Business

Riding a valuation pumped up by generative AI and its chips that power many of the tools, Nvidia’s market cap has passed not only Apple but now Microsoft, too, at more than $3.3 trillion, as reported by Bloomberg.

The markets are still open, but the rise has been fast — Nvidia shares are up 160 percent in 2024, passing $2 trillion in February.

Prices are rising as Shein eyes IPOs in the UK and the US. The average price of a dress is up 28 percent in the US compared to a year ago, for example.

Despite labor violations and the overall secrecy of the company, business is booming for the fast fashion brand. We’ll see if shoppers mind the slightly higher prices.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk got his big compensation package approved yesterday, but how many really voted in favor? Well, it seems 1.78 billion shares voted in favor of Musk’s payday, while 529 million voted against — a 72 percent margin, excluding shares held by Musk and his brother Kimbal, as The New York Times reports. Musk took a victory lap on the mic at the shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas.

We don’t know exactly how often AI Overviews will appear in search, but early observations point to trouble for publishers.

A Press Gazette experiment found that AI Overviews appeared on nearly a quarter of top news-related Google searches, pushing down organic results. Some publishers are bracing for their Google traffic to trickle to zero. Others say it’s already happened.

Shein, the Chinese fast fashion company popular in the US, recorded $32.2 billion in sales. To give you a sense of scale, Zara’s sales came in at $28 billion, and H&M’s at $22 billion.

Under EU regulations, Shein will face more scrutiny alongside companies like Amazon. Shein is expected to go public in the US this year.

Dorsey donated 14 Bitcoins to Nostr’s anonymous founder in 2022. That founder is Giovanni Torres Parra, according to Business Insider. Parra is a devotee of “far-right conspiracy theorist Olavo de Carvalho,” who “claimed that Pepsi-Cola was flavored with stem cells of aborted fetuses.” 

Keith Gill, the same Redditor who sparked a frenzy in 2021 has returned, and the stock is spiking again. The WSJ reports that in addition to E*Trade’s discussions, SEC officials are having “internal discussions” about whether the new posts amount to manipulation.

Meanwhile, Gill posted another screenshot this afternoon showing an account with shares and options now worth $260 million.

Following months of merger rumors, CNBC reports that Paramount and Skydance have finalized an agreement that it will announce in the “coming days.” Shari Redstone, the head of Paramount’s parent company National Amusements, still needs to sign off on the deal.

Despite Google’s AI expertise, it drastically overestimates how good its tech is — as anyone can see in its search results. And that’s with expertise. This doesn’t bode well for everyone else’s use of AI!

People who participated in Gemini’s lending program, which suspended withdrawals in the wake of the FTX collapse, will get “approximately 97 percent” of their money. Perhaps predictably, the Earn program also had some legal issues.

If last week’s big revamp and the launch of the Canva Enterprise package didn’t convince you, hang on one minute.

Perhaps the power of hip-hop dance and Hamilton-style rhymes can prove that Canva’s suite is soulless enough (or “safe and securrre” enough, if you prefer) to have a place in your corporation alongside Microsoft 365, Zoom, Google Workspace, and Slack.

In its purchase of Shiver Entertainment — which previously ported Hogwarts Legacy and Mortal Kombat 1 to the Switch — from troubled gaming conglomerate Embracer Group, Nintendo says:

By welcoming Shiver’s experienced and accomplished development team, Nintendo aims to secure high-level resources for porting and developing software titles. Going forward, even after it becomes a part of the Nintendo group, Shiver’s focus will remain the same, continuing commissions that port and develop software for multiple platforms including Nintendo Switch.

Vox reported yesterday, following two high-profile departures, that OpenAI’s exit terms include revoking employees’ vested equity in the company if they ever disparage it or acknowledge the terms exist. OpenAI told the outlet it hadn’t revoked equity before, and wouldn’t in the future.

Those terms were real and “should never have been,” Altman posted today, adding that he’s “genuinely embarrassed” by them.

The European consumer organization BEUC and 17 of its member groups, has accused the e-commerce platform of violating Digital Services Act (DSA) rules, urging the EU to designate Temu as a “very large online platform” (VLOP) to make it comply, as it did with Shein last month.

The complaint says:

“Temu does not guarantee its users a safe, predictable, and trustworthy online environment as the law requires.”

Concerns include Temu’s gamification features, misleading products, and overall lack of transparency regarding its business operations.