Le Figaro : Chute accidentelle ou crime maquillé ? L’ombre d’un drame familial p

Chute accidentelle ou crime maquillé ? L’ombre d’un drame familial plane sur l’empire Mango après la mort de son fondateur

RÉCIT - Dès le départ, la mort «accidentelle» d’Isak Andic, fondateur de Mango, avait créé le trouble. Derrière cette incroyable success-story, la piste du drame familial se précise.

Ce qui paraissait n’être qu’un tragique accident tourne à l’affaire judiciaire. Moins d’un an après la mort d’Isak Andic, fondateur du géant du prêt-à-porter Mango et l’une des premières fortunes d’Espagne, la justice catalane explore désormais la thèse de l’homicide. Le principal suspect ? Son fils aîné, Jonathan, 44 ans, actuel vice-président du conseil d’administration du groupe. L’affaire commence le 14 décembre 2024, lorsque le magnat du textile, 71 ans, part en randonnée dans la chaîne de Montserrat, sur les hauteurs de Barcelone, en compagnie de son héritier. Quelques heures plus tard, son corps est retrouvé au pied d’une falaise, après une chute de cent mètres. L’affaire paraît d’abord simple : un accident tragique en montagne. Mais rapidement, les doutes s’accumulent.

Le récit du fils ne colle pas. Ses déclarations changent au fil des auditions. Les relevés sur le terrain démentent certains points. Selon El País, les explications de Jonathan, seule personne présente au moment de la mort de son père, sont «erratiques» : «Le témoin s’est contredit, a laissé des zones grises et décrit des événements qui ne pouvaient correspondre», écrit le quotidien. Interrogée par les enquêteurs, la compagne du défunt, la golfeuse professionnelle Estefanía Knuth, ajoute au trouble en avouant que le père et le fils entretenaient une relation «complexe», et même franchement «mauvaise», selon El País . Si Jonathan reste présumé innocent à ce stade, le faisceau d’indices se resserre : son téléphone portable est passé au crible, l’enquête est requalifiée en «possible homicide».

L’immigré turc devenu magnat de la mode

Derrière cette tempête judiciaire, c’est l’un des empires familiaux les plus prospères d’Europe qui est secoué. Un empire bâti, pendant quarante ans, sur l’audace et le flair d’un jeune immigré turc, devenu une icône de la mode espagnole. C’est en effet dans une modeste famille juive d’Istanbul qu’Isak Andic voit le jour en 1953. Arrivé adolescent en Espagne, il commence, dans les années 1970, à vendre ses premières chemises sur les marchés catalans. En 1984, Isak ouvre, avec son frère Nahman, une première boutique sur le Paseo de Gracia, à Barcelone. Mango – un nom choisi parce qu’il se prononce de la même façon dans toutes les langues – a alors une ambition simple mais audacieuse : offrir aux femmes des vêtements élégants, de qualité, à des prix accessibles.

Le succès est fulgurant, d’abord en Espagne, en plein boom post-franquiste, puis en Europe. Le concept ? Des vêtements sans cesse adaptés aux dernières tendances, vendus à des prix abordables, commercialisés sous une seule marque reconnaissable. À l’instar de ses rivaux Zara et Bershka, l’enseigne adopte une stratégie marketing offensive, et s’offre des égéries stars comme Kate Moss, Penélope Cruz, et Antoine Griezmann. La diversification fut aussi la clé de son succès : l’enseigne lance Mango Man, Mango Kids et Mango Home. Piloté d’une main de maître par son fondateur, le groupe décolle véritablement à partir des années 1990 et compte aujourd’hui près de 2 900 boutiques dans cent pays, dont 250 en France, et emploie plus de 16 000 personnes.

L’avenir de l’empire familial

La fortune d’Isak Andic a suivi la même ascension vertigineuse que son empire. À sa mort, le fondateur de Mango figurait parmi les hommes les plus riches d’Espagne, avec une fortune estimée à 4,5 milliards de dollars selon Forbes. La relève semblait alors assurée : son fils aîné, Jonathan, avait intégré le groupe en 2005 et gravi avec succès les échelons de la direction. Mais en décembre 2023, Isak Andic prend une décision qui interroge : il fait entrer l’un de ses plus fidèles lieutenants, Toni Ruiz, actuel président du conseil d’administration, au capital familial, en lui cédant 5 % des parts du groupe. Les relations entre le père et le fils s’étaient-elles déjà envenimées ? Jonathan s’est-il senti lésé au point de nourrir des pensées criminelles ?

