Forbes Daily Briefing

In early 2023, Keith Peiris’s AI-powered presentation startup Tome was growing quickly. It had become the fastest productivity tool to reach 1 million users, Forbes reported at the time, a number that eventually climbed to 25 million. He raised $80 million from top Silicon Valley investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue, Greylock and billionaire Reid Hoffman. But by late 2024, Peiris realized he was building the wrong company.  It turned out that most people didn’t want to pay for its tools, which generated beautiful slides within minutes. Tome’s users, mainly students and small business owners, were largely on free plans or paying $10 monthly subscriptions—not nearly enough to sustain the business. And the startup couldn’t quite crack the market for professionals like marketers and salespeople because it wasn’t connected to their data and did not have the context needed to make good presentations. Users were still growing, but the company’s annual revenue plateaued at around just $3 million.  “Being frank about Tome, our technology thesis and our cultural thesis was very immature,” Peiris admits now. By Rashi Shrivastava, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 July 2026

Back in October 2024, Poolside was an early AI star. Cofounded by former Github CTO Jason Warner, the startup had raised $500 million on a $3 billion valuation to build coding agents for governments and large companies. But over the next 18 months, Poolside largely disappeared from view, while OpenAI and Anthropic ballooned to nearly trillion-dollar valuations with a crop of Chinese labs building open source models nipping at their heels.  Now Poolside is back with a new model called Laguna that on public benchmarks beats its American and Chinese open source competition — with the very notable exception of Chinese lab Moonshot’s latest AI model, Kimi K3.  "As an American company building for the West, we'll be the most capable open model in the West,” Warner, Poolside’s co-CEO and cofounder, tells Forbes. “Globally, in this weight class of the 118 billion parameter model, we are the leader.” Warner claims that the startup spent those 18 months where it went quiet building the infrastructure for a “model building factory” that could pump out Laguna and continue with new and more powerful iterations every five weeks. "The classic notion of model building is an artisanal process…We've built an industrial model-building process,” he says. By Iain Martin, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 July 2026

As the final minutes ticked away in a disappointing 4-1 loss to Belgium on July 6 that knocked the U.S. men’s national team out of the World Cup, Fox play-by-play announcer John Strong made a direct plea to his television audience of 30 million Americans. “If you’ve enjoyed what you’re seeing, well, support your local team,” Strong said from Seattle’s Lumen Field, packed with a sellout crowd of 66,925—more than double the average attendance of 31,000 across the Seattle Sounders’ first six Major League Soccer games this season at the same stadium. “This doesn’t have to be the last soccer you watch for the last four years. It’s a beautiful sport.” Often an afterthought both among top-tier global soccer leagues and in the U.S. professional sports scene, MLS has long viewed this summer’s World Cup on U.S. soil as an inflection point for a new phase of growth, with help from Lionel Messi, the biggest star in the league’s history. On Sunday, the 39-year-old superstar will lead Argentina into the World Cup final against Spain while seeking to lock up the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer. On Wednesday, Messi’s Inter Miami will restart its season after MLS’s seven-week World Cup break. By Hank Tucker, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 25 July 2026

With the FDA panel that’s considering whether to recommend legal production of seven peptides meeting on Thursday and Friday, Shaun Noorian had planned to be at its Maryland campus in person. Ahead of the panel, Noorian, the founder and CEO of Houston-based Empower Pharmacy, one of the nation’s largest compounding pharmacies, told Forbes, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. The who’s who of the peptide space will be there.” Hundreds of others had been expected to jam into the room as well, including compounders, telehealth founders and longevity influencers. While these peptides are currently not legal to produce for anything other than “research purposes,” that hasn’t stopped a booming gray market from exploiting that loophole. There’s little scientific data on their safety and efficacy, and the many sketchy sellers who distribute them operate with no oversight. Still, the illicit peptide market could be worth an estimated $3 billion. Silicon Valley bros, longevity medics and MAHA believers take them, while wellness influencers promote their “peptide stacks” online to speed recovery or improve sleep. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a self-described “big fan of peptides,” as he told podcaster Joe Rogan in February. By Amy Feldman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 24 July 2026

As the final minutes ticked away in a disappointing 4-1 loss to Belgium on July 6 that knocked the U.S. men’s national team out of the World Cup, Fox play-by-play announcer John Strong made a direct plea to his television audience of 30 million Americans. “If you’ve enjoyed what you’re seeing, well, support your local team,” Strong said from Seattle’s Lumen Field, packed with a sellout crowd of 66,925—more than double the average attendance of 31,000 across the Seattle Sounders’ first six Major League Soccer games this season at the same stadium. “This doesn’t have to be the last soccer you watch for the last four years. It’s a beautiful sport.” Often an afterthought both among top-tier global soccer leagues and in the U.S. professional sports scene, MLS has long viewed this summer’s World Cup on U.S. soil as an inflection point for a new phase of growth, with help from Lionel Messi, the biggest star in the league’s history. On Sunday, the 39-year-old superstar will lead Argentina into the World Cup final against Spain while seeking to lock up the Golden Boot as the tournament’s top scorer. On Wednesday, Messi’s Inter Miami will restart its season after MLS’s seven-week World Cup break. By Hank Tucker, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 24 July 2026

