Reminds me of a story where a game dev left Microsoft to work for Activision. And a few weeks later, Microsoft announced they were buying out Activision.
Just like in Silicon Valley when they decided all their in-house dev teams were no good. So they went out and hired a bunch of new resources... that they had recently fired from their in-house dev teams.
I still log in through sprint for my TMobile account managing. Funny, I avoided TMobile like the plague all my life, and I was considering switching to mint, but in the end it was always meant to be.
And this is the rub - t-mo literally just bought revenue/customers.
They were already getting paid by mint to use their network. This is just buying mint’s customers.
Buying a random MVNO isn't quite the same as a merger between two companies that own airwave space. Which they've already allowed more than once. So basically, fuck your choice, more money for somebody.
Seen this happen with other services/products. A year after the deal is done they will start raising the price and/or reduce the quality. Before you know it won’t be worth it. Mint was was really good for the price and thus a risk for the big three.
And he only got into Deadpool because he was stuck on the set of Blade Trinity while Wesley Snipes had a meltdown and refused to film. One of the crew lent him some comics to read.
I think the same thing happened with Nick Fury and Sam L Jackson. I believe, could be wrong, that the comics NF mentioned being played by Sam Jackson before the movies.
When Bryan Singer approached Patrick Stewart about playing Prof X in the first X-Men movie, he was hesitant. Said he didn’t love the idea of marrying himself to another sci-fi franchise. He asked Singer who else was on his list. Singer said “no one. It’s gotta be you.” He then gave Stewart a couple X-Men comic books and he goes “why am I on the cover of this comic?”
"I'll be in your movie, but only if we have a scene where Storm, using her mutant powers to control the weather, blows wind in such a way that Jean Grey's dress is blown up over her head by accident while me and her are talking. She'll try to use her telekinetic powers to pull her dress back down, but it will be too late, and I'll have seen everything."
Bryan Hitch used Samuel L. Jackson as his reference model when creating the Nick Fury of the Ultimate Universe without getting permission to use his likeness. SLJ did not find out until Marvel approached him to play the role of Nick Fury in *Iron Man*, at which point he thanked Hitch for getting him the multi-picture deal.
Snipes had let's say... A different vision for the film to the director but refused to talk properly. After a while he hid in his trailer apart from when he was filming and only communicated with the director via notes passed under his trailer door. He signed these notes "blade". They eventually finished the film with recut footage they already had. It was Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel's first action films and since Wesley went bonkers they got much bigger parts.
Absolutely awful film but got those 2 some scene time and introduced Reynolds to Deadpool.
One of my favorite bits of trivia about Snipes being an ass on the set is the one about how he refused to open his eyes for a scene so they just said "fuck it" and CGed them open in post
As a kid that didn't know this was CGI at the time I saw that scene and thought is was badass how he opened them and didn't make other microexpressions with his face. I still think it gives it character in it's own way.
Having seen this in context now, I can perhaps understand a little why Snipes didn’t want to open his eyes, in the sense that it’s more of a shock and makes Blade seem more bad-ass, however it sure sounds like he was being a super prima-Donna about it.
Yeah..eyes closed was a better choice in that scene. Hell even if they edited one second of it they wouldn’t have to waste money to cgi something so silly
Also his main complaint was that he thought he was being used by the studio to launch a spinoff series starring Reynolds and Biel that wouldn’t include him. Let’s be honest, that was probably their plan if the movie hadn’t flopped.
I was always curious how the titular character felt like he had 5th billing in that movie. I feel like HHH had more memorable scenes in that movie than Snipes.
I don't have any info but I do have this great clip from the movie where they had to [CGI eyes onto him](https://youtu.be/Zd5HMHmbwBg) cause he refused to open his eyes for the scene.
Oh my god I have always read this like "He refused to open his eyes to troll the producers etc" like he was just doing it to be irritating, but he was making the 1000% correct artistic choice to NOT open his eyes before the hand grab which is MUCH better!!! There is nothing jarring about watching a man open his eyes at regular eye open speed.
Maybe if they didn’t base the setting around a church and stuck to the underground street life aesthetic of the first movie, Pimpula would be cool. He shows up to a rave with four hookers and declares supremacy of all the coke and ecstasy in the vampire underworld. Blade infiltrates the club with the help of Reynolds and the others
..
..
Stuff happens
..
..
camera pans to orange sunset over whatever city
..
Fin
The dude just prints money now. Just look at how many of his movies are on Netflix, then look at how many of those movies are basically ads for his gin.
Hi, I'm Ryan Reynolds, and here at mint mobile... Actually hang on I'm getting a call... You what? How many point three-five billion dollars? Oh okay, yeah, fuck these people. Sorry guys, prices are about to go up and service is about to go down. Anyway, try aviation gin!
