Brian Boyle
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writer/reporter/editor | currently: @thedailyupside | past: @sfgate, @techmeme, @latimesopinion | also seen in: @slate, @vice, @milwaukeemag | 🏳️🌈
Articles by Brian Boyle
Tariffs Are a Boon for Cleveland-Cliffs
After a blowout earnings report, Cleveland-Cliffs cued Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. On Monday, the steelmaking giant announced an adjusted earnings outlook for 2027 of $4 billion, well exceeding the roughly $2.6 billion consensus expectation on Wall Street, according to FactSet data. The trade war turned out to be very, very good for the company.
Where Is the Love? Bumble’s Take-Private Deal Heralds Dating Apps’ Decline
We won’t go so far as to say love is dead in 2026, but love for traditional dating apps may be. User fatigue after more than a decade of swiping, as well as the increasing threat of AI disruption has left the industry battered and broken hearted. Last week delivered the nadir of the industry’s decline, when Bumble announced it had agreed to a $1.3 billion all-cash take-private deal, roughly just five years after reaching a peak $14 billion valuation shortly following its IPO. It’s a cheap date.
Is CoreWeave’s Tapestry of Debt Unraveling?
Here’s three words that nobody likes to see connected to bad news: credit default swaps. The financial derivatives at the heart of 2008’s housing market meltdown that allow investors to transfer credit risk to another party are back in the news again thanks to CoreWeave, a former crypto miner turned “neocloud” compute provider.
BlackRock’s Happy Place is at the Crossroads of All Global Capital
Larry Fink is happy to go with the flow. And, increasingly, everything is flowing through BlackRock. In a blockbuster third-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, the asset management supergiant said it took in net inflows of $205 billion, beating expectations. The new money helped push its total assets under management to a truly titanic $15.5 trillion, up 15% year over year.
Walmart Adds GLP-1 Coverage for Some Employees
It’s not a typo. Walmart, once notoriously stingy with employee benefits, is offering an expanded suite of healthcare perks for its workers. On Tuesday, the Big Box supergiant and America’s largest private sector employer told workers that it plans to expand free insurance coverage to more than 250 prescription drugs, including GLP-1s for some workers with type 2 diabetes, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg.
Chips Still Up for TSMC and ASML
How much revenue is needed to justify a $1 trillion valuation? How much extinction-level risk is too much? And what happens if the frontier AI labs decide to pace themselves while open models nip at their heels? Such existential quandaries bedevil the AI industry’s many stakeholders in the lead up to Anthropic and OpenAI’s expected mega IPOs, especially in light of a truth nuke last Thursday that the latter startup’s revenue was growing slower than previously thought.
Chips Still Up for TSMC and ASML
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. How much revenue is needed to justify a $1 trillion valuation? How much extinction-level risk is too much? And what happens if the frontier AI labs decide to pace themselves while open models nip at their heels?
Reflection Wants to Deliver America’s Most Powerful Open-Weight AI
The arrival of Reflection is cause for self-reflection for the AI frontier labs. The Nvidia-backed US startup said last week that its soon-to-be-released open-weight model Beam rivals the best of the best in the open-source field. It’s big news for domestic AI users who don’t want to pay for costly top-flight closed models from frontier labs but also don’t want to rely on an open-weight ecosystem that hails from China. Beam’s launch is a long time coming.
Whitesnake fire up the David Coverdale Farewell Tour in Dublin
Whitesnake bid Dublin Farewell on a night bulging with rock anthems. If anything was to be learned from Status Quo’s 1984 End Of The Road Tour, it’s that these often ridiculous announcements are to be taken with a very generous pinch of salt. The fact that Quo are still rockin’ all over the world 38 years later tells you all you need to know.
Palantir’s Poised to Win in the Sovereign AI Era, Goldman Says
The best defense is a good offense. That plus sovereign AI. The latter point is why Goldman Sachs analyst Gabriela Borges slapped defense tech firm Palantir with an upgrade on Thursday, changing the stock’s rating to buy from neutral with a price target of $230 per share. Borges’s thesis? In an increasingly hostile and unwieldy digital world, governments and enterprises demand bespoke, localized AI systems (a.k.a., sovereign AI), and Palantir is well suited to meet that demand.