For the past decade, Greg Flynn has been America’s largest franchisee, and now he is the largest in the world. But he has a voracious appetite for more.  “The dream here is to create a global business with operating capabilities and success beyond what the world has seen,” says Flynn, the 62-year-old CEO and founder of Flynn Group and Flynn Properties. “Operating businesses, especially consumer-facing ones, are really hard. If you can do it well consistently, over multiple brands and multiple geographies and multiple industries, that is a valuable and defensible thing to do.” Over the past three decades, he has doubled down on fast food franchises again and again. With $5 billion in annual revenue from more than 3,000 franchises of Applebee’s, Taco Bell, Panera, Arby's, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s and now Planet Fitness in 44 states as well as Australia and New Zealand, Flynn’s portfolio is more than double the size of the next biggest franchisee.  Forbes estimates Flynn has about 25% ownership with some $2.5 billion in loans and over $100 million in cash on hand. At a valuation Forbes estimates of $5 billion, that means Flynn is worth an estimated $650 million. (Flynn declined to comment.) By Chloe Sorvino, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 July 2026

For the last two years, Will Freeman has been advocating against Flock Safety, an $8.3 billion surveillance company that tracks vehicles with a network of over 80,000 cameras. His organization, DeFlock, crowdsourced a map that shows where the company’s cameras are located, and helps local grassroots movements organize against Flock deployments. In an interview with Forbes last year, Flock CEO Garrett Langley described DeFlock as a “terroristic organization.” But now, as Flock faces an increasingly vitriolic public backlash, Langley says he regrets that label. “My comments were a mistake and I apologize,” he says. “There are groups today that have real valid criticisms of the business, and I think what's changed for us is, as we've listened to them and heard them out, what we're trying to do is find this balance. We believe in a world where we can have safety and privacy.” By Thomas Brewster, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 July 2026

U.S. sales of electric vehicles have plunged since the Trump administration killed a $7,500 federal credit last year, but a group of startups hopes to change that. They’re preparing to launch a new wave of quirky, affordable battery-powered models over the next year that are distinctly different from anything Tesla or other big automakers offer.  The newest is a small, inexpensive “life utility vehicle” from Miami-based Chip, which starts taking reservations today. It only has a top speed of 25 miles per hour, and is intended as a secondary vehicle designed to handle daily shopping trips, school runs and short commutes. It’s available in four- and six-seat versions, with a $15,000 base price. Though essentially a beefed-up golf cart resembling a small jeep it has far more safety features, including higher ground clearance, a roll bar and flat LFP battery pack along the floor to protect occupants. It also has multiple cameras and radar to monitor traffic conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 21 July 2026

When OpenAI wants to sell the country’s biggest health systems on its healthcare ambitions, it often brings in one person a hospital CEO won’t ignore: Sam Altman. Altman, 41, is OpenAI’s billionaire cofounder, CEO and chief converter of skepticism into purchase orders. He has sold investors, boards of directors and governments on the idea that OpenAI is the engine of the next computing era. Now he is personally making that case to hospitals.  Altman's involvement in these sales calls underscores just how central healthcare is to OpenAI’s ambitions. In January, the AI behemoth announced eight major health systems, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and HCA Healthcare, are now customers of its enterprise-grade healthcare tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 July 2026

Choosing a college major has always felt like a big life decision, influenced by not only personal inclinations and talents, but also by starting salaries—new engineering and computer science grads earn more than those with English degrees. But in today’s labor market, where hiring has slowed, artificial intelligence is reshaping some industries faster than others, and many once-booming job categories have cooled off, young people should be asking themselves an additional question: How many career paths can I take with my degree? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 19 July 2026

AtThe Odyssey premiere in Mumbai on Saturday, director Christopher Nolan joked about its prospects as an international summer blockbuster. “It's wonderful how [the movie] kind of brings us together, and for us to go on the road and travel and come here,” the British-born director told the audience, before taking a Spider-Man jab at one of his movie’s stars. “but if you see only one Tom Holland film this summer…”  Because, of course, The Odyssey isn’t a Tom Holland movie. Even with a cast that includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron and other A-list actors, the only name listed on the poster is the one listed above the title:“A film by Christopher Nolan.” The 55-year-old director has achieved name-brand status among the most casual moviegoers and developed an army of cinephile devotees for his spectacle-driven films like Inception, Interstellar and a Batman trilogy, culminating in 2023 when he turned Oppenheimer—a three-hour historical drama about the father of the atomic bomb—into a nearly billion-dollar blockbuster and a winner of seven Oscars. This time around he’ll put that drawing power to the test with an even riskier project, a $250 million sword-and-sandal epic shot entirely in IMAX 70mm that rivals the most ambitious movies of all time. By Matt Craig, Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 18 July 2026

Texas state police’s purchase of four brand new Chevrolet Tahoes this March was unusual. Not just because of the staggering $4.5 million price tag, but because the vehicles were kitted out with technology that could monitor the locations of nearby cell phones.  Made by Israeli surveillance company Cognyte, the tech simulates a mobile phone tower, which forces nearby phones to connect to it. That enables cops to keep tabs on any phones in the vicinity — whether they’re owned by a suspect in a case or not. Cognyte’s contract with the state of Texas reveals that the simulator, called FalcoNet, can be concealed within the vehicles, hidden in a backpack for on-foot missions or attached to a helicopter. It’s the same technology as the infamous Stingray, one of the original cell-site simulators made by defense giant L3Harris. Texas state police is one of a growing number of local law enforcement agencies signing deals with Cognyte, an Herzliya, Israel-based company listed on the Nasdaq with a $560 million market cap. The six-year-old company, which was spun out of Israeli surveillance giant Verint in 2021, sells a range of surveillance tech. That includes software that claims to find leads in big police datasets and predict where crime is likely to occur in the future. The firm, which touts itself as the “leading alternative” to $315 billion market cap Palantir, made most of its $400 million in 2025 revenue in Israel and Europe. But it’s slowly making inroads in the U.S, with American revenue gradually rising from $10 million in 2023 to $15 million in 2025, per filings with the SEC. By Thomas Brewster, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 17 July 2026