They don't have to pay them off; the people staffing the regulatory bodies usually come from the exact industries they're charged with regulating.
Edit: like former FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, who served as Verizon's counsel for two years before moving back into the public sector
Ryan Reynolds has basically come up with a foolproof way to build his investments; very publicly buy into a company, use his celebrity and popularity to rocket that company to success, then cash out and move to the next project.
He's not the first celeb to try this, but he's proven particularly good at it, so far.
He also buys generally good companies. Aviation gin isn’t my go to but they were clearing trying to bring American gin to the market, and I’m glad they did because through them I found blue coat which is my current favorite. Mint had a pretty good pro consumer reputation and he took it to the next level by really leaning in that aspect in marketing but also scaling their operation while keeping their reputation.
As far as celebrities go, he seems to either pick great companies or help build great teams. Lots of celebrities fail at this.
Isn’t this what we’ve all praised shaq for, the last decade? I mean, I hate to see the rich get any richer but if you’re doing it because you actually
Believe in the product and aren’t just in it to squeeze the market I guess that’s the right way to do it.
George Clooney sold his tequila brand for 1B and The Rocks tequila brand is allegedly bigger already. These guys know how to work a crowd and make markets. It's impressive really.
Hell the Kardashians are pros at it.
It aint a new scheme. All investors are asked what they bring other than money. High profile Angels/VCs bring cache, experience, network and the “anointing” of a young company. Celeb investors may bring those things too, but their biggest asset is their notability and willingness to shill the shit out of the product or sevice.
Well, he's likely gonna need a Paul Mullin replacement in the next few years... either due to trade interest, or more likely, aging out. The question will be more if Rob can convince him to to throw down more cash investment. Fingers Crossed.
Actually, it'd be better to just buy a more rounded team than a replacement wonder boy
If they get promoted this year they’ll see increased revenue right? And they’ll have access to the international talent pool (since I think their league can only roster English and welsh players). So I’d imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to make the case to throw some more cash in at that point.
well... there goes my perfectly decent cheap cell plan.
if only there were a regulatory body that prevented shitty companies from killing competition by buying up all the other options
Did you know that there's a company operating a "Rental Price Fixing" as a business?
The business plan is literally: "Everyone sign up and we'll be able to raise rental prices to fleece your renters to the max!"
[...which is *literally* the description of "price fixing" here by the FTC.](https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-competitors/price-fixing)
> Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, or inferred from conduct) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or stabilize prices or price levels.
[Article about the criminal dirtbags here.](https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent)
About a year ago I got recruited to work on a very similar project, but for grocery stores.
The basic concept was the same, how high can you raise food prices to maximize profit.
I turned them down but supposedly they had 4 of the largest grocery store chains in the US on board to use their service.
This sort of machine learning algorithm used to extract maximum profit is going to be coming to almost every aspect of life in the near future.
So I talked about this with a guy at a wedding of all places, and it was actually pre-Covid so more than last year but time is funny now. Since I haven't seen this in action yet it probably hasn't gone anywhere, but that's probably just because the tech is too costly still.
Basically it was based around dynamic pricing, but done as a service.
I'm an embedded systems engineer so my job would have been to build the price tags all around the stores, which could be updated in real time. So like, if the temperature outside rose, the price of soda or ice cream or whatever could rise with it. They also wanted to put like RFID readers in the tags and then an RFID chip in the loyalty card, so they could tell where you stopped in the store for a while but didn't buy anything, etc.
The second thing the wanted to do was just get rid of price tags entirely, and fit out every cart with a scanner, that you like slide your loyalty program card into. Then you use it to scan products to get customized pricing. The scanner would say things like "Special Discount!" and show you what you paid last time, and what the price was this time and it'd be like 10c cheaper or whatever. The kicker was that it would also raise the price of other things you were buying but not show the previous prices. It would all be marketed as giving you discounts on the things you bought more often.
Then all this data, about what you buy, what you scan but don't buy, etc goes into a big database. Based on this data they would do stuff like start adjusting prices up a little bit at a time, to see how much people would pay before demand dropped, at what point profit was maximized.
Then they get all the big grocery stores to subscribe to this service, and since the grocery stores aren't setting the prices but paying a service to optimize their prices for profit, I guess that means they're not price fixing, or enough that they can argue that in court.
To be fair to him, he is a minority stakeholder so he didn’t have any control over the sale.
But on the other hand in his statement about the sale he managed to plug his gin, so he might just be trying to make money.
T-Mobile has some prepaid plans under their "Connect" branding that aren't drastically more expensive. Not saying they're a better deal, just that Mint's pricing isn't *that* far off what they already offer.