L’enquête, très suivie, devra résoudre cette énigme. Pour l’heure, Jonathan, qui a depuis été nommé vice-président du conseil d’administration du groupe, clame son innocence. Il a aussi le soutien de sa famille, qui a confié à la presse espagnole être confiante dans le fait que «ce processus se terminerait le plus rapidement possible et prouverait l’innocence de Jonathan». Un dernier détail jette une ombre de plus sur cette success-story devenue tragédie familiale. Dans une vidéo, diffusée par Mango quelques mois avant la mort de son père, Jonathan lançait, bravache : «Si vous savez clairement où vous voulez aller et que vous avancez toujours, vous finirez par atteindre vos objectifs.»

WSJ : Gucci Owner Kering Nears $4 Billion Sale of Beauty Unit to L’Oréal

Gucci Owner Kering Nears $4 Billion Sale of Beauty Unit to L’Oréal
Deal would be an early move by new Kering CEO Luca de Meo to revive luxury giant’s fortunes

  • Kering is negotiating to sell its beauty business to L’Oréal for approximately $4 billion, aiming to revitalize the luxury group.
  • The potential sale would allow L’Oréal to acquire Creed and develop new beauty offerings for Kering’s fashion brands.
  • Kering’s beauty division, launched in 2023, faces challenges from slowing sales at Gucci and a difficult U.S. market for Saint Laurent.

Kering KER 0.34%increase; green up pointing triangle is in talks to sell its beauty business to L’Oréal OR 1.11%increase; green up pointing triangle in a deal that values the unit at roughly $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, an early move by the Gucci owner’s new chief to revive the luxury giant’s fortunes.

The details
The deal could be announced as soon as next week, assuming talks don’t break down unexpectedly or another bidder emerges, the people said. The development comes just weeks after Kering’s new chief executive, Luca de Meo, started in the top job.

L’Oréal, based in Paris, offers a range of beauty products, including under its namesake brand, Garnier and Maybelline New York. Its products are sold to both consumers and professionals. By acquiring Kering’s beauty business, L’Oréal would add cologne maker Creed to its portfolio.

A deal would also offer L’Oréal the opportunity to develop new offerings around Kering’s fashion brands, which include Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga and McQueen, the people familiar with the matter said.

The context
Kering, also based in France, launched a new beauty division in 2023. The move was aimed at capitalizing on the growth of cosmetics and perfumes by making the products in house, instead of licensing its brands to third parties for beauty products.

The company had quickly moved to scale its beauty business, striking an all-cash deal to acquire fragrance brand Creed over the summer of 2023.

But Kering’s beauty efforts have bumped up against struggles with other parts of the company’s business. Gucci—the company’s largest brand by revenue—has suffered from slowing sales in China. Meanwhile, its Saint Laurent label has been weighed down by a smaller wholesale business and a tougher U.S. market.

A sale could help Kering reduce its debt pile, which stood at roughly $11 billion as of June 30.

Kering competes with Bernard Arnault’s LVMH, Hermès and other European fashion powerhouses.

In tapping de Meo as its CEO, Kering is betting that the executive’s time in the auto industry will have given him the skills and fresh perspective needed to revive the conglomerate. He most recently served as boss of French carmaker Renault.

During more than three decades of experience in the automotive industry, de Meo earned a reputation as a brand builder and marketer. He helped turn Fiat’s modern 500 into a cultural icon, carved out Seat’s sporty Cupra line, and refocused Renault by slimming its model range and boosting profitability in hybrids and electric vehicles.

De Meo succeeded Francois-Henri Pinault, whose family founded Kering. Pinault has retained his role as chairman.

>>> UNCOOKED ALERT: Nektar Therapeutics said to ..

UNCOOKED ALERT: Nektar Therapeutics said to ...

Nektar Therapeutics, the US biopharmaceutical company, is at the centre of takeover rumours.

People following the situation have heard talk Nektar has attracted takeover interest.

Some people following the situation had heard the company circling Nektar is Eli Lilly, which has been in a legal tussle with the biopharmaceutical company.

Lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis are rumoured to be advising Eli Lilly on the potential takeover of Nektar.

Readers should be aware that Necktar's shares have risen 17pc in a month and are already up 8pc today, so a lot of the takeover rumour may already be priced into the stock.

