The Red Bulletin November 2016

If there’s anything we’ve learned from some of the characters in this issue, it’s that inaction is the biggest hindrance to success. Want to compete in the world’s toughest sailing race—like Conrad Colman—without a title sponsor? Grab the Financial Times and start calling companies (p. 34). Your Big Tech Idea reaching its limits? Then pay attention to your audience and pivot, like cover star Justin Kan (p. 50). Our focus on innovation this month also includes Susi Mai, a kiteboarding star turned Silicon Valley connector, and the people sparking a revolution in L.A.’s nightlife. But we’ve also included a piece on the bawdy motorbike rally that is Sturgis, lest things travel a bit too far down the self-help path. Enjoy. “There’s no trick or hack to making it,“ the tech…

NOVEMBER 2016 At home in a dream location Pinning down our cover candidate, Justin Kan, wasn’t too hard. Eight years after Justin.tv, he still “lifestreams,” though his preferred method now is Snapchat. Finding his house is another story. It’s located three hours north of San Francisco, so photographer Rainer Hosch and team had to navigate winding back roads to make the daylong shoot. Kan welcomed them graciously and let them stay on after to enjoy the Pacific Coast view while he and his fiancée (now wife) went to run an errand. WHO’S ON BOARD MIKO LIM The photographer last shot surfer Rosy Hodge for the Bulletin’s October issue. But he had no problem transitioning from sun-dappled beaches to capturing the nightlife mavens of Los Angeles. Page 58. RUDIGER STURM The German…

RIDERS ON THE STORM BUDAPEST, HUNGARY PHOTOGRAPHY: BALAZS GARDI As Team Hamilton’s Nicolas Ivanoff flies in formation with Martin Šonka at the Budapest stop of the Red Bull Air Race World Championship this July, the cloudless sky and glittering waters of the Danube belie the turbulent conditions looming. The weather became so brutal that the Final Four couldn’t even take to the air—though by then both Šonka and Ivanoff had been eliminated. “It’s a big step back,” said Šonka, who failed to score with 13th place. “In these bumpy conditions, the bump can push you over the G-limit.” redbullairrace.com TOUGH BREAK ST. PÖLTEN, AUSTRIA PHOTOGRAPHY: YDWER VAN DER HEIDE Two days before his surprise show at the Frequency Festival near Vienna, rapper Machine Gun Kelly suffered an unfortunate accident: He…

JAKE GYLLENHAAL ICON It was six years ago that Jake Gyllenhaal’s shot at big-movie stardom hit a major stumbling block. Then 30, he bulked up for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which was critically panned—as many films based on video games tend to be. He returned to the mid-budget films that made his name—and went on a run of roles in terrific movies: Source Code, End of Watch, Prisoners, Nightcrawler, Enemy and Everest. Accidental Love, released in 2015, is an unfinished film from 2010 brought out on the back of the “Gyllenaissance”; up next is thriller Nocturnal Animals, out in December. There’s luck in that, of course, but at the end of 2010, Gyllenhaal’s parents got divorced, and it rebooted his outlook. “It made me look at myself,”…

1980 “I was in the hospital when she was born,” said the infamous O.J. Simpson of Kimberly Noel Kardashian’s first public appearance, on October 21, 1980. The former sports hero is Kim’s godfather, and a close friend of her dad Robert, a businessman and lawyer who later becomes part of O.J.’s successful defense team at his 1995 murder trial. 1996 Kim grows up rich, but her dad wants her to learn the value dollar earned. Pa buys her a car, but she has to sign a contract: She must wash it weekly, keep gas in the tank and get good grades or no vehicle. “And if I crashed it, I had to be responsible for paying for it.” After a crash, she gets a job in a clothes shop, liking…

COBIE SMULDERS IDOL With the new Tom Cruise movie, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, out at the end of October, you can be pretty sure that audience reactions will include: (1) impressed nods at Cruise being a lithe, kick-ass 54-yearold; and (2) an “oh-it’s-her!” response to his co-star, Cobie Smulders. Nerds know and love the Canadian actress as Maria Hill, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the two Avengers movies and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (and three episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), while sitcom fans enjoyed her in over 200 episodes of How I Met Your Mother. But she’s never been front and center in a Hollywood blockbuster: Never Go Back is her breakout role, and she’s genuinely excellent in it. Tinseltown regularly takes flak for bad decisions—feeble CGIfests, unnecessary reboots—…