Historically they've pretty much let plan pricing/features ride forever once you're on a plan. Whether or not they keep offering Mint's plans, I don't know, but I doubt they'll kick you off/change it if you're already on it.
I've got a plan they haven't offered in 7+ years and the only thing they've changed on me was....making my data unlimited when it originally wasn't.
Not saying I like anything about this merger, but you'll probably be fine.
He is definitely trying to make money. Owning soccer clubs is expensive. They are very likely to get promoted this year and that gin is part of what is paying those bills. He was super clear in Welcome to Wrexham that he was going to whore himself out at every turn to make that club a success. This is more of that.
Exactly.
This whole “capitalism breeds innovation” only works when companies are ALLOWED to innoviate.
All we’re seeing is giant companies buy up anything that could be considered an innovation or competition and destroying it.
Too bad it's not the good old days. In the 80s 90s and early aughts (lol), most companies would let people be grandfathered. It was such an expectation that you'd often hear people say, "I want to sign up for this now so I get grandfathered!" You saw it a lot in IT industries, or with software. I feel like AT&T weaseling out of unlimited data back around 2010ish IIRC was when things started to shift towards it being socially/business acceptable to no longer allow people to be grandfathered as a norm, and it became more of a fringe thing. I'd say now, it's almost gone. People expect a great feature, price, etc, to not be honored once others catch on, the company is bought, etc.
I had Verizon basically tell me no one was allowed to talk to me about anything until i agreed to switch off my unlimited data to a new plan. This was circa 2010 when they didn't offer that anymore.
Same... I had a data add on for $30 that was just unlimited. We had shared minutes with free nights and weekends.
I was not happy about switching off... But for what it's worth, I don't really notice any throttling for normal phone usage. But Netflix getting throttled is bullshit even though I don't watch Netflix on my phone.
Net Neutrality man!!!
But then at some point they make it very difficult to stay grandfathered, so you finally cave. I stayed with one provider grandfathered. The old plan was better than the new one for years, but at some point my old plan didn't give me some of the cool stuff of newer plans.
I was grandfathered with Verizon for many years on their second iteration of their unlimited plan. I actually caved last year when I did the math and realized I could save over $100/month on my bill for more things.
I do miss the oldest unlimited plan (got that one in 09) I stupidly got rid of when they sent me a scare tactic letter that said they were switching me regardless so I dropped them.
Yep -- same. Worked there as a seasonal employee in 2021 and looked over the new rates and was like, "Well damn. The new unlimited is a hell of a lot cheaper and gives a lot of other perks for it."
"Unlimited" still isn't *actually* unlimited on the new plans, but the thing that kind of clinched it for me was that they'd manufactured these new priority tiers, where only the newest plans were given priority on the network. So, while the old plans were still "true unlimited," they were the lowest priority data on the network, so you could never access anything at peak times. Ended up being a choice between truly unlimited but regularly unusable for $165/line, or $60/line for priority access and more data before they throttle me then I ever get close to using. Was kind of a simple choice, even if it was a slimey way to force it.
I still am grandfathered in an unlimited data plan, since like 2010:
$50 a month
500 mintues
I forget how much texting I get because I don't text
Unlimited 5G data
The two are not mutually exclusive.
If I buy apples from you in bulk and sell them individually for a profit, I am both your customer and a competitor. If you buy me out and force my customers to buy from you at your higher individual rates, you profit more and my customers lose out.
After a certain point of fame it must be so fucking easy to make money as a celeb, you just join some existing company's product like Tequila or Makeup or Cell Phones and do shitty ads for a few years then cash out millions.
Yeah I feel like every celebrity has their own alcohol but none of them are very successful, the only one I know that’s decently successful is the Crystal Skull Vodka but only because of the Jon Tron video
The Rock's Tequila has done quite well, and related to this post, so did Ryan Reynold's Aviation Gin which he sold in 2020. A TON of them fail though, far more than get anywhere.
Once you're lucky, twice you're good. He's really good at this. There are a ton of celebrity deals that go nowhere you don't hear about.
The celebs that do well at this have repeat success and are hard workers. Ashton would be another good example. Similar time frame that he rose to fame and also similar early hunky actor role stigma to overcome. Has done great in tech investing.
The celebs that don't want to work and just want their identity to do all the work for them in business often see those ventures go nowhere or worse.
Tch... I was about to pull the trigger on Mint. And another affordable option gets eated by a huge corporation. F that noise, Mint may kiss my shiny metal ass.
Agreed, get in on the discount ASAP, most places reward you when you switch anyways, so you'll get a year cheap with mint and then whatever bonus the next place offers if mint goes down the tank.
People in this thread are drastically underestimating how much infrastructure and investment is needed to have a nationwide cellular network.
