The part that headlines miss
Rallies end, markets swing, attention fades. Culture and purpose don’t.
Hey there,
I’ve been thinking about what truly lasts and what doesn’t this week. Headlines are constantly changing, as you'll see in the ones I’m presenting to you in this edition. These stories capture our attention for a day or two, then fade away.
But when I look back at the moments that actually shaped me or the businesses I’ve been part of, none of them came from a headline. They came from the slow, steady work in between. That’s the middle part. It won’t trend on social media or get quoted in major newspapers, but it’s where real companies are built.
This week’s stories remind me of that. Workers and billionaires arguing in the streets, Brazil’s wealthiest pulling ahead, OpenAI offering big money for a human editor. These stories are loud, but the real lesson is quieter: trust, purpose, and good judgment last longer than any headline.
Let’s get into it.
🌐 News Shortlist
1. When Labor Day Stopped Being a Barbecue
Recap: Nearly 1,000 “Workers Over Billionaires” rallies took place across all 50 states this Labor Day, organized by unions and grassroots groups. The protests targeted Trump’s rollback of worker protections, wage cuts, and federal takeovers of cities. In Chicago, teachers marched against federal troops. In New York, service workers rallied outside Trump Tower. In D.C., people ran a “Freedom Run” against Trump’s National Guard occupation. The through-line was simple: workers vs. billionaires.
If you’re building a company, you can’t ignore this tension. Power naturally follows influence, and big players often get close to those in charge because that’s how things work. But pay attention to what’s happening: people are frustrated, exhausted, and feel overlooked. Unless your customers are billionaires, you’re serving everyone else.
Whether you like politics or not, your company lives in this environment. On one side, you have billionaires consolidating their influence, cozying up to regulators, and shaping markets in their favor. On the other hand, you’ve got workers, customers, and communities who feel squeezed, invisible, or flat-out disrespected. That tension is everywhere.
So, be thoughtful about how your brand handles these issues. Working with powerful people can be beneficial, but if you appear out of touch with workers, you risk losing their trust. Trust is what helps your business grow over time.
Advice:
Listen to both sides. Build the connections you need, but remember who your customers are. They’re not in government offices; they’re out in the community. People notice how you respond when there’s clear tension between billionaires and workers.
2. Brazil’s Rich Get Richer, Faster
Recap: A new tax-data study shows Brazil’s richest 0.1% saw their incomes grow five times faster than everyone else from 2017 to 2023. The top 1% now controls nearly a quarter of all income, driven mostly by dividends and untaxed profits. For most Brazilians, wages remained largely unchanged.
Inequality in Brazil isn’t new. However, this report peels back the curtain on just how sharp the divide is becoming, and why. At one end of the spectrum, you’ve got billionaires compounding wealth through systems that barely touch the real economy. At the other end, millions of families are scraping by, wondering how to cover food and rent in a high-inflation market.
Most of us aren’t at either extreme. We’re in the middle. This is where companies grow, employees do their work, and customers choose who to trust. Here, culture and purpose matter. People won’t stay motivated or loyal if your only goal is to take as much as you can.
Brazil’s inequality numbers illustrate how fragile things become when the system leans too heavily in one direction. When the middle breaks, the real opportunity isn’t for those with the most money. It’s for people who build trust, solve real problems, and create purpose beyond just making profits.
Advice:
Don’t get distracted by the extremes. Whether you’re hiring, building, or selling, your leverage is in the middle. That’s where scale happens, and that’s where you prove whether your company has a purpose people can believe in.
3. Even OpenAI Needs a Content Strategist
Recap: OpenAI just posted a job for a “Content Strategist” with a salary of nearly $400K. The role is to define ChatGPT’s voice, own editorial calendars, and ensure their messaging is effective. It went viral, partly because it’s ironic: the company that built ChatGPT — the tool supposedly replacing content jobs — is paying top dollar for a human to run its content.
And they’re not alone. A couple of weeks ago, PayPal was viral for listing a job called “Head of CEO Content.” Same story: the role wasn’t about cranking out words, it was about judgment. Deciding what to say, when to say it, and how to shape the narrative around the brand.
This is the part people miss. AI can generate sentences all day. What it can’t do is make strategic calls about what matters, what builds trust, and what’s worth putting your name on. That’s why OpenAI is offering engineer-level money for an editor. They know brand, trust, and narrative are too important to leave to the model.
For founders, the lesson is clear: don’t confuse output with impact. The scarce skill isn’t filling pages; it’s deciding what deserves to be published in the first place.
Advice:
Use AI to move faster, sure. But keep humans in charge of the story. If OpenAI and PayPal are investing this heavily in content strategy, it’s not a luxury. It’s infrastructure.
🔎 Remote Jobs Shortlist
These are the new openings my clients have this week.
Even if you’re not hiring, it’s worth seeing what roles great companies are opening and what that says about where things are headed. Check out the full list here.
1. Credit Data Scientist
This fintech is shaking up consumer lending in the UK, making loans more transparent and data-driven. They need someone to own their credit risk models from end to end.
You’ll design and deploy scoring models, build pipelines, run stress tests, and partner directly with leadership on risk strategy. It’s a high-impact role with real influence on the product, not just back-office number crunching.
💵 $4,500 - $5,000 USD/month
📍Latin America Remote
2. Data Analyst
This electric mobility company is running the largest fleet of electric motorcycles in Latin America — and the data is wild. Millions of IoT signals flow in daily from vehicles, batteries, and swap stations.
Your job is to turn that into clarity: predictive risk models, customer churn analysis, profitability tracking, and insights that shape expansion. You’ll sit at the intersection of product, ops, and growth, making decisions that move cities.
💵 $2,000 - $2,500 USD/month
📍Brazil Remote
3. Data Engineer
This early-stage startup is building from zero, and they’re looking for the engineer who wants to be there at the beginning. You’ll be the one laying the foundation: building the data pipelines, designing infrastructure, and helping define how product decisions get made.
It’s not just coding. You’ll shape the culture, make architecture calls that last, and work side by side with the founders. If you’ve ever wanted to be the first data hire at a company with real ambition, this is it.
💵$2,500 - $3,000 USD/month
📍Brazil Remote
That’s it for this week.
If there’s a theme here, it’s that perception fades but purpose lasts. Thanks for reading, and if this hit home, forward it to one more person who should be in this conversation.
Until next time,
Joseph Burns
CEO & Founder, Lupa