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Bethenny Frankel is a marketing maven. She’s best known for starring in the Real Housewives of New York City, and for launching the Skinnygirl lifestyle brand, starting with the now-famous “skinny girl” margarita. She then found a partner to help her manufacture the cocktail, which launched in 2009. In 2011, Frankel sold Skinnygirl for an estimated $100 million, but kept the rights to use the name. Since then, she’s launched Skinnygirl salad dressing, shapewear, and popcorn, among other items. Frankel has 4 million-plus followers on Instagram and 3.3 million on TikTok, where she sounds off on everything from coffee to handbags. Frankel is also the queen of affiliate a…

As Hurricane Melissa battered the Caribbean this week, social media became awash with AI-generated content that blurs the line between reality and fiction. Described by CBS News as “one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic,” Melissa reached Category 5 intensity as it made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday. CNN reports that it has already caused seven deaths in the northern Caribbean, and is the most powerful storm to hit the basin since 2019’s Hurricane Dorian. Amid a crisis, social media is flooded Over the last few days, major social media platforms have been saturated with AI-generated videos—depicting a wide range of content supposedly re…

In April 2025, Lucy Guo became the youngest female self-made billionaire after Meta paid $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI, the company she cofounded with Alexandr Wang in 2016. Though Guo had left the company—which builds infrastructure and software to create AI applications—over disagreements with Wang in 2018, she retained her 5% stake in the business, which skyrocketed in value after Meta’s investment. In 2022 she reemerged with Passes, a platform that helps creators monetize their social media followings by selling access to exclusive offerings—from products and merch to pay-by-the-minute private phone calls. As of February, the company has raised a …

PepsiCo, the food and bev giant behind childhood favorites like 7UP, Mountain Dew, Lay’s, and Doritos, just got new branding, and it looks nothing like its namesake product. The new PepsiCo brand identity, which includes a fresh wordmark, logo, and tagline, is the company’s first rebrand since 2001. The company has had three different corporate identities since its inception in 1965, and all of them have taken their most prominent design cues from Pepsi, the soda brand that started it all—until now. When PepsiCo designed its last identity in 2001, it owned 13 consumer brands. Today, it owns more than 500. And, over the past several months, PepsiCo has signaled…

In a new holiday ad for Starbucks, set to the tune of I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers, two adorable animated figures traipse across Starbucks’s red holiday cups to reunite. It’s a sweet video that highlights Starbucks’s transition into the winter holidays, one of the biggest sales moments of the year for the company. But while the iconic red cups are starring in Starbucks’s early holiday promotion, they’ve also become the center of an ongoing dispute with Starbucks Workers United—and a potential strike. On November 6, Starbucks released its holiday menu in stores, including seasonal beverages, treats, and cups. The rollout heralds the arrival of …

With Black Friday just about three weeks away, retailers and shoppers have one thing on their mind—Christmas, the busiest and most profitable time of the year. And now, with Halloween behind us, Spirit Halloween has pivoted to holiday-themed Spirit Christmas, featuring festive decor, gifts, holiday apparel, and interactive displays—including nutcrackers, inflatable lawn Santas, and ugly Christmas sweaters. The retail chain, owned by Spencer Gifts, launched nearly a dozen Spirit Christmas stores throughout the Northeast in 2024. This year, Spirit Christmas is opening 30 store locations in 12 states in the Northeast and Great Lakes area, including its flagship …

Billionaire Warren Buffett warned shareholders Monday that many companies will fare better than his Berkshire Hathaway in the decades ahead because of its massive size, though others might say the company’s prospects will dim because “Father Time” is catching up with the 95-year-old icon who plans to step down as CEO in January. Buffett reflected on life and his health in a new letter to shareholders where he announced $1.3 billion in new charitable gifts to the four family foundations run by his children that—along with the Gates Foundation—have been helping steadily give away his fortune since 2006. Berkshire is known for consistently outperforming the stock mar…

What makes some people instantly likable? How can you make people want to be around you, to work with you, and follow your leadership? You may think it comes down to charisma that some people have and others don’t. In fact, there’s a simple habit that will make you instantly more likable. It’s the secret behind “magnetism,” according to Emma Seppälä, lecturer at the Yale School of Management and author of The Happiness Track. In a piece for Psychology Today, she cites research showing that “positive practices“—small moments of gratitude and caring toward other people—can turn you into one of those magnetic people others find irresistible. Showing genuine interest in o…

On July 29, 2025, at 9:45 a.m., Christine Ressy was supposed to be undergoing surgery to remove kidney stones. Instead, Ressy, a 49-year-old hairdresser in New York City, found herself holding back tears in the waiting room of a Manhattan hospital. Unless she paid half of her $10,933 bill prior to surgery, her doctor simply could not operate, she had been told. Because Ressy was uninsured, she had hoped to receive a cash-pay discount or find some other way to negotiate costs. She wanted to see an itemized receipt after her surgery before paying up, and had prepared a $500 cash deposit. She had done all this on the advice of her most trusted advocate: ChatGPT. …

Baseball and bets go hand-in-hand in the Dominican Republic, where professional athletes, musicians and even legislators go public with their wagers. But for every legal bet in the Caribbean country, officials say there are countless more illegal ones. It’s a widespread, multimillion-dollar industry that has come under scrutiny following U.S. federal indictments of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz. They are accused of taking bribes from unnamed sports bettors in the Dominican Republic to throw certain pitches and help those bettors win at least $460,000, according to an indictment unsealed Sunday in New York. Ortiz and Clase have both pleaded n…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Generally speaking, housing markets where inventory (i.e., active listings) has returned to pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced weaker home price growth (or outright declines) over the past 36 months. Conversely, housing markets where inventory remains far below pre-pandemic 2019 levels have, generally speaking, experienced more resilient home price growth over the past 36 months. Of the 50 largest metro area housing markets, 21 major metros now have more homes for sale than at the same point in 2019. Last year, that count was 13 markets. T…

If you work in an office, your next coworker might not be human at all. Workers are already well-acquainted with artificial intelligence in the office, using AI tools to take notes, automate tasks, and assist with workflow. Now, Microsoft is working on a new kind of AI agent that doesn’t just assist, but acts as an employee. These “Agentic Users” will soon have their own email, Teams account, and company ID, just like a regular coworker. “Each embodied agent has its own identity, dedicated access to organizational systems and applications, and the ability to collaborate with humans and other agents,” states a Microsoft product roadmap document. “These agents ca…

Over the summer, Bogg bags were ubiquitous at beaches and parks. This year alone, it has sold more than $100 million of these plastic totes full of holes that come in a rainbow of colors. But now, the brand is trying to get you to bring your Bogg bag to dinner at a fancy restaurant, or the office, or a hot date. Today, Bogg releases its newest line, which it is describing with a delightfully tongue-in-cheek name: Bougie Quilted Collection. The structure of the bag hasn’t changed much; it is still made of plastic and has plenty of holes on it. But it also has a quilted texture, reminiscent of the surface of a Chanel flap purse or a nylon Prada bag. And it comes with a…