Would you pay $15 to go on a date? It’s just the price of a cocktail, argue Stanford dropouts Celeste Amadon and Asher Allen. They started dating app company Known based on their belief that frustrated Gen Z singles, tired of endless swiping, are willing to pay up. Those signing up for Known start by talking with an AI, an onboarding experience similar to a phone call designed to encourage users to talk more naturally rather than type out answers into a form. Then the San Francisco-based startup introduces daters to one potential match at a time. If both people say yes, the app uses AI agents to book the first date for them and charges each person. Fifteen dollars might sound like a lot for a single date, but Hinge subscriptions can cost between $30 and $50 monthly and Bumble’s monthly cost can range from $40 to almost $100. Amadon and Allen believe the incentives are skewed. They think dating apps should only make money when they actually help people meet IRL. By Sofia Chierchio, Fellow Edited by Katharine Schwab, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 16 July 2026

In the not-too-distant future everyone will be using so-called AI agents.  Connected to the cloud, they will live inside your mobile phone ready to assist in whatever tasks you need accomplished, from replying to emails and booking flights to tax-loss harvesting in your portfolio.  Robinhood’s customers now use AI agents to analyze stock market gyrations and make autonomous trades based on custom instructions. SAP’s Joule helps its enterprise customers analyze inventory, source the best suppliers and procure goods. Shopping agents operating at machine speed like Amazon’s Buy for Me will scan the web for the best deals, negotiate terms with agents representing the seller, establish delivery windows and make purchases. Well-known AI and crypto companies, from Anthropic and OpenAI to Coinbase and Circle, are already racing to make this bot-driven future a reality for all. But what happens when the couch your agent ordered arrives in the wrong color? Or gets delivered two weeks late, or damaged in a way the seller insists happened after delivery? By Nina Bambysheva, Deputy Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 15 July 2026

When Andrew Kurzrok’s wife, Michelle, became pregnant with their first son in 2023, he decided it was time for his life spending over 200 days a year on the road as a mid-level executive of Amphenol Sensors to end. He wanted a career that would keep him closer to their suburban Washington, D.C. home, while utilizing his manufacturing experience. And with a background in mergers and acquisitions, he thought about buying. So the Kurzroks evaluated hundreds of local companies for sale. Finally, last September, he closed on the purchase of 45-year-old family-owned Hopewell Sheet Metal Manufacturing, which operates out of a 30,000 square foot facility in Hagerstown, Maryland. “It is a classic baby boomer-run business that was time for transition,” with no third generation member of the family ready to run it, observes Kurzrok, who holds Yale MBA and bachelor degrees. But it suited his goals just fine. “I am home with my family every single night. I am proud to say that I no longer have any frequent flyer status with the airlines,” he laughs. “It’s great. I’m 30 pounds lighter because I’m not eating food in airports all day long. Blood pressure is lower. That doesn’t mean business ownership is easy; it’s got its own stress, but I’m really happy with the tradeoff I’ve made.” By John Schroyer, Staff Writer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 14 July 2026

OnMonday, Forbes published its second-ever ranking of America’s Decabillionaire families, featuring 54 multi-generational clans worth at least $10 billion apiece. The richest family in the country by far is the Waltons, whose fortune has nearly doubled since our last list in February 2024, surging by an estimated $253 billion, to $520 billion, as shares of Walmart have skyrocketed. The discount juggernaut became the first brick-and-mortar retailer to boast a $1 trillion market cap in February 2026, and while the stock has since cooled, it’s still more than doubled in the past two-and-a-half years.  The descendants of the Bentonville, Arkansas-based business’ founder Sam Walton (d. 1992) and his brother Bud Walton (d. 1995) are now more than three times as rich as America’s second wealthiest clan, the Kochs of Koch, Inc. (formerly Koch Industries), who are worth an estimated $157 billion. The Waltons' combined wealth is second only to that of Elon Musk, who became the world’s first trillionaire in June and is now worth an estimated $997 billion.  Most of the Waltons’ fortune comes from the nearly 39% stake in Walmart that Forbesestimates is owned through two holding companies by Sam Walton’s three living children–Rob Walton, Jim Walton and Alice Walton–and their families, as well their brother John Walton’s (d. 2005) widow Christy Walton and only child Lukas Walton. That stake was worth $359 billion on June 22, when Forbes locked in this year’s ranking, accounting for nearly four-fifths of the estimated $463 billion net worth of Sam’s side of the Walton family. (And that’s excluding a nearly 6% stake in Walmart, worth $51.3 billion, that Forbes estimates is owned by charitable trusts in the name of John Walton through the same two holding companies.) By Matt Durot, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 July 2026

The president’s international licensing business, which looked nearly dead a few years ago, generated $61 million in 2025, according to a financial disclosure report released last week. That’s up an estimated 30% from 2024 and 900% from 2023. No country provided more last year than the United Arab Emirates, where Trump collected $23 million through deals with two developers. He generated $10 million in India and $9 million in Saudi Arabia. Deals in Qatar, Romania and Vietnam delivered $5 million apiece. By Dan Alexander Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 July 2026

