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Subdial Wants You to Trade Your Patek or Rolex Just Like Stocks

Subdial Wants You to Trade Your Patek or Rolex Just Like Stocks

But it’s how they think about watches that reflects the modern shift—and huge growth—in the pre-owned market, a growth exemplified by Richemont buying UK-based Watchfinder, founded in 2002, for an undisclosed sum in 2018 (though a figure of £250 million, or $317.6 million, was widely shared within the industry at the time), the same year Subdial was founded. Even Rolex now has an official pre-owned scheme, launched last year in Europe and now active in the US.

“They think in terms of the collection rather than in terms of an individual watch,” Crane says. “Ownership is at the core. It’s not just holding an asset until you offload it, but very actively and assiduously building a collection, and getting a lot of fun out of that, while investing your money where it keeps its value.”

The thing about the collector mindset is that there’s always one more thing to add—and, accordingly, something to get rid of to fund the purchase. “That’s the sweet spot for us,” says Crane. “You hit both sides at the same time.”

Nevertheless, one look at the index and the picture doesn’t necessarily look so healthy: The direction of prices has been relentlessly downward over the past 18 months in the wake of a bubble that blew up in late 2021 and early 2022, collapsing thereafter more or less in tandem with the crash in cryptocurrencies and NFTs. For instance, according to the Subdial Index, the Rolex Submariner Kermit, a green bezel version of the brand’s famous dive watch, is down 14.6 percent in the past year, and has dropped from a high of just over $20,000 in April last year to $15,667 today.

Now that the pure speculators have left the stage, though, market commentators are firmly of the belief that things have settled, and that the prospects for the pre-owned market remain singularly rosy. In a report earlier this year, the watch industry advisory LuxeConsult predicted the secondary market surging from $27 billion now to $85 billion by 2033, sailing past the primary market in the process.

A report by Deloitte late last year was less bullish, but had the secondary market reaching just shy of $40 billion by 2030 nevertheless.

“It’s growing much faster than the primary market, not least because a few primary brands are not capable or wanting to deliver the quantity that the market is asking for,” says LuxeConstult principal Oliver Muller. “There are huge numbers of watches out there in the world sitting around, and there’s been a shift in the demographics of watch buyers toward millennials and Gen Z, who don’t have a problem selling and trading.”

Subdial, which is backed by funding from Active Partners, a VC firm focused on consumer tech startups, is far from the only young platform looking to take advantage of this. Tech-first businesses like Singapore-based Wristcheck, auction disruptor Loupe This, and data specialist WatchCharts are among those entering the fray, while the world’s most famous footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo, made headlines in July by taking a stake in by far the largest online global marketplace for watches, Chrono24.

The All-American Myth of the TikTok Spy

The All-American Myth of the TikTok Spy

To continue operating in the US under ByteDance ownership, TikTok has proposed to store American user data exclusively on US-based servers run by Oracle. The plan, Project Texas, is named after the state Oracle is headquartered in. The software giant, proudly American, boasts clients that include “all four branches of the US military,” the CIA, and local law enforcement. It has also marketed surveillance tools to Chinese police. Without universal data protection standards, the mere imposition of a national border around data does little to mitigate risk or reduce harm; instead, the border only helps determine who has the right to exploit the data and commit harm.

Oracle is one of the largest data brokers in the world. In a report released in June, the US Intelligence Community acknowledged that commercially available information, which “includes information on nearly everyone,” has reached a scale and sophistication on par with targeted, more intrusive surveillance techniques. The private data market is loosely regulated and open to all. US spy agencies are among its countless clients.

“Everyone is being surveilled constantly, but it’s always ‘Shoot the balloon!’ and never ‘Unplug Alexa.’” This line, delivered by comedian Bowen Yang on Saturday Night Live, encapsulates the quotidian reality of mass surveillance and the hypocrisy in official responses. After capitalism has commodified just about everything that sustains life—land, water, health care, to name a few, its latest site of extraction is life itself: our time, attention, movements, and presence. All can be captured, converted into data, and traded as commerce.

For years, this virtually unfettered transaction has benefited US companies and is aligned with Washington’s agenda. China’s economic rise, coupled with Beijing’s belligerence, has shifted this calculus. As US authorities place more restrictions on the transnational exchange of money, goods, information, and people in the name of security, at times in conflict with the demands of capital, the two superpowers increasingly mirror each other in their paranoia and protectionist stance. The Chinese government recently revised its anti-espionage legislation. The new law, which went into effect on July 1, broadens the definition of spying, grants the state more power to inspect facilities and electronic devices, and further limits foreign access to domestic data. Citing the new legislation, China’s Ministry of State Security proclaimed in a social media post that “Counterespionage needs mobilization from all of society,” while FBI director Christopher Wray has repeatedly stated that a “whole-of-society” approach is necessary to fight against threats from China. In Beijing’s propaganda materials alerting Chinese citizens of foreign intelligence activities, the spy is routinely depicted as a white man.

