Hi, Quartz members!
This week, we watched a deal that would make any MBA proud: the savvy partnership Singapore struck with pop titan Taylor Swift. With a few strums of her guitar, the star can shift the very economy under your feet — and with a discreet series of payments, the nation ensured all those notes were played exclusively on Singaporean soil this week. Also striking a chord? Solar signals, gold rushes, and bitcoin halves lining some pockets.
Here are our other favorite reads from Quartz from the past week and a sneak peek for next. Happy reading!
5 things we especially liked on Quartz
🍎 Warren Buffett isn’t eating as many Apples. The Oracle of Omaha used to love Apple stock, quickly becoming one of its biggest shareholders. But he’s starting to trim his stake in the company, and if that continues, Apple will become very, very unappetizing.
🚗 Electric vroom. When it comes to EV demand, consumers seem to be pumping the brakes. Automakers are pushing price cuts to no avail, purchase incentives are getting dangled with no take-up, and even the reign of Tesla could lose some cash this year. Will Gavin lays out the evidence for an industry-wide electric slowdown — and why the acceleration couldn’t last.
🏦 Is it time to start worrying about bank failures yet? It’s not an easy question to answer. But Quartz’s Melvin Backman lays out the bottom line for New York Community Bank, which got a $1 billion respite this week, along with answers to a few others: How big a deal are NYCB’s troubles? What happens if the bank fails? And how did Steve Mnuchin get involved?
🤑 Wealth: It’s a generational thing, you wouldn’t get it. And for younger Americans, the pandemic meant they really aren’t getting it right now — at least not nearly as much as their grandparents. Here’s why American seniors had the best financial gains post-covid.
⛓️ Slow justice is no justice. What would you do if, like business owner and mother of six Shola Usman, you were arrested and held in a prison cell without being charged for months at a time? Stories like Usman’s are an all too regular occurrence in some areas of the world. Chidi M. Nwachukwu follows Usman through her experience with Gavel, a civic tech organization that created an app connecting inmates in Nigeria to pro bono legal services.
1 sneak peek
After a former U.S. Google engineer was caught heisting AI secrets for China, we wondered at Quartz: Just how often does discreet AI data get leaked, snatched, or stolen?
Tomorrow, Quartz’s Britney Nguyen will round up some of the stealthiest artificial intelligence breaches and leaks — and you may be surprised by who she points the finger at. Sometimes, after all, it’s the chatbots spilling secrets themselves.
Among the leakers:
🤫 The AI revealing the very instructions it was built with
🤫🤫 The developers warned off from talking to their own untrustworthy chatbot
🤫🤫🤫 The AI girlfriends violating privacy over pillow talk
🗓️ What to watch for this week
Here’s what our newsroom will be keeping an eye on:
- Sunday: Daylight saving time starts in the U.S. (some industries will get a boost from it — others, not so much), and the 96th Academy Awards will air at 7pm ET.
- Monday: Oracle reports earnings after the market closes.
- Tuesday: The latest inflation data (consumer price index) in the U.S. will be released.
- Thursday: Adobe will release its earnings after the market closes.
- Friday: Russia holds its presidential election.
Thanks for reading! Here’s to the week ahead, and don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, feedback, secrets, and leaks. Sunday Reads was brought to you by Morgan Haefner, Susan Howson, and Gabriela Riccardi.