My end-of-week morning train WFH reads:
• A.I. Is Changing How Silicon Valley Builds Start-Ups: Tech start-ups typically raised huge sums to hire armies of workers and grow fast. Now artificial intelligence tools are making workers more productive and spurring tales of “tiny team” success. (New York Times)
• The Rower Turned Engineer Who Helped Make Nvidia a $3 Trillion Company: Jonah Alben uses lessons from his days as Stanford rowing coxswain to design AI chips and keep selling to China. (Wall Street Journal) see also Finally, hard data on a real-world AI business use case: It’s huge for customer service: Researchers measured gains and trade-offs from human customer service reps using an AI assistant. One big win? Fewer angry customers. (Sherwood)
• This Vanguard ETF Is Now The World’s Most Popular For A Good Reason: Step aside SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) — there’s a new king in the ETF world. As expected, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) saw its net assets under management hit $633.8 billion on Feb. 18, says Morningstar Direct. That makes VOO the world’s largest ETF, passing up the oldest and previously largest ETF for decades, known best by its symbol: SPY. (Investor’s Business Daily)
• From Japan, a Hard Lesson About a Weak Currency: Though it recovered in the second half of the year, Japan’s economy barely grew in 2024 as a depreciated yen fueled inflation and strained households. (New York Times)
• Metals Crucial to Clean Energy Are Getting Caught Up in the US–China Trade War: After a Chinese export ban, can the US get gallium and germanium from Canada—or will tariffs get in the way? (Wired)
• Governments are people, my friend: The far-reaching consequences of the biggest layoff in history. (OptimistiCallie)
• No, 150-Year-Olds Aren’t Collecting Social Security Benefits: Elon Musk claims to have found rampant fraud in the Social Security Administration. There’s a much simpler explanation. (Wired) see also No, Elon Musk Hasn’t ‘Discovered’ Fraud at Social Security Any that takes place appears to be of the small change, one-person-at-a-time sort, not the larger-scale continuing issues at Medicaid and Medicare. (Bloomberg)
• An Iranian Drone Lands in Queens: Ukrainian forces downed the deadly Shahed 136, which is headed for display in Washington. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Worst and the Dimmest: It’s not a coincidence that we’re being led by the least qualified monsters available; it’s a deliberate strategy. Facing the Worst – a series about directional alignment. (The Reframe) see also I was a Jan. 6 juror. What I learned surprised me. Trump’s pardons of virtually all of the Jan. 6 rioters left me dejected. Am I safe? (Washington Post)
• The Best ‘Saturday Night Live’ Sketches, According to the People Who Made Them: Ahead of ‘SNL50,’ we asked Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, and more to tell us which of their sketches they hold closest to their hearts. (The Ringer)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Charley Ellis, founder of Greenwich Associates (1972) Trustee at Yale, Chairman of Yale Endowment’s Investment Committee and member of the Vanguard Group’s Board of Directors. He is the author of 21 books, including “Winning the Loser’s Game” (now 8th ed). His most recent book is is “Rethinking Investing: A Very Short Guide to Very Long-Term Investing.”
Record-Breaking 71K Apartments Set to Emerge From Office Conversions
Source: RentCafe
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