📈New AI Overlord: Oracle, a database software and cloud infrastructure provider, logged the biggest single-day gain for a company worth $500M or more when they revealed $455Bn in booked cloud contracts ($300Bn of which was from OpenAI over the next five years). Oracle’s Larry Ellison briefly became the world’s richest man.

📈Snip Snip When?: U.S. CPI (a measure of inflation) rose 0.4% for August, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.9%. Core CPI (another measure of inflation but excluding volatile food and energy prices ) climbed 0.3% for a 3.1% annual pace. The Fed’s inflation target is 2% 😬✂.

📈r/wallstreetbets Did It First: Robinhood, the brokerage app, unveiled Robinhood Social. Customer’s can now follow fellow traders, discuss strategies, and share verified trades. Unlike the “fragmented, unverified, and detached from actual execution evironment” of existing forums, Robinhood Social basically plans to remake r/wallstreetbets within its own ecosystem.

📈Drug Money → Life Insurance: Meanwhile is the world’s first life insurer fully denominated in Bitcoin (premiums and payouts are received in Bitcoin). It has now cut the entry point for its flagship plan from 1 BTC to 0.25 BTC, citing, 1. strong demand for BTC-denominated protection, 2. the company’s strong financials and 3. growing insitutional demand for Bitcoin.

🌎”We Got Him”: The suspect in the fatal shooting of right-wing activist Charlier Kirk has been identified and arrested. Allegedly, the shooter’s father recognised him from CCTV images and, with the help of a pastor, persuaded him to turn himself in. Kirk was killed at Utah Valley University while on a national tour to debate students.   

🌎Birthday Suit Letter in Birthday Book?: Lawyers for Epstein’s estate have handed Congress a “birthday book” compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday. The book contains letters from several of his “associates”, including one with a suggestive design bearing Donald Trump’s “signature”, which both Trump and the White House deny is his.

🌎Israel Strikes Qatar (Again): Israel’s air force struck Hamas’ political leadership while they were in Doha, Qatar. Five members of Hamas and one Qatari security personnel was killed in the strike - drawing rare critiscm from Trump.

🌎Run Me My Money: With August being the first month all of Trump’s reciprocal tariffs were in effect, the U.S. Treasury Department recorded $29.5Bn in revenue from custom duties.

👔Trimming the Waistline, and Bottom Line: Novo Nordisk is axing 9,000 jobs (~11% of its workforce) to slim down costs by $1.25Bn to reinvest in R&D for obesity and diabetes drugs. New CEO Mike Doustdar says the company needs to get leaner and faster as it battles Eli Lily, cheap copycats, and looming patent expiries.  

👔El Nuno Touches Down on ANZ: After cutting nearly 4000 staff in 4 months of being CEO, Nuno Matos (or Nuno-geddon) now has a weekly reddit thread dedicated to his actions (here). The latest? Hunger Games - ANZ style. One job, two employees, and no formal interview process.

👔SpaceX Shoots Big With EchoStar: Inking it’s largest deal ever ($17Bn), SpaceX just bought the rights to use EchoStar’s spectrum for cellphone service, enabling the possibility of SpaceX mobile plans in the future. In response EchoStar stock rose 160% over the past month.

👔We’re European Actually: As U.S. brands such as McDonalds and Coca Cola have expanded in Europe they have been forgoing their American roots for “Made in Germany” campaigns, with more than 60% of Western Europeans viewing the U.S. unfavourably this seems like the play.

🤪Alien Kombucha: NASA’s Preseverance rover may have found the “clearest sign” of ancient life on Mars yet. A rock sample named Cheyava Falls that was collected had several features that suggested microbial life. The peer-reviewed results have been published and are now open for further study by the wider science community.

🤪Personality Reboot: Hate it/love it, you probably know your Zodiac sign, but thanks to Earth’s slow “wobble”, your real star sign may not match the keyring on your Jansport backpack. Over thousands of years, the sun’s position has shifted (for example, Sep. 13 was once Virgo, but today it’s actually Leo). Check out your REAL star sign here.

🤪Sit, Stay, Vote!: Laura Lee Yourex, 62, of Costa Mesa has been charged with 5 felonies after allegedly registering her dog to vote. Prosecutors say she successfully cast a ballot in the dog’s name during California’s 2021 gubernatorial recall election. Yourex faces up to 6 years in prison.

🤪Notes from Keynote: In case you missed it, Apple’s latest keynote was this Wednesday and here are some features I thought was cool:

1.iPhone Air: At 5.6mm thick, its the thinnest and lightest phone yet but still more durable than previous generations.
2. Apple Watch: New high blood pressure alerts to flag early signs of hypertension.
3.Center Stage Selfies: A new sensor that auto-adjusts for landscape selfies and widens frame for group shots.
4.Liquid Glass: A new visual theme for the user interfaces that apparently looks like Windows Vista.