The Hu Show Their Medieval Metal In Dublin.
A little over two months ago, Mongolian folk metal lords The Hu were in a field in Knebworth, taking on the stifling Herdfordshire sun at Iron Maiden’s Eddfest. Tonight they were in a cooler Dublin, under a roof, and within the legendary walls of the Olympia Theatre. But ahead of the main course, another bunch of folk-ers called SKÁLD from France kicked off the night with something way beyond the norm.
Tishman Speyer Wants to Return the Chrysler Building to Former Glory
It’s a landmark deal for a landmark building. On Wednesday, building developer Tishman Speyer agreed to a $235 million deal to take control of the legendary Chrysler Building in Midtown Manhattan. The agreement comes amid an office real estate renaissance in the Big Apple, though returning the Art Deco skyscraper to its Class A former glory will take a little elbow grease and a whole lot of dough. For Tishman Speyer, there’s no place like the Chrysler.
Tishman Speyer Wants to Return the Chrysler Building to Former Glory
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. It's a landmark deal for a landmark building. On Wednesday, building developer Tishman Speyer agreed to a $235 million deal to take control of the legendary Chrysler Building in Midtown Manhattan.
AMD Rides Muse Hype to New Heights
Muse has done nothing but inspire AMD’s stock. Shares of the chipmaker are up nearly 30% since Meta launched its instantly popular Muse AI agent on September 8, a rally that has catapulted AMD into the $1 trillion market cap club. So how much higher can AMD fly? Plenty, according to a report out yesterday from Citi analyst Atif Malik.
Skydance Faces One Box Office Bust After Another
On the eve of its merger deal with Paramount Skydance finally closing, Warner Bros. Discovery went out with a bang in the form of a nuclear-grade box office bomb. Over the weekend, the Tom Cruise-led “Digger” earned an abysmal $8 million across 3,300 screens with a budget that reportedly ran close to $180 million. They’ll be seeing red for a while on that one.
Grail Jumps as Cancer Test Nears Market
It’s not a cancer cure, but it’s an oncological Holy Grail in its own right. Shares of biotech firm Grail jumped more than 11% last week after a US Food and Drug Administration advisory panel endorsed its groundbreaking blood test technology that is capable of screening for dozens of different cancers. How about that? Some potentially honest-to-God good news. One final step will be sorting through the insurance question, which is exactly as complicated as it sounds.
Black Water Redemption / All Guns Blazing On Their Debut Album
September Bear Cave, Bournemouth24-26 Holdenhurst Rd, Bournemouth BH8 8AD sep7:30 pmBlack Water Redemption, BournemouthBear Cave Event Organized ByBlack Water Redemption Black Water Redemption premiere their new single Stand For Something at MetalTalk this morning, marking the band’s debut with new singer Adam Chambers. The track is taken from their new album, due out early October, which looks set to expand on the band’s established sound while pushing into heavier, more refined territory.
TSMC Considers New Plant in Lone Star State
TSMC doesn’t need everything to be bigger in Texas. These days it’ll take any increase in production capacity it can eke out. According to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters, the chip-printing king is considering a new multibillion-dollar campus in the Lone Star State in what would be its second production hub in the US in addition to an Arizona facility that continues to take shape.
TSMC Considers New Plant in Lone Star State
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. TSMC doesn't need everything to be bigger in Texas. These days it'll take any increase in production capacity it can eke out. According to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters, the chip-printing king is considering a new multibillion-dollar campus in the Lone Star State in what would be its second production hub in the US in addition to an Arizona facility that continues to take shape.
Boeing Gets Boost from Navy Contract While FAA Delays Max 10
Boeing’s turnaround plan may be experiencing some unexpected turbulence, but it’s still at cruising altitude. Mere days after the US Federal Aviation Administration delayed the certification of Boeing’s 737 Max 10 due to a software issue, the aerospace giant secured a big green light from another corner of the US federal government: the Navy, which awarded the company a $20 billion contract to build a next-generation fighter jet.