To be clear, the above story is UNCOOKED. In case you don't remember I have pasted the definition of UNCOOKED below:

UNCOOKED: Market gossip as Betaville receives it. This scuttlebutt has just come in and hasn't been checked with all of Betaville's well-informed RARE sources let alone formal journalistic channels (public relations executives, bankers etc). The rumour might be total codswallop, nonsense or rubbish - but then again there may be something in it, so it's worth airing on Betaville.

The Information : Oracle Assures Investors on AI Cloud Margins as It Struggles t

Oracle Assures Investors on AI Cloud Margins as It Struggles to Profit From Older Nvidia Chips

The Takeaway
  • Oracle increased revenue projections for its AI cloud business
  • Oracle said its gross margins from renting out GPUs will increase considerably
  • It is currently generating a 26% gross margin from renting out two-year-old Nvidia chips

Oracle on Thursday sought to reassure investors that its business of renting out servers packed with Nvidia chips to OpenAI, Meta and other artificial intelligence developers will become far more profitable as revenue surges.

Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk told financial analysts Thursday that the company’s AI data center business, which is mostly made up of rentals of Nvidia graphics processing units, will eventually generate a gross profit margin of 30% to 40%. The Information last week reported that the firm’s gross margin from GPU rentals over the past five quarters was around 16%.

Without addressing The Information’s reporting, Magouyrk noted that Oracle’s AI data center business goes through a “ramp-up” period when Oracle incurs expenses before revenue starts coming in.

But Oracle has found it challenging to generate a gross margin of more than 25% from renting out Nvidia chips that came out one or two years ago, according to a new internal Oracle document that hasn’t been previously reported.

The document suggests some of the difficulties Oracle may face as it tries to narrow the gap between its projection and its margins today, even excluding the ramp-up period Magouyrk mentioned. Oracle could be betting it can negotiate better pricing with Nvidia over time, or could charge customers a higher rate.


Magouyrk also raised Oracle’s long-range revenue projections for the cloud business to $166 billion in revenue for the 12 months ending May 2030, which was 15% higher than the projection Oracle gave for that period just a month ago. That’s up from around $10 billion in revenue in the 12 months that ended in May this year. Oracle stock rose 3% from Wednesday’s close.

Magouyrk emphasized that while OpenAI is a major Oracle customer, it isn’t the only one. He pointed out that in one 30-day period during the quarter, Oracle signed $65 billion worth of contracts from four cloud customers, none of which was OpenAI. One was Meta, he said.

Oracle’s presentation was aimed at defusing investors’ concerns about the impact on its profits of its expansion into the cloud. Oracle’s highly profitable software business accounts for most of its revenue, but the company’s long-term projections imply that most of its revenue by 2030 will come from GPU rentals, which will drag down its overall profit margins.

Oracle executives on Thursday encouraged investors to focus on its projected revenue growth rather than its margin percentages, because the growth will help the firm generate more profits overall, even if margins are lower.

One thing working in Oracle’s favor is that it has a wide array of other, higher-margin business units that help bring up its overall profitability. Even within its cloud unit, it has four different business lines, some of which have higher margins than AI server rentals to OpenAI and Meta, such as its cloud contracts with enterprise and database customers including Uber, Zoom and Palantir.

The company didn’t break down revenue from each segment. Magouyrk said the revenue projections include all of the cloud business. OpenAI’s GPU rentals contracts could dwarf contracts from other customers, however, as it plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars with Oracle through the early part of next decade.

Magouyrk said the projected 30% to 40% gross margin range for AI server rentals covers the entirety of a customer contract, including the period when “there’s a cost where we’re paying for something, but we’re not making revenue yet,” he said.

Magouyrk presented a slide that depicted a hypothetical AI infrastructure deal with $60 billion in revenue over six years. The example showed Oracle might pay $570 million before the contract starts, which would result in a negative margin. But according to the slide, these costs are minimal compared to the $10 billion in revenue, on $6.4 billion of expenses, that it could generate per year once the data center is ready for a customer.

Much remains uncertain, however. Cloud customers typically agree to the price they are willing to pay for GPU rentals per hour over a period of time, meaning if a cloud provider’s costs change, its margins could fluctuate. However, Nvidia hasn’t determined prices for its next-generation chips, and other factors such as energy and additional data center equipment could impact Oracle’s costs.

