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Received today — 26 April 2025

Kevin Hart says there’s one thing still worth splurging on in this uncertain economy, regardless of income level

26 April 2025 at 19:58
  • Times are tough. But Kevin Hart, one of the most successful comedians and actors on the planet, said there's one thing he has "no care [about] when it comes to spending": Experiences. "I think that's an amazing investment," he told Fortune.

Kevin Hart knows what it takes to be successful. He was the world's highest-paid comedian in 2024, earning $108 million. That’s also third-most among Hollywood entertainers overall, more than what Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise made last year. 

That said, times are tough for most Americans right now. With consumer confidence down and market volatility up—partly influenced by global tensions stoked by Trump’s tariffs rollout and his will-he-won't-he approach with Fed Chair Jerome Powell—Americans are tightening their belts and are being very choosy on how and where they spend their money.

In an interview with Fortune, Hart revealed the one thing he says is absolutely worth splurging on, even in uncertain times.

“Anything experience-driven,” Hart told Fortune. “Anything where you’re able to better understand the world, see the world, and experience the world. I think it’s justified.”

Hart mentioned how he recently took his family to Rwanda to experience and understand the culture there.

“We’re not walking out of it with crazy lessons, but just extreme joy that we were able to see and do things together, create these memories,” he said. “It’s extremely humbling when you’re traveling just to see how the world works and see it through multiple different lenses.”

Hart said “discovery” is a critical human experience, and believes any opportunity where you can experience “what life can provide or present to you, I think that’s an amazing investment.”

“Creating and building memories for me and my family will always be something that I have no care when it comes to spending,” Hart added.

Hart, now 45, has become an entrepreneur in his own right through ventures like HartBeat, his production company (his majority stake was valued at $650 million in 2022), as well as his tequila brand Gran Coramino and the Laugh Out Loud Network. He also earns millions from endorsements every year. His Coramino Fund just recently started accepting applications for its latest round of $10,000 grants, intended for small business owners from marginalized communities.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Arturo Holmes—Getty Images

Kevin Hart attends Apple TV+'s "Number One On The Call Sheet: Black Leading Men In Hollywood" New York premiere at Crosby Street Hotel on March 10, 2025 in New York City.

Google says Chrome will suffer if it’s forced to sell the world’s most popular web browser

26 April 2025 at 18:26
  • Parisa Tabriz, general manager for Google Chrome, testified Friday during the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google’s illegal monopoly in the search market. Tabriz said it’s impossible to “disentangle” Google from the success of Chrome, adding she doesn’t “think it could be recreated” elsewhere.

Google believes it’s the only company that can operate Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser, and that it would suffer in anyone else’s hands.

“Trying to disentangle that is unprecedented,” Parisa Tabriz, general manager of Google Chrome, said in federal court Friday.

Tabriz said Google Chrome is the result of “17 years of collaboration” between the Chrome team, Google, and the companies that submit technical contributions to the company’s open-source Chromium Project, which is also utilized for several other Google projects like the Android operating system. “Google invests hundreds of millions of dollars” into Chromium, Tabriz said, but noted other companies “are not contributing now in any meaningful way.”

Over the course of several hours on Friday, Tabriz made it clear that Google being forced to sell Chrome, which is what the Justice Department has asked it to do (as well as sharing some of the data it collects to power search results), would ultimately hurt Chrome. 

“I don’t think it could be recreated,” Tabriz said of Chrome’s success under Google.

Tabriz also mentioned the Chrome team is currently working to bake artificial intelligence into the browser to make it more “agentic”: in other words, Google wants Chrome to be able to automate tasks on behalf of users, from filling out forms to doing research to shopping.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Rob Latour / Variety / Penske Media—Getty Images

Google Chrome general manager Parisa Tabriz testified Friday during the DOJ's antitrust hearing about Google's illegal search monopoly.

Kanye West joined Twitch. He didn’t last 10 minutes before getting banned

26 April 2025 at 16:50
  • Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, created his own Twitch account early Friday. "Yeezy_Stream" was taken down just seven minutes after going live after the rapper almost immediately launched into a tirade against Jewish and LGBTQ+ people.

