What Partnerships Signal: Meta + Kylie and A24 + Google Deepmind

Sonia sits down with Lia Napolitano, founder of Our Mutual Friend and former Apple and Oculus designer, to break down Meta's Kylie Jenner glasses partnership, Google DeepMind's $75 million investment in A24, Universal's decision to exclude influencers from The Odyssey screenings, and why a $25,000 golf cart designed by former Apple and Audi designers is selling out. The big thesis: partnerships reveal who you serve and what you're willing to sacrifice to get there.

Meta ended their Ray-Ban partnership and launched Meta Glasses by Kylie Jenner the same day Snapchat announced Robert Downey Jr. as an ambassador. The commercial showed Kylie walking around her house painting her nails and accepting deliveries, but conspicuously avoided showing anything private: her relationship with Timothée Chalamet, her beauty business, her children, her family. By showing the mundane use cases, Meta accidentally highlighted the product's biggest flaw and reignited privacy concerns. The partnership is cosmetic, using a celebrity to obscure the real problem: people don't want to be surveilled by glasses that no longer have a recording light.

Artist Layla Gohar collaborated with Meta on the launch event and her fans were disappointed, saying her beautiful work was being used in service of something deeply troubling. Meanwhile, Kylie's fans didn't care because her brand has never been about moral alignment. The lesson: if you're going to partner with a controversial brand, figure out what you're actually trying to say and own it, or your audience will fill in the blanks for you.

Google DeepMind announced a $75 million investment in A24 and a multi-year R&D partnership to build AI filmmaking tools. Google proudly announced it, while A24 seemed defensive, emphasizing they won't let Google train on their content library. But access to filmmaking workflow, how shots are developed, how stories get greenlit, how editors work, might be worth more to AI than the final films. A24 failed to explain how this benefits artists or audiences, and fans started digging into Thrive Capital's involvement and Jared Kushner's potential board seat. The lesson: if you can't explain what you're doing and why, people will assume you're naive, complicit, or both.

Universal decided not to hold word-of-mouth screenings for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, meaning no influencers, no fan bloggers, no pre-release social media flood. The world premiere is July 6th in London, critics screenings follow, then it opens July 17th. This comes after Steven Spielberg's UFO Day got destroyed when an influencer called it his best film in 20 years and professional critics used that quote to mock the movie. The lesson: scarcity is a marketing strategy, and Universal is betting that film critics will give them better reviews than influencers who feel obligated to praise everything.

Julian Hoenig spent 10 years at Apple under Jony Ive creating the Apple Watch and working on Vision Pro. He teamed up with former Audi and Lamborghini designers to create the Amble One, a $25,000 luxury golf cart that goes 40 mph and is street legal in Europe and Asia. They started designing it for fun after realizing there were no nice golf carts for luxury resorts. Four years later, they're sold out for the year. The lesson: the best products come from people solving problems they actually have, with people they trust, and having fun doing it.

We're talking about:

• Meta ending Ray-Ban partnership and launching Meta Glasses by Kylie Jenner
• The commercial showing mundane use cases and avoiding anything private, accidentally highlighting privacy concerns
• Layla Gohar collaborating with Meta on the launch event and her fans being disappointed
• Kenya whistleblowers revealing men filming women in inappropriate places with Meta Glasses
• Google DeepMind investing $75 million in A24 and A24 failing to explain how it benefits artists
• Universal excluding influencers from The Odyssey screenings after Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day
• Film critics being majority men and Universal betting on their reviews over influencers
• Julian Hoenig and former Audi designers creating the Amble One luxury golf cart for $25,000
• Starting with luxury resorts and selling out for the year
• Why partnerships reveal who you serve: Meta using Kylie to obscure product problems, A24 taking a defensive posture with Google, Universal opting out of influencers, and Amble building something generative with friends

Timestamps

00:00 Meta launches Meta Glasses by Kylie Jenner and the privacy problem

15:00 What Meta should have said and the design problem they need to solve

28:00 Google DeepMind invests $75 million in A24 and the backlash

45:00 Universal excludes influencers from The Odyssey screenings

58:00 Amble One luxury golf cart designed by former Apple and Audi designers