The bodies we inhabit are never ours alone. In the age of surveillance capitalism, the bounds of our private existence are endlessly encroached on by the richest and mightiest of interests, who also dictate the terms of extraction and exploitation. In this uneven battle, privacy is more than an individual right; it’s a form of communal care. An encrypted message requires effort and trust from both the sender and the receiver. The decisions we make about seeing or not being seen also configure the spaces we move in; they affect how others see and are seen. To reclaim our sovereign yet porous selves, we must reimagine space—physical as well as digital, social as well as legal—and interrogate its many borders: around nation, race, gender, class, property and the commons.

What if safety is achieved not by violent organs of the state but through their abolition? What if we reject the false binaries proposed by status quo powers and choose liberation? What if, instead of imprisoning our identities within predefined labels, we refuse to be categorized? What if we make ourselves illegible to convention, corrupt the code, glitch the mainframe, and disrupt the ceaseless flow of datafication? A secret language opens up pathways to fugitive spaces, where an uncompromised presence is restored and alternative futures are in rehearsal.

Why Is It So Hard for Scholars to Launch Startups?

Why Is It So Hard for Scholars to Launch Startups?

It’s important to decide both what to count and how to count it. Experts and scholar-entrepreneurs agree that not all innovative ventures should be seen as equivalent—or given equal credit—in the eyes of a university. “I don’t think that everything that is innovative is morally neutral,” says Harvard Law’s Okediji. “The place to begin is with the standards that you use to evaluate, to decide whether this company has advanced the public good or not.”

Universities should offer proactive guidance for the entrepreneurial application areas, scale, and milestones that would be institutionally meaningful. Furthermore, credit might depend on the specific role played. “Being involved in fundraising pitches or operational issues—that may be very important to the future of a startup, but it really isn’t the type of activity one would expect from a faculty member on the tenure track” in sciences, says Stephen Sencer, an attorney at law firm Ropes & Gray, who previously served as senior vice president and general counsel at Emory University. “In contrast, there are many scientific roles with startup companies that are directly applicable,” he says. When it comes to assessing success, Sencer advises against valuing only commercial success, citing the role of luck and other factors, as well as the misalignment between financial incentives and the qualities that predict a valuable faculty member. In addition, not all entrepreneurs, particularly those in non-STEM fields, even start companies or follow the most common entrepreneurial models. Allowing flexibility for other forms of activity is critical to avoid imposing a single model of innovation, says Andrew Nelson, a professor at the University of Oregon.

Finally, tenure decisions are time-bound, while entrepreneurial success may not appear within the same window. “Sometimes it takes a long time for us to appreciate what that technology did,” says Okediji, adding that this goes in both directions: Some things that were once celebrated (e.g., diesel auto engines, which revolutionized transportation) are now considered harmful.

Whatever the setup, guardrails are needed. Universities already closely manage financial and ethical concerns regarding conflicts of interest, conflicts of commitment (i.e., use of time), use of university resources, student involvement, intellectual property, and ownership. Some of these issues, likely to intensify under an entrepreneurship track, can be addressed through carefully and fairly designed salary packages or arrangements that allow scholar-entrepreneurs to reimburse some portion of public funding before taking a profit, depending on individual activity breakdowns.

We should also strive to avoid exacerbating existing inequalities. “You want to maintain the university as an egalitarian space. So if one person’s technology brings them $200 million, they can buy out their courses with more frequency than other people. They can hire more research assistants than other people,” says Okediji, adding that such situations already arise with other sources of funding, such as internal grants.

Structured flexibility to redefine academic contributions would allow universities to meet their obligations while offering legitimacy that may attract talented scholars who would otherwise give up on academic careers. It might also embolden existing scholar-entrepreneurs to make bolder bets.

Entrepreneurship is inherently risky, and recognition by peers and institutions is just another challenge that scholar-entrepreneurs face. Lifting this barrier could be groundbreaking; the world has too many problems for us to not unleash a ready and willing supply of brainpower in search of solutions. It would be a shame to leave those Rembrandts sitting in the attic.

17 Best Mattresses Tested and Reviewed By Experts (2023)

17 Best Mattresses Tested and Reviewed By Experts (2023)

There are a few mattresses we tested that don’t stand out as much but are worth mentioning, in case you’re thinking about them.

DreamCloud Luxury Hybrid Mattress for $1332: This is another luxury mattress with a thick pillow top that’s very comfortable like the Helix Midnight Luxe and Allswell Supreme.

Awara Hybrid Mattress ($1,399): This is another solid organic pick, also made from organic latex, organic wool, and individually-wrapped springs. WIRED reviewer Louryn Strampe found it springy and comfortable, especially for a single sleeper, though it’s a floppier mattress that would benefit from a little more support.

