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   DealBook: Texas takes on Delaware
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             August 16, 2025
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          Good morning. Andrew here. The drumbeat for more companies to incorporate in Texas is growing. There are big implications for both management and shareholders — and ultimately which of those groups has more power. My colleague Niko Gallogly digs into what it means to do business in the Lone Star State. Plus, Calum Marsh takes a look at an unusual and surprising investment area for venture capital firms: indie movie studios. And our quiz this week, on A.I., will likely stump you. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you?
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          )
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            <img alt="A photo illustration shows a skyscrapers in the background and a photo of Elon Musk that is partly obscured by a highway sign saying “Welcome to Texas,” and smaller signs saying “Open, Come In” scattered around the landscape. " class="css-1bm0nbl" height="600" src="https://inboxflows.com/_/image/https%253A%252F%252Fstatic01.nyt.com%252Fimages%252F2025%252F08%252F16%252Fbusiness%252F16db-texas%252F16db-texas-jumbo.jpg/?inbox_flows_img_sig=eyJwYXRoIjoiaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZzdGF0aWMwMS5ueSIsInRpbWUiOjE3NTUzNDU3MTUuMTU5ODEyNX0:1unFbf:J8TeQiFHS82sxY5UnFFpTYA1nl4TF6mjzxENDLhzcj8" style="width:100%;height:auto;display:block;padding-top:10px;padding-bottom:5px" width="600"/>
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             Photo Illustration by Javier Palma; Photographs via Alamy
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         <span>
          A new kind of Wild West
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              By
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               Niko Gallogly
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          Elon Musk scored a major victory this month when Tesla awarded him $29 billion, a “first step” in a long-promised payday. It was also a win for Texas, where Tesla is now incorporated. A new law in the state helped pave the way for Musk’s pay package after it was initially blocked by a Delaware judge.
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          Texas’ low corporate tax rate and employer-friendly labor laws have long made it an attractive place for businesses, but most big companies — two-thirds of the Fortune 500 — still incorporate in Delaware. Corporate America’s backlash to a string of decisions by Delaware courts, including
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          the one voiding Musk’s pay package
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          , has heightened the opportunity for Texas to compete for corporate domicile. Some major companies, including SpaceX, Dropbox and TripAdvisor, have decided to leave (or rather, as the exodus from Delaware has been named, “Dexit”).
         </span>
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          Over the past few months, the Texas Legislature has passed several bills that could help attract Delaware’s defectors by shifting more power from shareholders to executives. Under the new laws:
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                Businesses incorporated in Texas can ban lawsuits from all but their biggest owners.
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                Companies have the power to pass a bylaw that mandates that shareholders own at least a 3 percent stake in order to sue. That effectively shields companies from shareholder lawsuits, since so few of them meet that criteria. Tesla was quick to take advantage of the new law,
               </span>
               <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;vertical-align:middle">
                passing a bylaw in May
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               <span style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;vertical-align:middle">
                that helped clear Musk’s blockbuster payday.
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                Corporations incorporated or headquartered in Texas can restrict shareholder proposals to only their largest shareholders
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                . That covers those owning at least $1 million in stock or 3 percent of the company. That helps companies like Exxon Mobil, which is headquartered in Texas but incorporated in New Jersey, avoid activist shareholder proposals on issues like climate change. Last year, Exxon sued the investor groups Arjuna Capital and Follow This over shareholder proposals that pushed the company to limit its greenhouse gas emissions.
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                Proxy advisers face hurdles to disagreeing with management.
               </span>
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                These firms, which make recommendations for how shareholders vote on company issues, must publicly disclose that they incorporated “nonfinancial factors” and “subordinated the financial interest of shareholders” if they take into account environmental, social or governance issues when advising clients to vote against a company. Because nearly all shareholder proposals touch on E.S.G. issues, the measure effectively blocks proxy advisers from siding against management on any shareholder proposal.
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          The aim is to tell boards and executives in Delaware that “Texas is open for business,” said Nathan Jensen, a government professor at the University of Texas-Austin.
         </span>
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          States have been competing for corporate charters since the late 1800s.
         </span>
         <span>
          The incentives are high: About 30 percent of
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          Delaware’s revenue
         </a>
         <span>
          in 2024 came from franchise taxes.
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          Politicians often claim new charters as a political victory, framing Delaware’s court decisions as examples of unnecessary interference. When Tesla reincorporated in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott wrote on X: “Congrats Elon on getting the pay you were promised and on your new incorporation in Texas.”
