Hi, Quartz members!
Here are our favorite reads from Quartz from the past week, one bonus listen, and one sneak peek. Enjoy!
5 things we especially liked on Quartz
😂 Corporate America tried to make people chuckle—and remember them. Social media managers of some of the largest companies used the April Fools’ holiday to market their standup skills and their brands. We picked out the silliest ones.
😬 One thing that hasn’t been so silly: Tesla’s 2024. In 2018, Elon Musk joked on April Fools’ in 2018 that the electric car manufacturer was going bankrupt, but that gag would not land well now. A big drop in expected deliveries last week is just the latest event that’s sunk its stock.
👀 Costco is prescribing Ozempic and Wegovy. The membership warehouse club may be best known for its $1.50 hot dogs and $2,000 gold bars, but even it can’t rest on those salty, shiny laurels while weight-loss drug demand skyrockets.
🤑 McKinsey is paying employees to GTFO. Managers at the consultancy’s U.K. offices will receive nine months of pay to find a new job, and if they don’t, they have to leave the firm.
🤑🤑If they opt for retirement, they might balk at how expensive some people think that’s getting. In America, adults believe that they’ll need $1.46 million to retire comfortably. That so-called “magic number” has grown from $951,000 just four years ago.
🎧 Bonus listen: VR headsets are excitingly boring. That’s because the things they’ll end up doing for us are a lot more mundane than we thought, but in ways that will make our lives a lot better. Find out more in an episode of our podcast that’s a lot more thrilling than we just made it sound.
🎙️ Check out the Quartz Obsession podcast, season 7, episode 3, featuring Quartz reporter Laura Bratton — VR headsets: We’re nearly there
🎧 Listen now on Spotify | Apple | Pandora
👓 Read the full transcript here or read our Weekly Obsession email all about the topic
1 sneak peak
Virtual reality isn’t all Laura Bratton is obsessed with. She’s been following the actual reality of tech IPOs.
On Monday, we’ll publish her story on the two next big tech IPOs to watch — oh fine, we’ll just spoil it for you here. You are members, after all. Laura’s got her eye on Ibotta and Rubrik.
The former is a Colorado-based platform that offers cash back, rewards, and discounts on thousands of consumer brands. It’s got an AI component to it, it’s been a unicorn since 2019, and it’s in cahoots with Walmart, Dollar Tree, Kroger, Shell, and Exxon.
The latter, a data security software company launched in 2014, and is backed by Microsoft. It also has an AI component and though it’s not as crucial to its business as Ibotta’s is, it has a name: Ruby.
You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to learn more about Rubrik and Ibotta.
🗓️ What to watch for this week
Here’s what our newsroom will be keeping an eye on:
- Tuesday: Google Cloud Next starts in Las Vegas.
- Wednesday: Delta Air Lines reports earnings before the market opens. The Federal Reserve is rolling out its latest consumer price index.
- Thursday: Constellation Brands cracks open its latest financials before the market opens.
- Friday: Big banks line up to report their quarterly earnings: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, and Citigroup, are all up before the market opens. Plus, UL Solutions, a safety testing company, is targeting a $5.8 billion valuation in its IPO.
Thanks for reading! Here’s to the week ahead, and don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, feedback, and pet tech IPOs. Sunday Reads was brought to you by Morgan Haefner and Susan Howson.