1) In this labyrinth where night is blind, the “Phantom of the Opera” ledger will blow your freakin’ mind. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom” ended its record-setting 35-year run on Broadway, but not before grossing $1.3B+ in NYC alone (its touring productions worldwide were separate cash cows). An uneven covid recovery thinned the margins for some Broadway shows. For “Phantom,” increased operating costs of $950k/week were unsustainable.
2) It’s hard to complain about a $1.3m compensation package — unless you’re Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, one year removed from a $212.7m haul. As jarring as the drop may seem, this is all according to plan, per Insider. In 2021, Jassy received ~$212m in stock awards, which will vest over 10 years and drive a bulk of his comp over that time. With no further stock in 2022, Backup Bezos was left with his measly $317.5k base salary and $981k in 401(k) contributions and security costs.
3) What’s eating at in-office employees? Not just their commute, but also a lack of, you know, actual eating. Decision intelligence company Morning Consult found 63% of remote workers eat breakfast daily, compared to a 53% morning nosh rate for in-person workers, many of whom eat “on the go.” A further flex from the at-home crowd: lunch. They visit restaurants midday slightly more than their commuting comrades (14% to 11%, respectively).
4) You might feel like you’ve been living in a cave, but Spanish athlete Beatriz Flamini just came out of hers on Friday after 500 days. Flamini was part of an experiment studying how humans fare underground. Flamini — who was ~230 feet below — mostly read, exercised, and knit. “In fact, I didn’t want to come out,” she said.
5) Tomorrow is Tax Day in the US. You may want to grumble, but at least you can take solace in not being a Swedish bitcoin miner? The Nordic nation will abolish tax incentives for data centers this summer, amounting to a “prohibitively expensive” 6,000% tax increase per kilowatt hour of energy. The bitcoin-mining sector, drawn in by massive 2017 tax cuts, hasn’t fueled the job growth Sweden was seeking, and now it may be curtains.
