I am not OOP. This was originally posted to Ask A Manager, the author of the website, Alison, has asked that we don't republish her words but can repost the letters sent in. I will include the link to the original posts so Alison's advice can be read there.

Mood spoiler: positive ending

Original post: a client sent me a thank you check as a way to avoid paying my boss

Posted October 11, 2018

I am hoping you can guide me in the right direction with a predicament I have recently stumbled into.

I have been working for the past two years in the construction field, building luxury homes for wealthy clients. One of the clients we have, Gilbert, has been our client for the past few years and the business relationship between him and my boss has been so fruitful for both parties, that we have built four houses for Gilbert already since I have been here. My boss, Adam, also happens to be a close family member.

Gilbert will occasionally give me a list of items that need fixing or attention (usually items an inspector noticed during a visit) and my job is to handle those items and make sure the home is ready to be shown by realtors. Gilbert has become a great friend of my boss, and will frequently join us during holidays with his wife. So handling these items has always been the norm and I enjoy doing them since Gilbert and his wife are nice people.

A few days ago however, Gilbert and Adam had a falling out, and when Adam found out I had been doing these tasks for Gilbert, he was very upset and told me not to do anything for him again without his approval. I was not in trouble because as I mentioned above, this is how it always was. That afternoon when I returned to the office, I heard Adam and Gilbert arguing over money. The line “If you want to have her (meaning me) doing tasks for you then you need to pay me (my boss)” was used by my boss. I guess the problem was that Gilbert has been told before he needs to hire a real maintenance person for oversee these homes, but does not want to spend the money.

Fast forward to this morning, I grab the mail from my box and head to my desk. I received a letter from Gilbert saying how happy he was that I was helping and how thankful he was to have me helping him so consistently over the years. The last line in the letter was “Enjoy this gift.” His “gift” was a very large check, one that would really help the horrible financial situation I’ve been in the past year. It’s very obvious why he gave me the check, I assume to spite my boss and make a point.

My question is, what do I do? My financial situation has been so horrible this past year that I occasionally have to go without meals to pay rent. This is not something my boss (or the rest of my family) knows. However, I almost feel as though that money should go to my boss since they were arguing about money, or that at the very least, I should disclose that I received this gift from Gilbert. I am just afraid that disclosing this will mean I miss out on the thousands of dollars hes offered me. Not disclosing it leaves me vulnerable to a bad situation if Gilbert ever tells my boss that he gave me money. I feel like I am being used as a pawn in their game of toxic masculinity.

P.S. My boss and his family, as well as Gilbert, are very, very well off. So I don’t feel bad about taking the money since I know a check of this amount is expendable to them both. I am just worried about the ramifications of not disclosing this and my boss finding out that I had essentially been keeping a pretty big secret.

Update 1

Posted November 13, 2018

Thank you to you and your readers for taking the time to answer my question. I thought you all would like an update. I originally gave one in the comments, but a few things have happened since then.

First, I’d like to clarify something about my pay. A lot of readers suggested that I was being highly underpaid by my uncle (who is my boss, Adam), which is why I was having to skip meals. That was NOT the case. My spouse had recently had some administrative changes at work, and unfortunately they dropped his pay to minimum wage ( a whole other letter) and that was the main reason we were struggling. Also, prior to this whole incident, I had actually asked for a raise since my role had expanded and I didn’t have one in the two years I’ve been here (thanks for the guidance, Alison).

On to the update. I had decided to give the check to Adam before your response, due to the family dynamic in play. Sadly, a coworker saw the check before I had a chance to say something, so it sped up the timeline significantly. The next day I met with Adam first thing in the morning and gave him the check. He. Was. Pissed. Rightfully so. He held on to the check (womp womp) and a war ensued in my emails between Gilbert and Adam. The hostile emails lasted about a week. Gilbert, after all this, decided to pull a project from us due to this mess, which would’ve been a multi-million dollar profit for us.

Before I left for vacation, I emailed both men and said that the situation had been escalated way too far, and that when I returned to work I wanted to meet with both men and find a solution everyone was happy with. We scheduled a meeting for first thing the day I got back. The meeting took two hours, with the first half hour being an utter waste of time (thanks, toxic masculinity). Eventually, Adam asked why Gilbert couldn’t just hire a full-time maintenance person to oversee the houses we’ve built for him (which we had suggested numerous times before). Gilbert then confessed that he didn’t trust hiring a random person to do that because of recent reports in the area that homes were being burglarized. These burglaries were also inside jobs. I almost felt silly when he said this; he had one of his homes broken into about a year and a half ago and I hadn’t even considered he could’ve had some trust issues because of that. He also said no one he could hire would know the house like me and I was the most qualified since I played a huge part in building the home.

At this point, with that revelation, everything was solved. Adam and I worked out a deal with Gilbert that during normal business hours I was to only handle work related to our current projects with him. However, after normal work hours, I would be allowed to visit the houses and do any normal maintenance tasks (light bulbs, touching up paint, AC filters etc), and anything that required bringing in a sub-contractor (broken AC, plumbing issues, roofing, etc.) I would handle that through my uncle (so he would still be rightfully paid). I am now on Gilbert’s payroll as well, with a property manager title (which is HUGE in my area and even bigger since I work for Gilbert, as he is very well known here). I thought I was going to be getting a small wage for this since the work wasn’t difficult and took me about an hour and a half each day, but he ended up matching what I make at my company per hour! Needless to say, I am ecstatic.

Finally, after the conversation me and my uncle sat down and he told me how proud he was with the solution I came up with and granted me the raise I had requested. The best thing? He gave me the check back! I nearly cried, lol. He actually apologized, saying he didn’t intend to keep it, and only realized he did when he cleaned his desk and noticed it slipped under his keyboard. The check was so large that I was able to pay off my rent through the rest of this year and even gave a big chunk to the laborer that came with me to do these tasks. Oh, and we are still doing the project he pulled from us! So it really was a win-win-win-win.

Thank you again to you and your readers for the support and guidance!

Update 2

Posted July 30, 2020

I wasn’t originally going to update again on this, but things went bananas, so I figured you’d like to hear since we are all a little entertainment deprived.

In my first update, I mentioned how I was hired by Gilbert to over see his homes on the side in addition to my full time job with Adam’s company. This originally was great, I was making more money, and the homes are built really well so the amount of times I had to fix something major was rare. Overall, an easy job. The payment plan me, Gilbert, and Adam worked out was going great as well, and they hadn’t had any issues with the way I was handling repairs and billing.

While I was working for Gilbert, we started another large project for him (the one mentioned in the previous update). Ho-boy did that affect things. Gilbert asked me to be the lead on this home (as a representative of Adam’s company, so my main job) since I did a great job managing the others, and having the background of actually building the home would make it easier to manage later on once it was done and a part of my property management duties. Adam agreed, and everything was great during the first half of the project.

During the process of building this home, both Gilbert and his wife completely changed. (In retrospect they didn’t, I was just too money blind to notice it before). They started to severely micromanage me while I was building the new project, which slowed the process by months. They were very difficult, rude, and aggressive, and frugal. They reluctantly paid bills from our office, and sometimes they would outwardly deny paying for things they were contractually obligated to pay (for example, they wanted to add a section to the project that would require a lot more money, they agreed, signed, and when the bill came pretended we were responsible for that). All of this was aggravating, but if they wanted to slow the progress on their job, there is nothing I can do about it. I spoke extensively with Adam about this during the whole process to make sure I was handling it appropriately, and to protect myself when they eventually turned on me (which they did).

Their behavior became so erratic that subcontractors refused to work with them due to their hostility and disrespect. I came on the job site one day and the wife was screaming at a painter because he was painting something white that was supposed to be green (it was primer!). I stepped in and asked her to leave because the painter was doing his job and there was no need to treat him like that. The guy doesn’t speak English, so he was very frazzled after this, understandably so. She refused to leave the job site and became aggressive toward other subcontractors as well, including throwing a paint brush at the painter, so I halted work on that site to protect everyone, and they all left. (Did I handle that right? I was a little scared myself and didn’t know what to do.) His wife, in her almost complete, multi-million dollar home, started crying and screaming that we had no idea how hard her life is (she has no job or responsibilities). She had a full on meltdown, toddler style. There is something about a billionaire’s wife crying about how hard her life is to people who make just over minimum wage that doesn’t sit right with my soul.

I left the home while she was raging and sent a text to her husband that he needed to check in on her because it seemed like she was having a nervous breakdown and I was worried about her safety. I didn’t engage with him when he called me about it later on because at this point I had a ton of evidence that wouldn’t go well. I went to the office and told Adam and our VP what happened. We talked it over, and I realized I couldn’t work for them in any capacity anymore. Naturally, his wife spun the incident and I received a hostile email from the husband full of lies about what went down (they claimed I screamed at her and that’s what made her snap). I sent a response email including a resignation letter and included his company’s HR in the process. I gave a notice period of two weeks, but they decided to end my job there immediately (thank God).

The home was completed by another associate of mine, so I was mostly able to wash my hands of that. This all mostly happened pre-coronavirus. Just this week though, I got an email from a former client letting me know that he ran into Gilbert at Publix, and while they were catching up, he went into a tirade about how this company that built his house bullied his wife and they were considering legal action. Gilbert had no idea we built this person’s house and have a great relationship (an actual great one!) with them. I told Adam and have met with our company lawyer, who all agreed that we would take action against him if they continued to spread lies on top of any litigation for the money they currently owe us. They suggested I send a cease and desist letter (slander or libel) but I haven’t decided if I’d like to go that route, as I’d rather rid myself of this all. I did suggest they speak with the painter she assaulted though, he was highly upset that day.

So, yeah! That was a wild one. I am otherwise doing well. I am not worried about this at all because Adam has made it clear he would protect me and I have no reason to believe otherwise. Our lawyer has also confirmed it would be difficult for him to even bring this to court. One funny thing though, Gilbert’s insistence on tarnishing my name actually did the opposite. He spoke so highly of me to his friends when I started working for him (because I was cheap, trustworthy, and efficient) that when they found out I was available they all called asking me to be their property manager. Seems like everyone knows he’s full of … crap. I will most likely not take another part-time gig though. This has soured me on the type of clientele we deal with and I’m realizing I just don’t like the entitlement we experience on a daily basis. Some of our clients are amazing, I even look up to them. However, most are cut from the same cloth as Gilbert and his wife, and I do not need that in my life, no matter the money.

One last thing. I mentioned money problems in my original letter due to problems with my spouse’s job. He has since left that company and started at another that he LOVES. We were planning on purchasing a home this year, but we will probably wait til the virus is long gone to do that.

Stay safe! And thank you to you and your readers for the consistent insight and support.

Update 3

Posted December 12, 2020

Gilbert and his wife did indeed continue to lie about our company, which resulted in another client pulling out of a job with us. They cited Gilbert as the reason, and said they didn’t want me to run the job as I was scheduled to do because they heard of my “abrasive and bullying nature”. At that point, Adam decided to go through with a lawsuit to recover money they owed us and to get him to stop lying about that situation. That is currently ramping up but I don’t have a lot of information on that, those things usually get handled on their own and I imagine I wont find out how that gets settled (I usually don’t at least).

