🌏 Market madness

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Here’s what you need to know

Apple and Nvidia both leapt into the $3 trillion club. Their market caps crossed the threshold yesterday (a rally that pushed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to new heights), and Nvidia even jumped ahead of Apple — but Microsoft still is the world’s most valuable company, for now. Meanwhile, ChatGPT could be coming to iPhones.

One entity that’s not trying to beat Nvidia (at least not yet): Saudi Arabia. The kingdom announced yesterday that it plans to attract 50 semiconductor firms by 2030, but they’d start by making simpler chips than what Nvidia is known for.

Russia’s Gazprom said it has been devastated by Ukraine-related sanctions. The fossil-fuel giant’s revenues have suffered so badly that they may not recover for a decade.

McDonald’s is losing the “Big Mac” trademark in Europe. A court ruled that the fast food chain failed to prove that it used the phrase with certain food items for five consecutive years.

Amazon’s self-driving cars are now in five cities

Autonomous vehicles have been roaming the roads of Miami and Austin for months, but they’re getting another competitor: Zoox.

The Amazon-owned self-driving vehicle startup is now approved to run tests in those two cities, bringing its total U.S. footprint to five places, including San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Seattle.

Each city offers its own valuable insights for Zoox. Austin’s horizontal traffic lights, railway crossings, and “famous thunderstorms” can help train its software, while Miami is known for traffic lights that hang diagonally across intersections (may we also suggest a flashy white paint job for the Miami cars?). Regardless of the newly available data for Zoox, the fact remains that it’s far behind its biggest rivals in the autonomous vehicle race.

Walmart is making workers for the jobs it can’t fill

Walmart isn’t going to dwell on a worker shortage for its high-demand roles — it’s just going to create those workers itself.

The world’s largest retailer said yesterday it has a new pipeline program that will “fast track” staff into higher-paying jobs, such as pharmacy technicians, opticians, and software engineers, over the next three years.

A new associate-to-technician program will also transition hourly workers into roles focused on maintenance, refrigeration, and automation that can pay between $19 and $45 an hour. Bonuses are also included. But there are some stipulations.

More from Quartz

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💸 American Airlines offered flight attendants a 17% raise as a strike looms

🇵🇸 A Palestinian former Meta engineer is suing the company for discrimination

🩺 Stethoscope startup that uses AI to detect heart failure gets $41 million in funding

🇬🇧 Google’s dominance is being threatened again — this time in London

🍄 Psychedelic stocks tanked after MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD had a setback

Surprising discoveries

World temps broke records for the 12th consecutive month in May. It was also the 11th month in a row where average temperatures were at least 1.5°C higher than pre-industrial levels.

Tokyo’s government launched a match-making app. Marriage is the goal, and no phonies allowed!

The conditions for life may have been around since the dawn of time. Carbon was likely around after the first generations of stars exploded.

The International Space Station now has its first metal 3D printer. Its first creation? A molten letter “S,” presumably for “space.”

Maybe one day it will print metal zines… Martin Luther’s 95 Theses are sometimes referred to as the first zine, and the medium has traveled through mimeographs, Xerox machines, and the world wide web to spread personal manifestos and words of revolution. In the latest Quartz Obsession email, Gabriela Riccardi explores what makes a zine a zine — and where you can attend zine fests around the world. Sign up for the weekly Quartz Obsession to never miss an email.

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Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, metal Ss, and metal 🤘 zines to [email protected]. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Morgan Haefner.