Despite regularly appearing in streams with, and alongside, famous Twitch streamers like Kai Cenat, Adin Ross, and Amouranth, it looks like Ye's own Twitch career will be short-lived. After creating his own Twitch account on Friday, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West got banned by the platform for sharing hateful rhetoric.

According to The Daily Beast, Ye almost immediately launched into a tirade about Jewish people and the LGBTQ+ community during his inaugural Twitch stream, using slurs and throwing up a Nazi salute while saying “Heil Hitler.”

Ye also notably claimed Elon Musk gave him “free passes” to post his unfiltered thoughts, including a series of disparaging posts about his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, on X.

In just about seven minutes, Ye’s stream was replaced by a message from Twitch that said, “This channel is temporarily unavailable due to a violation of Twitch’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.”

According to Dexterto, Ye accumulated about 3,000 followers and over 1,000 viewers during his minutes-long stream.

Twitch did not immediately respond to Fortune's request for comment.

It's unclear how long the ban will last, but Ye has a history of getting banned from social networks for his speech and rhetoric. Ye, who is worth roughly $2.7 billion as of 2025 thanks to his long successful career in music, was banned from Twitter (now X) in October 2022 for saying he would go "death con 3 on Jewish people." He was also suspended just two months later for tweeting an image that combined the Star of David with a swastika. In a recent sitdown with DJ Akademiks this month, Ye showed up to the interview wearing an all-black KKK-inspired hood and outfit.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© MEGA—GC Images

Kanye West aka Ye is seen on October 28, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.

The Vatican asked Pope Francis funeral attendees to wear all black. Trump wore a blue suit

26 April 2025 at 15:44
  • The Vatican had a strict dress code for Pope Francis' funeral Sunday. President Donald Trump did not get the memo. Several other world leaders, including former President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, also deviated from the norm.

Some of the most powerful people in the world descended on Vatican City early Sunday to attend the funeral of Pope Francis, who died Monday at the age of 88. The Vatican, as it typically does, had a strict dress code for attendees. For men, it dictated dark suits with white shirts and long black ties. Shoes, long socks, coats, and umbrellas were also asked to be black to mark the occasion.

President Donald Trump, however, wore an all-blue suit with an American flag pin on his lapel. He sat in the front row during the event.

A sea of attendees at Pope Francis' funeral, with Trump the only one wearing blue
VATICAN - 2025/04/26: Heads of State and Government attend Pope Francis' funeral ceremony at St. Peter's Square. Over 160 official delegations participated in the funeral ceremony of Bergoglio. (Photo by Vincenzo Nuzzolese/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

For what it's worth, Trump wasn't alone in deviating from The Vatican's dress code. Former President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, wore a blue tie. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did wear all black, but didn't don a tie at all.

Women were similarly asked to wear long black dresses, black closed-toe shoes, gloves, and a veil. First Lady Melania Trump wore a pair of black pumps.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Halil Sagirkaya / Anadolu—Getty Images

US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump attend the funeral of Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square on April 26, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis died on April 21st at the age of 88.

Bob Bakish was ousted by Paramount after clashing with Shari Redstone and he still got rewarded with a $69.3 million golden parachute

26 April 2025 at 15:23
  • Bob Bakish, who was ousted as CEO of Paramount in last April, received $69.3 million as part of his severance compensation. The package was revealed in a Paramount filing disclosed by the SEC on Friday.

Bob Bakish, the chief executive who was ousted by Paramount in April 2024 in the midst of contentious takeover battle, was reportedly given $69.3 million in severance, new SEC filings show.

According to the agreement—signed April 29, 2024 but filed in an 8-K with the SEC on April 25—Bakish received $6.2 million in salary continuation, $24.8 million in bonus continuation, $10.36 million as a pro-rata bonus for 2024, $88,160 in insurance continuation, $25,000 in outplacement assistance, and $27.81 million in acceleration/continuation of equity awards.

His compensation for 2024 totaled $86.96 million. The year prior, he received $31.3 million.