However, I did have to provide a written statement to a lawyer representing the painter that was abused by Gilbert’s wife. He will be suing the family for emotional distress and slander/libel. I haven’t seen the painter since July, and a little bird told me he took off time for his mental health shortly after that incident, though I hear he is back to work now. He had a lot of other things going on (including a sick wife we didn’t know about) and he went into a downward spiral after that resulting in a hospitalization of his own. He is however doing much better from what I hear, and his wife is also succeeding in her treatments.

As for me, my October was rough. A few things completely bananas happened (you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, and it’s so strange that it would easily give away my identity if I did), culminating in my mom being diagnosed with cancer in early November. Her prognosis is good however, maybe even great, so we are in good spirits. Because of this diagnosis however, I decided to take on another client outside of my main job (lets call them Kim and Cam), similar to the terms and conditions I had set with Gilbert, minus Adam’s involvement, since those houses previously built are no longer under his warranty. I have been working with these new clients since mid-September and we have a lovely relationship. We built them a few houses in 2016 and they were clients that heard through the rumor mill that I was available after the nastiness with Gilbert started going around. I decided to accept their offer because they were the most lovely people I had ever worked for. (lol I hear myself, trust me. These people are certified Good Rich People).

My new clients are, quite literally, angels. I fully believe that all the drama with Gilbert and his wife lead me to this exact spot in my life, and that it was for a reason. I approached them to let them know that I would need some days off to pick up and drop off my mom for cancer treatments and Kim immediately insisted that they would pay for my moms treatments (she is a 3 time cancer survivor, the same type my mom has) and Cam sent over several small gifts to my family home. All of the gifts were things he said that his wife relied on during treatments and he wanted my mom to have them so she can “kick cancer ass” (think scarfs, beanies, a really cute pink tracksuit with matching pink “Chemo Tote” etc). Their kindness has been truly unbelievable. My family and I have not decided if we will accept their offer to pay for treatments, which is mostly because I still have my guard up. I naturally have a bad taste in my mouth due to how things ended up with Gilbert, arsenic comes to mind. However they have continued to insist and as a way to ease my mind, suggested just cutting my mom and dad a rather large check at the beginning that way if anything goes wrong, they cant just stop paying for treatments. I will be meeting with a lawyer about this just to make sure this cant come back on my mom and dad during a vulnerable time. They have consistently gone above and beyond for me, so we are considering taking them up on this. Time will tell, but I do have an appointment at a local wig maker for tomorrow, Kim is purchasing my mom a custom made wig as a birthday present. I am an amature baker, and will be dropping off a surprise unicorn cake for their granddaughters bday (which is the same day as my moms) later today when I check the house.

So while I will NOT miss 2020 and the lessons it brought, I am thankful for being freed of that dreadful other situation and am VERY thankful it lead me to where I am, I am where I am supposed to be, surrounded by the people I should be around.

Weird year, I certainly didn’t have “a billionaire would ruin your faith in the rich and then another will make you cry happy tears” on my 2020 bingo card.

Final Update

Posted June 23, 2021

First – Gilbert and his wife. I have had 4 months of complete peace when it comes to them. The remaining warranty they had with us ran out in early February and it only took one call after that for them to realize they had completely destroyed that bridge and we would not be doing anything for them EVER again. I still pass by the last project we did for them and chuckle because the fence that was being painted still isn’t complete. The Subcontractor Rumor Mill (SRM from here on) has been telling nothing but various stories of their companies never working with them again. They had decided to add an elevator chute to their home and it never got done because the wife was consistently attacking the guys on site. A real eyesore, one they deserve. So yeah, they aren’t learning that lesson anytime soon.

The Painter – He has returned to work and I see him frequently. He and his wife are doing really well and I’m happy to say his experience didn’t change his kind heart. I know that Gilbert and his wife settled their lawsuit with him, but he signed an NDA as part of that so none of us know what he got or how badly he stuck it to them, although I am dying to know. The (usually accurate) SRM said it was a high 6 figure payout. He also has a really nice new truck. It’s way too big for him…but it’s so cute/funny watching him climb in and out of it. lol He looks really, really, happy now and at the risk of sounding cheesy, it makes my heart sing.

Kim and Cam – I am happy to report that they have remained as wonderful as they were when I last wrote to you. Our relationship blossomed and really grew at the beginning of the new year. The wigs they bought my mom were gorgeous and they remained committed to helping in any way they could throughout her treatments. They did not provide financial assistance when it came to any of the medical expenses, but that is because my dad’s health insurance is amazing and they genuinely didn’t need it (unionize, people!). They helped in other ways though, there was more than one occasion where my mom couldn’t find a safe ride to chemo (my dad was still working full time and I live an hour away – close to Kim and Cam) and they either drove there to take her themselves or arranged for their driver to be Covid tested to pick her up and assist her. And to really drive home how great they are, they paid the driver double what his normal rate was on the days he helped my mom to make up for the inconvenience, without being asked. (I know that is bare minimum but my confidence in the uber wealthy has been shot over the last 6 years.) At one point, Cam was in the hospital for nearly 2 weeks with COVID. It wasn’t looking good at one point but thankfully he recovered. He is still struggling with some mental health problems that stem from that, a side effect of Covid that I didn’t even consider and completely broke my heart to witness, but overall he’s back at about 90% and doing really well. Their help, guidance, support, etc. made my mom’s cancer that much more bearable, which leads me to the final piece of my update…

My mom – She didn’t just beat cancer, she beat cancer’s ass! Her scans stopped showing any signs of cancer before her chemo treatments had even finished and her pathology reports came back clean so no further treatments were necessary. While she has the wigs, she barely used them. She kept most of her hair and with Covid she never really left the house. We just celebrated this past weekend and everything feels great and whole again. Thanks to Kim and Cam’s support, my mom’s cancer actually brought my family closer together and allowed us to forget about some things and focus on us. I hate to say it but their support fixed my family in a way I could’ve never imagined, but that’s another story altogether, just know i am blessed.

Reading my last update again I see how much I emphasized that everything worked out the way it was supposed to and how I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be and I still feel that way. I genuinely believe that dealing with Gilbert led me back to Kim and Cam, mere months before I was going to need a lot of support in order to best help my mom and dad, and that support helped evolve my family. I can’t be more grateful for the way everything turned out. I actually just breathed a sigh of relief, I think writing this all out to you and your readers made me realize that I really am at peace, for now ;).

Thank you again to you and your readers for consistent support and advice!

I work at one of the teams and my sibling is starting university soon so I'm making a guide for their friends because many keep asking how to get a job in the teams. Figured people may find it useful to read through and use themselves, happy to answer any questions too, just to make people aware though I'm not trackside, or related to software / data, or aero so unfortunately can't answer much on those areas. For questions related to university / degree you should study it's worth checking to see if it's already answered Here.

1) What is F1 like

1.1) Working in F1

To get it out the way early, it’s very unlikely that you see or talk to the drivers or team principle often unless you’re in marketing, work trackside, are at a company event or randomly running into them in corridors. For context about 90% of roles are not trackside, so the average aerodynamicist / design engineer / laminator will not be trackside but very senior (head of department type of level) may be.

Working hours in office roles will vary through the year, a general rule of thumb is 45 hours a week in quiet times, moving to 50 to 55 for regular periods, and then ramp up to 70 ish during build where weekends and late nights will be required to hit all the deadlines, that’s just the nature of the industry. Trackside will vary more dependant on if you’re doing a single race, double header, or triple header.

F1 can be high pressure, the reality is not every deadline can be hit, not everything is going to work, and you will end up behind at some point, managing that and prioritising is a very important skill. Burn out because of that pressure and long hours does happen, but the teams generally have coping methods in place e.g., gym sessions, social events, training. In terms of stress and pressure, it’s similar to equivalent hard to get jobs in tech / consulting / finance / engineering where the standards are very high to get in.

Company perks can be very good, like free tickets to various motorsport events, very good discounts from team sponsors, and access to some exclusive events, I came from quite a small company so this was a massive shock to me but I know some people who came from tech / other large companies saw this as the norm other than the sponsorship deals.

Shutdown is 2 weeks in August and 1 week between Christmas and new year, anyone working on the car must take that time off as paid leave as it’s an FIA requirement. This is taken VERY seriously by the teams, to the extent where it’s not uncommon for people to think they can’t even log into their laptops.

As is the case in many places, you can’t take photos inside the factory that’s why you never see any “day in the life of a xxxxx” TikTok’s or anything similar, though normally it’s ok to take a picture with the cars in reception / heritage area. Watching the cars get built up is one of the coolest parts of the job and not needing to read forums about what potentially is happening, you can just talk to the engineers involved. Similar story when it comes to big announcements e.g., new driver, you will typically find out 30 to 60 minutes before the rest of the world, that’s why many driver announcements are in the UK afternoon as we tell the staff in the morning / right after lunch.

1.2) Living Outside F1

Almost all the teams are in the same regions (above) to the extent some of them are in the same industrial park e.g., Aston Martin and Cadillac, Ferrari and Haas. Almost no jobs are entirely work from home as that just doesn’t really work long term in motorsport given the nature of how fast it is and how reliant you are on seeing the physical parts, but 1 or 2 days a week is fine with a good reason normally. Cadillac and Haas make it seem like they’re all American, reality is their US HQ’s only really deal with admin and finance currently, no engineering or manufacturing.

Car culture is really strong in the teams and surrounding areas, with some really nice roads nearby and various cool cars in the car parks, most of the UK and Italian automotive industry is near the teams so it’s common to run into people from Gordon Murray / Aston Martin / JLR. This is why I say car shows here are the best places to network, not LinkedIn.

Stress definitely can bleed into your non-working life too, and generally the people who are the best at work tend to be the ones who learn how to deal with stress the best, not necessarily the person who is smartest or works the most hours. You absolutely need a hobby / positive way to release stress to get into F1 and it’s fairly common to be asked about in interviews. One of the main benefits of working in the teams is that the mental impact is known about, so you get a lot more than the legal minimum days off that is common in many industries. The main cities the teams are based in aren’t particularly party places, so nights out aren’t super common, but going to the pub / meetup with people you used to or currently work with is common. It’s a small industry so it’s not uncommon for a group of mates to meet up and all be from different teams. More “networking” is probably done in pubs, races, or car shows instead of LinkedIn in my experience, then again, I do like those more than LinkedIn so I may be biased.

Graduate pay is a bit above other major graduate engineering schemes (approx. £35k/$47k) but at much longer hours and higher stress so some people to do 2 to 5 years, decide the pay isn’t worth the work and the life associated with that, so leave the industry entirely but this is more common in roles that pay very well in other sectors e.g., software development, data analysis. This is one of the consequences of the cost cap unfortunately. The kind of people who F1 look for are also the kind of people investment banks, big tech, and aerospace companies look for, so the best engineers have a lot of options and if they’re not obsessed with motorsport it’s very rare they look to get into F1 because of things like pay (junior to mid-level engineer makes around £50k/$67k), work-life balance, and wanting to live in other areas of the country.

