What we’re reading (6/6)
“SEC Sues Coinbase, Alleges It Is Unregistered Broker” (Wall Street Journal). “The SEC alleged that Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., violated rules that require it to register as an exchange and be overseen by the federal agency. The case is the second in two days against a major crypto company. On Monday, the regulator sued the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, its founder Changpeng Zhao.”
“A First Try Of Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro Headset” (New York Times). “[A]fter wearing the new headset to view photos and interact with a virtual dinosaur, I also felt there wasn’t much new to see here. And the experience elicited an “ick” factor I had never had before with an Apple product.”
“He Took Away The Country’s Top AAA Rating In 2011. He Ended Up Fearing For His Life” (NPR). “More than a decade ago, John B. Chambers and his colleagues at Standard & Poor's made a momentous decision: They were going to strip the United States of its cherished AAA credit rating. Going into it, Chambers, who led the powerful committee at S&P that rates the creditworthiness of more than 100 countries, knew it would be a huge deal.”
“Days Of Plunder” (The American Prospect). “PetSmart could not afford to treat or euthanize or even cremate its pets, even though sales jumped more than 60 percent and gross margins soared to unprecedented heights during the pandemic, because its owners had legally stolen $30 billion from the balance sheet, buying the company with a minuscule down payment, siphoning off cash and assets into its own pockets, and forcing the retailer to submit to a punishing payback plan that sucks every last penny the stores generate into usurious interest payments.”
“Why AI Will Save The World” (Marc Andreessen). “What AI offers us is the opportunity to profoundly augment human intelligence to make all of these outcomes of intelligence – and many others, from the creation of new medicines to ways to solve climate change to technologies to reach the stars – much, much better from here.”