Nvidia’s Pricing Power

Executives at some of Oracle’s rivals—namely Microsoft—have expressed some skepticism about Oracle’s ability to pull off that kind of growth, The Information reported Thursday. Hitting those numbers could theoretically put Oracle on par with Microsoft in cloud server rental revenue by early next decade. (Microsoft is No. 2 behind Amazon Web Services.)

Oracle’s cloud rivals are less dependent on Nvidia chips because most computing workloads still involve servers powered by central processing units rather than GPUs for AI. Higher-margin CPU servers can smooth over the drag that Nvidia’s pricey chips put on gross margins. But the major cloud providers are also trying to figure out how to minimize that impact, given Nvidia’s dominant position, which gives the chip designer pricing power. (Nvidia’s operating margin has risen 40 percentage points in recent years.)

Amazon, for instance, is benefiting from using its own AI chips to power some of its cloud services rather than Nvidia chips. Oracle doesn’t develop its own AI chips, however.

As Oracle reinvents itself, it suddenly finds itself on the bleeding edge of AI data centers. That means it is one of the biggest buyers of Nvidia’s expensive GPUs and is trying to string the chips together quickly in facilities so customers can utilize them and they don’t have a negative effect on profit margins.

In the August quarter, Oracle generated around $900 million from rentals of Nvidia chips and recorded a gross profit of $125 million—meaning it kept 14 cents for every $1 of sales. That number blended several types of Nvidia GPUs, ranging from old generations that came out years ago to Nvidia’s newest AI chips, which just began rolling out and are more expensive or aren’t highly utilized.

Oracle lost nearly $100 million from rentals of the newest chip, Blackwell, which dragged down its overall GPU gross margin. (Including all depreciation costs, Oracle’s overall GPU gross profit margin was in the single digits due to the Blackwell chip losses, the document suggested.)

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in response to The Information’s story last week that such losses can be expected in the initial rollout of new hardware.

“When you first ramp up a new technology, there’s every possibility that you might not make money in the beginning,” Huang said in an interview with Jim Cramer.

“But over the life of the system, they’ll be wonderfully profitable.”

Hopper’s Margins

That claim remains to be seen, however. About half of Oracle’s GPU rental revenue in the August quarter came from Hopper chips, which became generally available on Oracle Cloud two years ago, and the company generated a gross margin of 26% from those chips in the August quarter.

Oracle also generated a 19% gross margin from Hopper chips that came out a year ago, known as H200s, and represented nearly 20% of its revenue in the August quarter. Oracle previously had trouble finding customers to use them, but it signed a new deal with OpenAI to boost their usage, the document shows.

A spokesperson for Oracle didn’t have a comment on the figures.

The internal document also could help answer a looming question in the industry: how long Nvidia chips will hold their value. That’s become an especially worrisome issue for cloud providers like Oracle and Amazon as Nvidia releases a new GPU almost every year, leaving the companies relatively little time to get chips up and running before they need to order and set up the next generation of chips.

According to internal data, Oracle loses money on some older-generation Nvidia chips that became generally available on Oracle Cloud five years ago. The exact reason isn’t clear, but it could be because the company can no longer charge much money for them. It’s also possible Oracle is heavily discounting those GPUs to win customer contracts.

Oracle also plans to rent out more non-Nvidia chips to AI developers, which could help lower its costs or give it negotiating power with Nvidia. In recent months, Oracle has rented out more AMD chips, and earlier this week it announced a deeper commitment to buying AMD GPUs. OpenAI has separately said it could eventually use 6 gigawatts of AMD chips to power its AI, and that usage could happen through cloud providers like Oracle.

For now, margins on the AMD chips don’t seem great. In the August quarter, Oracle lost money on AMD GPUs, which became generally available in fall 2024, after properly accounting for depreciation, the document shows. The reason for the loss couldn’t be learned.

AMD chips represented only 3% of Oracle’s total GPU rental revenue in the quarter, however.

Other GPU cloud providers, such as CoreWeave, don’t have other major revenue streams to help boost their margins. At the end of the August quarter, Oracle rented out around 270,000 GPUs of various types. CoreWeave says it has more than 250,000 GPUs, though it generated $200 million more in revenue than Oracle Cloud in its most recent quarter.