Consumers Aren’t Buying Stable Job Market Data
Not even halfway decent JOLTS numbers seem to be enough to give consumers a needed jolt of confidence. On Tuesday, The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index fell to its lowest level in 12 years in September, a period that includes the COVID pandemic.
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – Shapes Of Midnight: Addictively Unsettling And Superb
Even if you are not familiar with Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, the name alone should be plenty to entice you into giving them a spin. Having formed in 2009, the Cambridge Psychedelic Doom groovers are far more than a mere curiosity, and have their feet well under the table with a healthy seven studio albums to date, the latest being Shapes Of Midnight.
Album Review: Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – Shapes Of Midnight
Turntables Now Thorens TD 404 DD turntable and TP 160 tonearm Associated Equipment Stereophile • 7m Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment Analog sources: Technics SL-1200GME turntable; Hana SL MK II and Ortofon 2M Blue cartridges; Pro-Ject Phono Box RS2 … Johnny Marr Now 'Later… With Jools Holland' to return next month with Johnny Marr, Jamie T, Violet Grohl, Bloc Party and more NME - Tom Skinner • 30m Later… With Jools Holland is set to return next month with appearances from Johnny Marr, Jamie T,...
Nvidia Develops Tools to Tackle Rogue AI Risks
Pushing back against the P(doom) crowd, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has argued that leading labs don’t need more regulation, just a little restraint and better tools. His company claims it can now provide the latter. On Monday, Nvidia launched the Open Agent Safety Platform, a sandbox for training and observing new models and agents designed to prevent the kind of prison breaks that led to hacks at Hugging Face and the US government this summer.
Netflix Struggles to Regain Engagement Momentum, Escape YouTube’s Shadow
It’s a new day in Hollywood, with Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery looking closer to completion than ever (provided it completed its court-mandated weekend “homework.”) And that means more attention on what rival Netflix can do about its sinking share price. The stock received its second key analyst downgrade in as many weeks, and is now down nearly 21% this year. So why the skepticism for the undisputed victor of the Streaming Wars?
The Gig’s Up: Robotaxis, Delivery Drones Reshape the Side-Hustle Market
Last week, DoorDash agreed to a $131 million settlement with New York City to resolve a probe that found it not only underpaid many delivery workers but also paid them late. The workforce of the future, however, may be much less insistent on getting its due, not needing to worry about paying the rent or buying food.
The Gig’s Up: Robotaxis, Delivery Drones Reshape the Side-Hustle Market
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Last week, DoorDash agreed to a $131 million settlement with New York City to resolve a probe that found it not only underpaid many delivery workers but also paid them late. The workforce of the future, however, may be much less insistent on getting its due, not needing to worry about paying the rent or buying food.
Cybersecurity Stocks Soar Amid Mounting Concern Over AI Hacks
Cyber-intrusive AI agents are kinda like ants in the kitchen. If you notice one or two, it’s likely they’re all over the place. On Thursday, the Australian government confirmed that a rogue OpenAI agent breached a government health portal in June, in one of several new instances of virtual breaking and entering discovered by nonprofit AI research lab Transluce this week. As policymakers debate the case for sweeping new AI guardrails, the world isn’t waiting.
Cybersecurity Stocks Soar Amid Mounting Concern Over AI Hacks
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Cyber-intrusive AI agents are kinda like ants in the kitchen. If you notice one or two, it's likely they're all over the place. On Thursday, the Australian government confirmed that a rogue OpenAI agent breached a government health portal in June, in one of several new instances of virtual breaking and entering discovered by nonprofit AI research lab Transluce this week.
Wall Street Isn’t Biting on McDonald’s NEXT Menu
McDonald’s has 99 problems, including GLP-1s. Shares of the Golden Arches have tumbled more than 20% this year as inflation decreases consumers’ appetites for Big Macs and McFlurrys, and weight-loss drugs wreck their appetite for them and everything else. On Wednesday, the company unveiled a turnaround plan to investors dubbed McDonald’s > NEXT, which featured new restaurant designs and a whole lot of chicken. Wall Street was not lovin’ it: Shares dropped nearly 5%.