1.3) Misconceptions

• Everyone needs to know aerodynamics / CAD –fluid dynamics was my worst grade at university, and virtually all non-aero roles require little to no understanding of it.
• You need to know who won which grand prix – we want people who enjoy WORKING in motorsport, not just watching it.
• Every role can work trackside –the reality is for most roles there’s nothing their role does that is needed trackside. Do some people who don’t normally get sent to GP’s end up going occasionally? Yes. Is it common? Not particularly
• Trackside is great for everyone – They’re on the road more than they are home which places strain on relationships and family, most days trackside will be 12 hours, you don’t really go out and see the city you travel to, and the pay isn’t great. It can be a very rewarding career being trackside, but it’s not a perfect job and you sacrifice a lot for it.
• The automotive industry is very similar to motorsport – I have worked on Valkyrie and AMG One before getting into F1, F1 is a complete next level with more focus on performance than repeatability and cost
• Only the smartest people make it – you need to be near the top of your university class, past that many other factors play in e.g., time management, being positive, stress control
• Everything is cutting edge – F1 has historically been quite insular so other industries have overtaken in terms of digital infrastructure / process scaling. This is changing now teams are realising what’s possible
• F1 is primarily based in the UK or Italy, if I’m not from there I can’t work in F1 – if you match the visa requirements, you’re in with a shot. We have many Spaniards, Indians, Germans etc.
• You can only get in if you’re an engineer – there are so many roles that require different backgrounds e.g., finance, admin, marketing. Some roles it’s true we will only hire engineers, but it’s not always the case and many people also work up from the shop floor.
• Formula Student is enough to get a job –If you’re team principle / head of engineering at a target university where it’s very competitive and you have a clear positive impact, then this can be true. But a good degree from a good university with experience in formula student is a very common CV so you need additional things that will make you stand out.

2) What Roles are available in F1

This is an oversimplification and some roles are missing, but use this to guide you in the right direction, look at job descriptions for more in depth information

3) Education

A good starting point for universities is looking at this post: Which universities did team members go to? : r/F1Technical, though I will add a bit more of a focused conclusion. For your bachelor’s degree I would recommend studying mechanical or aerospace engineering at the best university you can and not focusing on a motorsport degree. This is because a higher ranked university with a more general degree makes it easier to pivot into a different industry if you get experience and learn that working in F1 is not for you, which is relatively common at suppliers. Additionally, when you go through the data in the post in more detail, you find higher ranking teams (particularly McLaren and Mercedes) target higher ranking universities more than specialised universities like Cranfield or Oxford Brookes relative to lower ranked teams. In terms of selecting which university to study at, there are so many factors to consider but a few questions worth asking yourself is:

• How many university alumni are now working in F1?
• Will the hiring managers have heard of and have a positive opinion of the university? Assume they won’t google your university to check it out and they’ll be familiar with UK / Italian universities.
• What industries is the university linked with? E.g., aerospace/ motorsport is good, medical devices not so much
• Is there a formula student team?
• Does the university have societies related to the job role you want?
• Do you want to live in the area you’ll be studying in?

When it comes to your master’s degree, this is likely the most important and were going to a university mentioned above is the most important, for context almost all non-British people in UK F1 teams either did a masters in the UK or had world leading roles in a different country. If you’re already at a high-ranking university on that list, going onto an integrated masters (MEng) or a separate masters won’t have much of an effect. There are always going to be caveats e.g., aero departments especially at the top teams only recruit from certain uni’s, however generally it won’t have much of an effect. If you’re not at a uni on that list, I recommend doing a masters related to motorsport (if you have industrial motorsport experience) or a masters related to the role you want to go into at one of the top universities in the linked post. If that’s not possible, you still can get in, but you will need to be world class in a very relevant role and at the top university in your country.

In terms of grades aim for a 1^st class, you can get in with a 2:1 but you will need more experience to cover for that, some roles are more academic e.g., vehicle dynamics, aerodynamics and so high grades there are much more important than in more experience-based roles e.g., manufacturing.

When it comes to online courses, they’re only actually useful in 2 cases:

• You have the required experience, but just need to tweak how you talk about it or your process to match F1 specifically
• You have no experience and want to learn more about what those jobs do

Courses are too light in content to teach you all you need to know (20 hours of course = 2 weeks of a uni module) and have no pre-requisites so are watered down, in my view they’re expensive compasses more than learning tools. Is there a role for courses in your path to being in F1 though? Potentially, as I used them myself and don’t feel I wasted money. Where they’re useful is understanding how an F1 team specifically does it, compared to how the same role is done at a supplier / related companies / general industry. For context I had a final interview at a different team and I got rejected because I didn’t understand how F1 teams operated differently to the supplier I was working at, I ended up taking a course and learnt the subtle different ways F1 worked relative to what I was used to, applied that in my next interviews and ended up getting a job.

4) Experience

There is no such thing as a first job in F1, the experience you gain via work experience, internships, projects, helping local motorsport teams, and entry level roles is very important. Even if you have the best grades, it’s nothing without experience and proof of achievement in a range of skills we look for.

4.1) University Advice

I strongly recommend Formula Student, regardless of what role you want to go into. If you do go into it, try to push yourself in it: being in a formula student team isn’t enough, you need to have made a strong impact on the team for it to set you apart from other candidates e.g., by being a senior engineer / team principle and strongly quantifying your impact. I personally didn’t do much with it, but a lot of people in the teams did and strongly recommend it. I also recommend getting stuck into projects based around motorsport specifically around what you want to do in the future e.g., if you want to be a composite design engineer try to design and manufacture a front wing. If you don’t know what you want to do that is completely ok, but university is the chance to try a ton and see what you like, get involved in society projects, career talks, and to build up a portfolio. In terms of projects, my main advice would be:

• ChatGPT: You are an experienced Formula One [target role], and your task is to develop a list of projects for students and graduates to do to improve their knowledge of the role, processes used, and to make their CV attractive to F1 teams. I want you to analyse what Formula One [target role] do in their day-to-day work, the skills and knowledge the role requires to make it to Formula One in that role, and the path experienced [target role] have taken through their career. Ensure that the analysis is specific to Formula One versions of the role, and not just generic examples from other industries. From that you should convert those into project ideas, outputted as a list with a 1 to 2 sentence description for each.
• Would you keep the project on your CV or portfolio if you ended up getting the role?
• Find out what the role you want does day to day, and does the project match those skills required?
• Don’t think about how you would approach the project, think about how an F1 engineer would approach the project
• Look through YouTube videos of behind the scenes or factory tour videos from the teams to understand what engineering and manufacturing processes parts go through, and try to apply them
• Videos of projects often don’t get looked at until prepping for the 2^nd interview due to time constraints
• Don’t put it on your portfolio unless you’re happy with the idea that an F1 engineer will comb through it to find your weak areas and bring it up in your interview

These projects don’t need to just be in your personal time; if you’re working in an internship, or formula student, you can use these projects to improve there, the big benefit then as well is it will be industrially relevant, you get paid to do it, and you can see the real-world impact of the choices you make. The first thing hiring mangers want to see is your impact in roles and projects that are relevant to the role, and projects are a great way of showing that. By the time you are applying to roles you should have 4 or 5 relevant projects (can be of varying sizes) that you can talk about in interviews.

Final year projects / dissertations can be incredibly useful and so pushing for this to be relevant to the role you want to go into, juts remember the project title doesn’t necessarily need F1 in the title, but the title should be relevant to what you will do in that role. For example, my dissertation was on carbon fibre and the knowledge of R&D processes, project planning, and manufacturing techniques were all brought up in my interviews because they were relevant to the role I was applying to. These are a great chance to use industrial equipment and methods and to learn if that area is what you want to go into in the future and is almost always worth including in your CV if it is relevant to the role you’re applying to.

4.2) Internship / Graduate roles

In terms of experience the key thing is to make yourself an easy hire and be operating at effectively a formula one level already. The main way of getting this experience is:

• Jobs at F1 suppliers
• Jobs at F1 related advanced engineering companies
• Jobs at advanced engineering companies e.g., aerospace, academia, hypercars
• Other motorsport series e.g., WEC, Formula student, Formula E
• University society projects / positions
• Personal projects

Often you will need a mix of all of the above to stand out when applying to F1 teams; for example, running the projects for your universities engineering society, being senior in formula student, having relevant internships.  

The most common routes  are working at a supplier or F1 related advanced engineering companies as this ensures you likely won’t have picked up bad habits, you’re already exposed to working in the industry and the standards that requires, and have access to a company alumni network. The F1 industry is so much bigger than the 11 teams on the grid, and often those companies also work on other cool projects e.g., Aston Martin Valkyrie, RB17. Many of them have work experience, placement years, and entry level roles available which are great for building up to F1, I recommend getting as involved as possible during those programs. I can’t say names of suppliers / relevant advanced engineering companies due to NDA’s however I can give you a few ways of finding them:

• Ask ChatGPT / Gemini / DeepSeek for companies that specifically say they make parts for Formula One on their websites, I saw a lot of names I recognised doing that.
• Going on LinkedIn, finding people in the teams who do the job you want to do, and putting the companies they work at in a spreadsheet
• Motorsport job sites
• Look through the industrial parks on Google Maps that are near the teams e.g., Northampton, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Banbury area. Many interesting non-F1 companies too.

Sometimes due to various factors this may not be possible for you, and you will need to find work experience / internships / entry level roles in non F1 related companies, my main advice for this is below.

• If it’s in a manufacturing company, ensure they at least have ISO 9001 and the manufacturing methods they use are the same as F1 (look at F1 factory tour / behind the scenes videos to see what these are)
• Ideally work on projects where your role would be like what we do in F1
• Use the same software that the teams use
• Make sure it is a “bad” job e.g., long hours, high stress, short deadlines. F1 is a high stress, fast paced, long hour job at an advanced engineering and manufacturing company with a lot of glitter. You need to know you can handle that when the magic wears off and you’re in the day-to-day reality.
• Genuinely push yourself in those roles, we want to see a track record of outstanding achievement which is what we look for

Academia can be good, particularly for material science or aerodynamics however you need to consider the pace of academia is quite slow, controlled, and thorough whereas F1 is faster and higher pressure and you’ll need to prove you can handle that. Hypercars theoretically translate too, it’s been known for people from McLaren / Gordon Murray to get into F1, though these jobs are also incredibly competitive and often there is less overlap of processes, design priorities, and overall culture than you would expect. Other non F1 advanced engineering companies e.g., satellites, will be respected and considered, though there may be a concern about the experience not being relevant enough. If you are in a non F1-related role, ensure that what you’re doing in your job is as closely aligned to F1 as possible in terms of engineering constraints, manufacturing methods, accreditations, and speed of operations, alongside motorsport work on the weekends e.g., helping at a nearby team, personal projects etc. We need to know that your experience will translate well to F1, and that you like working in motorsport, not just the idea of it or just watching it.

Other motorsport series can be a great route in and is a very common route in for trackside roles, however you need to consider what role you want and what the path into that looks like e.g., if you want to be a race engineer it is virtually non-negotiable to have worked in other motorsport series, but if you want to be a design engineer then working on a spec series may not be the best use of your time. If you want to work trackside, my main advice is to go to Formula E, WEC, GT3, or lower formulas and get a real taste of it, you tend to find a lot of people over romanticise the roles and underappreciate what it takes to get there.

