleasures allowed and enjoyed during the pandemic’s first summer were a key factor in rosé’s explosive growth. Global sales of the wine reached $3.1 billion in 2022 and are expected to hit $4.6 billion by 2030. Premium rosé sales soared 18.9 percent from 2023 to 2024. In 2019, Möet Hennessy, the alcoholic arm of the LVMH luxury-goods group, acquired majority stakes in both Whispering Angel’s Château d’Esclans vineyard and Château Minuty, a nine-million-bottle producer of Côtes de Provence.” I texted my friend
who has a lot of experience in the beverage category, because I knew he’d have thoughts. “I feel like orange wine really bumped rosé off. If you went to like Frog or whatever wine bar and asked for rosé… you’d be look down on. It’s unfortunately caught in the basic but not ironically cool thing yet .”
The New Yorker’s Molly Fischer profiled Ina Garten — I love Molly’s profiles, I felt so lucky to work with her at The Cut when I was hired her. Molly and Ina ate pizza at Fini, discussed Ina and her husband Jeffrey’s brief separation in the late seventies, and even Alison Roman gets a quote in there. This is a long read, but it’s probably the best interview with Ina I’ve ever read. I had the pleasure of visiting her home back in 2018 for a profile I wrote for New York Magazine, and it was nothing like this story. What a fascinating woman.
Speaking of Cut alumni, Sarah Spellings spoke to Yohji Yamamoto for a rare interview for WSJ. Yamamoto said working feels like, “I’m in a prison. It’s a duty.” He also smokes two packs a day. It’s refreshing to hear people speak about their work like this, Sarah has been on a roll at WSJ.
Tribeca’s Rigor Hill Market sells 500 BEC’s a day.
We’re discussing Paul Graham’s Founder Mode essay over in the Feed Me chat.
GUEST LECTURE: Reggie James
This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I’ll introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to submit questions to them.
Reggie is the co-founder and CEO of Eternal, an AI Gaming platform focused on new original titles. He considers himself a writer, product designer, and DJ but if you look at his Twitter you’ll see he has a lot of thoughts on startups and how to build them. More than one man in my life considers him the best and only good dresser in tech.
In this interview, he discusses tech’s obsession with longevity, the career weight of Virgil Abloh, and what company he thinks will be the next Nvidia. If you want to read more from Reggie, he has a Substack over at
.“When you're really rich — like tech rich — it's appealing to live forever. You want to see how things turn out, and you presumably have the money to do that comfortably. The second part, and the real damning part, is that these folks are devoid of spiritual clarity.” - Reggie James
“Suppose the community or “scene” you want doesn’t exist in your town - how would you start it?” - Jake
I love this question, because I definitely felt this growing up in the Poconos, and to some extent while at Penn.
I think there's a real difference between community and scene. So let me answer them separately.