Vadim Fistikan started working at 17 and built the kind of savings that usually takes years of overtime, delayed purchases and adult restraint: more than $100,000 by the time he hit his late twenties. In 2021, the Washington State truck driver eyed a house near family in Florida, with a pool and a waterway that led to a river, and then the ocean. “We were thinking about pulling the trigger,” he says. “Then I saw this whole Trump thing going on.” This Trump thing was the Trump Media and Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social. In October 2021, the president unveiled the business, promising a censorship-free platform and giving supporters a chance to invest via a special purpose acquisition company. Shares of the SPAC jumped 1,650% in two days, then fell about 30% by the start of the third. To Fistikan, that looked less like a warning than a discount. “I’m like, ‘I’m getting in,’” says the three-time Trump voter, who added to his bet until it hit $205,000.  That investment is now worth $30,000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 July 2026

In 2022, hungover one morning on New Year’s trip to Miami Beach, Meta engineer Steven Rofrano saw his friend Seth Goldstein, then working in private equity, eating a bunch of “not very high-quality” tortilla chips. Rofrano, who always tried to eat healthy but never really loved the better-for-you snack foods that were available, was appalled. “It was shocking to me to find one of my friends eating this seed oil pesticide slop,” the 31-year-old Rofrano says, recalling that he went on to describe his perfect chip: no additives, no pesticides, fried in grass-fed and -finished beef tallow, and finished with sea salt. The problem was, it didn’t exist—so Goldstein bet him that he couldn’t make it.  Rofrano accepted the challenge. He soon began experimenting, frying organic corn tortillas in grass-fed beef tallow in a turkey fryer in his parents’ backyard and seasoning his extra crunchy creation with sea salt. Goldstein was impressed and the two decided to start a business.  They spent $8,000 from their savings on an industrial fryer, a tortilla chopper and a pouch-sealing machine. Their first official batch of Masa chips was produced in July 2022 in a 400-square-foot commercial kitchen that summer and they pre-sold them online. The chips sold out in one day. By Chloe Sorvino, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 11 July 2026

For the citizens of Carrollton–a small city in west Georgia covered in lush trees and flanked by the Little Tallapoosa River–the name Richards, or at least Southwire, is instantly recognizable. Many of its 28,000 residents work for the company, which has been headquartered here for more than half a century. Southwire’s founder Roy Richards (d. 1985) was deeply involved in his hometown, serving as chairman of the Carroll City-County Hospital Authority; chairman of Peoples Bank of Carrollton; a past president of the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce; and a former director of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. The University of West Georgia’s Richards College of Business in town is named after him, thanks to a gift to the school by his son Roy Richards, Jr., who set up a family foundation in 1990 to continue supporting the city and surrounding areas. Southwire is also known for its highly celebrated 12 for Life program, a nearly two-decade partnership between the company and local schools that combines traditional classroom instruction with jobs inside a modified manufacturing environment and has boosted graduation rates at the city’s high schools to over 90%, up from 64% when the program kicked off in 2007. By Simone Melvin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 11 July 2026

Every week at the Crystal Hot Sauce factory, just north of New Orleans in Reserve, Louisiana, two train cars full of mashed cayenne peppers arrive on the tracks just outside the plant’s back door. The peppers are then pumped into four 20,000-gallon mixing tanks where the mash ferments under the sweltering Louisiana sun into a slurry. After water and salt are introduced, the slurry is ground into hot sauce that’s poured into glass at 125 bottles per minute. “We are New Orleans in a bottle,” says Alvin Adam “Pepper” Baumer, the third-generation owner and CEO of Baumer Foods, maker of Crystal, from the floor of his plant where the scent of capsaicin (the chemical compound that makes peppers spicy) lingers in the air. By Chloe Sorvino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 10 July 2026

To celebrate the country’s 250th birthday, the 150-year-old seed giant Burpee has been selling seed collections inspired by the gardens of Thomas Jefferson and Martha Washington, giving modern Americans the chance to grow hot peppers, cucumbers and watermelons based on seed varieties that date back to the American Revolution.  These seeds are thanks to George Ball, the 74-year-old chairman and owner of Burpee since 1991, who says “one of the most patriotic things you can do is plant a garden.” Burpee, which was founded 100 years after the country, in 1876, is still a mail-order business with some 35% of its estimated more than $110 million in annual revenue coming from mail and online sales. Burpee still receives thousands of orders via post with physical order forms and checks every year through its annual catalog, which is “the lodestar of the company and an annual event for gardeners.” Its vegetable, herb and flower seeds are also sold at more than 24,000 locations in the U.S. and Canada including Walmart, Home Depot and Tractor Supply. By Chloe Sorvino, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 10 July 2026

Donald Trump has a long history of embellishment around his success as a businessman, for years lobbying Forbes to pump up its estimates of his net worth—occasionally while using the name John Barron, a persona he invented—and even outright lying about the size of his penthouse and other properties. And when it comes to his portfolio of golf courses, Trump can stretch the truth like a par-5. Legal documents reveal that Trump has improperly tallied sunk costs, overvalued land and undervalued his membership liabilities—deposits he would have to return to his courses’ golfers if they leave the club—while the financial disclosure reports he has released as president and other public filings offer little in terms of how he arrived at the numbers. Trump has also inflated the size of his golf courses’ real estate. For instance, while he long claimed in marketing materials that Trump National Doral was 800 acres, property records show the resort is less than 700. By Brett Knight, Assistant Managing Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 July 2026