         </span>
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          Texas has succeeded in wooing Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX, but it faces competition from Nevada, which offers similarly lax governance laws. In addition to Dropbox and TripAdvisor, the venture capital giant
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          Andreessen Horowitz recently departed for Nevada
         </a>
         <span>
          , announcing its move in a blog post titled, “We’re Leaving Delaware, and We Think You Should Consider Leaving Too.”
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            <div style="width:100%;text-align:center;line-height:0">
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           </td>
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           <td height="20">
           </td>
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         </tbody>
        </table>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          It’s a “regulatory race to the bottom,”
         </span>
         <span>
          said Séverine Neervoort, the global policy director at the institutional investor organization International Corporate Governance Network. “The result is to significantly water down shareholder protections.”
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          Limiting shareholder proposals and lawsuits — the mechanisms investors use for pointing out risks to companies — “makes an investment in an American company less attractive,” said Nell Minow, the chair of ValueEdge Advisors, which counsels institutional investors.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          But institutional investors may be hesitant to criticize Texas lawmakers after the state
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          targeted them
         </a>
         <span>
          over what it said was an illegal boycott of the oil and gas industry. (BlackRock, for example, was removed from the state’s blacklist of asset managers this summer only after taking steps like leaving climate networks.)
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          Has Texas gone too far?
         </span>
         <span>
          Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, two leading proxy advisers, have sued Texas, claiming its law that regulates the advice of proxy advisers violates their First Amendment right to free speech.
         </span>
        </p>
        <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:100%">
         <tbody>
          <tr>
           <td height="10">
           </td>
          </tr>
          <tr>
           <td style="border-top:1px solid #dcdcdc;padding-top:15px">
           </td>
          </tr>
          <tr aria-hidden="true">
           <td>
            <div style="width:100%;text-align:center;line-height:0">
             <img alt="Ad" border="0" src="https://inboxflows.com/_/image/https%253A%252F%252Fliveintent.newyorktimesinfo.com%252Fimp%253Fs%253D1053700%2526li%253DDK%2526m%253Ddfbfebeec3e396a6cb1a8b032a80246c%2526p%253DDK_20250816%2526stpe%253Ddefault/?inbox_flows_img_sig=eyJwYXRoIjoiaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZsaXZlaW50ZW50LiIsInRpbWUiOjE3NTUzNDU3MTUuMTYwODExNH0:1unFbf:_1ne9741bemd_gYGeNbvb6AuokDSDjlRPNB8mJw_3dk" style="max-width:96px;margin-bottom:7px"/>
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            <span style="text-align:center">
             <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="margin:0 auto">
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                <td style="line-height:0;font-size:0">
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                <td style="line-height:0;font-size:0">
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            </span>
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           </td>
          </tr>
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           <td height="20">
           </td>
          </tr>
         </tbody>
        </table>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          That’s not the only aspect of that law that has raised legal questions: Its regulation of proxy advisers and shareholder proposals applies to companies headquartered, but not incorporated, in Texas. That’s a departure from the longstanding principle that a company’s corporate governance falls under the laws of the state in which it incorporates, regardless of where it is physically based. Applying a corporate governance law so broadly is an attempt by Texas to “trump” the corporate governance laws of other states, said Ann Lipton, a professor of corporate governance at the University of Colorado Boulder. The move is likely to be challenged in courts.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          Lipton said that by tying business deregulation to culture war issues — for example, by discouraging proxy advisers to weigh in on E.S.G. issues — Texas may inadvertently end up scaring corporations who don’t want their E.S.G. efforts to pose a legal risk. Nevada, which does not regulate E.S.G. with its governance laws, may seem like a safer bet. “If this race is on, I think Nevada wins,” she said.
         </span>
        </p>
        <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:100%">
         <tbody>
          <tr>
           <td height="30">
           </td>
          </tr>
          <td style="padding:0;font-size:0;border-top:8px solid #000">
           <h3 style="color:#000;font:700 17px/25px arial,sans-serif;margin:5px 0 30px 0;letter-spacing:.2px">
            <span>
             IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
            </span>
           </h3>
          </td>
         </tbody>
        </table>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          Chipmakers will give the U.S. a cut of China sales.
