Happy Tuesday 👋
The first week of January always brings a rush of “new year, new strategy” announcements. This one cuts deeper than a standard Hollywood deal memo.
Kevin Hart didn’t just sign another endorsement or production pact. He formalized something many stars talk about but few fully execute: treating their own name as long-term intellectual property.
That move says a lot about where celebrity, creators, and ownership are heading next. Let’s get into it.
Driving the news: Kevin Hart has signed a wide-ranging licensing and ownership deal with Authentic Brands Group, granting the IP giant rights to his name while taking an equity stake in the company itself.
The agreement makes Hart a shareholder and a co-manager of the “Kevin Hart” brand, not just its public face. Authentic already controls and licenses the names of figures like David Beckham and Shaquille O’Neal, deploying those identities across consumer products, media, hospitality, and live experiences.
Hart’s deal follows that same playbook, but with a notable twist: he is explicitly positioning his name as an asset meant to outlive his acting and comedy career.Hart framed the move as legacy-driven. In his words, the goal is for the Hart name to remain active “for generations to come,” with Authentic’s global infrastructure handling scale, licensing, and expansion into new verticals.
For Authentic, the deal reinforces a strategy it has leaned into for years: assembling a portfolio of culturally resonant names, then industrializing their commercial use across categories that extend far beyond entertainment.
The stakes: This isn’t just about Kevin Hart. It’s about how celebrity and creator power is being restructured. Traditional Hollywood economics were built around finite careers: box office cycles, TV contracts, touring windows. What Authentic and stars like Hart are betting on instead is perpetual monetization of identity itself. A name, once sufficiently famous and controlled, becomes a reusable commercial layer that can be activated long after the person stops producing new work.
For celebrities, that shifts leverage earlier in their careers. Ownership stakes, governance rights, and long-term brand planning now matter as much as upfront fees.
For creators watching from the sidelines, YouTubers, podcasters, athletes, influencers, the message is clear: scale alone isn’t the endgame. Formalized IP ownership is.
The friction: There’s a tension baked into this model. Turning a human being into a managed asset requires discipline, consistency, and, at times, restraint. Authentic’s success depends on keeping brands culturally relevant without overexposing them. That can clash with the instinct many creators have to say yes to everything while attention is hot.
There’s also the risk of dilution. When a name stretches across too many categories, products, platforms, experiences, it can lose meaning. The brands that endure tend to have clear boundaries, even when they operate globally. Whether Hart and Authentic can strike that balance will determine whether this deal becomes a blueprint or a cautionary tale.
What this unlocks: If it works, deals like Hart’s create a new ceiling for celebrity economics. Equity replaces royalties. Governance replaces one-off endorsements. Creators stop renting their likeness and start building balance-sheet assets around it. That opens the door to succession planning, estate value, and intergenerational wealth tied directly to IP rather than residual fame.
It also professionalizes something that has often been informal. Instead of ad-hoc brand managers and short-term licensing agents, creators get centralized operators with global reach and repeatable systems.
The bigger picture: We’re watching celebrity converge with private equity logic. Names are being treated like franchises. Fame is being converted into infrastructure. Kevin Hart is simply the latest high-profile example of a shift that’s already underway, one where the most powerful creators aren’t just stars, but owners of the systems that monetize who they are.
For everything else, see below 👇:
AI
Email Inboxes Are the Next AI Gold Mine
Why Gmail and Outlook data may be the most valuable training source yet. — (Mark Sullivan for Fast Company) — Link
AI Isn’t Stealing Your Traffic. It’s Stealing Your Authority
How AI summaries are quietly breaking the referral economy. — (Mark Sullivan for Fast Company) — Link
Is the Next AI Winter Coming in 2026?
Why capital, energy, and patience are tightening at the same time. — (William Cohan for Puck) — Link
Careers
Harder Than Harvard: How to Get a Job at the Most In-Demand Tech Companies
Why elite tech hiring has become its own closed ecosystem. — (Talib Visram for Fast Company) — Link
Media
Can Netflix Make Podcasts Into Must-See TV?
Inside the streamer’s quiet push into audio-to-video IP. — (Julia Alexander for Puck) — Link
Netflix’s WWE Library Deal Makes It the New U.S. Home After Peacock
What the move signals about live sports and streaming leverage. — (Alex Weprin for The Hollywood Reporter) — Link
Asia-Pacific Screen Revenues Are Set to Hit $196 Billion by 2030
Why growth is shifting east even as Hollywood recalibrates. — (Patrick Brzeski for The Hollywood Reporter) — Link
Hardware
Razer’s Project Motoko Is a Wearable AI Headphone You Talk To
A look at what ambient computing actually feels like. — (Antonio G. Di Benedetto for The Verge) — Link
Brands
Nike’s Elliott Hill, Tim Cook, and the Signal Behind a Massive Buyback
Why insider confidence matters more than the headline number. — (Hypebeast Staff for Hypebeast) — Link
Social
TikTok’s 365 Buttons Are Turning Self-Improvement Into a Game
How daily prompts, streaks, and nudges are reshaping motivation and habit culture. — (Taylor Lorenz for Fast Company) — Link
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