Among big future businesses Elon Musk is selling investors in newly public SpaceX is his plan to put data centers in space: solar-powered satellites, spread across a vast network, processing information in space and beaming it back to Earth. As pitches go, it has the clean geometry of a Musk bull case. It’s the kind of “I want to die on Mars, just not on impact” sci-fi idea the newly minted trillionaire is famous for. And it’s particularly well timed: the AI feeding frenzy is in overdrive, but the terrestrial data centers they require are becoming an unwanted menace in many communities, raising utility rates, creating noise and pollution, and generating few local economic benefits.  SpaceX hopes to begin launching orbital data centers in 2028, though its IPO filinggives no cost estimates for such a system. It does, however, include the kind of caveat that sits in a securities filing like a flare on the runway: The plan involves “significant technical complexity, unproven technologies, or technologies that do not exist or may require significant advancement, and such initiatives may not achieve commercial viability.” By Alan Ohnsman, Senior Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 July 2026

Earlier this year, David Silver, the renowned former scientist at Google DeepMind, dialed into a Zoom meeting with a venture capital firm to pitch his new startup Ineffable Intelligence. Silver, who spent over a decade at Google, believed the current approach to training AI models wouldn’t work long term. He spoke for 30 minutes about creating digital environments where AI systems could learn on their own, without any human data or input.  Eventually, he told the investors on the call, AI will get so good that it will learn to use things in the physical world. “We can put AI in our toasters,” an investor recalls him saying.  That seemed like a stretch. “I was so excited for that pitch and it was just so absurd,” the investor says. “He just rambled, no deck, no memo.”  By the end of the pitch, the VC wasn’t convinced. “We left that pitch with more questions than answers. And it's so jarring to hear that from somebody with such merit and stature in the industry,” they say. ByRashi Shrivastava, Forbes Staff Iain Martin, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 7 July 2026

Only two of the world’s ten wealthiest people got richer over the past month amid a broad sell-off of tech stocks. One of them is the world’s first trillionaire. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswealthteam/article/the-top-ten-richest-people-in-the-world/ Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1 Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more: https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes: http://forbes.com Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 5 July 2026

Inside Forbes’ definitive ranking of the wealthiest families in the U.S. including a record number of multi-generational clans with 11-figure or 12-figure fortunes. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2026/06/29/americas-richest-families-from-waltons-to-rockefellers--these-are-the-54-richest/ Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1 Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more: https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes: http://forbes.com Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 July 2026

Billionaire Warren Buffett will not make a midyear donation to the Gates Foundation for the first time in 20 years, the Wall Street Journal reported, as he awaits more details about the philanthropic group’s links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 3 July 2026

The world’s biggest pop star was on the doorstep of the three-comma club when she met Travis Kelce in 2023. Three years later, both of their fortunes have risen. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2026/07/01/how-taylor-swifts-net-worth-has-more-than-doubled-since-she-became-a-billionaire/ Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1 Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more: https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes: http://forbes.com Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 3 July 2026

OpenAI is in talks to potentially give the Trump administration a 5% stake in the company, according to the Financial Times, as calls for the American public to benefit from AI companies’ financial windfall finds bipartisan support. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/07/02/openai-reportedly-pitches-granting-us-government-5-stake/ Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1 Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more: https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes: http://forbes.com Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 July 2026

Twenty-five teams—and two billionaire players—are still competing for a $713,000 trophy and $50 million in prize money. Here are more figures to know about soccer’s biggest spectacle. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2026/07/01/the-numbers-behind-the-2026-world-cup/ Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more: https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes: http://forbes.com Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 July 2026

Tom Mueller is driving his candy green Porsche Taycan Turbo S the way he builds rocket engines: with a terrifying amount of instantaneous thrust and little regard for the local speed limits of El Segundo. He is headed west on Marine Avenue, cutting through the smog-tinted sunlight of Los Angeles’ South Bay aerospace corridor, talking about Earth’s limitations.  “If we continue to grow like we have, eventually you just use up all the metals, you use up all the energy,” says Mueller, 65, who is especially concerned by the energy demand of AI data centers. “By about 2045, the total power that the world is generating right now would be needed just for compute. Exponential growth can crush resources on Earth.” From behind his reflective wrap-around shades, Mueller spots a gap in the afternoon congestion. His electric sports car can rocket from zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds, and Mueller seems eager to demonstrate the point. “This is where we accelerate,” he says, stomping on the pedal. The torque hits like a physical blow, pinning us against the leather seats as Mueller cackles. “The moon and the near-Earth asteroids,” he continues moments later, now parked at a red light, “contain billions of tons of metal, silicon, water and ice, so we have to start using it. It seems a little farfetched to start using it now, because we just haven’t built the space economy. We haven’t got there yet.” By John Hyatt, Forbes Staff Alicia Park, Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 June 2026

It’s almost 8 a.m. when Gloria Moncrief arrives at her oil firm’s hangar at Meacham Airport in Fort Worth, Texas. She climbs into an eight-seater Cessna Citation, explaining that her Boeing 737, Lucky Liz, is in the shop. The flight to a small airfield in southern Louisiana takes about an hour. Then it’s a 45-minute drive along the levee into the Atchafalaya river basin, the largest swamp in North America, followed by 15 minutes on a flat-bottomed boat past alligators, nesting bald eagles and fishermen muscling their bass boats into the bayou. Rounding a bend in the waterway, the boat arrives at a giant drilling rig with a 150-foot-tall derrick and roaring engines. Tall and thin, decked out in jeans and knee-high ostrich-skin boots, the 44-year-old Moncrief steps onto the rig, where a handful of mud-covered roughnecks maneuver 40-foot lengths of steel pipe with massive hydraulic tongs.  Moncrief is the head of Montex Drilling Company, the family business that owns Moncrief Oil and has been spending $300,000 a day to rent the rig and staff it around the clock with 60 folks working 12-hour shifts, 14 days on, 14 days off, all to drill the second-deepest natural gas well ever in the U.S. The Highlander 2 goes down 30,862 feet (almost six miles), where it intersects an 800-foot-thick (gross) zone of sand saturated with trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. The well was recently completed after 389 days of drilling. By Christopher Helman, Senior Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 21 June 2026