Bakish climbed the ranks at Viacom starting in 1997, moving up from VP of planning and development to executive VP of operations in 2004 before eventually becoming CEO of the company in 2016. He continued on in his chief executive role even after Viacom merged with CBS to form ViacomCBS, now Paramount Global, in December 2019.

Bakish reportedly had a major falling out with Shari Redstone, chair of Paramount and CEO of the theater chain National Amusements. Shari, of course, is also the daughter of Sumner Redstone, the founder and chairman of Viacom and the chairman of CBS Corporation who died in 2020, just one year after CBS and Viacom merged. According to The Wall Street Journal, Bakish reportedly went behind Shari Redstone's back in floating a potential streaming deal with Comcast in early 2024, which Redstone had previously been against. The two had also reportedly fought over Bakish's handling of the sale of Paramount's Showtime division; Bakish had balked at several offers, including one of which that was close to $6 billion.

The backdrop for all of this, of course, was one of the most dramatic corporate takeover battles in recent memory, which included offers from David Ellison's Skydance Media and a $26 billion joint bid from Sony and private-equity giant Apollo Global Management.

After Bakish left the company, Paramount created a three-person "Office of the CEO." George Cheeks was named president and CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy became president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins was named president and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Dominik Bindl—Getty Images

Bob Bakish attends the 32nd Annual Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame Awards at The Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26, 2024 in New York City.
Received before yesterday

Nearly five years after Tony Hsieh died in a house fire, it looks like the Zappos CEO’s will has finally been found

24 April 2025 at 14:40
  • Tony Hsieh left behind hundreds of millions of dollars after his accidental death caused by a house fire in 2020. But after years of his family, friends, and colleagues battling over his fortune in court, it looks like an original will, signed by Hsieh and five witnesses in 2015, has been discovered.

Tony Hsieh, cofounder and CEO of the shoe and clothing retailer Zappos, died in a house fire in New London, Conn., in 2020. While he struggled with substance abuse, medical examiners ruled his death an accident. Hsieh was just 46 years old. 

Since then, Hsieh’s inner circle has spent years fighting in court over his estate, which was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Most of his fortune came from Hsieh’s 2009 sale of Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion, and Hsieh had apparently left sticky notes all over his Park City, Utah, home, promising millions to friends and former colleagues.

But in a surprise twist, it seems as though an original will—signed by Hsieh and five witnesses, dated March 13, 2015—has been discovered.

According to a filing from the Clark Country District Court in Nevada, the document was found in February in the personal belongings of a man who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, named Pir Muhammad. It’s not clear how Muhammad and Hsieh knew each other, but the court filing says Muhammad (who did not know Hsieh had died) was given “exclusive possession” of the original will to prevent any tampering. Muhammad was also one of the five witnesses who signed the will; another witness, named Ishrat Daud, told the Wall Street Journal he indeed acted as a witness “a number of years ago” but had nothing more to say on the matter.

The recent court filing also mentioned a video recording was made, but it’s unclear if the video was also found, and what’s even featured on the video. The next scheduled hearing for this case, on May 22, may shed more light on the matter.

As for the will itself, Hsieh left $3 million to Harvard University, his alma mater; $500,000 each to Unicef and the American Red Cross; $250,000 each to the Buffett Foundation, Americares Foundation, and the Gates Foundation; $1 million to his trustee, Muzammal Hussain, and STRYV365, a nonprofit dedicated to helping young people navigate and deal with trauma; and $500,000 each to his mother, Judy, father Richard, and brothers Andrew and David.

The will also reportedly includes a no-contest clause that says if any of his four remaining family members fight Hsieh’s wishes, none of them will receive any of his gifts.

“I have structured my way of surprising and leaving essentially all my beneficiaries to experience the ‘WOW’ factor in their life,” the purported will says. “I want my beneficiaries to ‘live in the wow.’”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© David Paul Morris—Bloomberg/Getty Images

Tony Hsieh, then CEO of Zappos, in Las Vegas, May 18, 2017.
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