Good morning, Quartz readers!
Moving fast and breaking things can pay off in the stock market. This week, Apple reached $1 trillion in value, and Google and Amazon aren’t too far behind. Despite valuations approaching or exceeding the annual GDP of the Netherlands, tech giants are not content to stand still. (Nor will investors let them.) After muscling in on other industries, from music to media to retail, it’s reasonable to think about where these cash-rich companies turn next.
One answer: directly dipping into your wallet. Apple CEO Tim Cook says Apple Pay transactions tripled from a year earlier, to more than 1 billion during the second quarter. Research firm Bernstein analyzed whether it would make sense for Amazon to leap into the $57-trillion global asset-management industry. And the short answer is yes. Facebook’s WhatsApp is trying to roll out payment services in India and supports banking in Africa. On earnings calls, bank executives field a lot of questions from analysts about the threat of Apple, Amazon, and the like to their core business.
As concerns grow about how our personal data is being used by tech companies, the leap into finance will give these enterprises another abundant trove of information. Banks probably have the “richest data pool” of any sector, Barclays CEO Jes Staley pointed out last year. If tech companies get control of payment systems, BlackRock president Robert Kapito noted, they’ll know “every single thing you do.”
This isn’t to suggest ignoring the promise Big Tech has to offer the staid and sluggish financial industry. Still, given what’s been revealed about how tech companies manage other sorts of information, entrusting them with deeply personal financial details raises the stakes for getting things right the first time—and not trying to fix them after they break. —John Detrixhe
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
Explaining Facebook’s many, many mistakes. From the Cambridge Analytica scandal to facilitating violence in Myanmar, Facebook hurts people with alarming frequency—but not on purpose. Nikhil Sonnad links the behavior of the company with a failure to consider the fundamental humanity of others, or what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil.
The overvalued “A.” Recent research has shown that an individual’s genetic makeup largely determines their intelligence. Drawing on that, and considering how other extrapersonal factors contribute to academic achievement, Olivia Goldhill argues that we should stop lauding “A” grades only and start appreciating other, more truly meritocratic values.
A woman’s lost potential. Lila MacLellan tells the traumatic story of how a Notre Dame student’s life was forever changed when she was sexually assaulted, and examines the lasting effects of sexual violence, the inadequate responses of colleges across the country, and the ways we can do better.
Being a better colleague when working remote. There are many advantages to working from home; maintaining office friendships is not one of them. Thankfully, Katherine Ellen Foley, who lives far away from most of Quartz’s staff, put together this guide for staying connected with distant coworkers.
What summer jobs taught the staff at Quartz. According to recent labor reports, the teenage summer job is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Part nostalgia trip, part workplace-skill analysis, Sarah Todd asked our newsroom to explain how serving up sandwiches, sweeping floors, and selling records helped them get to where they are now.
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
An unlikely revolutionary. The “money diary” of a well-to-do New York City intern has been cited as an example of economic injustice. Yet, as 1843’s Tim Smith-Laing provocatively reasons, the intern’s lavish lifestyle and immense unproductivity—perhaps a result of flawed capitalism—may represent a sophisticated act of ideological resistance.
When dictators can’t flee. Lately, the long historical precedent of ousted autocratic leaders fleeing (paywall) to comfortable asylum has been challenged. In the Wall Street Journal, José de Córdoba uses Latin America to show how this apparent humanitarian progress can actually cause strongmen to cling to power.
Joined by marriage. Most Middle Eastern countries require weddings to be overseen by religious authorities, but not Cyprus (paywall). Ben Hubbard of the New York Times explores how the civic marriage hotspot provides for partners of different faiths and fosters tolerance as groups from diverse backgrounds share in rituals.
Sleep study. Slumber is often imagined as a sort of non-entity, the opposite of consciousness. It shouldn’t be. In National Geographic, Magnus Wennman’s dreamy photographs balance Michael Finkel’s deep dive into the science of sleep’s complex stages and the human forces—artificial light, cultural norms, and sleep aids—that affect them.
This land is your land. America is changing economically and physically. For Bloomberg, Dave Merrill and Lauren Leatherby start with the 1.9-billion-acre gordian knot (paywall) that is the contiguous US, mapped by urban, forest, pasture, special use, and cropland. In providing alternate models, they make it far easier to visualize how land is really used.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, discarded report cards, and illustrative spending diaries to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day, or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Weekend Brief was written by David Wexner, and edited by John Mancini and Kira Bindrim.