After news broke that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would cease backing LIV Golf beyond this season, putting its future in doubt, Jon Rahm was asked in May about the status of his contract with the tour. “I don’t see many ways out,” the 31-year-old Spaniard answered pragmatically. Rahm’s next steps appear dependent on whether LIV can secure external funding to continue operating beyond this year—if its 2026 schedule can even be completed—but in the meantime, his golden handcuffs haven’t been so bad. Rahm’s contract, which reportedly guaranteed him at least $300 million when the former world No. 1 left the PGA Tour in December 2023 to sign with LIV, has made him the world’s highest-paid golfer for the third consecutive year. Forbes estimates Rahm hauled in $111 million over the last 12 months before taxes and agent fees, sending his total pay for the past three years north of $400 million. His compensation since last June includes an estimated $101 million in prize money and on-course bonuses as well as $10 million in off-course earnings from brand partnerships, appearance fees and licensing income. In addition to his contractual guarantee with LIV, which Forbes estimates to be worth $50 million for the past year, Rahm pulled in an $18 million bonus in 2025 as LIV’s individual champion for the second year in a row, and he has won two tournaments so far this season, helping push his total up 9% from the estimated $102 million he pocketed in the 12 months that ended in June 2025. By Hank Tucker, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 June 2026

In 2008, just days before one of SpaceX’s early rocket launches failed to reach orbit, Peter Thiel’s fund wrote the first institutional check into the nascent, six-year-old startup.  Now, as Elon Musk’s rocket and AI company goes public today at a nearly $2 trillion valuation, the fund’s stake is worth a staggering $67 billion — making that first check, and the additional $600 million Founders Fund invested over the following decade, into one of the most lucrative in venture capital history.  The company started trading just before noon E.T., with an opening price of $150, which is the figure Forbes used for all of the stakes in this story. It soon popped up about 20% in the first few minutes of trading. As the largest single shareholder, the IPO has now minted Musk as the world’s first trillionaire. Thousands of his employees are now millionaires and the fortunes of many of his billionaire colleagues and investors have soared.  That doesn’t mean everyone can cash out immediately. Most companies going public put restrictions on insiders and investors from selling shares for at least six months to avoid painful share price slides from major shareholders dumping stock — a problem for previous tech IPOs like Facebook, where shares slumped 31% below the opening price in the 12 months after its listing, according to data from bank Truist. By Iain Martin, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 19 June 2026

For most of James Dolan’s tenure in charge of the New York Knicks since he became Madison Square Garden’s chairman in 1999, he has been an easy punching bag for Knicks fans—and much of the damage was self-inflicted. But now, after one magical spring, that turbulent past might be water under the bridge. The Knicks are NBA champions for the first time in 53 years, a moment many fans never thought would be possible with Dolan in charge. “Hey, New York, I’m sorry it took so long, but here we are, and hopefully it won’t take that long again!” Dolan shouted on stage after Saturday night’s 94-90 victory over the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 clinched the title. The 71-year-old Cablevision heir also has plenty of reason to celebrate off the court. Forbes recently valued the Knicks at $9.75 billion—No. 3 in the NBA—and Dolan’s NHL team, the Rangers, at $4 billion, the second-best mark in hockey. While that combined total of $13.75 billion easily outpaces the $9.26 billion market cap of the publicly traded MSG, the stock is up 103% over the past year. Meanwhile, Dolan’s other company, Sphere Entertainment, which owns the Sphere just off the Las Vegas Strip and the MSG regional sports TV and radio networks, has seen its share price soar 291%. By Hank Tucker, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 18 June 2026

SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share Thursday, implying a $1.8 trillion market cap for the company. That boosted Musk’s net worth by $188 billion to an estimated $982 billion, according to Forbes’ calculations. Then on Friday, the rocketmaker’s stock started trading at $150 per share and closed the day at $160.95 per share, implying a valuation of $2.2 trillion for the company. That easily made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, worth an estimated $1.1 trillion. He was briefly worth a record $1.2 trillion, when SpaceX’s stock peaked at $176.52 per share Friday.  Musk, who serves as chairman, CEO and chief technical officer of SpaceX, owns 4.8 billion shares of the rocketmaker, worth $767 billion at Friday’s close. He has another 350 million stock options with an exercise price of $8.40 per share, worth $53 billion, giving him a 38% stake in the company, worth $821 billion. Before SpaceX priced its IPO Thursday, Forbes had been valuing Musk’s estimated 40% stake (before dilution from the public offering) at around $500 billion, based on the $1.25 trillion valuation of SpaceX’s merger with Musk’s artificial intelligence and social media company xAI in February. (xAI previously merged with X–formerly Twitter–in March 2025.)  Musk also owns just over 10% of $1.5 trillion (market cap) Tesla, worth $168 billion, plus options to acquire another nearly 8% stake, worth $116 billion billion. Rounding out his net worth are smaller stakes in his brain interface startup Neuralink and his tunneling firm Boring Company, plus several billion dollars of wealth from previous Tesla share sales. By Matt Durot, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 17 June 2026

