gm.
midweek catch-up. five things that moved since monday.
the 5
1. apple just unveiled its first foldable iphone.
on tuesday, apple held its september event, john ternus's first keynote as CEO, and unveiled the iPhone Duo, apple's first foldable phone. pre-orders open october 16 and it starts at $1,999 (up to $3,199 for the max storage tier). apple also announced the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, AirPods 5, and the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4.
there's a lot riding on this. it's the first major product launch under new leadership after tim cook stepped down september 1. it's also apple's answer to samsung and google, who have owned the foldable category so far. early reviews will decide whether foldables become mainstream or stay a niche experiment.
2. an anthropic researcher just quit publicly over "out-of-control" AI fears.
on tuesday, jacob coxon, a training researcher at anthropic, quit and went public with his concerns that safety research isn't keeping pace with model capability. around the same time, evan hubinger (anthropic's own alignment lead, meaning the person responsible for making sure the models are safe) publicly said there's a greater than 10% chance AI kills all humans within a decade, and that "we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence."
separately, anthropic withheld its latest model (claude mythos 5.1, released september 1) from the UK's AI Security Institute for pre-release safety testing, the first time it has ever done so. the UK cabinet office ordered an urgent assessment.
not all AI news this week is doom and gloom though. AI-driven drug discovery and protein folding tools (like AlphaFold) are producing real breakthroughs in cancer detection, rare-disease research, and vaccine design. the safety concerns from inside the labs are worth taking seriously, but the technology is genuinely helping people too.
3. robinhood is underwriting its first-ever IPO.
on monday, oura (the smart ring company) filed to IPO on nasdaq under ticker OURA at a target valuation north of $11 billion. the interesting part isn't oura, though. robinhood is on the underwriter list, its first-ever role underwriting an IPO. this is a big symbolic step for HOOD.
context: retail brokerages historically don't underwrite IPOs at all. underwriting is dominated by investment banks (goldman, morgan stanley, JPM) who take a cut of the deal and often get the first crack at hot listings. robinhood cleared the regulatory bar for underwriting in june. to be clear: they're one of many underwriters on this deal, deep in the syndicate behind the usual bookrunners. this isn't deal-leading yet, more of a toe in the door of traditional wall street.
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4. LIV golf just filed for bankruptcy.
on tuesday, LIV golf filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy after saudi arabia's public investment fund (PIF, the sovereign wealth fund that bankrolled the whole thing) announced in april it would stop funding the tour after the 2026 season. wheels came off fast: two events got canceled and lawsuits piled up.
total PIF investment since LIV launched in 2022: more than $5 billion, with basically nothing recouped. BC Partners (a london PE firm) will finance an attempted 2027 return, but the future is unclear. players who signed massive guaranteed contracts (bryson dechambeau, jon rahm, and others reportedly owed hundreds of millions collectively) are now creditors of a bankrupt entity. this also puts the years-long PGA-LIV merger talks in limbo.
5. the tesla bull thesis, explained.
after tesla's cybercab launch last week, worth zooming out on the full bull case that some analysts are laying out. three main drivers:
cybercab. uber and lyft have a combined market cap of roughly $162 billion ($155B + $6.5B). the cybercab bull case says tesla eventually captures at minimum that much value, and potentially many multiples more if autonomous ride-hailing becomes the default mode of transportation.
optimus. musk is targeting a $20-25K price for the humanoid robot. if it becomes a real consumer product (laundry, cooking, cleaning), the addressable market is basically all of household services.
spacex merger potential. spacex IPO'd in june at a $1.77 trillion valuation, currently larger than tesla (~$1.4T). some see musk eventually combining the two into a mega-company (starlink in every cybercab, one ecosystem).
the bear case is simpler: each driver requires execution, and musk's timelines have historically slipped by years. the bull case says even hitting two of three gets tesla to a materially higher valuation. worth understanding either way.
see you monday.
not financial advice. aggregated community trends and commentary.