A Newer, Nicer Caliphate | Meet the Skydiving Skateboarder

Half a mile from South London’s busy Morden station is the vast complex of Baitul Futuh Mosque, the largest Islamic place of worship in Europe. But the $19 million in donations that went into building the mosque didn’t come from the Sunni or Shia communities that are the largest branches of Islam. Instead, it came from the Ahmadiyya, one of the most persecuted sects of the religion and one that is now emerging as the fastest-growing major strand of Islam.

Founded only in 1889, the relatively new sect that was born in India and is today headquartered in London isn’t recognized as a part of Islam by many traditional Muslims, or by the world’s two largest Muslim-majority nations, Indonesia and Pakistan. But it’s quietly spreading faster than its older cousins, building a new network of Muslim missionaries who are winning over followers of other branches of Islam and people from outside the religion.

It doesn’t matter if he’s dropping in on a 65-foot mega ramp or jumping out of a plane 13,000 feet above the patchwork ground below him — being airborne feels like home for Mitchie Brusco.

The 22-year-old pro skateboarder has never been satisfied just spinning his wheels. Brusco, who competes in skateboarding’s big air and vert disciplines, has a collection of tricks that, were he content to repeat the same line over and over, could earn him a podium spot every time. At 16, he landed the first 1080 (a spin trick featuring three full 360-degree rotations) in X Games competition. In 2018, the trick was part of the run that won him his first X Games gold medal — it’s notably one still missing from most pro skaters’ bags. And not all those skills have been acquired on the ramp. After taking up skydiving, Brusco noticed that big air didn't seem so big anymore. “My spatial awareness and overall awareness has been challenged so much,” he says. “Getting on a mega ramp or spinning a different way on a vert ramp — those things just started to make sense.”

When Jay Jacobs pitched the idea of an exchange-traded fund focused on companies targeting millennials, older colleagues in the room groaned and rolled their eyes.

But Jacobs, the 29-year-old head of research and strategy for Global X, a New York-based ETF specialist with $10.9 billion under management, persisted. He argued that this much-maligned cohort — with their tattoos, cold-brew coffee and avocado toast — represented a compelling investment theme, and, ultimately, he won his Gen X colleagues over.