Sunday Reads: High-flying plane execs, and a high-flying planemaker

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

🛫 Boeing’s high-flying executives flew a lot more than previously thought... The company had said its leaders were given some travel perks, but they undershot the value of those incentives by more than $500,000.

🛬 …and the planemaker’s rival Airbus is outpacing its deliveries by a lot. Airbus said it’ll deliver 800 commercial jets through the end of the year, while at its current delivery rate, Boeing won’t be able to break 350 by December.

☕ In calmer news, Starbucks is redesigning its stores so people don’t have to shout at baristas. Orders expected to be screwed up less, and maybe those crazy interpretations of how to spell a person’s name will be a thing of the past.

👁️An eye medication had an eye-popping price hike... Triesence, which treats inflammatory conditions, is 486% more expensive than it was a year ago. It’s among at least 945 brand name drugs that have had their list prices hiked in 2024 so far.

💊 …and not only are drugs getting more expensive — they’re getting really hard to find. At 323, this year has already broken the record for the most ongoing drug shortages, and we’re only four months in.

1 sneak peak

Is the AI craze like the dot-com bubble, yes or no?

We’ve heard from plenty of experts who have been saying “Yes, duh.” But the tide may be shifting. A Johns Hopkins professor, a D.A. Davidson analyst, and the founder of research firm Radio Free Mobile — all of them see differences between this current phenomenon and the dot-com bubble of the turn of the century.

That’s not to say these experts don’t think the hype will deflate. Here’s Britney quoting Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile:

Windsor said one of the reasons he sees AI models like LLMs being limited is that machines can’t tell the difference between causality and correlation.

“Because of that, they will never really get to the point where they can be super intelligent, because they cannot reason,” Windsor said.

Read the full story on Monday!

🗓️ What to watch for this week

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

• Monday: TED2024 starts in Vancouver, Canada, and runs through Friday. Goldman Sachs and Charles Schwab also report earnings before the market opens.
• Tuesday: Several large corporations report their earnings: Healthcare behemoths UnitedHealth Group and Johnson & Johnson are up before the market opens, as are Bank of America, Morgan Stanely, and PNC. After the market closes, United Airlines will announce its results.
• Wednesday: Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee are starting their election to join the United Auto Workers. Volvo also releases its latest financials before the market opens.
• Thursday: The earnings party continues with Netflix and semiconductor giant TSMC after the market closes. Tech company Ibotta is also expected to file for an IPO.
• Friday: Procter & Gamble and American Express close out the week with their earnings landing before the market opens.

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.