WGM Weekly: Miami Beach buys the Lakers, Rosemary's Closes, & Liger's Opens Ventanita

+ the Play by Play of Our Staycation at the 1 Hotel South Beach

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WHAT’S GOOD MIAMI: 8.17.26

This Week’s Issue

Today’s newsletter includes, why the gap between the people who understand AI and the people still treating it like a faster search bar is about to become the only gap that matters, Josh Kushner buys the Lakers for $12.5 billion and somehow the bigger story is that he lives a few blocks from all of us, Rosemary’s quietly closes in Wynwood after apparently nobody knew it quietly opened, Liger’s Cookies finally gets its own address after years of being everyone else’s secret ingredient, Monster Jam rolls into Sunrise and finally lets our inner ten-year-old drive Grave Digger, and we head to 1 Hotel Miami Beach where a family staycation, a giant hot tub, and Aviv’s Israeli breakfast finally talk us out of a decade of holding a grudge.

On My Mind: Time Is Running Out

Nobody is ready for how fast this is moving.

That’s not a hot take. Most people are still treating AI like a faster search bar. It’s not that. And the gap between the people who’ve clocked what’s actually happening and the people still waiting for it to feel real is about to be the only gap that matters.

Here’s the part nobody wants to say out loud: 90 percent of people do not understand what is happening. Not because they’re not smart. Because it’s moving faster than their instincts can track. Most change gives you time to notice it and adjust. This isn’t that. By the time it’s obvious, the people who saw it early will already be somewhere you can’t get to.

I wrote a book over a decade ago that explains exactly why this is happening. In The Age of Ideas, I argued that the democratization of creative and communication tools had made it extremely difficult to value leverage. Once everyone has access to the same platforms, the same distribution, the same reach, access stops being the advantage. Everyone’s standing on the same floor. So the real question becomes: if everyone has the tools, how do you actually create a competitive advantage?

AI is that question 10,000X, a world I never envisioned when writing those words. It’s not just democratizing tools anymore, it’s democratizing execution. And the people who understand the tools are now professional athletes and everyone else is playing little league. The deck, the content calendar, the analysis, the plan, all of it collapses toward free and instant for everyone at the same time. Which means the answer I wrote back then is now the only answer that’s left:

“The only sustainable competitive advantage left is being the best version of yourself. Manifesting your unique blend of creativity via sharable forms, products, services, entertainment, that produces your advantage. The meaning behind your passion, whether it’s hospitality, law, or hot sauce, now translates into value. You are your only competitive advantage, your only leverage.”

That’s it. That’s the whole game now.

Here’s the formula underneath it:

Branded Price − Commodity Price = Value of Creativity

Strip the Swoosh off a Nike and you’ve got a $20 shoe. The other $180 is the part a machine can imitate but not originate. That gap used to be one ingredient in a business. Now that AI can execute almost anything almost instantly, that gap is the entire business.

Which means the people who already had real taste, a real point of view, an actual reason for what they’re building, are about to get an unfair advantage the size of which we haven’t seen before. And the people who were coasting on execution, on being the ones who could just get things done or developed a skill like a lawyer or graphic designer, are going to find out that the thing they were good at doesn’t have any real value anymore.

This is not a five-year story. This is a 12-24-month story, maybe less. It’s going to change how everything is done. And the split between the people who understood that early and the people who didn’t is going to have immense impact on your future.

The Real Real: The tools are moving faster than most people’s belief that they need to pay attention. There is real risk, wake up and start letting the tools teach you. All you have to do is ask.

BEACH BUSINESS

Miami Beach Just Bought the Lakers

Josh Kushner bought the Los Angeles Lakers this week. $12.5 billion, alongside Bob Iger, the highest price ever paid for a sports franchise. It is, by any measure, one of the biggest sports business stories of the year.

It is also, if you live where we live, a Miami Beach story.

Kushner lives here. Which means the man who just became the controlling owner of a 17-time NBA champion, the man Luka Doncic is currently posting thirst tweets at on X, the man who somehow makes buying an entire storied Los Angeles institution look like a Tuesday, does it all from a house a few minutes from ours.