WSJ : Can Gold Keep Rising? Depends if You Think This Time Is Different

Can Gold Keep Rising? Depends if You Think This Time Is Different
The danger is that gold is in the grip of exactly the sort of speculative excess that creates bubbles in other parts of the financial system


Will it be third time lucky for gold? The yellow metal is having its third breakout in the past 50 years, and the last two times proved an expensive bust. The logic for gold making even more money after its super-soaraway year is simple: This time is different.

Those have proved dangerous words for investors in stocks, bonds and currencies since professors Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff used them for the title of a book whose subtitle gives away the plot: “Eight centuries of financial folly.”

Gold is meant to be exempt, the ultimate safe asset to protect from the follies of the government and banks. Amid follies aplenty, gold has doubled in the past two years.

The danger is that gold is now in the grip of exactly the sort of speculative excess that creates bubbles in other parts of the financial system.

Gold also doubled, or more, in two years in 1979-80 and 2010-11. In both periods, investors worried that the Federal Reserve would let inflation erode the value of the dollar. In the 1970s the concern was that the Fed was under the thumb of the president, as it actually had been under Richard Nixon.

After the 2008-09 financial crisis, big-name investors and right-leaning economists feared that the Fed’s stimulative bond buying would debase the currency and bring inflation.

In both periods, the fears proved misplaced. Gold halved in value in two years at the start of the 1980s as the Fed gave priority to tackling inflation despite a double-dip recession. It took gold more than a quarter of a century to recover to its January 1980 peak, and after adjusting for inflation only regained its peak earlier this year. So much for gold having long-run stable value.

From the 2011 high, gold’s price fell for five years, and while it regained that level in 2020, it was lower as recently as two years ago.

There are good reasons to think this time could be different. But there are also worrying signs of speculation.

The basic case for gold is that the world needs an alternative to the dollar. The shift into gold started with the freezing of Russian reserves after Russia invaded Ukraine, prompting central banks in developing countries to question how secure claims on Western governments would be in a crisis.

Investors joined in this year as they worried about the independence of the Federal Reserve, the scale of government debt and the risk that politicians take the easy route and choose inflation over repayment. Other currencies bring their own political risks, as the French government is demonstrating.

All these worries were around in the past two big run-ups, though. Both times the fears proved unfounded. In 1980, Fed Chairman Paul Volcker jacked up interest rates and used double-dip recessions to crush inflation. In the 2010s, it turned out even negative interest rates in much of the world weren’t enough to generate inflation.

“If I felt that Paul Volcker version two was going to be coming in to replace Jay Powell, that’s a good reason gold would fall,” says Sebastian Lyon, founder and chief investment officer of Troy Asset Management, a London boutique that holds physical gold in one of its investment vehicles. He doesn’t expect a hawk at the Fed, though, and thinks gold remains in a long-run bull market, so holds more than a 10th of his funds in gold.

We can split the reasons to hold gold into long and short run.

The long-term case is the “debasement trade,” the idea that indebted and politically-weak governments will eventually do the opposite of Volcker and choose inflation over recession. Gold provides insurance against interest rates being kept too low in the long run.

My concern is that the price of the insurance has gone up so far, so fast: Has the risk really risen that much, that fast? Or are speculators betting that other people think the risk has suddenly risen, and are looking at each other buying to justify buying more?

The short-term case is more questionable. Gold took off in August after Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled in a speech at Jackson Hole that he was moving from a focus on inflation to a focus on jobs. This “Powell pivot” raised expectations of interest-rate cuts—which is an obvious reason to buy gold if you think the economy’s already running hot, and through Thursday, gold was up 28% since.

Yet, bond markets and the dollar flatly disagree. Rather than pricing in more inflation, bond investors have priced in lower inflation, taking Powell’s side. The dollar is flat, after a brutal selloff earlier in the year. The S&P 500 is up 4%, but it has been led by the Big Tech bet on artificial intelligence, and almost as many stocks are down as up—again, not a sign of investors trying to protect themselves against inflation.

What has done well since the Powell pivot are speculative stocks. The Ark Innovation ETF is up 18%, the Russell Microcap index of tiny stocks is up 13% and caution is out of fashion, with the MSCI Barra index of U.S. stocks with low volatility down 3%.


My guess is gold is caught up in the broader speculative fervor, with recent buyers more attracted by the rising price than the fear of inflation.

Speculation can always go further before a bubble forms and pops. Gold has already jumped from 4% of global investment assets to 6% in two years, the highest share since 1986, according to a study by Goldman Sachs strategists. In the extreme case of 1980, a bubble on top of runaway inflation, gold peaked at 22% of investments.