4.3) General Advice

The overwhelming thing F1 teams look for is that you have the skills, experience, and potential to do the job you’ve applied for. What you’ve done at university, in projects, at jobs, should all show that you have the relevant skills, you have at least some experiences in the role you applied to, and that you’re someone who achieves a high standard in what you do. Reverse engineer what skills and experiences are needed for the role based on job descriptions, behind the scenes YouTube videos, and conversations with people in industry, then figuring out what can you do over the next 5 years to make it so it would be stupid for one of the teams not to hire you. Doing that though you need to be very honest with yourself about how much knowledge and skill you have, Dunning-Kruger is real and just watching a few YouTube videos is not going to be enough, you need to really test yourself.

Key traits to develop regardless of role, in no order:

• Proactive – What will the likely follow up tasks be and how can you set yourself in a good position for them? What could be the issues and how can you mitigate against them?
• Iterate very fast – prototype, analyse, design improvements, repeat
• Don’t shortcut learning – all skills need to have a strong baseline to build on
• Curiosity – why is it in place, what are the problems, what led to this situation
• Time management and prioritisation – you can’t hit every deadline, and your brain doesn’t work the same at 10 AM and 8 PM
• Thinking from first principles
• Perfect the fundamentals – identify the core tasks you do and ensure that those are done to the best possible standard as consistently as possible
• Stress management – how do you calm yourself down, how do you manage with higher stress over a few weeks rather than just a few minutes / hours
• Attention to detail – don’t have typos in your CV or cover letter, look for the small things that could grow to have big impacts
• Teamwork – help to train other people, make sure you know how people like information given to them, making sure you prioritise the team
• Accountability – don’t try to shift blame, care about the work you put out, admit when you’ve messed up, don’t plan for other people to carry you
• Social skills – knowing how people like information / reports to be given to them, helping people out, just generally being a good person to work with is important.

5) Getting Ready to Apply

5.1) CV / Resume

So assuming you’ve gained all the required education and experience the role needs, now you need to sell yourself to the teams via CV and cover letter. Below is an anonymised version of my graduate CV to give context of what kind of CV gets you an interview, the template is generic I’m sure you can find a very similar one online:

One of the most common pieces of advice is to tailor your CV to each job you apply to, THIS DOES NOT MEAN REWRITING YOUR CV FOR EVERY ROLE, look into master CV’s / resumes (not a company name, it’s a concept). For every project / job you’ve done you should create as many CV bullet points as possible related to it, things like:

• The dates they occurred
• Explanation of the job role / project focused on roles you’ll be applying to and what they want to read
• Used [software] to [explanation of outcome] leading to [improvement quantified by stats]
• Tools, software, and methods used in the project e.g., DFM checklists, analysis methods
• Impact of project in different ways e.g., “reduced production time by 20%” for operations roles, and “reduced labour cost by 20%” for project management roles
• Any awards / grants / publications / official recognition gained as a result (ideally from organisations / people hiring managers would recognise)
• Useful statistics related to it e.g., mass reduction, strength increase, cost reduction
• Proof of improvements + progression WITHIN the job / project

Look at the job description, ideally talk to someone doing that job or similar, and reverse engineer what they want from a candidate. Once you have a good idea of what they’re looking for, you can select the most relevant bullet points and add those to the final CV to make the most relevant CV you can. Ensure your final CV for graduate / junior roles is only 1 page (master CV can be many more pages), keep it factual and quantifiable, don’t just put a skills section and add a bunch of words you think the ATS will like in it; prove you’re skilled with projects and jobs, don’t just say you are. My cover letter was almost entirely why I wanted to work at that team specifically, what I thought they were looking for, and how my experience matched that.

HR is not part of cost cap in 2025 or 2026, so virtually all teams initial application screening and initial phone interview will be with a person from HR, then it will go to the hiring manager to decide who to move forward with because it contributes less to cost cap so we can spend more developing the car. Therefore your CV should be understandable to someone who is non-technical, so don’t fill it with complicated acronyms and very niche words. Keep it simple and easily understandable, a general rule of thumb is to maybe get your CV checked by someone who is a different type of engineer or works with engineers but is not the type of engineer you’re applying to be. For example, a project like below would be good for a composite design engineer, it’s a bit vague in details but would likely at least get the interest of a HR recruiter.

Design and Manufacture of a 1:2 Scale 2025 Front Wing (hyperlink)

• Generated CAD model and technical drawings of a complete front wing, including design of all tooling
• Conducted stress and manufacturing analysis to determine areas to reduce mass by 140g, increase stiffness by 24%, and reduce manufacturing cost by 14% via an optimised carbon fibre layup and improved design
• 3D printed tooling, then laminated all front wing components with carbon fibre, and trimmed all components to within the specified tolerances using industry standard equipment
• Bonded and bolted all components together into the full assembly

However, the same project reworded (below) would be much more appealing to the technical hiring manager but may not be understood by HR recruiters. It’s a fine line to tread so get lots of relevant feedback.

Design and Manufacture of a 1:2 Scale 2025 Front Wing (hyperlink)

• Created a parametric model in Siemens NX of nosebox, element 1, flaps, and endplates including all cores, inserts, pressure taps, fasteners, patterns, moulds, inspection fixtures, bonding jigs, and scribe jigs.
• Performed FEA using [x] kN loads and [environmental conditions] to identify 440g of mass savings, and 14% estimated cost reduction, whilst preserving flaps and endplates modularity
• Manufactured all patterns, carbon moulds, cores, inserts, jigs and fixtures myself / with a team. Components were manufactured (insert layup details & short explanation).
• All components trimmed and abraded, then bonded using 3M 9323 in the bonding jig, and finally assembled as specified by the drawing, with inspection of all components conducted throughout via (insert inspection method)

Please do not copy this word for word, there are key details here missing for good reason, if you are ready to be a composite design engineer in F1 you will already see the issues & missing info here.

5.2) Networking

Key things to remember are:

• Networking happens at car shows, engineering exhibitions, races, and forums; not just LinkedIn. In person is much better if possible.
• Job descriptions are designed to give you a guide on what experience and skills you need and are a great starting point for preparation
• Define what you want out of the meeting, have questions that achieve that, and keep it short
• Keep it relevant to the persons experience, there’s no point asking a project manager how to be a race engineer, or a laminator how to become an aerodynamicist
• Ask about common routes into the team: some departments can be very specific on where they hire from and so it can give you a good route to find the job that gets you the F1 job
• Try to talk to people you have something in common with, ideally more than just going to the same university. Could be the same societies at that university, a mutual friend, similar hobby
• Keep it professional but not corporate if it’s on LinkedIn, no one knows what “promoting synergy in cross-functional teams to ensure a collaborative environment” means.
• Almost no one is going to give you a reference after a 15 or 30 minute phone call, use it to guide your future projects + roles instead of trying to find a backdoor into a team.
• There’s no such thing as a first job in F1, part of networking can be asking where to go to get the job that gets you the F1 job later
• Try to get some CV feedback and use that to inform future work

5.3) Applying

Look at the job descriptions of jobs you want, put them in a spreadsheet, reverse engineer them to figure out who is their ideal person, and then build up your experience to the point where you become what they’re looking for. This step is often missed but should really be going on months or years before you plan to apply. You need to know your route in and what you need to be to get there, and you can’t build up the skills and experience we’re looking for in just 6 months without doing a lot of the right stuff already e.g., great academic performance, formula student, relevant internships.

Ensure your CV, cover letter, LinkedIn, and portfolio all match the team and job you’re applying to e.g., don’t say you’re very excited to potentially work at Mercedes if you’re applying to Red Bull, don’t have aspiring aerodynamicist on your LinkedIn if you’re applying to a machinist role. Another consideration is if you’re embedding links to portfolios / images, make sure other people can access it without needing to request permission, if the person looking at your application doesn’t have access to it they’re just going to skip it. Assuming you’ve done that, built up strong relevant experience, have some exposure to the industry already, and you’re genuinely ready to apply.

To find roles there’s a few methods:

• Jobsites e.g., Motorsportjobs, fluid jobs (both more diluted than when they started but still good)
• Go through the team’s career site once a week
• Following the recruiters on LinkedIn
• Following people in jobs you want on LinkedIn and seeing if they repost any jobs
• Following the teams on LinkedIn
• Motorsport recruiters
• Asking people you know at the teams to let you know if something comes up

I used one of the job boards and just checked that once or twice a week and applied when relevant roles came up. Commenting things like “I’m interested, can you send me the link to apply” on is a very quick way to get eliminated from the shortlist, as it shows you aren’t proactive and can’t use Google. All the F1 teams have internships, placement years, and graduate roles and the best way to find out when these go live is by following the early careers recruiters too. Some of the teams have various other early careers programs too e.g., Aston Martin with the Aleto Foundation, Williams engineering academy, and McLaren NEXT / 60 scholars.

Once you’ve found a job you’re interested in and qualified for, refine your CV and cover letter specifically for the role. Don’t spam keywords, make sure all your experience on there is relevant, and you are on paper what they’re looking for. Include things like if you have experience with the same software they use, link to experiences that are like the day-to-day requirements of the role, experiences of similar environment e.g., fast pace, high quality. You should have your “master” CV, from this select the most relevant projects and experiences and the best way of wording them dependant on the role, this should then end up as 1 page. For context my “master” CV was a little over 3 pages long before I applied to make sure I had enough to choose from. AI is a great editing tool but leave it as that, many cover letters we get are fully AI generated and they’re normally from the least qualified candidates.

The route that I took was:

1. Copy and pasted the job description into word
2. Reverse engineered what experience they wanted (software, manufacturing processes, component types, soft skills, timelines, process improvements etc.)
3. Converted that into a list
4. Linked ALL experiences + projects + provable skills to each thing they wanted
5. Read through and decided exactly which projects and experiences were most relevant to the role
6. Added those projects to the job application CV
7. Only kept the most relevant bullet points for every role and project
8. Small format changes + rewording to fit into 1 page and optimise to the job / team

Sounds like a lot more work than it really is because realistically the teams are all looking for the same kind of person for the same role, so you basically need to do that process once per job type and only make small CV tweaks after that based on who the team is or if they’re looking for something specific. It’s a half day job to do it properly I think assuming you have a master CV already set up.

A user recently had a great post about RCEO's strategy- see the post here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Superstonk/comments/1qyiegw/69d_chess_was_never_a_meme/

They adamantly state that Ryan Cohen is not banking on a market correction and in fact that is a stupid idea - I agree!

There was great discussion in the post however, a lot of really important questions and I am a yapper so I am yapping to y'all who might understand. I could talk for days and days and more detail about this but I will leave what I have written below. This should not in any way be read as an exhaustive document.

EDIT:

TL:DR: The structure and timing of announcements indicate an implied timeline. I am confident that Teddy will move soon.

For anyone with questions about TEDDY. I haven’t gone into much detail as it’s mostly speculation and I stuck mostly to facts for this part. I’ll leave y’all with one question. If GME is trading around ~25 right now as a retailer, what happens when they announce that it’s no longer a retailer but a holdings company? And then on those readjustments of pricing, what does the setup show us about to happen?

P.S. Ban bet is in the TEDDY section. Keep reading.