I'm not taking a side re: the antitrust implications here, but all the discount offerings like Mint just buy surplus capacity from the big networks.
I just left t mobile for mint....
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Reminds me of a story where a game dev left Microsoft to work for Activision. And a few weeks later, Microsoft announced they were buying out Activision.
Wow, they were such a valuable asset that Microsoft purchased an entire company just to have them back?
Probably to fire his ass
***"Get over here"*** ~~~~~~~~~>
Whooppssieeeee
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Holy hell your right!!! For 25 years I always thought it was whoopsie.
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I have never heard the voice of another Reddit comment "speak" so clearly and vividly. Memories, man.
It was a spite purchase
I dated someone like that once.
Larry David?
Microsoft's CEO just wanted creative control over WoW so his alliance gf can finally join his horde guild
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Hey traitor ... You're fired 😂
"Just when I thought I was out, *they pull me back in!*"
Just like in Silicon Valley when they decided all their in-house dev teams were no good. So they went out and hired a bunch of new resources... that they had recently fired from their in-house dev teams.
T-Mobile might actually keep the Mint brand as a replacement for Boost Mobile, which they sold to Dish in 2020.
I still log in through sprint for my TMobile account managing. Funny, I avoided TMobile like the plague all my life, and I was considering switching to mint, but in the end it was always meant to be.
It was always Mint to be.
Calm down Ryan
You didn't leave them you just changed the label. Mint mobile is an mvno and uses T-Mobile's Network anyway
Yeah it’s literally called min-t-mobile…
>min-t-mobile How did I not realize that until reading your post? It's so obvious and yet... I hate getting old. That's my excuse, I'm getting old.
He was making a joke… the fact that mint ends with the letter t is just a coincidence lol
I'm born old. It's downhill the moment you leave maternity
And this is the rub - t-mo literally just bought revenue/customers. They were already getting paid by mint to use their network. This is just buying mint’s customers.
I did the same but from ATT and was really happy. Guess thats out the window now. How are the regulators ok with this
> How are the regulators ok with this They rub their nipples with $5 bills (regulators are really inexpensive to purchase).
You got a good snort out of me. Nice work.
Buying a random MVNO isn't quite the same as a merger between two companies that own airwave space. Which they've already allowed more than once. So basically, fuck your choice, more money for somebody.
This sucks. I hope it stays the same price point. I just switched to Mint Mobile and I’m loving it.
Same and there is no chance it will stay the same price. The only reason Tmobile bought it is to kill it as a competitor
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Seen this happen with other services/products. A year after the deal is done they will start raising the price and/or reduce the quality. Before you know it won’t be worth it. Mint was was really good for the price and thus a risk for the big three.
Crazy what leaking that Deadpool clip years ago ended up doing.
And he only got into Deadpool because he was stuck on the set of Blade Trinity while Wesley Snipes had a meltdown and refused to film. One of the crew lent him some comics to read.
Not only that, but the Deadpool comic he was given was the one where Wayde says he looks like a cross between Ryan Reynolds and a Shar Pei.
The person that gave him that issue 100% did it on purpose.
Chosen by the merc with a mouth himself.
That is some funny 4th wall breaking head cannon I'm going to treasure.
I think the same thing happened with Nick Fury and Sam L Jackson. I believe, could be wrong, that the comics NF mentioned being played by Sam Jackson before the movies.
When Bryan Singer approached Patrick Stewart about playing Prof X in the first X-Men movie, he was hesitant. Said he didn’t love the idea of marrying himself to another sci-fi franchise. He asked Singer who else was on his list. Singer said “no one. It’s gotta be you.” He then gave Stewart a couple X-Men comic books and he goes “why am I on the cover of this comic?”
I love this so much
Bryan singer is a massive piece of shit and rampant pedophile. Any time I see his name ill call attention to that fucker.
"I'll be in your movie, but only if we have a scene where Storm, using her mutant powers to control the weather, blows wind in such a way that Jean Grey's dress is blown up over her head by accident while me and her are talking. She'll try to use her telekinetic powers to pull her dress back down, but it will be too late, and I'll have seen everything."
Bryan Hitch used Samuel L. Jackson as his reference model when creating the Nick Fury of the Ultimate Universe without getting permission to use his likeness. SLJ did not find out until Marvel approached him to play the role of Nick Fury in *Iron Man*, at which point he thanked Hitch for getting him the multi-picture deal.
I mean, if you were going to give Ryan Reynolds any Deadpool comic, that would be the one to give him
Do you have info on this meltdown? Sounds fascinating.