My core assumption is still that voters and politicians will find they hate inflation even more than they hate tax rises or spending cuts. But if this time really is different, the dollar is doomed and gold could become a very big part of portfolios again.

WSJ : The Fight Over Whose AI Monster Is Scariest

The Fight Over Whose AI Monster Is Scariest
Why Anthropic’s Jack Clark is drawing White House ire

Anthropic’s problem might be that it’s the sober one at the AI rager.

One of its co-founders drew a string of unusual rebukes from the White House this past week after penning a rather personal essay about his own uneasiness around the work his industry is doing.

“Make no mistake: What we are dealing with is a real mysterious creature, not a simple and predictable machine,” Jack Clark, whose official title at Anthropic is head of policy, wrote on Monday. “And like all the best fairytales, the creature is of our own creation. Only by acknowledging it as being real and by mastering our own fears do we even have a chance to understand it, make peace with it, and figure out a way to tame it and live together.”

Clark’s essay, adapted from a little-noticed conference speech he gave earlier this month, quickly drew condemnation from President Trump’s AI czar, David Sacks, and other tech luminaries, including Marc Andreessen and Keith Rabois.

At the core of the disagreement is a debate around how and whether AI should be regulated. It turns out everyone—on both sides of those questions—is seeing monsters these days. They just don’t agree on whose is scariest.

For the longest time, the popular debate over AI was about trying to prevent the rise of the machine through a “Terminator”-style apocalypse.

Now, the cast of villains has only grown more diverse as the technology has gone from being scientifically interesting to economically useful.

With that, the stakes are higher. If AI fails to live up to its hype, it could be a major blow to the U.S. economy.

Yet living up to the hype might trigger the kinds of bad dreams Clark is warning about. These are unintended consequences from AI that, he says, is increasingly showing signs of being self-aware. And it moves faster than humans can process.

“Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering,” Sacks posted on X this past week in response to Clark. “It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem.”

Anthropic endorsed a first-in-the-nation law that California recently enacted, requiring large AI developers to make public their safety protocols. Supporters say this will create accountability.

In particular, Sacks is worried about the growing number of statehouses looking to regulate the fast-moving technology and he warns that regulations will hinder U.S.’s ability to compete in the AI race with China—another boogeyman.

To Sacks’s point, bills aimed at AI have been introduced this year in all 50 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Clark’s real sin might be working for a company whose CEO once called Trump a “feudal warlord.” Plus, it is seen as carrying on efforts by the Biden administration to advocate for guardrails around AI.

That has locked Anthropic and Sacks in a simmering feud for months—even as other big tech players have gone out of their way to make amends with Trump.

The results seem to have further politicalized the technology. Anthropic’s Claude chatbot is for liberals; Elon Musk’s Grok is for conservatives.

“AI ethics is code for censorship,” Krim Delko, founder of Orange Capital Partners, replied to Sacks’s post.

To underscore how emotional the debate has turned, venture capitalist and Republican backer Peter Thiel has reportedly been warning that global AI regulations could usher in the biggest baddie of them all: the Antichrist.

“In the 17th, 18th century, the Antichrist would have been a Dr. Strangelove, a scientist who did all this sort of evil crazy science,” Thiel said, according to the Washington Post. “In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science.”

Is Clark the Antichrist? Well, he’s hardly a Luddite.

For the record, I sat next to him more than a decade ago when we worked at Bloomberg News. Not once did I suspect him of being in league with the devil, though he did wear a lot of black.

Mostly, Clark was a reasonable, earnest guy. Even then, one thing stood out: his extreme interest in the potential of AI. He read scholarly AI research for fun and came to the technology with a deep belief it was going to change the world.

That would take him from journalism to OpenAI and, eventually, Anthropic. It was founded by OpenAI alumni who felt their alma mater wasn’t doing enough to ensure AI safety.

Clark’s profile rose with his ability to bridge the dense, technical world of AI research and the wonky world of public policy. His weekly newsletter, “Import AI,” has become a must-follow for many in the industry.

It’s useful not only for news and analysis, but for Clark’s habit of including his own short-fiction stories about AI. In many ways, he’s drawing inspiration from lyrics of punk-rock band Jawbreaker: My fiction beats the hell out of my truth.