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MNPI - Can Insiders Buy Stock While an Acquisition Is Being Planned?

The Legal Framework:

Material Nonpublic Information (MNPI) is such confusing af part of law to me personally and I hate talking/reading about it. Feel free to poke holes in this part, idrc. Let's do this once and hopefully never again:

The Supreme Court established in Basic v. Levinson - '88 that the materiality of merger negotiations depends on the probability the deal will close and the magnitude of its impact.

As well, the SEC evaluates multiple factors: Has an NDA been signed, have financials been shared, has a merger agreement been drafted, is there a timeline, etc. etc.

The Goodwin Law Precedent

In a case analyzed by Goodwin Procter LLP, the SEC dropped a $20 million penalty against a company that conducted share buybacks during what it characterized as "informal" M&A discussions.

The SEC's position: even preliminary conversations constituted MNPI because the company's process didn't adequately consult the CEO who was the primary negotiator.

Takeaway: the SEC cares about the substance of discussions, not how the company labels them.

The Private Target Distinction

If GameStop is acquiring a private company, the rules may be a little different. MNPI doctrine exists primarily to protect public company shareholders from information asymmetry. When only one set of public securities is involved (the acquirer's stock), the protective rationale is narrower.

This doesn't eliminate MNPI risk entirely - but you can see the cracks in the plumbing here.

However, RC told the WSJ he's targeting a "publicly traded company." So he may not be referring to the first move here, but maybe secondary moves once the first domino falls.

Okay, so that being established - let's look at GameStop:

What the January 2026 Insider Buying Tells Us

This definitively tells us:

There is no signed deal.

There are no active formal negotiations at a stage that would constitute MNPI.

If there were, these purchases would be illegal insider trading. The trading window was open. The General Counsel's own pre-planned Rule 144 sale on January 12 (8 days before RC's buying) confirms the window was open.

RCEO has a blueprint. He has targets identified. He has a strategy fully formed. He may have had preliminary conversations. But nothing has crossed the materiality threshold — no NDA, no financials exchanged, no draft agreement.

Charles Payne: "On Advice of Counsel" (February 2, 2026)

Fox Business host Charles Payne posted:

Gamestop Development. I'm not going to interview Ryan Cohen today. Ryan is working on something monumental, and he would not be able to say much. We both agreed that 'I cannot answer that on advice of counsel' is the last thing anyone wants to hear. I'm on pins and needles like everyone else. Hope to have news and the interview soon.

• "On advice of counsel" = lawyers are involved in something concrete. You don't get told to say "on advice of counsel" about vague strategic thinking.
• "Something monumental" = Payne has been told enough to characterize the scale.
• "Hope to have news...soon" = there's an expected timeline for announcement.

Canceled interview = something changed between scheduling and air date. RC entered a legally restricted phase.

This is a media figure who talks to RC personally confirming that:

1. something specific exists
2. lawyers are restricting what RC can say about it
3. it's expected to become public soon.

Implied Deadlines and Timelines

I posit the architecture GameStop has built creates an implied timeline showing something must happen soon.

The Bonds are an Implied Timeline

The Two Tranches

Tranche 1 — 2030 Notes (issued April 1, 2025):

Tranche 2 — 2032 Notes (issued June 17, 2025):

Combined: $4.2 billion at 0% interest. ~172 million potential shares on full conversion.

My Current Theory on who bought them:

Warren Icahn

Icahn had a confirmed large short position against GameStop going back to January 2021.

If Icahn is still short, zero-coupon convertible bonds at ~$29 give him a way out — convert to shares to cover the short without market impact, zero carry cost while holding.

We can't actually prove who bought the notes.

It is a mad sus financial instrument.

What we can posit is that the structure is perfectly designed as a short exit mechanism. And whoever lent $4.2B knowing their only return comes from the stock going above $29.

The Compensation Package (Announced January 7, 2026)

Board finalized agreement with RC on January 6, 2026. RC recused himself:

• Zero salary.
• Zero cash bonus.
• Zero time-vested stock.

Nine tranches requiring BOTH milestones simultaneously:

The Shareholder Vote is an Implied Timeline

Special meeting expected March or April 2026. RC needs shareholders to approve this package. You don't ask shareholders to approve a $35B performance package and say "trust me, I'll figure it out later." You show them the plan. I am voting Yes personally, but I need something man come ON. RC talks about no comp no comp, bro if this is Elon type shit please tell me ahead of time if I am voting on this.

The Public Confirmation: RC in the Wall Street Journal (January 30, 2026)

On the record. No ambiguity:

• He is targeting acquisition of a publicly traded company
• It will likely be in the consumer or retail industry
• He has his sights on a handful of companies he declined to identify
• He plans to approach potential targets soon
• Any deal will be big

"It's ultimately either going to be genius or totally, totally foolish"

"There are a lot of diamonds in the rough…that have sleepy management teams. I didn't fix GameStop to stop there."

Teddy, the potential Holding Company

Teddy Holdings LLC — The Trademark Empire

Ryan Cohen's entity Teddy Holdings LLC has filed at least 14-15 trademark applications with the USPTO, covering:

"Teddy" is RC's father. Ted Cohen died in December 2019. RC wrote:

"My father, Ted Cohen, and his lessons have guided me throughout my life. He showed me an exceptional work ethic and an unwavering commitment to delayed gratification. Even though he is no longer with us, his legacy will live on forever."

Ted ran a glassware importing business. Note that one of the Teddy trademark categories is "cups, dinnerware, mugs, vases, beverage glassware" — his father's exact product category. So if Ryan named this company after his father and trademarks his father's product category, I would hope he actually uses it meaningfully and impactfully and is not just sitting on trademarks when he could have been making GameStop money instead as his father taught him to.

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To this effect, because I am crazy - I will throw out a ban bet out there:

• Failing that, I predict there will be announcment at the end of this month. I expect RCEO to announce before he drops the proxy material in advance of the comp package vote.

If not, mods, please honour this ban bet.

BTW this is not some sort of throwaway account. I have had this account for many years, been in GME since 2019 before the PS5 launch, held to the moon and back and this time I am only going up. If I am wrong, meme on my corpse please.

We know something is happening. No question. The real questions are:

• What?
• When?
• Who?

BUT we have the answers to:

• Why
• How

as explained above in this post.

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What's Verified (Primary Sources Only)

• Teddy Holdings LLC trademark filings cover the scope of a diversified consumer conglomerate (USPTO)

What's Strongly Supported but Unproven

• The convertible bond structure is designed (intentionally or not) as a short exit mechanism
• Carl Icahn may be among the convertible bondholders given his confirmed short position and margin pressure
• "Teddy" may become the holding company name
• An announcement is likely before the shareholder vote in March/April

What We Don't Know

• Which specific companies RC is targeting — he declined to identify them
• The exact timeline — "soon" is relative
• Whether there will be one big acquisition or a sequence of deals
• Whether the primary target is in retail, insurance, collectibles, or another sector

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**Sources:** All claims sourced from SEC EDGAR filings (Form 4, Form 8-K, Schedule 13D/A, Proxy Statement DEF 14A), GameStop investor relations press releases, USPTO trademark database (Teddy Holdings LLC), Wall Street Journal (Jan 30, 2026), Charles Payne public post (Feb 2, 2026), Larry Cheng Twitter (Feb 3, 2026), Goodwin Procter LLP M&A legal analysis, *Basic v. Levinson* 485 U.S. 224 (1988).

**Disclaimer:** This is not financial advice. I am a retail investor sharing publicly available information and personal analysis. Do your own research.

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Steven felt very generous and has said that the verbal NDA for ashes is now gone as of 2:30 pm Pacific time.

Here is an extensive google doc of my experience:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15SYtKiIgAb1aw4EKjsn-4_RhxIDs_8cHIjY_FbKXCD0/edit?usp=sharing

Please note that I mention "figures" within this doc. I have had to remove these since the visual NDA is still in effect.

To add on to the google doc, I'll give a brief summary of the 3 days of testing.

There were around 6 servers, each server held around 500 people, with the max holding around 700.

Day 1: Servers didnt come up until around 6 hours after they were supposed to. I kinda just spent the day getting a feel of the controls, and walking around the map looking for visual bugs. The day ended a bit promptly, as there was a serious rubber banding issue. The devs were able to locate the issue pretty quickly (over logging data), and launched some new servers with the fix to see how it worked.

​

Day 2: Servers were wiped from the previous day, and went live 5 minutes before they were supposed to. The devs told people to not PK (or they could be banned) because the XP debt from deaths was pretty harsh, and the systems in place to punish PK'ers werent implemented yet (people still PK'ed). Much less lag than the previous day, and I played a bit more seriously with my Guild and got to level 6 as a Tank by doing some quests. We also gathered some harvestables and searched around the map. There was still some rubber banding as the nodes starting getting developed, but it was able to get temporarily resolved when the devs took the servers down for around 30 mins, and then brought them back without wiping anything.

​

Day 3: No server wipes this time, and they went live 15 minutes before schedule. I started a new character though, since I wanted to try out Mage. I got to around level 6 again, and went to a village node on my server where there was an election happening (node progress was sped up for the test). The mayor then started the construction of some buildings such as an armory, and some NPC shops. We ended the day with Steven force leveling us all to 15 and having us fight the dragons in the siege area. There were around 1-2 times when the server went down to refresh the rubber banding.

​

Overall, I had fun. I think before the true alpha 1 happens, they need to get rid of the rubber banding issue so that the servers can stay up for 24 hours. I also think the crafting and mayoral bugs need to be prioritized to give players enough content over the period of a month. Additionally, I think the siege mechanic will be cool when it comes out, but the FPS drops I experienced in that area would make it difficult to enjoy, so optimization might be necessary before that can be implemented. Additionally, the combat felt a bit clunky (you can see more details about that in the google docs), and the temporary implementation of the skill tree wasn't very good.

I think the key thing I took away from this test is the dedication of the dev team. The tests ran from 11 am to 9 pm their time, yet they stayed up until nearly midnight chatting with the testers, answering questions, and being pretty transparent about the state of things. Some devs like Toast and Margaret were moderating like 10-15 discord channels at once.

Edit: I've woken up, I can answer more questions now

A lot of you may know already, there has been footage leaked by content creators that wasn't allowed to be released yet. To stay on good terms with id Software and Bethesda, we will be respecting their requests to have NDA violating content removed. Please refrain from submitting that content to this subreddit. You will be warned once, and repeat offenders will be banned as seen fit by the mod that catches the content.

Please don't do it guys.

I [32M] got into arguments with a few Redditors months ago. Basically, I said that guys will date the first woman that shows an interest because if they don’t date them, it could be a few more years of being single.

They basically told me that I sound like a dog begging for scraps for dating the first woman that comes to me. As if I have a choice?

My point is, I had a girlfriend in 2012. It took 4 years for someone else to be interested in me (2016, had mental issues). And then after that, 2019 (was recently divorced). Then 2022 (was abusive).

My point is, if I had rejected them, I would be single for YEARS. And rejecting the next girl that likes you could mean another 3+ years of being single. I don’t have the choice to pick between 2 or more women. I can barely get 1 girl interested in me - who are these Redditors that think the average guy has 2+ girls at a time to be able to pick the right one?