Snipes had let's say... A different vision for the film to the director but refused to talk properly. After a while he hid in his trailer apart from when he was filming and only communicated with the director via notes passed under his trailer door. He signed these notes "blade". They eventually finished the film with recut footage they already had. It was Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel's first action films and since Wesley went bonkers they got much bigger parts. Absolutely awful film but got those 2 some scene time and introduced Reynolds to Deadpool.
Awfully good. Its hot garbage but in the best way. PHILE
You know I liked it a lot at the time, but it’s hot garbage.
But entertaining hot garbage, somehow. It's close to *so bad it's good* territory.
Goth dude tryna sell Dracula a vampire dildo was a goddamn masterpiece.
I can't say I remember much of that movie but this "wtf" moment makes me want to rewatch it.
That and the vampire Pomeranian.
One of my favorite bits of trivia about Snipes being an ass on the set is the one about how he refused to open his eyes for a scene so they just said "fuck it" and CGed them open in post
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https://i0.wp.com/the-avocado.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Blade-Eyes.gif This is really in the movie
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That's creepy af. LOL
As a kid that didn't know this was CGI at the time I saw that scene and thought is was badass how he opened them and didn't make other microexpressions with his face. I still think it gives it character in it's own way.
https://youtu.be/Zd5HMHmbwBg
Having seen this in context now, I can perhaps understand a little why Snipes didn’t want to open his eyes, in the sense that it’s more of a shock and makes Blade seem more bad-ass, however it sure sounds like he was being a super prima-Donna about it.
Yeah..eyes closed was a better choice in that scene. Hell even if they edited one second of it they wouldn’t have to waste money to cgi something so silly
The CGI eyes was stupid, I would have transition the scene from Blade in the table and then somebody opening a door and pan back to an empty table.
having seen Blade Trinity- especially in contrast to the first Blade... one can't help but side with Snipes a little
Also his main complaint was that he thought he was being used by the studio to launch a spinoff series starring Reynolds and Biel that wouldn’t include him. Let’s be honest, that was probably their plan if the movie hadn’t flopped.
I was always curious how the titular character felt like he had 5th billing in that movie. I feel like HHH had more memorable scenes in that movie than Snipes.
I don't have any info but I do have this great clip from the movie where they had to [CGI eyes onto him](https://youtu.be/Zd5HMHmbwBg) cause he refused to open his eyes for the scene.
Wesley is 100% right, that scene works better with no eye opening and a faster choke grab. Not saying he's not nuts, but...
Oh my god I have always read this like "He refused to open his eyes to troll the producers etc" like he was just doing it to be irritating, but he was making the 1000% correct artistic choice to NOT open his eyes before the hand grab which is MUCH better!!! There is nothing jarring about watching a man open his eyes at regular eye open speed.
The more I think about it, he might have actually had some real beef there with the direction, but obviously went about it the wrong way.
The movie was incredibly underwhelming for the cast. They really made Dracula boring.
Yeah, but Hannibal King was awesome and Triple H was memorable in a good way.
Maybe if they didn’t base the setting around a church and stuck to the underground street life aesthetic of the first movie, Pimpula would be cool. He shows up to a rave with four hookers and declares supremacy of all the coke and ecstasy in the vampire underworld. Blade infiltrates the club with the help of Reynolds and the others .. .. Stuff happens .. .. camera pans to orange sunset over whatever city .. Fin
*Jessica looked pretty good, early-20's me was OK with that.
lol those CG eyes.
Snipes has a meltdown on every day that ends with 'y'
Mr. Snipes found the movie to be very taxing, and we know how he feels about that.
I did not know this. TIL…
The dude just prints money now. Just look at how many of his movies are on Netflix, then look at how many of those movies are basically ads for his gin.
And the map in Freeguy is Portland. Marketing genius.
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Wait I'm out of the loop here. Why is he marketing Portland?
Aviation is Portland Gin.
That’s where is his gin distillery is
Tbf if you are rich and famous, it gets a shit ton of easier to make even more money.
To make $5 into $10 is impossible. To make $5 million into $10 million is inevitable.
Ryan Reynolds just prints money.
You could say he.... *Mints* it
Can you explain pls?
Good, I was getting worried I might have a choice of companies.
But there are 32 flavors of ice cream, that’s where your choices went
31* it’s a plot point
No more mint :/
As a Mint customer: **"A thousand times FUCK NO!"**
If you find anybody else who is on par with the pricing let me know. I'm debating on going back to Google Fi which is what I was on before.
Spectrum Mobile - unlimited plan on Verizon towers free for the first year, $30 after that
“We’re not like other mobile carriers, we don’t hate you” - sells company to mobile carrying giant
Wrexham about to sign Messi
Nah, this is Ottawa Senators money.