Can Alibaba Become a Serious Hyperscaler?
No TSMC, no Nvidia, no problem. Or so says Alibaba. At its annual flagship Apsara Conference in Hangzhou on Tuesday (and on the eve of the summit between US and Chinese leaders), the Chinese tech giant unveiled its latest in-house AI chips, which it said are three times more powerful than the current generation. Next up? Alibaba says it’s hyperfocused on becoming a hyperscaler, with plans to operate more than 20 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2032.
Superman, Harry Potter and a Pile of Debt: What Paramount Won in WBD Settlement
David Ellison has reeled in his prize catch, which he hopes doesn’t end up being the commercial white whale it was for both Discovery and AT&T. After reaching a settlement Monday with the 12 state attorneys general seeking to block the acquisition, Ellison’s Paramount hopes to seal the deal to take over the storied Hollywood studio in about two weeks. That means ownership of valuable intellectual property such as Batman and Game of Thrones.
IBM Takes a Billion-Dollar Step Toward Becoming Quantum’s Foundry King
Last century’s three-letter-acronym tech titan wants to be a little more like this century’s four-letter-acronym tech titan. It’ll take a quantum leap, and billions of dollars. The federal government officially handed over the first billion-dollar check to IBM subsidiary Anderon last week to help the legacy tech player build the first pure-play quantum wafer foundry in the US.
IBM Takes a Billion-Dollar Step Toward Becoming Quantum’s Foundry King
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Last century's three-letter-acronym tech titan wants to be a little more like this century's four-letter-acronym tech titan. It'll take a quantum leap, and billions of dollars. The federal government officially handed over the first billion-dollar check to IBM subsidiary Anderon last week to help the legacy tech player build the first pure-play quantum wafer foundry in the US.
IBM Takes a Billion-Dollar Step Toward Becoming Quantum’s Foundry King
CERN 19 hours ago Red Hat Linux is losing its grip on the professional world—here's what's replacing it howtogeek.com - Sydney Butler • 19h It's easy to think that big, unilateral, seemingly bone-headed (Apple would say "brave") decisions are only made by big closed-source OS vendors like … Politics 14 hours ago IBM vice chairman Gary Cohn says "consumer sentiment has turned quite negative" in U.S. CBS News • 14h IBM vice chairman Gary Cohn, who served as an adviser in the first Trump...
Generac Soars After $2.4B Deal to Provide Backup Power for Amazon
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. One hyperscaler's backup plan is another company's "generational growth opportunity." On Thursday, shares of backup power supply company Generac spiked 18.34% after it agreed to supply some $2.4 billion worth of generators to Amazon's vast data center empire over the next two years. Generac is just the latest in a growing list of unlikely beneficiaries of AI's energy gridlock.
Generac Soars After $2.4B Deal to Provide Backup Power for Amazon
One hyperscaler’s backup plan is another company’s “generational growth opportunity.” On Thursday, shares of backup power supply company Generac spiked 18.34% after it agreed to supply some $2.4 billion worth of generators to Amazon’s vast data center empire over the next two years. Generac is just the latest in a growing list of unlikely beneficiaries of AI’s energy gridlock.
Fed Raises Interest Rates for First Time in Three Years as Diesel, Gas Prices Surge
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. How high are oil prices? High enough to shift the balance of monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, with the benchmark Brent crude index lingering around $105 per barrel, the central bank's monetary policy committee announced its unanimous decision to raise the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter-point.
Europe / Come This Madness Is A Greatest Hits Album in Disguise
September Glasgow SECCExhibition Way, Glasgow G3 8YW sep7:30 pmEurope, GlasgowSEC Armadillo Event Organized ByEurope Swedish Heavy Metal kings Europe will celebrate four decades of their breakthrough album The Final Countdown with a huge European run in 2026, playing the record in full every night. Released in 1986 as the band’s third studio album, The Final Countdown turned Europe into global stars.