         </span>
         <span>
          Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          struck a highly unusual deal with President Trump
         </a>
         <span>
          to pay the government 15 percent of the money earned from selling A.I. chips in China, in exchange for permission to resume selling some powerful semiconductors to Chinese companies. Trump is also said to have discussed the U.S. acquiring a piece of the chipmaker Intel this week in a meeting with the company’s C.E.O., Lip-Bu Tan,
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          The Wall Street Journal
         </a>
         <span>
          and
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          Bloomberg
         </a>
         <span>
          report.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          Stocks soar right past alarming inflation numbers.
         </span>
         <span>
          On Thursday, markets
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          shrugged off
         </a>
         <span>
          news that the Producer Price Index, which measures the inflation trends facing businesses, rose
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          at the fastest monthly pace since March 2022
         </a>
         <span>
          . An earlier inflation report this week showed
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          steady overall inflation
         </a>
         <span>
          , but also signs that businesses are passing on tariff-related costs to consumers. Evidence of stickier inflation could
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          factor into deliberations at the Fed
         </a>
         <span>
          , which is poised to lower interest rates in September.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          Trump and President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska.
         </span>
         <span>
          Both leaders offered vague statements about progress, but they
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          did not announce a deal on any issue
         </a>
         <span>
          . Putin was greeted with a warm welcome despite being under U.S. sanctions and subject to an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. The Russian leader supported Trump’s claim that he would not have invaded Ukraine in 2022 if Trump had been president then.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          Other big deals:
         </span>
         <span>
          Less than a week after David Ellison’s Skydance took over Paramount, the combined company announced that it had struck
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          a seven-year $7.7 billion deal
         </a>
         <span>
          for the rights to stream and broadcast the Ultimate Fighting Championship. The A.I. start-up Perplexity made an unlikely bid to buy Google’s Chrome web browser for
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          $34.5 billion
         </a>
         <span>
          . Meat is back on the menu at
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          Eleven Madison Park
         </a>
         <span>
          . And Taylor Swift
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          finally did a podcast
         </a>
         <span>
          .
         </span>
        </p>
        <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:100%">
         <tbody>
          <tr>
           <td height="10">
           </td>
          </tr>
          <tr>
           <td height="8" style="background-color:#000;font-size:0;line-height:0" width="100%">
           </td>
          </tr>
          <tr>
           <td height="20">
           </td>
          </tr>
         </tbody>
        </table>
        <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:100%">
         <tbody>
          <tr>
           <td style="text-align:center">
            <img alt="A portrait of Eva Victor, wearing a dark outfit. " class="css-xsf469" height="333" src="https://inboxflows.com/_/image/https%253A%252F%252Fstatic01.nyt.com%252Fimages%252F2025%252F08%252F16%252Fbusiness%252F16DB-INDIE%252F16DB-INDIE-jumbo.jpg/?inbox_flows_img_sig=eyJwYXRoIjoiaHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZzdGF0aWMwMS5ueSIsInRpbWUiOjE3NTUzNDU3MTUuMTYxMTQ1NH0:1unFbf:oNfneqXXk-dvwqewfz2d59QEOzzQTkGksp1DB2TYA1U" style="display:inline-block;width:83%;max-width:500px;height:auto;padding-top:10px;padding-bottom:0;line-height:0" width="500"/>
           </td>
          </tr>
          <tr>
           <td style="text-align:center;width:100%;padding-top:6px;padding-bottom:20px;line-height:12px">
            <span class="css-1wuwhda" style="width:83%;max-width:500px;display:inline-block;text-align:left">
             <span class="css-1hnedf7" style="color:#666;font:normal 12px georgia,serif">
              Eva Victor created and starred in “Sorry, Baby,” which sold for $8 million in a bidding war after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
             </span>
             <span style="margin:0;font:11px/11px georgia,serif;color:#888;letter-spacing:.01em;padding-left:5px">
              Matt Licari/Invision/AP
             </span>
            </span>
           </td>
          </tr>
         </tbody>
        </table>
        <h2 class="css-10nzuqq" style="color:#000;font:700 25px/32px arial,sans-serif;margin:0 0 10px">
         <span>
          Venture capital goes to the (indie) movies
         </span>
        </h2>
        <div style="margin:0 auto;max-width:600px;width:100%">
         <table cellpadding="0" style="width:100%">
          <tbody>
           <tr>
            <td style="padding:0;vertical-align:middle" valign="middle">
             <p style="font:13px/18px arial,sans-serif;letter-spacing:.2px;color:#000;font:600 13px/18px arial,sans-serif;margin-bottom:0">
              By Calum Marsh
             </p>
            </td>
           </tr>
           <tr>
            <td height="15">
            </td>
           </tr>
          </tbody>
         </table>
        </div>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          “Sorry, Baby,” an indie drama created by and starring the writer-director Eva Victor, is the kind of niche film that just a few years ago might have had meager financial prospects. It’s not a sequel or a genre film. It has no major bankable stars. And its subject matter — a woman’s trauma in the aftermath of an assault — is difficult and nuanced, not buzzy.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          But indie movies like “Sorry, Baby” have found a surprising commercial niche — one that is starting to catch the attention of venture capital firms like Thrive Capital and Sequoia.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          Offbeat indie films like “The Substance” (Mubi), “Anora” (Neon) and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24) are theatrical heavyweights earning tens or even hundreds of millions at the box office. “Sorry, Baby” won an $8 million deal after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and went on to have the highest per-screen average gross of any film over its opening weekend.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          The film is still a far cry from a blockbuster, but a huge improvement from the mere tens of thousands a similar film may have earned a decade ago. “The market isn’t just different from 15 years ago. It’s different from like, three years ago,” Lia Buman, a producer of “Sorry, Baby,” said.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          Venture capitalists are betting on the trend.