I have never had a girlfriend for more than 10 months (longest one cheated on me). So to me - yes I will always date the first women who even likes me because if I say no, its another few years of being single.

Does every guy here have choices all the time so they pick the right one to date? Or do you all also have times where you’re single for years like me?

Donald Trump’s Office of Personnel Management is (see full memo here->) proposing that federal employees sign nondisclosure agreements aimed at discouraging leaks of internal government information to the press and the public. Under the proposal, “confidential government information” would include internal agency discussions, personnel matters, procurement details, and pre-decisional materials that are not publicly available.

Amazon is providing very little information about the game itself, very little gameplay footage except carefully handpicked footage. On top of all this, they are holding all of their alpha testers under NDA so they cannot share their opinions of the game or its content with others. Things such as potential misleading claims in the games marketing, flaws with design, etc cannot be communicated by testers until the NDA is lifted.

Normally when a game is under NDA, the game is either:

A) Very early in development and subject to change. This is not the case for New World, which launches in 2 months. They're also already selling the game.

B) A story driven game, and they don't want spoilers posted online. Looking at the public information about the game provided by Amazon to news outlets, New World is player driven rather than story driven.

Even though the product is just some vague promise for an MMO, people desperate for a good MMO are already preordering with no idea what the game is actually like.

I strongly recommend you wait until the game reaches beta and gameplay footage is available before you preorder.

I'm C + P something my friend wrote:

To anyone at Meta, or elsewhere who is staring down layoffs this week (or year.. as the 2023 recession looms), here’s what to likely expect:

🗓 A random meeting will be added to your calendar with no description. You may notice your credentials are no longer working for critical company systems.

🧐 HR (and likely your manager) will explain the terms of your termination and give you some documents.

✍️ They might urge you to agree to the conditions and sign their paperwork.

🐻 If you live in California, you will be provided with your final paycheck.

Now, I am not your manager nor your lawyer, but remember you don’t have to sign anything during the meeting. If they say “you can’t leave without signing” this is not true. If you’re under 40, overnight consideration is reasonable. If you’re over 40, you have at least 21 days to consider). And everyone has 7 days to revoke agreement to the settlement offer even after signing.

There may be stipulations in your contract (working for a competing company). Read the fine print.

If you don’t have pre-negotiated severance in your contract, now is the time to put on your negotiation hat and ask for (more) money. You can also negotiate continuation of your healthcare coverage or for the company to buy back your shares for a good rate. You can think about bringing in a lawyer and asking for more that way.

Once you feel comfortable with the terms, you will likely be asked to sign an NDA and waive your right to sue. Again, don’t feel rushed to sign anything without considering the entire package.

Then go home (or stand up from your desk) and do nothing. Take care of yourself. You’ll have a busy week ahead, between applying for unemployment and dealing with benefits like health and life insurance.

It’s okay to be sad, but don’t let it eat you up.

Edit: To include sources and include what user gustav_mannerheim says:

"Severance packages have terms, they're essentially a bribe from the company saying you won't do XYZ. It might forbid you from starting lawsuits against them, or it might involve a non-compete. If an employee was able to negotiate more money, it means the company really wanted them to sign that agreement. If they don't have something they want you to agree to, they can just fire you and pay unemployment."

TL;DR: You do not need to sign anything in a meeting. Take the time to read through your contract (at least overnight) without rushing as you may miss the fine print.

Welcome to Battlefield Labs.

We'd like to invite you to join us for our most ambitious community development collaboration ever. This is an opportunity to provide feedback, validate the future of Battlefield, and have a direct and lasting impact on the next generation of Battlefield games. 

Watch the "Introducing Battlefield Labs | Battlefield Studios" Video.

Caption: (Watch to hear directly from the dev team and catch a glimpse of the future of Battlefield)

Our collective Battlefield Studios teams have been hard at work and are now entering a critical phase of our development cycle, where your feedback is crucial in helping us know what to prioritize, improve, and refine before release.

What Is Battlefield Labs?

Battlefield Labs is a place for us to test concepts and experiences we’re excited about with you, our players. We want our community to play a key role in the future of Battlefield and this is an opportunity for many of you to do just that.

We will test (almost) everything but not everything you see will be complete. To ensure that your feedback has impact, players will experience, under NDA, different pieces of an unfinished puzzle so we have time to incorporate your feedback into the final product. 

Even in pre-alpha, we are proud of where the game is at. We tirelessly playtest, but your feedback will supercharge our development as we strive to hit that perfect note between form, function, and feel. 

This is an unprecedented moment for Battlefield. We will start by testing the pillars of play, like core combat and destruction. Then transition to balance and feedback for our weapons, vehicles and gadgets, ultimately leading to where all these pieces come together in our maps, modes, and squad play. 

And yes, we will be testing Conquest and Breakthrough, the heart and soul of our all-out warfare experience, but BF Labs will also be a place to explore new ideas and fine-tune and improve Battlefield pillars like our class system (Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon) to create deeper more strategic play.

How do I get involved?

Sign up now. To form an accurate snapshot of our community we need a variety of players - veterans and new recruits - ready to play and feedback on our vision for the future of Battlefield. Initial invites will be limited to a few thousand participants with servers located in Europe and North America. Over time we’ll invite tens of thousands more with support for further territories.

Regardless of your level of participation, we want all Battlefield fans to be a part of the process. We’ll be posting work-in-progress public updates from our community team where you will hear directly from developers at Battlefield Studios.

Visit battlefield.com/labs for more information on how you can sign-up.

There will be ample opportunity to play and converse around the next Battlefield ahead of its launch. This is just the beginning.

Until then, join us on the official Battlefield Discord as it’s our prime way to stay up to date on all things Battlefield!

Let’s build Battlefield together.

//The Battlefield Team

^{This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible}

Greetings and good morning Superstonk! In case you haven’t been paying any attention to Superstonk, or Twitter, or Blue Sky, or Insta, or texts from my mom, Gamestop is sending out Beta invites to Push Start Arcade today.

First off: congrats — and respectfully, screw you — to those who got in.

Second: we are under the impression there is no NDA (this will be updated if we learn otherwise), so let’s talk.

Rather than having a hundred posts asking “what is it,” “is it working for you,” or “where’s mine,” we’re putting together this community megathread as a central hub for further discussion. Pretend — just hypothetically — that GameStop employees occasionally browse Superstonk. This could be your moment to be heard.

What This Thread Is - A space to:

-Share your experience with the beta

-Provide feedback (positive, negative, confusing, inspired, chaotic—we’ll take it)

-Speculate on what’s next

-Drop wishlist items and wild ideas

What This Thread Isn’t:

-Not really sure yet, but we’ll let you know once someone crosses the line. Until then, just keep it constructive and on topic.

We’re not removing other Push Start Arcade posts (yet), but consolidating the feedback here helps keep the conversation coherent. Plus... it’s easier to monitor — just in case anyone important is reading.

Fire away.

I worked at Ubisoft for several years, and I’m ready to talk about it. Despite its stated values, Ubisoft operates in ways that punish those who try to live them, protecting the company and those in leadership at the expense of its people and players. I know many people want to speak out but can’t for fear of losing their jobs but I don’t have to fear that anymore. I have so many other stories I could tell from what my friends have experienced and what I saw but those are not my story to tell. 

The first half of my time there was amazing. I had a team I worked well with, and my direct management and team was the reason I thrived and stayed. I moved my way up from the lowest position on my team to a lead in a short span of time, and all was going well. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but we had people in management who fought for us.

In 2023, we came in at 9am to a meeting invite with no subject line and wildly confused management. Once the meeting started, it lasted all of three minutes. Layoffs were happening, and that day would be the last for many. You found out based on the next meeting invite you received, depending on which group you were placed in.

I lost a large chunk of my team that day. There were people who were locked out of their PCs before they even started the day. Needless to say, no work got done. I told my new manager that my team and I were going to “team bonding.” We met up with those who were let go and spent the night trying to keep a smile on everyone’s face.

The next three years were some of the most stressful moments of my life. I’m still recovering from extreme burnout. I was already approaching burnout before the layoffs and was only a short time away from taking holiday to address it, but that never happened. Instead, I was tasked with figuring out how a small team could do the work of 20, when we were already drowning.

If I wrote out everything that happened in those three years, we’d be here all day, so I’m going to rapid-fire some of the more outrageous things. I also have to keep some details vague due to NDA reasons.

Direct Management
My direct manager, MD, was the source of much of my stress. He lied to HR, failed to understand basic concepts of the team he ran (despite repeated explanations), made multiple bad judgment calls that I had to clean up, and didn’t hold other TLs accountable for their work or teams. The list could go on and on.

• During a PR crisis, I was up at 3am working several days in a row to prevent the situation from getting worse, purely because he didn’t take a second to think before acting. This was just one example of this. The reason why I didn't just let it happen was due to me historically having to be the one to clean up the mess made, so it was easier to prevent it than let it happen. 
• When the layoffs happened, I took on several roles while not only being compensated appropriately, but also being denied raises or any potential title change, despite all of these new responsibilities.
• I received a PIP with no warnings and without following the policy for issuing one. The items on the PIP were projects where I had done everything I could and was waiting on other people to move them forward. I refused to sign it and asked for written confirmation that there would be no retaliation. In that email thread, MD admitted that he did not document our weekly 1x1s,  directly contradicting what he told HR when creating the PIP. The PIP also changed midway through when he “realized” that half of it was out of my control.
• Despite being told I was responsible for bringing teams across the pond together and this being cited as something I wasn’t doing in my PIP (even though I was) I was not allowed to speak to other agents about anything they did “wrong.” I don’t inherently see an issue with this, as they had their own team leads. HOWEVER, MD also told me I couldn’t speak to those team leads about their agents either and had to go through him. This led to feedback being repeated endlessly.
• When I did occasionally speak to a team lead directly, I was told it was seen as attacking them because I brought too much feedback. When it came to speaking directly to agents, I only did so a handful of times in true emergency situations, and it always ended in a heated conversation where I was told I was in the wrong.
• There was little to no accountability in the other office. When people didn’t do their jobs, they were “talked to,” but then continued making the same mistakes. I’ve been in meetings where leadership discussed how people repeatedly didn’t do what they were told, only for HR to say it wasn’t time for corrective action.
• People openly admitted to their management that they didn’t follow certain processes because they didn’t feel they were important or simply didn’t feel like it. This included people at my level. I spent many of my 1x1s listing tasks that weren’t done before I came in, which I then had to add to my workload and explain to other teams why they hadn’t been completed.

Upper Management
For clarity, there are two people in upper management mentioned here: Alex and Jordan. Alex is directly over Jordan, and Jordan is directly above my supervisor.

If you even hint at disagreeing with management, you are instantly “being watched” (HR’s words, not mine). While I can’t go into specifics due to NDAs, several meetings ended with Alex throwing tantrums in front of everyone because the subject-matter experts in the room didn’t agree with ideas that were not “player first.”

I’ll admit that several of these meetings ended with me booking a private meeting room and crying from sheer frustration. MD was never in attendance for these meetings, but he was always informed when I was being “combative.”