Fed Raises Interest Rates for First Time in Three Years as Diesel, Gas Prices Surge
How high are oil prices? High enough to shift the balance of monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, with the benchmark Brent crude index lingering around $105 per barrel, the central bank’s monetary policy committee announced its unanimous decision to raise the benchmark federal funds rate by a quarter-point.
Intel-Backed Altera Joins IPO Tsunami
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Room for one more? IPOs are back and white hot in 2026, and the momentum extends far beyond the mega debuts of just SpaceX and, potentially, Anthropic. On Tuesday, the trend found its latest applicant: the Intel-backed chipmaker Altera, which filed confidentially for a US IPO to come as soon as this year. It may be the truest test yet of the market's AI and IPO appetites.
Intel-Backed Altera Joins IPO Tsunami
Room for one more? IPOs are back and white hot in 2026, and the momentum extends far beyond the mega debuts of just SpaceX and, potentially, Anthropic. On Tuesday, the trend found its latest applicant: the Intel-backed chipmaker Altera, which filed confidentially for a US IPO to come as soon as this year. It may be the truest test yet of the market’s AI and IPO appetites. Altera’s recent history has been spotty, to say the least.
Will Doomsayers Derail Anthropic’s Mega IPO?
Last week gave us the apocalyptic AI tweet heard around the world, though not everyone is taking it seriously. The President called it a “hoax.” The Chinese government has called it “fearmongering.” Wall Street, however, sees it as a liability matter, especially for Anthropic.
Will Doomsayers Derail Anthropic’s Mega IPO?
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Last week gave us the apocalyptic AI tweet heard around the world, though not everyone is taking it seriously. The President called it a "hoax." The Chinese government has called it "fearmongering." Wall Street, however, sees it as a liability matter, especially for Anthropic.
Meta May Be an AI Winner After All: Morgan Stanley
Mark Zuckerberg is having just about as tough a year as a centibillionaire can have. Shares of Meta are roughly flat year-to-date, lagging the broader market. The company just agreed to a landmark settlement with state attorneys general that could reshape it forever. And, worst of all, there’s yet another Aaron Sorkin-penned movie on the way. But there may yet be light at the end of the tunnel.
Meta May Be an AI Winner After All: Morgan Stanley
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Mark Zuckerberg is having just about as tough a year as a centibillionaire can have. Shares of Meta are roughly flat year-to-date, lagging the broader market. The company just agreed to a landmark settlement with state attorneys general that could reshape it forever. And, worst of all, there's yet another Aaron Sorkin-penned movie on the way.
Post-Pandemic, ‘Living at the Office’ Takes on New (and Lucrative) Meaning
Before the COVID pandemic, millions of Americans griped about living at the office. It was an exxageration, though not necessarily much of one. Now, in a growing number of cities, they have a chance to do so for real, 24 hours a day with all the comforts of (an urban) home, rather than the mere 12 to 16 that might have been common circa 2019.
Post-Pandemic, ‘Living at the Office’ Takes on New (and Lucrative) Meaning
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Before the COVID pandemic, millions of Americans griped about living at the office. It was an exxageration, though not necessarily much of one. Now, in a growing number of cities, they have a chance to do so for real, 24 hours a day with all the comforts of (an urban) home, rather than the mere 12 to 16 that might have been common circa 2019.
Musk’s Boring Company Scores $23 Billion Valuation Despite Slow Progress
Concerned about an AI bubble? Sign up for The Daily Upside for smart and actionable market news, built for investors. Elon Musk doesn't appear to have a large threshold for boredom, but he may have to start setting aside more time for Boring. On Thursday, the Boring Co., a.k.a. Musk's other other venture, centered on underground tunneling, scored a $3 billion funding round led by the United Arab Emirates at a $23 billion valuation.
Airbourne / The Song Remains The Same, But The Party Still Rages
Six albums in, and Airbourne have decided to go down the self-titled route. But even if it were law that it only applies to debut releases, this Australian wrecking ball would not give a rat’s arse about the rules anyway. Release Date: Out Now Words: Brian Boyle Being labelled “the bastard sons of AC/DC” is a phrase that will swing over Airbourne until the day they decide to put their well-shaken heads into retirement.
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