Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures:
• How Artist Imposters and Fake Songs Sneak Onto Streaming Services: Fake artists and counterfeit songs are flooding Spotify and Apple Music, siphoning real royalties. The streaming platforms either can’t or won’t stop it. When songs leak on Spotify and Apple Music, illegal uploads can generate substantial royalty payments—but for whom? (Pitchfork)
• Who Needs Las Vegas When You Have a Casino in Your Pocket? Mobile gambling is eating Las Vegas’s lunch, and the city is pivoting to tech and logistics to survive. The house always wins—unless the house is on your phone. Las Vegas is hoping that rapid growth in high-tech businesses and logistics will offset its stagnant gaming industry. (Barron’s) see also Prediction markets: the hunt for the new ‘dumb money’ As new bettors flock to platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, some make easy prey for trading firms and professional gamblers. The FT follows retail bettors migrating from Kalshi to Polymarket, chasing the same dopamine hit. Prediction markets are supposed to aggregate wisdom—instead they’re attracting gamblers. (Financial Times)
• America’s booming annoyance economy: Companies have figured out that bad customer service is more profitable than good customer service. The annoyance economy is booming—and you’re paying for it. (Business Insider)
• AI has the worst sales pitch I’ve ever seen: AI has the worst sales pitch I’ve ever seen “Our product will make you economically useless, and possibly kill you” is not a value proposition. Noah Smith argues that AI’s pitch is the worst marketing in tech history. He’s not wrong about the messaging problem. (Noahpinion)
• ‘This feels fragile’: how a satellite-smashing chain reaction could spiral out of control: Today, the space around Earth can no longer be considered empty. More than 30,000 objects are in orbit, and that figure is rising exponentially. The Kessler syndrome isn’t science fiction anymore. One bad collision could trigger a chain reaction that makes space unusable for generations. (The Guardian)
• A Detailed Timeline of Jeffrey Epstein’s Death: One of Epstein’s prison guards has been called to speak before the House Oversight Committee this week. Ahead of her expected testimony, here’s a detailed look at what we know about the convicted sex offender’s conspiracy-theory-shrouded death. (Vanity Fair)
• Pam Bondi’s Legacy of Flattery and Destruction: No Attorney General has done more damage to the Justice Department. Ruth Marcus argues that no Attorney General has done more damage to the Justice Department than Bondi—and her successor could be even worse. (The New Yorker)
• The great care home cash grab: how private equity turned vulnerable elderly people into human ATMs: When did care homes come to be seen as recession-proof investments? And who pays the price? (The Guardian) see also An Insurer Canceled a Woman’s Coverage Over a Nickel: A teacher’s aide lost her health insurance because of a five-cent billing discrepancy. The American healthcare system’s cruelty is matched only by its absurdity. (Washington Post)
• The Beginning of The End of Donald Trump’s Presidency? Jay Powell was always the one man in the world who could stand up to Donald Trump, and Trump knew it, which is why, despite his false bravado, he feared the Reserve Board Chairman. Trump forced the latest confrontation with Jay Powell in one last desperate attempt to force Powell from office so that he could finally seize control over the independent Federal Reserve Bank in the eleventh hour and manipulate the interest rates to disguise the crippling economic impact of his sweeping, unconstitutional global tariffs and his unconstitutional war in Iran. It turned out to be the worst miscalculation of his life. (Judge J. Michael Luttig)
• Hegseth’s War on America’s Military: Tom Nichols on how Pete Hegseth is firing top generals mid-war. Dismissing your best military leadership during an active conflict isn’t bold—it’s reckless. Someone needs to explain the Pentagon purges to the American people. (The Atlantic) see also First Draft: The Thug of War. Pete Hegseth’s colleagues at the Pentagon are calling him ‘Dumb McNamara,’ and Biden’s secretary of state almost, sort of feels bad about enabling a genocide. (Zeteo)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Songyee Yoon, founder and managing partner of Principal Venture Partners, an AI-focused investment firm established in 2024, and since 2025 a member of the board of directors of HP.
US Housing Outlook: Higher Mortgage Rates Not Helpful
Source: Apollo
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