Good morning,

As always, it was a fabulous week: Ian Krietzberg talked with the self-doubting C.E.O. of the so-called Netflix of A.I.; Eriq Gardner revealed a Hollywood legal war-turned-merger kiss off; Julia Alexander diagnosed Apple’s streaming woes; John Ourand assessed the Ellisons’ no-fly zone; Dylan Byers revealed a Times insecurity complex; Bill Cohan deduced Goldman’s M&A options; Lauren Sherman previewed LVMH’s Marc Jacobs fire sale; Rachel Strugatz investigated the Ulta vs. Sephora land grab; Sarah Shapiro scrutinized Polène’s success; Marion Maneker surveyed the fall auction lots; Julie Brener Davich offered a master class in Birkin-ology; and Scott Mendelson revealed how $800 million became the new billion-dollar box office threshold.

Meanwhile, Leigh Ann Caldwell gathered the tea on Chuck Schumer; Julia Ioffe profiled the State Department’s madman H.R. guy; Abby Livingston ran a temperature check on the Democratic donor class; and John Heilemann kibitzed with Maggie Haberman about Trump’s Epstein woes.

Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it all came together.

Lauren Sherman scoops a Condé Nast revenue surprise and laments an LVMH sales strategy.
and…
Rachel Strugatz reports from the Ulta-Sephora theater of war.
meanwhile…
Sarah Shapiro scripts the Polène playbook.

Marion Maneker previews the Paris fall sales.
and…
Julie Davich details the second order effects of the $10.1 million Birkin sale.

Julia Alexander investigates Apple’s streaming challenges.
and…
Eriq Gardner details the Legendary-Lionsgate Dune drama.
and…
Scott Mendelson offers a mid-summer box office readout.

Ian Krietzberg chats with the guy trying to create Netflix for the A.I. age.

Dylan Byers reveals how the Journal won Washington.
and…
John Ourand captures the investor enthusiasm for Mexican soccer and contemplates CBS Sports under Ellison rule.
and…
Julia Alexander explains why NBCU is launching a post-Versant sports network.

Bill Cohan sees a Goldman M&A opportunity.

Leigh Ann Caldwell asks whether Schumer is losing the room.
and…
John Heilemann and Maggie Haberman trade notes about Trump’s Epstein politics.
and…
Julia Ioffe profiles the newest jester in the State Dept.
meanwhile…
Abby Livingston anticipates the revival of the Democratic donor base.

Dylan asks Vox Media C.E.O. Jim Bankoff about his A.I. anxieties on The Grill Room.
and…
John Ourand and Marion discuss the rise of the collectibles market on The Varsity.
and…
Lauren and author Amy Odell engage in the Gwyneth Paltrow discourse on Fashion People.
and…
John Heilemann and New Yorker editor-in-chief David Remnick discuss the Gaza crisis on Impolitic.
and…
Matt and polymath Seth MacFarlane share notes on the plight of the studio comedy on The Town.
and…
Ian regales Peter Hamby with Mark Zuckerberg’s A.I. ambitions on The Powers that Be.

As a reminder, you can update your profile at any time to get more stories like these directly in your inbox. Click here to customize your email settings.

A couple years ago, I was at a tech conference outside of Los Angeles when a top executive from a major publicly traded media company walked up to me and, without solicitation, offered a lament for The Wall Street Journal. Murdoch’s prized possession, after all, had recently parted ways with the incredibly well-liked and estimable Matt Murray—a journalist’s journalist, so to speak, who had seemingly protected the paper from some of its owner’s worst instincts. The same could not necessarily be said of his own predecessor, the cantankerous Gerry Baker. Honestly, I was surprised by the comment. In the winnowing world of the news media, I assumed that a competitive executive might have welcomed a potentially destabilizing shakeup at a competitor of sorts. 

Murray, now the top man in the fractious Washington Post’s newsroom, was eventually replaced by an editor named Emma Tucker—an unknown, at least in this country, who had led The Sunday Times in the U.K. Tucker was an enigma, and the simple fact that she was British was itself bandied about in a facile media narrative. She happened to be taking over the Journal as Joanna Coles was beginning her equitized adventure of reviving The Daily Beast and WaPo C.E.O. Will Lewis was already midjourney on his voyage to do something with Bezos’s news project. The implication of this so-called British Invasion, of course, was that these rogue Brits would inject acerbic life and mirth into media vessels of various levels of self-importance.

In the end, it’s been only Tucker who has succeeded in this mission. After restructuring the news organization and torpedoing a generation of old praetorian guard members, she recruited a new cohort and remade the Journal in her own plucky image. Dow Jones, the Journal’s parentco, has always been a rock-solid business—robustly enterprise B2B, albeit with commercial clients ranging from luxury to auto to the Fortune 500. As such, I often wondered if this economic cushion had made the newsroom bureaucratic and complacent. Under Tucker, however, the paper was reborn as a heat-seeking missile. The Journal led the charge on Biden’s declining acuity before the disastrous debate. Tucker’s colleagues covered the private and public antics of Elon Musk, and owned the DOGE debacle. The Journal’s renewed prominence was framed most poignantly, of course, by its coverage of the president’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

By juxtaposition, the Journal’s cacophonic editorial success has framed a somewhat somnolent era for its counterpart, The New York Times. In Mothertucker, my partner Dylan Byers provides exquisite reportage on how this dynamic is playing out. Even competitive hands at the gray lady recognize their adversary’s ability to own the moment. Will the Times, which has surpassed its pre-Internet market cap, summon the gumption?

But if you only have time to read one piece this weekend, I’d behoove you to sidle up to Julia Ioffe’s latest masterstroke, Lew’s Clues, a profile of Lew Olowski—the State Department’s newish head of H.R., who happens to be a RIF-happy, Christian evangelizing MAGA warrior with an axe to grind. More discomfittingly, Olowski also appears to have a bizarre penchant for Monster energy drinks and weird corporate sermonizing. “He crushed four energy drinks in an hour,” one former subordinate told Julia. By meeting’s end, in this rendering, “he looked like a coked-out raccoon. He was literally washing his hands and twitching.” Another recalled a meeting at 9 a.m. in which Olowski slurped three cans of Monster in 30 minutes. According to one senior State Department official, “He just does weird things.”

We all have our quirks, I suppose, but Olowski is one of those largely unknown characters shaping our vital institutions in these often head-scratchingly surreal days. Their agendas and nits are the story of our time, and precisely what you should expect from Puck.

Have a great weekend,

Jon

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10006