Markets
Patrón thinks its biggest selling point is what’s not in its tequila
Patrón is betting that what’s missing from its bottles can set it apart, as US spirits sales fall and the premium tequila category becomes increasingly crowded. Patrón is rolling out the latest iteration of a provocative campaign that plays on the words it’s not allowed to use in its marketing, the…
Lovable doubles its valuation to $13.3 billion as investors place another big bet on AI coding
AI software-building startup Lovable has raised $400 million at a $13.3 billion valuation, more than double the $6.6 billion valuation it received in its December funding round. Menlo Ventures led the Series C alongside EQT-managed Scaleup Europe Fund in the latest sign of investor appetite for…
Booking’s CEO says AI will have a ‘human cost’ — and he wants every employee to be ‘AI literate’ in case their job goes away
AI could make building your vacation itinerary easier — Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel says it could also make some careers harder. Fogel, the chief executive of the company behind booking.com, discussed AI’s potential impact on workers in an episode of the “Grit” podcast released Monday…
The secret superyacht sales network
Tomek Wrzesinski has spent more than 20 years selling supersized boats to the uberwealthy, and he’s found one nearly foolproof way to get a client to bite. It starts with sending a cryptic weekend text message: “Maybe I have something for you. I just need to check if it’s still available. It’s an…
Reed Jobs says Silicon Valley’s ‘energy’ has moved to San Francisco thanks to post-pandemic office prices
Steve Jobs’ son thinks San Francisco’s pandemic-era real estate slump helped shift Silicon Valley’s center of gravity up north. Reed Jobs said on the Sabrina Halper Show that Palo Alto and the South Bay were “where all the juice was” during his father’s career, when companies including Apple…
GLP-1 drugs are fueling the rise of the ‘big kids’ market, one mega restaurant chain says
Kids’ meals are in vogue, according to Cava CEO Brett Schulman. The slop bowl chain is seeing an increasing consumer base that he calls “big kids” — adult customers on GLP-1 drugs opting for kids’ portions. In response to a question during a Tuesday earnings call about how weight-loss drugs were…
OpenAI is quietly testing a pay-to-reset quota feature. Here’s what we know.
A mysterious new function has been appearing for some users of ChatGPT’s Plus plan. A Reddit user on ChatGPT’s $20 monthly plan posted in the ChatGPT forum on Monday, saying they were presented with a black “pay $8 to reset” button when they logged in and found that their weekly usage quota had…
Elon Musk says SpaceX’s AI revenue will outpace all its other products by next month
Elon Musk has predicted that AI will earn SpaceX more money than its other offerings. On Tuesday, SpaceX posted a 30-minute all-hands recording on X that CEO Elon Musk held with employees, during which he said AI has become an “extremely important part of SpaceX’s future.” “Probably our AI revenue…
Tesla built a Starlink internet dish into its Cybercab robotaxi
Tesla is giving its Cybercab a little help from another Elon Musk company. On Monday, the EV maker shared photos on X of what it called the “First Cybercab with Starlink integration.” The images show a square-like cutout in the roofline, where the satellite internet equipment is built directly into…
Trump’s student-loan repayment overhaul faces a new lawsuit from the biggest public service and healthcare unions
President Donald Trump’s student-loan changes are facing another legal battle. On Tuesday, a coalition of unions filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education seeking to block Trump’s new student-loan changes, including its narrowed definition of professional degrees. The suit argues that the…