Sunday Reads: Chips ahoy and moon trains

Hi, Quartz members!

This week was essentially all about Reddit and Nvidia for us, with a little bit about cars and airlines and something called the fediverse.

Let’s just hope that whoever you work for believes in the “less than 10%” rule of stress, like the CEO of Novo Nordisk does. Here’s to being in that other 90%.

Here are our other favorite reads from Quartz from the past week and one favorite listen. Happy reading/listening!

5 things we especially liked on Quartz

👠 When you think Walmart, think luxury. The world’s largest retailer knows you know it for its cheap, low-priced goods, but it’d also like you to know it for its high-end blouses, blazers, and… good lighting? If it sounds absurd, it hasn’t worked well in the past.

✈️ Boeing’s 2024 bingo card is unfilled. Well, we’re guessing a poor-performing stock, federal investigations, and a door plug blowout weren’t on it. Here’s a timeline of everything that has happened (so far).

🥤 The Nvidia effect. It’s not just Stanley cups that are being branded with the king of AI. Goldman Sachs has a list of stocks that are riding Nvidia’s tide, with names like Amazon, Uber, and Moderna waiting for their turn to strike AI gold.

🧐 The Intel effect? Sure, maybe it didn’t throw the “Woodstock of AI,” but the semiconductor pioneer had a milestone week of its own. It got $8.5 billion from the federal government (through the CHIPS and Science Act), and it has big plans for it.

🌛A railroad! On the Moon! For real! That is the goal of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has tapped some companies to come up with a way to lay down rails and ties on the lunar landscape. Patiently waiting for “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” — Zero Gravity Version.

1 things to listen to

The Quartz Obsession is back, and episode 1 is all about tail lights. Yes, those red lights on the back of your car that you probably don’t think about much — especially if you prefer to walk.

But these crimson flashers have inspired at least one riot, are a fascinating technological innovation, and, really, symbolize a rather beautiful altruistic method of human communication.

Guest Jason Torchinsky from the Autopian gets our confirmed pedestrian host Gabriela Riccardi obsessed with this particular car part in Tail lights: Smart signals.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify | Apple | Google | Pandora

👓 Read the full transcript here.

🗓️ What to watch for this week

Here’s what our newsroom will be keeping an eye on:

• Monday: Buzzfeed is scheduled to report earnings.
• Tuesday: GameStop reports earnings after the bell, and results are expected from Tesla’s Chinese rival BYD as well.
• Wednesday: Carnival cruises into the earnings arena with results expected before the market opens.
• Thursday: Walgreens releases its latest results before the market opens, and the latest GDP data from the U.S. will be out. It’s also the 45th anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor meltdown. SBF is sentenced.
• Friday: NYSE is closed for Good Friday.

Thanks for reading! Here’s to the week ahead, and don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, feedback, lunar railroad tickets, and favorite tail lights. Sunday Reads was brought to you by Morgan Haefner and Susan Howson.