“I write these stories because I’m trying to sort of reckon with the AI stuff happening around us by imagining situations involving it,” Clark once said of his writing.

He has taken his truth to appearances before Congress, the United Nations and elsewhere. After speaking to the Labour Party in the U.K. last year, for example, he talked on a podcast about how he’s learned to communicate his concerns to government leaders.

“I’ve started to say to governments, you should think of AI systems as kind of like countries that are arriving into the world, and misaligned AI systems as like rogue states,” Clark said.

He isn’t advocating for the end of AI but rather pushing for openness so these potential monsters aren’t created in the dark. He’s worried about a crisis—like what happened with the nuclear industry—that sparks drastic policy changes that derails development.

“Right now, I feel that our best shot at getting this right is to go and tell far more people…what we’re worried about,” Clark concluded his essay. “And then ask them how they feel, listen, and compose some policy solution out of it.”

9to5 : Apple announces F1 races are coming exclusively to Apple TV in the US

Apple announces F1 races are coming exclusively to Apple TV in the US


Apple is officially becoming the exclusive Formula 1 broadcast partner in the US, with the popular sport coming to Apple TV starting next year. Here are the details from today’s announcement.

Apple and Formula 1 announce five-year partnership that kicks off next year
Following months of rumors and speculation, today Apple made it official.

In a new five-year deal, Apple is becoming exclusive broadcast partner in the US for all Formula 1 rights.

Apple TV, the recently rebranded streaming service, will include comprehensive access to Formula 1 races for all subscribers.

That means that unlike Apple’s MLS service, which is a separate paid subscription, Formula 1 races will stream entirely free for Apple TV subscribers.

So in addition to gaining access to hit shows like Severance, Ted Lasso, and The Morning Show, Apple TV subscribers will also have full Formula 1 access—including “all practice, qualifying, Sprint sessions, and Grands Prix.”

And Apple says it will offer a “more dynamic and elevated viewing experience“ than what’s been done before.

Here’s Apple’s SVP of Services, Eddy Cue:

“We’re thrilled to expand our relationship with Formula 1 and offer Apple TV subscribers in the U.S. front-row access to one of the most exciting and fastest-growing sports on the planet,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services. “2026 marks a transformative new era for Formula 1, from new teams to new regulations and cars with the best drivers in the world, and we look forward to delivering premium and innovative fan-first coverage to our customers in a way that only Apple can.”

Apple TV will offer some F1 coverage for free

Apple says it plans to offer some Formula 1 coverage free for everyone, with no subscription required at all. This free access will be limited to “select races and all practice sessions.”

What about F1 TV, the existing streaming service? Apple says it “will continue to be available in the U.S. via an Apple TV subscription only and will be free for those who subscribe [to Apple TV].”

As for broadcast coverage, CNBC’s Alex Sherman reports on Apple’s plans for announcers:

Unsurprisingly, Apple plans to use its ecosystem of other services to promote F1 in a variety of ways.

In addition to broadcasting Formula 1 on Apple TV, Apple will amplify the sport across Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music, and Apple Fitness+. Apple Sports — the free app for iPhone — will feature live updates for every qualifying, Sprint, and race for each Grand Prix across the season, with real-time leaderboards, season driver and constructor standings, Live Activities to follow on the Lock Screen, and a designated widget for the iPhone Home Screen.

Currently, Apple only holds F1 rights in the US. But if this partnership goes well, it is expected the company will want to bid for global streaming rights when they become available in the years ahead.

Are you excited for Apple TV to offer Formula 1 races next year? Let us know in the comments.

TechCrunch : Trump DOE decides to keep at least one Biden-era energy program

Trump DOE decides to keep at least one Biden-era energy program

The Department of Energy said Thursday that it had finalized a $1.6 billion loan guarantee to upgrade around 5,000 miles of transmission lines.

The grid upgrades would ease the flow of electricity in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. The project, which will address lines owned by American Electric Power (AEP), won’t add any new routes, but it will help existing ones carry more power.

AEP is one of the largest utilities and transmission line owners in the U.S., with operations spanning 11 states. The 5,000 miles that will be upgraded represent around 13% of the company’s total network.

The loan guarantee was initiated under the Biden administration just days before President Trump was inaugurated. Previously, the Trump administration has cited approvals occurring between Election Day and Inauguration Day as justification for canceling projects.

It’s unclear what distinguished this grid modernization project from others that the Trump administration is considering canceling or in the process of canceling.