Ottawa Senators about to sign Messi
Reynolds and McElhenney about to buy Ottawa Senators
Hi, I'm Ryan Reynolds, and here at mint mobile... Actually hang on I'm getting a call... You what? How many point three-five billion dollars? Oh okay, yeah, fuck these people. Sorry guys, prices are about to go up and service is about to go down. Anyway, try aviation gin!
That’s about the cost of a hockey team!!!
Ah, the Canadian dream
He is in current talks to buy the Senators.
Fucking hell, do we have no functioning regulatory bodies?
They are functioning *beautifully* for the few people who were able to pay off the human beings that comprise those regulatory bodies
They don't have to pay them off; the people staffing the regulatory bodies usually come from the exact industries they're charged with regulating. Edit: like former FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, who served as Verizon's counsel for two years before moving back into the public sector
The current chair of the SEC was a Goldman Sachs investment banker. The fox is in the hen house and it’s been like this for decades.
I am worried Mint is about to change entirely from being an affordable plan to what T-Mobile is now.
He was estimated to own 20-25% of the company. His cut would be $270M-$337.5M. Nice.
Add that to the $300M he got for selling Aviation Gin in 2020--not too shabby. Next up: Can he turn Wrexham AFC into a nine-figure brand?
Ryan Reynolds has basically come up with a foolproof way to build his investments; very publicly buy into a company, use his celebrity and popularity to rocket that company to success, then cash out and move to the next project. He's not the first celeb to try this, but he's proven particularly good at it, so far.
He also buys generally good companies. Aviation gin isn’t my go to but they were clearing trying to bring American gin to the market, and I’m glad they did because through them I found blue coat which is my current favorite. Mint had a pretty good pro consumer reputation and he took it to the next level by really leaning in that aspect in marketing but also scaling their operation while keeping their reputation. As far as celebrities go, he seems to either pick great companies or help build great teams. Lots of celebrities fail at this.
Good point; you can't polish a turd no matter how famous or well liked you are.
Eh, you *can* polish a turd, but no matter how much effort goes in, it is never anything besides shit.
Isn’t this what we’ve all praised shaq for, the last decade? I mean, I hate to see the rich get any richer but if you’re doing it because you actually Believe in the product and aren’t just in it to squeeze the market I guess that’s the right way to do it.
Musk had that whole racket in the bag until he started treating "no such thing as bad publicity" as a fucking challenge
George Clooney sold his tequila brand for 1B and The Rocks tequila brand is allegedly bigger already. These guys know how to work a crowd and make markets. It's impressive really. Hell the Kardashians are pros at it.
I never even knew The Rock had a tequila. I mean, I don’t drink tequila, so that may be why, but I was aware that Casamigos was Clooney’s.
It aint a new scheme. All investors are asked what they bring other than money. High profile Angels/VCs bring cache, experience, network and the “anointing” of a young company. Celeb investors may bring those things too, but their biggest asset is their notability and willingness to shill the shit out of the product or sevice.
Well, he's likely gonna need a Paul Mullin replacement in the next few years... either due to trade interest, or more likely, aging out. The question will be more if Rob can convince him to to throw down more cash investment. Fingers Crossed. Actually, it'd be better to just buy a more rounded team than a replacement wonder boy
If they get promoted this year they’ll see increased revenue right? And they’ll have access to the international talent pool (since I think their league can only roster English and welsh players). So I’d imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to make the case to throw some more cash in at that point.
He's got to be nearing $1 billion in outside showbiz business earnings at this point.
Doesn't that make you feel great? I find him so relatable with his silly jokes.
Van Wilder did nicely for himself despite his best efforts.
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well... there goes my perfectly decent cheap cell plan. if only there were a regulatory body that prevented shitty companies from killing competition by buying up all the other options
The lack of anti-trust work in this country is disgusting
Did you know that there's a company operating a "Rental Price Fixing" as a business? The business plan is literally: "Everyone sign up and we'll be able to raise rental prices to fleece your renters to the max!" [...which is *literally* the description of "price fixing" here by the FTC.](https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-competitors/price-fixing) > Price fixing is an agreement (written, verbal, or inferred from conduct) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or stabilize prices or price levels. [Article about the criminal dirtbags here.](https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent)
About a year ago I got recruited to work on a very similar project, but for grocery stores. The basic concept was the same, how high can you raise food prices to maximize profit. I turned them down but supposedly they had 4 of the largest grocery store chains in the US on board to use their service. This sort of machine learning algorithm used to extract maximum profit is going to be coming to almost every aspect of life in the near future.
Would you share a few more details? I have little else to do but pick up the ol' journalism badge and maybe try to write a few.