         </span>
         <span>
          In June, A24 announced that it had closed an investment round led by Thrive Capital, bringing its total valuation to $3.5 billion. And the same month, another indie filmmaker, Mubi, announced that it had raised another $100 million in growth financing, led by Sequoia Capital.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          One aspect of the strategy: a new kind of star power.
         </span>
         <span>
          Studios have built their own brands by marketing their releases to millennials and Gen Z, and engaging with them closely and directly with social media campaigns and savvy advertising. A24
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          sells branded merchandise
         </a>
         <span>
          , and Mubi, its closest competitor,
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          sells a tote bag bearing its logo
         </a>
         <span>
          that has become a signifier of cinephile cool.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          Though A24 puts out many movies that it greenlit and financed from the start, it also scouts major film festivals. Many young moviegoers see the A24 label as a seal of quality, which provides a built-in audience for unconventional films like “The Brutalist,” “Uncut Gems” or “Midsommar.” Those films in turn keep up the filmmaker-first reputation that built A24’s brand.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          These aren’t your grandpa’s indie movies.
         </span>
         <span>
          The art house market used to be dominated by somber, stuffy dramas aimed at older audiences. A24 in particular now packages unconventional films in a compelling, consumer-friendly way. The studio often highlights its films’ cult appeal, playing up their edginess with catchy aesthetic posters and oblique trailers.
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          The critic Nick Newman described the recognizable style as “not explicitly commercial but not too challenging, with big themes, weird flourishes or recognizable actors doing something off-color,” which, for younger audiences especially, “are all very exciting, and something to get devoted to and invested in.”
         </span>
        </p>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span style="font-weight:700;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:#000">
          Making money with unusual and sometimes challenging films is still a difficult balancing act,
         </span>
         <span>
          but “these distributors are doing a superb job of staying close with their audiences — staying engaged and building trust,” said David A. Gross, who runs the FranchiseRe movie consultancy. He added, “It’s a specific way of doing business and they’ve pioneered it.”
         </span>
        </p>
        <table width="100%">
         <tbody>
          <tr>
           <td class="css-36ugzx" style="padding-bottom:15px">
           </td>
          </tr>
          <tr>
           <td style="border-top:1px solid #dcdcdc;padding-bottom:15px">
           </td>
          </tr>
         </tbody>
        </table>
        <h2 class="css-10nzuqq" style="color:#000;font:700 25px/32px arial,sans-serif;margin:0 0 10px">
         <span>
          Quiz: A rolling start
         </span>
        </h2>
        <p style="font:normal 17px/25px georgia,serif;color:#333;margin:0 0 15px">
         <span>
          You’ve probably heard that generative A.I. is set to “revolutionize”
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          advertising
         </a>
         <span>
          ,
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          accounting
         </a>
         <span>
          ,
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          law
         </a>
         <span>
          , and
         </span>
         <a class="css-sdwaa1" style="color:#286ed0;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline">
          business
         </a>
         <span>
          itself. But according to recent surveys, at most companies, it’s still more of an experiment than a revolution,
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          While businesses expect to increase their investments in generative A.I. by 94 percent this year to $61.9 billion, according to the technology research firm IDC, few have seen a financial payoff yet. About eight in 10 companies reported in a recent McKinsey &amp; Company study that they’ve seen “no significant bottom-line impact.”
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          A. 8 percent
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