This App Wants to Cut Through #Sponsored Content Clutter
It's not easy looking for product recommendations online. Swearby Founder and CEO Kate Foster Lengyel joins Cheddar to discuss how her app-based platform lets consumers hear from honest enthusiasts rather than paid bloggers. She explains the company's central idea that, "there's stuff, and then there's stuff you swear by."
Swearby uses both an app and an editorial website to provide consumers with reliable recommendations that aren't tied to sponsored bloggers. Foster Lengyel explains how it works, and generates revenue despite cutting influencers out of the equation. The company prides itself on its transparency and creative communication.
Foster Lengyel previously was the CMO of NYDJ, the #1 women's denim department store brands. She reveals her experiences seeing the world of paid misleading product recommendations firsthand and how it inspired her to create her new business. Swearby is currently a part of the A51 WeWork incubator.
Oracle soars as it cashes in on the AI boom, Plus: Starbucks shares continue to fall under its new CEO, and does anybody actually want a new iPhone Air?
Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
