Beyond Meat is literally fake meat. Why is it worth $9 billion?

Also: Airbnb’s brilliant ‘Adventures’ play.

If you’ve hung out at a Whole Foods or Bloomberg terminal recently, you’re probably at least somewhat aware of Beyond Meat, a Los Angeles-based company making what it calls “The Future of Protein®” in the form of “delicious plant-based burgers, sausage, crumbles, and more.”

Founded a decade ago, Beyond Meat went public last month and its shares have taken on a life of their own, trading today around $150, six times their IPO price of $25.

Absurd or enlightened, its run has been enough that JPMorgan, one of the company’s IPO underwriters, downgraded shares to “neutral” this Tuesday, noting they were already “beyond our price target.” That drove a 25% decline, which the stock is already gaining back.

I’ll get into the “why” shortly.

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• Airbnb
• Alternative Meat
• Beyond Meat
• Food
• Impossible Foods
• Travel