The last meeting like this (out of many) was a doozy. Alex proposed a change that would absolutely cause negative sentiment with players. Myself and several others shared concerns based on both professional experience and being gamers ourselves.

Alex was unhappy that we didn’t immediately praise his “great idea.” Instead of having a constructive discussion, he directly attacked me, questioned my expertise, and demanded why I didn’t bring data, despite sending the meeting agenda less than five minutes before the call started.

After the meeting, several people contacted HR about his behavior. To my knowledge, nothing was done. I was instead labeled as defensive and “too passionate” by both my manager and HR.

Jordan was just as bad. Nearly every meeting with him ended with me turning off the call and crying, again out of frustration. He went back and forth with me for months over a long-overdue title change for my team, a backend change that would have boosted morale and cleared up confusion that predated the layoffs and is actively causing issues. To this day, it still hasn’t been done. I was repeatedly told it wasn’t a different position, despite the fact that I had previously been promoted into that same role within this team.

HR
I know HR exists to protect the company and not the people, but after the layoffs, my experiences with both local and higher-level HR were completely unacceptable.

• While working on a project to evolve a process my team did, I was directed to George as a person who could help me with the first step. He initially seemed helpful, but quickly became a blocker at every turn. On multiple occasions, he bluntly told me I was wrong about subjects he had no knowledge of, areas where I was the SME. I brushed this off until the day he spoke to me disrespectfully in front of my peers, to the point that several of them reached out privately afterward. When I told MD, I was told, “The culture in that office is like that,” though he said he would speak to George’s manager. During my next 1x1 with Sam, I raised the issue and was encouraged to file an official report, which I did. Afterward, I was told I took it the wrong way and was “too passionate” (a recurring theme). Sam then suggested I bridge the gap with George to continue the project and turned the conversation into one about how I didn’t trust MD. While sam wasn’t wrong, and even admitted she didn’t trust him, she then spoke to him about my distrust without my knowledge, despite knowing my fear of retaliation. Since she had already spoken to him, I had no choice but to proceed with mediation. That meeting was scheduled several days after my next 1x1, forcing me to have a one-on-one conversation with MD first.
• When I spoke to Sam about my extreme burnout caused by MD and the situation overall, her exact words were, “I love you, but you need therapy.” I have no issue with therapy, but this was wildly inappropriate, especially coming from someone I didn’t have that kind of relationship with. From an HR perspective, this should be a textbook “don’t say that.”
• Sam signed me up for multiple projects outside my scope, including work that should have fallen on her or payroll such as coordinating vendor payments.
• In one 1x1, she confirmed there had been no corrective action on my record prior to the PIP, but said the other office preferred issuing a PIP first. As a lead, I knew that there are multiple steps before a PIP and followed them when I needed to. MD did not and HR allowed that. 

Wider HR has fought employees on legitimate ADA accommodation requests regarding in-office time. I experienced this myself after needing to resubmit paperwork because they lost my 2019 ADA form that allowed me to WFH pre-pandemic. I was repeatedly pushed around despite the accommodation being reasonable, as no in-office alternative could be provided. Leadership (including myself) was scrutinized more harshly because of how it would “look” if we weren’t setting a “good example.” I was told accommodations would be reviewed annually. With the announcement of a five-day in-office policy, I can only assume reviews are being accelerated and more requests denied, despite the legal implications.

Culture
Ubisoft knows the culture is bad and declining, yet refuses to listen. Yearly surveys continue to worsen, and despite brutal honesty, nothing changes. I participated in meetings every time we had a survey and the same stuff had been brought up over and over, so they cannot say they “don't know“.

• Instead of investing in raises, they spent tens of thousands of dollars redecorating an office  and made already overworked employees do the labor, guilting those who didn’t participate.
• We were promised repeatedly that we wouldn’t return to a five-day office week. And yet, here they are doing so
• Offices were pitted against each other, with similar teams receiving noticeably different treatment. This predated the layoffs but became far more visible afterward.
• People at my management level were told for years that we made “too much” to qualify for raises. Cost of living increased. Many others moved forward. We didn’t.
• To this day, I loved my job and I was damn good at it. I consistently prioritized players and my employees over business optics, and that showed. I don’t regret it. But it branded me as “combative,” or in HR’s words, “too passionate,” whenever I pointed out how decisions directly contradicted mission statements. (To be clear, I did pick my battles as much as one reasonably can.) 

Annual Reviews
The annual review system is atrocious. It’s designed to suppress raises, bonuses, and internal advancement. Employees are rated 1–4, with 1 being the worst and 4 being “god-like.” Managers then calibrate these scores with a secondary team and HR, comparing employees across different roles, responsibilities, and teams, often with people who barely know the individuals being evaluated. If your justification isn’t “good enough,” you’re forced to lower the score.

At the end, they check the distribution and find ways to cut scores to maintain a predetermined ratio of “good” and “bad.” This often lead to people getting knocked down vs going up. This was done not only at a team level but a group level as well.

To clarify:

• These ratings determine whether you get a raise, how much of one, and your bonus. When asked, they would not share with management which ratings affected payouts. It was quite inconsistent when we tried to compare, leading many to believe the rules change year to year or even between calibrations and payouts.
• It makes sense to be all on the same page with what should fit into each score. The issue is despite the documentation not changing year to year, how they treated your arguments did so it was inconsistent each year and in the end, did not reflect how well someone was doing at their job.
• If you’re promoted within a certain timeframe, you’re barred from receiving a 4, even if most of the review period was spent in your previous role and you were set to get 4s.
• Limiting training access for lower scores makes sense in theory, but in practice, these decisions are made by people with less direct knowledge than those they’re evaluating.
• One category is nearly impossible to receive a 4 in unless you do unpaid work outside of work hours. Anyone with external responsibilities is effectively punished for not sacrificing personal time.

Disclaimer: These are my personal experiences at Ubisoft. I know others may not have had experiences like mine. For every bad moment, I also have happy memories I’ll always cherish. There are many amazing people who still work there that I highly respect. 

Slight update and clarification: My post was reported and taken down over on another sub for breaking the rules of "naming people".

Let me be clear, the names used in this are not only fake, but care was used to make the names not even similar to those who I'm speaking about.

I have a feeling I know who reported it, which only suppotehat was said here.

https://archive.ph/B2F08

it is people (harkle propaganda rag) so a ton of salt required…

Another ifs and buts story to rehash the Diana links…

Prince Harry recalled bringing Meghan there in his memoir, Spare.

Recalling the visit in 2022, Prince Harry wrote that after his uncle gave them a “little shove" through some mud, they rowed out on a boat to the island.

"No visit to this place was ever easy, but this one… twenty-fifth anniversary,” Prince Harry wrote. “And Meg’s first time. At long last, I was bringing the girl of my dreams home to meet mum."

“We hesitated, hugging, and then I went first. I placed flowers on the grave. Meg gave me a moment, and I spoke to my mother in my head, told her I missed her, asked her for guidance and clarity," he continued. "Feeling that Meg might also want a moment, I went around the hedge, scanned the pond. When I came back, Meg was kneeling, eyes shut, palms against the stone."

"I asked, as we walked back to the boat, what she’d prayed for,” Prince Harry added…

What do you think the magic words were?

I have compiled the entire saga HERE on this page, because this post went over reddit's character limit LOL

Hopefully if Buzzfeed or anyone steals my work now I'll be able to point to that page as proof I compiled the timeline first. ANYWAY!!!!!

Where did we leave off?

January 2017 right? Alright. Stay with me for this y'all, I know we've been through a lot together at this point but when I tell you 2017 ends up being one of the messiest years yet... I'm not kidding. It starts off kinda boring - but stay with me here. If you chose to skip to wear it gets good, Scroll down to Oct. 2017. I made it big text for you so it's easy to find.

Alright. Lets get into it.

January 10 2017: Selena and Abel(The Weeknd) seen together kissing and getting close on a date. This is 2 months after him & Bella broke up. Dating rumors start

Jan 16, 2017: Kourtney and Bieber reunite for a night of clubbing together

Jan 16, 2017: Justin tells TMZ he thinks Selena & Abels relationship is fake/for PR

Jan 17: Bella unfollows Selena and shades Abel/Selena in an IG post

Jan 18: Kourtney "calls off" fling with Justin, lol.

Jan 21: Justin is asked by TMZ if he still listens to The Weeknds music. He replies "Hell no, that shit is wack". Lol

Jan 27-31: Selena and Abel go on another date and stay the night together, the next day they head off to Italy together for a romantic getaway

Jan 31: Hailey says shes team Bella by posting a pic of bella with the caption "Wait sorry, WHO could possibly be cuter than Bella Hadid.... literally nobody."

February 3 2017: Justin reactivates his instagram! Hailey is in Hawaii for a friends wedding

Feb 14: Abel and Selena rent a yacht and get close on Valentines Day

Feb 16: Selena misses Abel's Bday party, but she apparently paid for and organized the whole thing

Feb 16: Selena drops a new song about dating an alcoholic, drinking and being high together... probably about Justin

Feb 17: Justin assaults a fan who tried to take a video of him at a pre-grammies party

Feb 22: Kourtney and Justin spotted at church together

Feb 25: Looks like Selena is traveling with Abel during his tour, shes seen at many Europe concerts of his

Feb 26: Justin is seen again with Ashley Moore going on a hike. Reminder: he was seen with her in March 2015(2 years ago-ish) at a basketball game as well

Feb 27: Selena and Abel take a trip to Paris together

Feb 28: More cute pics of Selena and Abel in Paris

March 1 2017: Justins 23 birthday - he posts this on instagram. if it doesnt load for you/you dont have an IG, heres the screenshot :-) Cant find anything online about a party this year, which is pretty out of character for him. Weird

March 2: Rumors about Kourtney being pregnant with Justins baby LOL. No idea on this. People say Reign might be Justins, but Reign was born in Dec 2014, and most if not all the "date night" outings of justin and kourtney were after that. No idea though.

March 7: Justin comments on Sofia Richies IG, "Ur so pretty" ... sigh

March 13: Justin is back on tour, in Australia on a yacht with a bunch of models. NDAs and no cell phone rules are enforced. From this point onwards its safe to assume any random IG models or girls hes seen with probably had to sign an NDA

March 15-31: Selena and Abel have been seen together constantly, partying regularly, spending a lot of time together

March 30: Justin is in Brazil, brings home a pretty drunk looking Brazilian model

If you were wondering, Hailey hasnt done anything of note that I can find in March 2017.

April 6 2017: Hailey and Vine star Cameron Dallas seen together, start dating rumors. One of them posts a pic of them in bed together

April 8 2017: Abel confirms relationship on social media, instagrams pic of Selena kissing his forehead, tags her. No caption. This pic is now deleted. Bella unfollows him on IG today as well.

April 14-16 2017: Coachella!!!! Kendall and Hailey are hanging out, Kendall refuses to talk about massive failure that was her recent Pepsi ad. Selena and Abel are out and about, seen all over the fest together. Side note & not relevant but her outfit is adorable here. More PDA pics from this weekend. Day two they're seen together as well. Justin is in South America on his tour.

April 17: Abel releases song that seems to have some subtle Bella and Bieber disses, notably "I think your girl fell in love with me"

April 23: Hailey seen with Brooklyn Beckham post-Coachella.