In 2024, Meida Marek (her online pseudonym), was a recent college graduate working an entry-level finance job when she started doing the mental math that’s fast becoming a rite of passage in such industries: What happens when AI can do this better than I can? So Marek took inventory. She was intelligent and naturally supportive. She was good at talking to people. She likes futurist rabbit holes: AI, biohacking, cryptocurrency, the sort of topics that can turn dinner into a three-hour debate. So she decided to turn that toolkit into a new career—and became an escort. For Marek, it’s sex work with a particular angle: high-end companionship for Silicon Valley’s most online, most technical clients—often the kind who work in AI or around it. Lately, she’s been getting a lot of clients from Nvidia. There are only a handful of women like Marek. And like their clientele, they are also killing it financially. By Anna Tong, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2026

There are many firsts at this year’s FIFA World Cup. For the first time in the tournament’s 96-year history, there will be 48 teams. It’s also the first World Cup to be held across three countries (the United States, Canada and Mexico), in a record 16 cities. And it will be the first to feature a billionaire player—actually two—with 41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo captaining Portugal and 38-year-old Lionel Messi leading Argentina in its title defense. Then again, with ticket prices in the stratosphere, billionaires may be the only ones who can afford to attend. FIFA recently listed a ticket for the July 19 final at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium for $32,970, triple the price from a ticket drop in April—and more than 20 times what the equivalent ticket cost for the 2022 final in Qatar. And even the world’s richest might have to think twice about buying tickets on the secondary market. In April, FIFA’s resale site listed four seats to the final for a little less than $2.3 million each. (Section 124, Row 45, Seats 33-36, if you’re scalping at home.) By Brett Knight, Assistant Managing Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 15 June 2026

Rocket ships. AI chips. Chinese food. Clothing. Construction. Chatbots. America’s self-made women billionaires have found dozens of ways to prosper. In our first listing focusing just on those with 10-figure fortunes, Forbes found 43 self-made queens of capitalism, up from 38 a year ago as many of their businesses hit new highs. That’s despite the passing of two legendary women, Gap cofounder Doris Fisher (d. May 2026 at age 94) and Bio-Rad Laboratories' Alice Schwartz (d. September 2025, 99). Among the new billionaires are Beyonce Carter-Knowles, who climbs into the ranks on the back of her 2025 Cowboy Carter Tour; Nvidia CFO Colette Kress, who’s benefitting from the AI boom; Caryn Seidman-Becker, who runs Clear Secure, an ID technology outfit used for security checkpoints at airports, among other places; and Luana Lopes Lara, the 30-year-old Brazilian ballerina and MIT graduate who cofounded prediction market firm Kalshi. Edited by  Andrea Murphy and Grace Chung Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 14 June 2026

“I am so sick of hearing about SpaceX,” says Phil DeAngelo, managing director of Focused Wealth Management, a registered investment advisor with $2.4 billion of assets under management. Then he laughs. “We’re getting a lot of questions from clients.” For many investors, this isn’t just another IPO. It’s a rare chance to buy into one of the world’s most closely watched private companies. SpaceX has said roughly 30% of its IPO shares will be allocated to retail investors, far above the 5% to 10% allocation that typically goes to individual investors. Investors aren't just talking about SpaceX. They're lining up for it. Reports suggest demand for the offering is approaching four times the number of shares available.  That could translate into a big price bump on the first day of trading, which will tempt some everyday investors into selling quickly – and potentially encountering a little-known Wall Street rule. Many brokerages discourage “IPO flipping,” or selling newly allocated shares shortly after trading begins, by restricting access to future offerings. By Brandon Kochkodin, Senior Writer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 June 2026

Elon Musk loudly quit California after years of attacking its taxes, politics and business climate, moving SpaceX to Texas. Now the biggest fiscal event of his career could hand the state he trashed a giant tax windfall anyway. That is the awkward punchline hanging over SpaceX’s expected IPO next week. Because while the company’s relocation gave it a new Texas headquarters, it did not move the thousands of soon-to-be-wealthy SpaceX employees who still live and work in the Los Angeles area, and will face California’s so-called millionaires' tax. Texas, which doesn’t tax personal income, won’t get that bump.  SpaceX is preparing to sell 555.6 million shares at $135 apiece, raising about $75 billion and valuing the company at roughly $1.77 trillion. For investors, that is a Mars-shot valuation. For California, it is something more terrestrial: taxable income landing in Los Angeles County. By Alan Ohnsman, Senior Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 June 2026

Jimmy Carter hosted an ice skating exhibition at the White House, and George W. Bush once staged a friendly game of T-ball at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but the prospect of mixed martial arts fights on the South Lawn would have never arisen if anyone other than Donald Trump were president and anyone other than Dana White ran the UFC. When Trump, a longtime fan of the fight promotion and steadfast friend to its chief executive, first suggested the idea to White at a UFC event last April, the pugnacious promoter said he would do it without hesitation. “He knows the day he asked me to do this event that I was going to show up and deliver,” White tells Forbes. “I love that type of stuff. Tell me it can’t be done, tell me it’s a huge challenge, tell me it’s going to cost us a bunch of money. Tell me this, that. That’s the stuff that I run right into.” White’s tenure with the UFC has been defined by audacious risk-taking, propelling the company over the last 25 years from a bloody sideshow into a $1.5 billion (revenue) sports powerhouse. But Freedom 250 on June 14 (not coincidentally President Trump’s birthday) is, even by his standards, “difficult on a whole other level.” In addition to the 4,300-seat outdoor venue that has now been erected on the South Lawn—and its 87-foot canopy, which towers above the White House itself—the weekend will include a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial and a two-day fan fest for as many as 85,000 people at the Ellipse. (The president likes the temporary structure so much he compared it to the Eiffel Tower, saying this week, “Maybe we’ll never, ever take it down.”) Because the UFC controls its own TV productions, it will pick up the tab for not only the infrastructure but also the broadcasts, with nine production trucks’ worth of equipment and crew. By Matt Craig, Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 11 June 2026