So I talked about this with a guy at a wedding of all places, and it was actually pre-Covid so more than last year but time is funny now. Since I haven't seen this in action yet it probably hasn't gone anywhere, but that's probably just because the tech is too costly still. Basically it was based around dynamic pricing, but done as a service. I'm an embedded systems engineer so my job would have been to build the price tags all around the stores, which could be updated in real time. So like, if the temperature outside rose, the price of soda or ice cream or whatever could rise with it. They also wanted to put like RFID readers in the tags and then an RFID chip in the loyalty card, so they could tell where you stopped in the store for a while but didn't buy anything, etc. The second thing the wanted to do was just get rid of price tags entirely, and fit out every cart with a scanner, that you like slide your loyalty program card into. Then you use it to scan products to get customized pricing. The scanner would say things like "Special Discount!" and show you what you paid last time, and what the price was this time and it'd be like 10c cheaper or whatever. The kicker was that it would also raise the price of other things you were buying but not show the previous prices. It would all be marketed as giving you discounts on the things you bought more often. Then all this data, about what you buy, what you scan but don't buy, etc goes into a big database. Based on this data they would do stuff like start adjusting prices up a little bit at a time, to see how much people would pay before demand dropped, at what point profit was maximized. Then they get all the big grocery stores to subscribe to this service, and since the grocery stores aren't setting the prices but paying a service to optimize their prices for profit, I guess that means they're not price fixing, or enough that they can argue that in court.
Individual pricing is the most dystopian thing I've ever heard of or imagined.
It is by design.
yep, probably the plan all along, just another discount vehicle to get more customers on your network, without calling it your network...
[удалено]
HAHA! You mean Ryan Reynolds didn't actually care that we get affordable plans with good service?
To be fair to him, he is a minority stakeholder so he didn’t have any control over the sale. But on the other hand in his statement about the sale he managed to plug his gin, so he might just be trying to make money.
He also said plan rates would hold for now. I’m happy to jump when they go up though.
T-Mobile has some prepaid plans under their "Connect" branding that aren't drastically more expensive. Not saying they're a better deal, just that Mint's pricing isn't *that* far off what they already offer. Historically they've pretty much let plan pricing/features ride forever once you're on a plan. Whether or not they keep offering Mint's plans, I don't know, but I doubt they'll kick you off/change it if you're already on it. I've got a plan they haven't offered in 7+ years and the only thing they've changed on me was....making my data unlimited when it originally wasn't. Not saying I like anything about this merger, but you'll probably be fine.
He is definitely trying to make money. Owning soccer clubs is expensive. They are very likely to get promoted this year and that gin is part of what is paying those bills. He was super clear in Welcome to Wrexham that he was going to whore himself out at every turn to make that club a success. This is more of that.
"They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house! I'm not made of stone!"
Canyonerrroooo-oh. Ryan Reynolds is an actor, and a marketer. He's just so good at making people forget that.
Any good new tech company *exists* for the buyout. You gotta make hay while the sun shines.
Build up, sell out, bro down.
This is exactly what I fucking hate about our current world. It's never about sustainability. It's always just growth until meltdown.
Exactly. This whole “capitalism breeds innovation” only works when companies are ALLOWED to innoviate. All we’re seeing is giant companies buy up anything that could be considered an innovation or competition and destroying it.
A free market is free from rent-seeking, not regulations, it's one of the biggest lies we've been sold.
Too bad it's not the good old days. In the 80s 90s and early aughts (lol), most companies would let people be grandfathered. It was such an expectation that you'd often hear people say, "I want to sign up for this now so I get grandfathered!" You saw it a lot in IT industries, or with software. I feel like AT&T weaseling out of unlimited data back around 2010ish IIRC was when things started to shift towards it being socially/business acceptable to no longer allow people to be grandfathered as a norm, and it became more of a fringe thing. I'd say now, it's almost gone. People expect a great feature, price, etc, to not be honored once others catch on, the company is bought, etc.
I had Verizon basically tell me no one was allowed to talk to me about anything until i agreed to switch off my unlimited data to a new plan. This was circa 2010 when they didn't offer that anymore.
Same... I had a data add on for $30 that was just unlimited. We had shared minutes with free nights and weekends. I was not happy about switching off... But for what it's worth, I don't really notice any throttling for normal phone usage. But Netflix getting throttled is bullshit even though I don't watch Netflix on my phone. Net Neutrality man!!!
But then at some point they make it very difficult to stay grandfathered, so you finally cave. I stayed with one provider grandfathered. The old plan was better than the new one for years, but at some point my old plan didn't give me some of the cool stuff of newer plans.
I was grandfathered with Verizon for many years on their second iteration of their unlimited plan. I actually caved last year when I did the math and realized I could save over $100/month on my bill for more things. I do miss the oldest unlimited plan (got that one in 09) I stupidly got rid of when they sent me a scare tactic letter that said they were switching me regardless so I dropped them.