Keetsa All-Foam Tea Leaf Supreme for $1,890: WIRED reviewer Matt Jancer tested the Keetsa for several months. He’s a side sleeper, and though he was never blown away by the mattress’s comfort, he slept fine from start to finish. He didn’t think he would since the mattress is on the soft side. It has three layers of foam and a thin top layer that’s made from recycled materials.

The Purple Mattress for $1,399: Van Camp had many good nights of sleep on the airy, Jell-O-ey, cool feel of Purple’s square grid (it’s like lying on a bunch of waffles made of soft, stretchy silicone). But it just isn’t quite as comfortable as hybrid (coil-and-foam) mattresses. There is a hybrid Purple, but it’s pricey. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but just know that Purple mattresses are also kind of heavy.

Casper Standard Foam Mattress for $1,295: The original Casper mattress popularized the idea of a bed in a box years ago, and it’s still a comfortable all-foam choice at a good price. But the hybrid version with coils is better.

Molecule Hybrid Mattress for $1,899: WIRED reviewer Medea Giordano likes this comfy mattress and has had no problems sleeping on it for months. However, while edge support is fine on three sides, it’s nearly “non-existent” at the bottom of the bed. She nearly fell off while putting on her shoes. You can also feel the coils at the edges of the mattress, though this isn’t a huge issue because it’s undetectable when actually sleeping.

Leesa Original Mattress for $1,299: The standard Leesa is a lot like the Casper, but it feels a dash comfier.

The Internet Speech Case That the Supreme Court Can’t Dodge

The Internet Speech Case That the Supreme Court Can’t Dodge

The Supreme Court receives more than 7,000 requests to review lower court decisions each year, and typically grants less than 1 percent of them. But the chances of the Supreme Court reviewing the NetChoice cases are greater than those of an average dispute. A circuit split—particularly a high-profile one such as this—makes the Supreme Court more likely to take interest. Assuming that the court agrees to hear the cases, we could expect an opinion next June.

A Supreme Court opinion in the NetChoice cases, far more than Gonzalez v. Google, has the potential to upend the laissez-faire approach that courts have applied since the internet’s infancy. The NetChoice cases are about more than just liability in lawsuits; they will require the Supreme Court to decide whether online platforms have a First Amendment right to moderate user content.

No court had ever before allowed the government to force websites to publish speech. “If allowed to stand, the Fifth Circuit’s opinion will upend settled First Amendment jurisprudence and threaten to transform speech on the internet as we know it today,” NetChoice wrote.

Platforms should be free of any direct or indirect government restrictions on their ability to distribute constitutionally protected user-generated content, even if that content is distasteful or objectionable. But the platforms also should have the flexibility to set their own policies, free of government coercion, and create the environments they believe are best suited to their users. The free market—and not the government—should reward or punish these business decisions.

The outcome of the cases could reach far beyond content moderation disputes. NetChoice repeatedly relies on a 1997 Supreme Court decision, Reno v. ACLU, to argue that the Florida and Texas laws are unconstitutional. In Reno, the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that restricted the online transmission of indecent images. The federal government had argued that just as the government can restrict television stations from broadcasting indecent content, it also could limit such material on the nascent internet. But the Supreme Court disagreed. The internet, the Court wrote, is “a unique and wholly new medium of worldwide human communication.”

This conclusion led the justices to rule that the internet is not like broadcasting, and deserves the full scope of First Amendment protections. “As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it,” the Court wrote. “The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.”

But that was more than a quarter-century ago, when online platforms were not as central to everyday life and business. Big Tech back then was Prodigy, CompuServe, and AOL. The Supreme Court could use the NetChoice cases to rethink—and possibly limit—the hands-off approach to the internet that it articulated in Reno. Texas, for instance, argues that platforms should receive the less rigorous First Amendment protections that are afforded to cable companies.

8 Best Robot Vacuums (2023): Mops, Budget Vacs, Great Mapping

8 Best Robot Vacuums (2023): Mops, Budget Vacs, Great Mapping

No other product I’ve tested has advanced as quickly as the humble robot vacuum. Just a few short years ago, they were mostly annoying, overpriced devices that fell off steps and got stuck on rugs. Now you can find robot vacs at every price point with an incredible array of features, including mapping capabilities, self-emptying bins, and even cameras.

Vacuuming an ever-changing household is a complex task, and no robot vacuum is perfect. However, I test them in one of the most challenging environments possible—a carpeted, two-story family home with messy kids and a shedding dog—and personally, I find them indispensable. Whether you’re choking on cat hair, need to lighten your chore load, or just want to spend more time with your family, we have a pick that will help.

Looking for more cleaning solutions? Check out our Best Dyson Vacuums, Best Cordless Vacuums, and Best Air Purifiers guide for more.

Updated August 2023: We added the Eufy X9 Pro, TP-Link Tapo RV 10 Plus, and iRobot Roomba Combo j7+.

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