In Minnesota, the Department of Energy is moving to cancel a $467 million grant that would have helped unlock 28 gigawatts of new generating capacity, most of which would have been solar and wind. Another in Oregon would have issued $250 million in grants to connect half a dozen renewable projects.

But the largest transmission project the Trump administration wants to axe is a $630 million grant to modernize California’s grid. In many ways, it’s similar to the AEP project, looking to wring more out of the existing grid to ease congestion. As planned, the California project would test advanced conductors and dynamic line rating devices, both of which would allow old rights-of-way to carry more electricity. That’s frequently a cheaper option than building new power lines.

The AEP project will also rewire the lines with new conductors. The loan guarantee will allow the utility giant to secure a lower interest rate, saving the company at least $275 million, which it says will benefit its customers.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the loan will “ensure lower electricity costs across the Midwestern region of the United States.” Already, the states included in the project have among the lowest electricity rates in the nation.

The loans are to be issued from the Loan Programs Office, which the GOP has renamed the Energy Dominance Financing Program. The office was established under the Energy Policy Act in 2005. Historically, the office had focused on clean energy and manufacturing projects. The loss rate on its loans is around 3%, far below that of private sector lenders.

CrunchBase : The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Biotech Dominates A Busy Week

The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Biotech Dominates A Busy Week

This week offered a change of pace on the giant round front as it was a biotech company, rather than an AI startup, at the top of the ranks. Kailera Therapeutics, a developer of obesity therapeutics, led with a $600 million Series B. Other sizable financings went to companies offering fractional aircraft ownership, fintech services and hair loss treatments.

1. Kailera Therapeutics, $600M, biotech: Waltham, Massachusetts-based Kailera Therapeutics, which focuses on treatments for obesity, announced a $600 million Series B financing led by Bain Capital Private Equity. The company plans to initiate Phase 3 trials by year end for an injectable therapy to treat obesity.

2. Bond, $350M, aviation: Bond, a company offering fractional ownership for its fleet of private aircraft, raised $350 million in debt and equity funding. The financing consisted of $320 million in debt and equity from funds and accounts managed by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts along with $30 million in equity investment from founding partners.

3. (tied) Deel, $300M, payroll and compliance: HR and payroll platform Deel picked up $300 million in fresh funding. Ribbit Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Coatue led the financing. The round set a $17.3 billion valuation for the 6-year-old company, which said it recently surpassed $1 billion in annual recurring revenue.

3. (tied) Vantaca, $300M, business software: Vantaca, a provider of software for homeowners associations and management companies, said it secured a growth investment of more than $300 million led by Cove Hill Partners. The financing set a $1.25 billion valuation for the Wilmington, North Carolina-based company.

5. Kardigan, $254M, biopharma: Kardigan, a startup focused on developing cardiovascular drugs, closed on $254 million in a Series B backed by T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Sequoia Heritage and Arch Venture Partners. The round brings total funding to date to more than $554 million, per Crunchbase data.

6. Upgrade, $165M, fintech: Upgrade, a provider of consumer loans, credit cards and online accounts, pulled in $165 million in a Series G financing led by Neuberger Berman. Launched in 2017, San Francisco-based Upgrade has raised more than $750 million in venture funding to date, per Crunchbase data.

7. VeraDermics, $150M, dermatology, hair regrowth: New Haven, Connecticut-based VeraDermics, a startup developing therapeutics for dermatologic conditions, raised $150 million in a Series C round led by SR One. Funding will go toward ongoing trials for an oral therapeutic designed for hair regrowth.

8. Pelage Pharmaceuticals, $120M, hair loss treatment: Pelage Pharmaceuticals closed a $120 million Series B round co-led by Arch Venture Partners and Google’s GV. The Los Angeles startup is focused on a topical small molecule designed to reactivate dormant hair follicle stem cells for men and women experiencing hair loss.

9. Peptilogics, $78M, therapeutics: Pittsburgh-based Peptilogics, a developer of surgical therapeutics to treat and prevent serious medical device infections, raised $78 million in a Series B2 financing. Presight Capital, Thiel Bio and Founders Fund led the round.

10. MD Integrations, $77M, telehealth: Telehealth platform MD Integrations landed $77 million in growth financing from Updata Partners and Denali Growth Partners. The New York-based company works with digital health brands to provide access to a network of doctors for patient consultations.