🍗 AlBaik's Road To Billions

In a week when Ali G made his unwelcome return and Emirates made it a bit easier to be modest while flying, scientists decided what the world really needed was cyber-cockroaches (actually a good thing – promise!), but Musletter broke out the insecticide just in case.

Here’s what we have for you in this edition:

Plus: Our recommendations on what to read, watch, and buy!

Let’s jump right in!

🐔 That little chicken place you like: Saudi fast-food legend AlBaik was founded in 1974 in Jeddah by Palestinian entrepreneur Shakour AbuGhazalah – a Nakba survivor. After his death, his sons took on the $1.8 million debt and turned AlBaik into one of the Muslim world’s most recognizable brands with $3.2 billion in annual revenue. In a single day during the Hajj, AlBaik served 250,000 meals, cementing its relationship with Makkah and Madinah. Now operating in over 150 Gulf locations, its unique broasted (not fried) chicken, secret 18-spice recipe, great price (cheaper than KFC), and donation of one riyal for each meal sold have made it a cultural phenomenon. Food so good, it makes you react like this.

🤖 Want to build a robot? Blueprint can help: Vibe coding uses natural language to get an AI to make you software. More or less. Toronto-based Blueprint is taking that approach to hardware. No, it can’t actually build you a drone or a robot, but if you describe it in normal language, it can create a complete design. Something buildable (yes, that’s a word). Maybe you want diagrams or a list of parts or assembly instructions – Blueprint can do it. Co-founded by Pakistani-Canadian entrepreneur Sajeel Purewal, Blueprint has already raised $1 million in pre-seed funding.

🇧🇫 How’d you like them apples? President Ibrahim Traoré is growing apples, wheat and rice in the Burkina Faso desert – with no IMF or World Bank assistance. While the Muslim-majority country is known for its deserts, Traoré’s government is pushing hard for agricultural self-sufficiency. To that end, they’re investing in irrigation, dams, farming equipment and food processing (thanks to its $10 billion gold exports). The country’s Agro-Pastoral and Fisheries Offensive (catchy, huh?) has a $1 billion fund to provide farmers with everything they need to Make Unproductive Land Great Again (now that’s catchy). The broader goal is economic sovereignty, producing more of what Burkina Faso consumes and relying less on imports.

🇹🇷 Türkiye’s roadmap for the future: You see a headline with ‘disinflation’, you get excited. Or maybe scroll past. But hold on, Türkiye is wrangling its little inflation situation to stabilize the economy – and boosting defense spending at the same time. All before lunch. It’s all part of a new three-year economic roadmap to bring the inflation forecast (currently 28.4% at the end of 2026) down to 9% in 2029 and boost economic growth to 5% by then. Other numbers to watch: within three years, the government is targeting $2.2 trillion in national income. Oh, did we mention defense spending? That’s going up by 229%.

🇶🇦 Qatar is making big stuff: Qatar has a big ol’ slate of mega projects ready to go. In 2030, you can pretend you like contemporary art at the Art Mill Museum (a former flour mill), or hang out in Simaisma – right now a small town, but soon to be a massive development with resorts, a theme park, a golf course, and a marina. How will you get around? Maybe take a water taxi – a new network is being planned, and if you need to go further afield, long-distance rail projects will connect Qatar to the wider GCC. Oh, plus lots of stuff about LNG, but you already knew that.

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