Good morning, Quartz readers!
Here’s what you need to know
Sam Bankman-Fried admitted mistakes but no criminal mastermind. In his first live interview since FTX’s collapse, the crypto founder said he didn’t “knowingly” commit fraud. Separately, SBF told YouTuber Tiffany Fong that he donated to the Republican Party as well as the Democrats.
Tech CEOs joined Elon Musk’s complaints against Apple’s App Store. Among others, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify’s Daniel Ek expressed concerns with the Cupertino giant’s disproportionate control of the app economy, even as Musk appeared to bury the axe.
Bret Taylor is leaving Salesforce. A year after becoming co-CEO, Salesforce said Taylor will step down on January 31, leaving Marc Benioff fully in charge as chairman and CEO.
Thanksgiving sales hit a new record. Both Amazon and Meta recorded best-ever sales numbers as shoppers looked for money-saving deals.
Averting a rail strike now falls to the US Senate. A bill to force rail workers to accept a new deal passed the House, where a separate vote added more days of sick leave to the deal.
DoorDash is laying off 1,250 corporate employees. The job cuts affect 6% of the food delivery company’s workforce.
Journalists from El Salvador sued the NSO Group in the US. The investigative reporters detected the blacklisted Israeli company’s Pegasus spyware software on their phones.
What to watch for
Today (Dec. 1), the US Senate Agriculture Committee opens the first of several Congressional hearings on crypto—one of many public probes into what went wrong at FTX, the crypto exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. Eventually, these hearings will help formulate more robust crypto regulation.
Two agencies, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are jockeying for the right to regulate crypto. The CFTC, which oversees the physical commodities markets and has been going after digital assets since 2015, believes it should lead the charge. A bill introduced in August also aims to give jurisdiction to the agency.
Most crypto players, including Bankman-Fried, would pick the CFTC too, as it’s believed to be more lenient. But the agency that spoke of a “light-touch” approach back in 2016 has changed its tune—commissioner Rostin Behnam has promised to go easy on no one. ☠️
Container shipping crests a profit wave
“Mind-bending.” That’s one way to characterize the container shipping industry’s third-quarter earnings this year, which clocked in at $58.9 billion. Shipping industry veteran John McCown used the same description for this year’s $58.7 billion first-quarter profits.
In between those two data points are the “mind-altering” results from this year’s second quarter—$63.7 billion—which officially marked the crest of the container shipping industry’s tsunami of windfall profits.
McCown says those second-quarter earnings indicate a peak, and analysts aren’t not worried about a possible deep dive, with profits expected to plunge as much as 70% for some carriers in the next quarter. Shipping giants like Maersk have been anticipating this decline from the pandemic’s shipping heyday, investing in end-to-end logistics to control more parts of the supply chain, like airline and trucking routes.
Can the US afford to keep itself warm?
US senators from some of the colder states in the northeast are getting nervous about energy disruptions this winter, and have called on president Joe Biden to do something about it.
The New England region relies heavily on natural gas, along with heating oil, to keep buildings warm. Senators from Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine have said their states are feeling the impacts of rising costs due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with residential energy prices in the region already 15.4% higher than the national average.
Clarisa Diaz gives us a picture of the dire situation through a series of charts.
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Surprising discoveries
A spacecraft got some self uh… steam. Japan’s water-powered “EQUULEUS” is headed into the void for some sleuthing.
Spotify listeners agree that Bad Bunny is pretty good. The reggaeton star has claimed the top artist spot for the third year in a row.
The lobster industry could use some more pigs. Sausages may be a viable bait alternative to the increasingly scarce mackerel and herring.
The color of your plate could impact how your food tastes. For picky eaters, red is a no-go.
Crypto bros are selling off their G-Wagons. The market may be a disaster on wheels but this Mercedes-Benz is still cruising.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, lightly used and symbolically desperate luxury vehicles, and Bad Bunny recs to hi@qz.com. Reader support makes Quartz available to all—become a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Ananya Bhattacharya, Sofia Lotto Persio, Julia Malleck, Susan Howson, and Morgan Haefner.