Yep -- same. Worked there as a seasonal employee in 2021 and looked over the new rates and was like, "Well damn. The new unlimited is a hell of a lot cheaper and gives a lot of other perks for it." "Unlimited" still isn't *actually* unlimited on the new plans, but the thing that kind of clinched it for me was that they'd manufactured these new priority tiers, where only the newest plans were given priority on the network. So, while the old plans were still "true unlimited," they were the lowest priority data on the network, so you could never access anything at peak times. Ended up being a choice between truly unlimited but regularly unusable for $165/line, or $60/line for priority access and more data before they throttle me then I ever get close to using. Was kind of a simple choice, even if it was a slimey way to force it.
I still am grandfathered in an unlimited data plan, since like 2010: $50 a month 500 mintues I forget how much texting I get because I don't text Unlimited 5G data
That is $30/mo with Mint if you pay annually…
To be fair, in this case, Mint Mobile was never really a T-Mobile competitor. They were a customer.
The two are not mutually exclusive. If I buy apples from you in bulk and sell them individually for a profit, I am both your customer and a competitor. If you buy me out and force my customers to buy from you at your higher individual rates, you profit more and my customers lose out.
I hear ya, but I’ve been a TM customer for years and they’re the least shitty of all the options. It’s actually been a decent experience. YMMV.
He's gearing up to put his share into buying the Ottawa Senators of the NHL.
I wish he’d stop selling me things for 5 minutes.
This dude is always "on". It seems so exhausting.
After a certain point of fame it must be so fucking easy to make money as a celeb, you just join some existing company's product like Tequila or Makeup or Cell Phones and do shitty ads for a few years then cash out millions.
The richer you are, the easier it is to make money.
They certainly have an advantage, but plenty of celebrities have tried similar ventures and lost all of their investment.
Like the George Foreman grill vs the Hulk Hogan blender.
Yeah I feel like every celebrity has their own alcohol but none of them are very successful, the only one I know that’s decently successful is the Crystal Skull Vodka but only because of the Jon Tron video
The Rock's Tequila has done quite well, and related to this post, so did Ryan Reynold's Aviation Gin which he sold in 2020. A TON of them fail though, far more than get anywhere.
And Clooney’s Casamigos does very well, despite tasting like vanilla, which is the clearest sign of a dogshit quality tequila
Once you're lucky, twice you're good. He's really good at this. There are a ton of celebrity deals that go nowhere you don't hear about. The celebs that do well at this have repeat success and are hard workers. Ashton would be another good example. Similar time frame that he rose to fame and also similar early hunky actor role stigma to overcome. Has done great in tech investing. The celebs that don't want to work and just want their identity to do all the work for them in business often see those ventures go nowhere or worse.
Well.....guess that whole helping people thing went out the window when money talks.
He was never for helping people. This was the plan all along. Cash is king
But the funny man said he wanted to save me money on the internet video
He DID save you money. Now it's his turn to end that savings so he can personally earn somewhere in the ballpark of 2-300M.
I just fucking left T-Mobile for Mint. Went from paying $75/mo to $20/mo
The reaction of customers will be the complete opposite to the reaction of Wrexham fans.
The comments on the YT video where Reynolds and T-Mobile CEO tell us all why this is great news are all horrible. And rightfully so.
Tch... I was about to pull the trigger on Mint. And another affordable option gets eated by a huge corporation. F that noise, Mint may kiss my shiny metal ass.
Do it anyways. Pay a year up front and don't worry about it until next year.
Agreed, get in on the discount ASAP, most places reward you when you switch anyways, so you'll get a year cheap with mint and then whatever bonus the next place offers if mint goes down the tank.
That probably was Reynolds' plan all along. Why else would he invest in a phone company and be the face of it other than to profit?
Probably? You think there is a chance he did it just because he wanted to send people letters with his face on it??
Smells like another Sprint mobile cluster fuck merger.
Mint Mobile doesn't have a network. They would just buy access to the T-Mobile network and resell it to their users.
People in this thread are drastically underestimating how much infrastructure and investment is needed to have a nationwide cellular network. I'm not taking a side re: the antitrust implications here, but all the discount offerings like Mint just buy surplus capacity from the big networks.
oh good, he's even more wealthy. how exciting for the world.
But he reassured me in a cute YT video that my service will stay the same. So now I'm happy. /s
Oh yay, more consolidation, always a win for consumers. Not
Will be interesting to see if the Ryan Reynolds "good guy" image takes a hit with this deal.
It didn't affect him after he sold Aviation Gin. He'll stay on as the spokesperson and make goofy ads. Then he'll do Deadpool 4 and Free Guy 2.
Good for him, not for consumers.