Business
Anthropic S-1 Shows Red-Hot Growth, Risks and Massive Computing Costs. It’s madness to see a company that generated $16 billion in 6 months is required to pay $450 billion in the next 7 or 10 years for compute. A lot can happen in that timeframe. Perhaps AI models are a great innovation, but not a great business.
United’s C.E.O. Says It Should Cost More Not to Sit in the Middle Seat. United arguably has the strongest momentum among all the US airlines right now. Since Scott Kirby took over, the airline has grown leap and bounds and is seriously giving Delta a run for its money. His journey is interesting. One day he was told he would become CEO and the next he was fired. And he landed a senior job at United on the same day and eventually got the CEO seat. I appreciate his candid answers. Refreshing and honest. I like his take on AI, style as CEO and his favorite interview question.
Walmart enlists Sam’s Club in latest challenge to Amazon Prime. This is a huge warning not just for Amazon, but also for Costco. With a Sam’s Club Plus membership, consumers can get bulk household items for a great price even if they don’t live close enough to a Sam’s Club, and get daily produce and other items from nearby Walmart stores. Incredible value. Of course, Amazon still appeals to consumers with its enormous inventory and fulfillment network that is the best in the world in last-mile delivery. But it doesn’t have a network of stores that are within 10 miles of 90% of the US population. What about Costco? Sam’s Club is Costco’s direct competitor. To compete, Costco needs to convince consumers under pressure financially due to inflation to pay for two memberships. There are not enough Costco warehouses. Its delivery is embarrassing. And some stores’ shopping experience is downright horrible compared to Sam’s Club with its walk-out strategy.
Scoop: Unvetted AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts. I don’t think we will ever see AI agents access consumer accounts and take actions unilaterally without human involvement. Banks are respoinsible for deposits. If there is anything wrong, they will have to not only make customers whole, but also answer to the authority for it. On top of that, trust is the most important currency. If word gets out that a bank loses someone’s money, it may trigger a bank run. The whole trend is based on a theory that consumers want AI to help them manage money and optimize savings. It’s an assumption. Is that valid, though?
The Internet Told Them Owning a Laundromat Was Easy Money. It Was Anything But. It’s never easy to make money, especially a lot of it, of any kind.
Other Stuff I Find Interesting And So May You
How to Actually Fix the Colorado River Crisis. It’s typical of issues that involve the federal government and multiple states. Messy, complex and seemingly unsolvable. Unsolvable not because the problem cannot be untangled, but because the parties involved aren’t willing to. It’s laughable that the federal government’s proposal forces one side to give up on precious water while leaving the other side’s quote untouched.
The 2026 state of the climate report: challenges and opportunities. This report is like a blood panel for our climate and some metrics such as carbon dioxide, methane, surface temperature change look horrifying. One contributing factor mentioned in the report is the record amount of ruminant livestock – the animals raised for human consumption. I know some people that pursue vegan diet out of compassion for the animals and to help fight climate change. I am not sure it’s a scalable approach. Protein from animals has amino acids and nutrients that protein from plants doesn’t have. It’d be very hard to ask normal people to give up health benefits and the pleasure of having meats in their daily life for something that is so novel. Same as overfishing. It’s damaging the marine life, but we need seafood and there are more and more bodies to feed in the world. It’s not all doom, though. It’s encouraging to see the declining deforestation. I believe we can definitely grow more trees everywhere to make the world cooler and render it less necessary to run air conditioners frequently.
In Nigeria, Solar Panels Are the New Wedding Gift. “The grid serving Africa’s most populous nation is so weak that in order to keep the lights on and appliances running, most Nigerians produce power at home. By the end of last year, small-scale solar capacity in Nigeria comfortably exceeded what the grid delivers. This year, the country has already added as much capacity as it did in 2024 and 2025 combined. High fossil-fuel prices and affordable, Chinese-made, solar technologies are accelerating the shift away from generators, driving consumers toward renewable energy whether they care about climate change or not. The equipment needed to keep a three-person home running will pay for itself in as little as 16 months, BloombergNEF research shows — but, at $4,500, getting set up costs about seven times as much as buying a new petrol generator. (It’s the generator’s fueling costs that will eventually bite, at roughly $200 a month.) Outside a bank in the upscale Oniru neighborhood, a massive billboard advertises consumer loans for home solar technology. Most Nigerian lenders offer similar financing opportunities. At borrowing rates of about 27% to 36%, though, the loans remain out of reach for most households” You have to visit some of the places outside the US to appreciate the abundance of things we have in this country. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it’s good enough that things that we tend to take for granted are luxuries for others.
The UAE embraces AI for kindergartners. It’s sensible to try and find where AI can facilitate learning while protecting them from addition to screens as well as maintaining the role of thinking, writing, reading, creativity and collaboration. I am not sure about making “AI” a subject at school. It’s a tool. You don’t make a hammer or a shovel a subject. Why AI? I would love for children to learn about the ancient Egyptian world in textbooks and see an AI rendering of that world. It’d be far stimulating and interesting than anything the previous generations had.
Stats
Two out of three US adults who plan to vote in the midterm this year oppose Trump and his policies.
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