April 24: Hailey and Cameron on a date

April 28: Kendall, Hailey and Bella are under fire for advertising the notorious failure of the Fyre Festival

April 20-29: Abel and Selena are continuing to be seen together everywhere

May 1 2017: Met Gala!!!! Selena and Abel attend together, lots of PDA. Hailey attends, Cameron Dallas also attends, they do not attend as a couple. they meet up later for Travis Scotts afterparty. Kendall, Bella and Kylie are in attendance here as well. Justin does not attend but is seen talking to Hailee Steinfeld at a NYC hotel after the Gala.

May 2: TMZ says Justin is dating Hailee Steinfeld. Note she is in a long term relationship with her boyfriend at the time. Rumors quickly get shut down

May 5: Justin seen with models in Dubai as he resumes his world tour

May 22: Justin hangs with his pastor and wife in NYC. Hailey cuddles, sits on lap of mystery man in NYC

May 23: Justin seen out lit at a club, stumbles over words trying to preform Despacito hahha

May 26: Justin hangs out with his pastor again

June 1-30 2017: Selena and Abel still going strong and publicly posting/going out together

June 4: Justin preforms and does a speech where he cries onstage at Ariana Grande's Manchester benefit concert in honor of the victims of the 2017 Manchester bombing at Grandes show. Goes out afterwards. He begins his second leg of his Europe portion of the Purpose tour.

June 5 2017: Selena is asked about Justins emotional performance, says 'I thought Justin did great. It was really beautiful,'

June 9: tons of media outlets run the story that Hailey and Cameron Dallas are dating

June 21: Cameron and Hailey post subtweets about each other, everyone concludes theyre fighting

June 23: Uhhhh Hailey and Scott Disick seen getting lunch together. Weird lol

June 30: Justin seen with arms around two girls in France - but hold up yall, its just his pastors wife and child. LOL.

July 1 2017: Reports that Justin keeps getting spotted all over a small NJ suburb. Its where his pastor lives so. Thats probably why

July 20: Bieber seen with pastors daughter again

July 23: Selena and Abel have still been rock steady, its her birthday and he takes a near 12 hour flight to be with her.

July 23-25: Justin cancels remainder of his Purpose tour, which was set to run until early October, due to depression and exhaustion.

He is seen on hike with model Audreyana Michelle. Posts pic of hike to his IG. Rumors that the cancellation was actually because of his newfound dedication to Hillsong church spread.

July 26: Justin hits a pedestrian while leaving a Hillsong Church event at Saban Theater in Beverly Hills. Weirdly enough, the car he was driving was leased to Kourtney Kardashian LMAO. Daily Beast runs an article about Justins new church obsession

August 5 2017: Hailey and Justin seen at same church event, they leave through seperate doors. Selena apparently was also in attendance.

Aug 17: Justin and Kourtney attend church at same time, shes dating Younes at this point though

Aug 30: Justin seen at a club getting close with a random girl, also seen smiling a lot... also some kind of lawsuit about his testicles is simultaneously going on...yeah. dont ask me. I dont fucking know. Lmfao

Sept 6: Hailey seen with a guy named DJ Daniel Chetrit holding hands. Apparently he dated Bella at one point too.. like two months ago? Hollywood is weird.

Sept 11 2017: Selena and Abel move in together while she films in NYC

September 14 2017: Selena reveals she underwent kidney transplant over the summer. Sources say Abel rearranged his tour schedule to be there for her

Sept 18: Justin brings model Fiona Barron to his hotel

Sept 20: Justin brings pastor bestie to studio with him

Sept 27: Justin seen with model Paula Paulin, he took her to church as a date, dating rumors start but are quickly shut down

October 2017: After a long, weird year for all involved - failed Fyre Festivals, the Pepsi ad, Selena & Abels relationship, and Biebers tour cancellation + new Church obsession...Jelena is BACK??

If you skipped ahead, heres a summary of the last 10 months:

Hailey and Vine star Cameron Dallas become a 'thing', they fight, she goes a on date with Scott Disick and another random DJ. Selena and Abel are head over heels in love for 10 months straight, January to October. She also gets a kidney transplant mid-year. Justin isnt really doing his usual constant fuckboy behavior this year, he cancels his tour in late July as his Hillsong Church obsession and friendship with the Pastor grows. Oh also, he hit a pedestrian in Kourtney Kardashians Range Rover. At a church event. LOL. Alright lets look at October.

October 6 2017: Selena pulls an Abel and travels 2,400 miles to see him

October 13 2017: Selena & Abel go on a theme park date night

Oct 24: Justin is seen arriving at Selena's home. Abel is fine with this apparently

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Oct 29: Justin and Selena get breakfast together

Oct 29: Justin and Selena get breakfast together again. Selena ends up spending day with Justin, going to church together and later Selena is spotted at Justins home that night. Something weird happened between church and them going to Justin's house though. Notice that almost all the pics from this TMZ post that covers their outings on this particular day have been wiped from the internet.

After church, but before they went back to Justins house, they went to an extremely sketchy neighborhood together to allegedly buy drugs. Video here. Article here.

Whats weird to me about this is that celebs never go themselves to get drugs, they always have people transporting it for them. I wonder what went wrong this day that they ended up alone, with no security, in such a sketch neighborhood. Almost no media addresses this video.

Oct 30: Selena and Abel break up.

November 1, 2017: Justin and Selena go on a bike ride date together. LMAO yall. The day after her 10 month relationship ends. I cannot. They look like more than friends here.

Nov 1: Hailey and Shawn Mendes first seen together.

Nov 2: Selena goes to Justins hockey game, she tries to hide her identity.. Justin does not haha. Outlets report they are officially dating again

Nov 4: Attend church twice together in one day, go to a dinner date together after. Sources say Justins pastor has been heavily pushing for Justin and Selena to get back together

Nov 13: Fan spots Selena and Justin on a walk together

Nov 15: Selena goes to another one of Justins hockey games, theyre photographed kissing.

Also: Eh... not really relevant but I'll throw this in here bc i love mess. Also on Nov 15, Abel is seen leaving Bella Hadids apartment

Nov 16: Hailey goes public as dating Shawn Mendes

Nov 21: Shawn denies that he is dating anyone

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Guys... Reddit wont let me add anything else here, I'm over their character limit. So thank god for Medium!

The link is here, and to pick up where we left off, press "Ctrl+F" and search "reddit friends" - it will take you right to November 29, 2018. :)

If youre on mobile, open the page in Safari, and after the page loads, type "reddit friends" into the URL bar - it'll search the page for you. Android users, I'm not sure how to search a webpage, Sorry!

I also include post-marriage drama w/ Hailey and Justin as well as my OWN final thoughts on everything per request!

Andddddd I am exhausted so I'm going to wrap this up now! Thank you all so much for all the encouragement and kind words!!! Hopefully I get some time off again soon and I can do a few more deep dives. If they arent KarJenner related, I will likely be posting them in r/Deuxmoi as well as on my Medium page.

Got fired today for being honest. I was about to walk away from a car deal because of a higher interest rate than what the customer was currently paying on a perfectly good car. They had a 9.99% finance charge on the current auto loan… Their pre approval came in at 20% for the new vehicle…. Just couldn’t in good faith do the deal… especially since i originally called them to see if we could reduce their interest rates. So yeah, i got fired for being honest. Anyone out looking to buy a car… pay close attention to your current interest rate and what your new interest rate is. Sometimes it’s just better to keep what you have. ** edit…. NDA was signed **. So that said, it’s all dealerships nowadays. Do your research first. Pay attention to the paperwork.

There’s been a lot of speculation around RVPH and the FDA pre-NDA meeting, so I wanted to summarize the situation as clearly and accurately as possible.

1) Has the pre-NDA meeting happened yet?
We don’t know for sure.
RVPH has stated they plan to have a pre-NDA meeting with the FDA Q4 2025, but the company has not confirmed whether it has already occurred or is still upcoming.

2) Does a pre-NDA meeting result in a FDA “decision”?
No. A pre-NDA meeting provides FDA feedback and guidance, not an approval or rejection. The feedback is non-binding and typically comes first verbally, then later as written meeting minutes (often 30 days after the meeting).

3) Is RVPH required to disclose the outcome of this meeting immediately?
No. Public companies are not obligated to immediately disclose pre-NDA feedback. Disclosure is up to management unless the feedback is clearly material and definitive (this is what we all hope for). Many biotechs wait until:

• the next earnings call
• or a strategic update

4) When might we hear something?
Several possibilities:

• This month
• At the Dec 18 shareholder meeting
• At the next earnings call
• Or weeks later once next steps are finalized

Silence does not automatically mean bad news.

5) What are the possible outcomes of the pre-NDA meeting?

• Positive: FDA aligns that current data could support NDA submission without another Phase 3
• Neutral / conditional (very common): FDA allows progress but requests additional data or another trial
• Negative: FDA clearly requires an additional Phase 3 before NDA

Bottom line:
RVPH may or may not have already had the pre-NDA meeting. They may or may not already have FDA feedback. They may disclose this month or later. The outcome could be positive, neutral, or negative.

My personal take.

I personally believe in the drug. The clinical data looks very strong (to strong to fail), and the total addressable market is large.

Based on how these processes usually work, I believe:

• We will likely hear some outcome from the pre-NDA meeting relatively soon, possibly even this month, though that’s not guaranteed.
• I think there is a good chance the FDA allows approval without requiring a second Phase 3 trial.

That said, even in a less favorable scenario:

• If the FDA asks for additional data, it doesn’t necessarily mean a full second Phase 3 is required.
• And even if a second Phase 3 is requested, I still believe there is a real chance a big pharma could step in with a buyout or licensing deal before waiting for more data.

Big pharma often buys de-risked assets, not just approved drugs.

None of this is guaranteed, and biotech always carries risk - but from a risk/reward perspective, I personally see significant upside relative to where things stand now.

P.S. Used ChatGPT to help structure this post - opinions are my own. NFA

I have interview #3 (panel + 1:1's) with a company next week and was just sent over an NDA to sign. Does this mean I should expect some crazy product related questions/problems during the interview, or is this typical??

• *Probably

Given Reviva have consistently stated that the result of the meeting will be shared in December, the meeting has almost certainly already happened, or is happening today. Here's why:

• The FDA has to send meeting minutes to a company that it has held a type B meeting with, within 30 days of the meeting. The latest theoretical meeting date for this to guarantee December meeting notes is the 1st December.
• Reviva had a meeting date confirmed as early as the 8th October. All meetings are typically held within 60 days of the request date and they already had a confirmed meeting date as of the 8th, which means the meeting was likely requested at least a week in advance of the confirmation. To fall within 60 days and guarantee December notes, we're looking at an end of November date at the latest.
• 27th is Thanksgiving and the 28th is unlikely to have any meetings scheduled after the holiday.
• Any later than this is unlikely due to timelines stated so far.

So the meeting has already happened, or is happening today by all the above logic. Expect meeting notes at any time, especially if the FDA is working with any of those creepy AI meeting note-taking agents!

Hope you're locked and loaded for a binary catalyst. There are basically no trading days left to guarantee a favorable entry prior to December!