What we’re reading (10/2)
“Aperol Sales Pop In Summer. Its Owner Wants That To Happen All Year.” (Wall Street Journal). “Almost all alcohol brands grapple with seasonality, or the idea that some drinks are best suited for warming up in cold weather and others for cooling off in the sunshine. Now Davide Campari-Milano, which trades as Campari Group, is trying to “deseasonalize” Aperol, its distinctively orange, bitter aperitif from Northern Italy typically mixed with prosecco and soda to make a cooling, summertime spritz.”
“Silicon Valley Has A Plan To Save Humanity: Just Flip On The Nuclear Reactors” (CNN Business). “AI hasn’t quite delivered the job-killing, cancer-curing utopia that the technology’s evangelists are peddling. So far, artificial intelligence has proven more capable of generating stock market enthusiasm than, like, tangibly great things for humanity. Unless you count Shrimp Jesus. But that’s all going to change, the AI bulls tell us. Because the only thing standing in the way of an AI-powered idyll is heaps upon heaps of computing power to train and operate these nascent AI models. And don’t worry, fellow members of the public who never asked for any of this — that power won’t come from fossil fuels. I mean, imagine the PR headaches. No, the tech that’s going to save humanity will be powered by the tech that very nearly destroyed it.”
“Bank Of America Customers Shocked By Zero Balances In Online Account Glitch” (International Business Times). “Thousands of Bank of America customers were horrified Wednesday when they checked their online accounts and discovered zero balances due to a glitch in the banking giant's system. Reports of the outage began flowing into Downdetector around noon ET Wednesday, with thousands of customers complaining that they were unable to access their online accounts.”
“The Investors Behind OpenAI’s Historic $6.6 Billion Funding Round” (Business Insider). “Sam Altman has taken his share of bumps and bruises over the last year, but he proved yet again that he can convince investors to pour hundreds of millions into OpenAI. The latest funding round appeared to be the hottest ticket in Silicon Valley, drawing a who's who of investors looking to get in on the buzzy AI startup's latest capital raise. The $6.6 billion round gave OpenAI a $157 billion post-money valuation and minted it into one of the most valuable startups in the world. The startup's valuation is now in the same neighborhood of publicly traded companies like Uber or AT&T.”
“The Economic Cost Of A New War In The Middle East” (DealBook). “Markets are on edge about the risk of another oil shock. The price of crude has been relatively stable over the past year, apart from brief spikes, including after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. When Iran fired a well-telegraphed wave of missiles at Israel in April, it didn’t lead to prolonged price increases either. (Saudi Arabia’s oil minister has even reportedly warned that prices could drop to as low as $50 a barrel.)”