In a windowless room in a rented warehouse in Oakland in 2019, Nabis cofounders Vince C. Ning and Jun Sup Lee, a few of their employees and a friend they met at the startup accelerator Y Combinator, Luana Lopes Lara(who would go on to cofound prediction market Kalshi and become one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires), were counting $2 million in cash by hand.  The money was earmarked for marijuana excise taxes in California. San Francisco-based Nabis had recently launched as a cannabis distributor during the medical marijuana heyday of the country’s biggest weed market and it was Ning and Lee’s job to collect and pay taxes on the product they delivered to retailers. The duo had hired an armed guard to watch the door. Once the cash was counted, banded and bagged, Ning put the money into two suitcases, $1 million in each, threw on a Hawaiian shirt—he thought he was less likely to get mugged if he looked like a tourist, but in the end he looked more like a scrawny narco-wannabe—and headed to the state government building to deliver the money. By Will Yakowicz, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 10 June 2026

In years past, when a great athlete retired, they typically told their story through a ghost-written memoir or perhaps even a biopic. But Hall of Fame basketball player Carmelo Anthony opted instead for the storytelling medium of the moment, striking a partnership with Utopai Studios, the Silicon Valley-based startup specializing in AI movies and TV shows. The 41-year-old NBA legend will produce AI-generated video content about his life and other sports stories through his Creative 7 Productions label. Anthony’s investment into Utopai—which both sides declined to share the size of, but Forbes estimates around $5 million—was at a staggering $1 billion valuation. It’s an astronomical amount for a company with revenue that Forbes estimates was less than $50 million in 2025, and has yet to put out a full-length movie or TV show. Still, with projects in the pipeline and strong 2026 projections, the premium price tag announces Utopai as a true competitor in the ongoing Hollywood AI arms race. By Matt Craig, Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2026

As New York celebrates the Knicks’ first trip to the NBA finals since 1999, controlling owner James Dolan has earned a newfound respect among the franchise’s notoriously critical fan base. And soon, the 71-year-old billionaire hopes to command the same respect from another tough crowd: stock market investors. For years, the value of publicly traded Madison Square Garden Sports—the entity through which Dolan owns both the Knicks and the Rangers, the city’s NHL team—has lagged far behind Forbes’ valuation of the two franchises. MSG Sports has an enterprise value of $9.9 billion while Forbes values the Knicks at $9.75 billion and the Rangers at $4 billion in the latest team valuations. Among New York sports fans, who have suffered through decades of mediocre play on the court and the ice, this gap has often been referred to as the “Dolan discount,” equating his mismanagement of the teams to a lack of business savvy. But historically, there has often been a loose connection between sports team values and how many games a team wins—let alone how many championships. In the first 20 years of Dolan’s tenure, the Knicks had the worst cumulative winning percentage of any team in the NBA yet led Forbes’ ranking as the most valuable franchise 16 times. Similarly, the Dallas Cowboys haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1996 but remain the NFL’s most valuable team (at $13 billion) while the Kansas City Chiefs, who have won three titles in the past seven years, are the 22nd-most-valuable franchise in the league. By Matt Craig, Reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 June 2026

The next hot electric vehicle may not come with gullwing doors, a self-driving mode or the ability to provide backup power to your home. It may be an 80-foot tugboat, nearly four stories tall, built to pull massive cargo ships around the Port of Long Beach. That’s the bet Arc is making. The Los Angeles startup, cofounded by software engineer Mitch Lee and former SpaceX rocket designer Ryan Cook, launched their electric boat startup to target the luxury watercraft market, selling sleek, fast $300,000 e-boats for wealthy weekenders. Now, with oil prices at historic highs, it’s pushing into the commercial marine space with $20 million battery-powered tugs capable of pulling ginormous cargo ships into container ports. It’s an opportunistic, timely shift from polished recreational toys to industrial machines with brutal duty cycles, big fuel bills and regulators at the door. Arc’s first commercial boats, being built at a Seattle-area shipyard, are already heading toward proof of concept. Its tech is being used to power the world’s first electric tugs that are about to go into service at the Port of Long Beach, under a deal worth $160 million announced in late 2025. If they perform as well as Arc and initial customer Curtin Maritime expect, the company aims to expand into electric ferries, barges and even military watercraft, CTO Cook told Forbes. By Alan Ohnsman, Senior Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 7 June 2026

President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued an executive order requesting that companies allow federal oversight of new AI models before they are publicly released, marking a reversal in Trump’s policy toward the technology after first signaling a relaxed approach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 June 2026

In 2014, Australian entrepreneur Tuhin Srivastava had scored a meeting with Sarah Guo, then the youngest partner at storied VC firm Greylock. He was pitching her on a healthcare startup that used machine learning to analyze a person’s medical history. Guo was impressed — not by the idea, which was “generic,” she says, but by him and his cofounder. Five years later, he tried again, this time with something far more promising: tools that make it easier to build and run AI applications.  It was years before the stunning launch of ChatGPT mainstreamed artificial intelligence, but Guo was already confident that more businesses would soon turn to AI and need cheap and efficient ways to use it. She wrote a $1.5 million check into what became Baseten, co-leading the startup’s $3 million seed round in 2019. “All we had was some idea of a company on scratch paper,” Srivastava says. For the first four years, the company made no money. AI tools weren’t being rapidly adopted back then. The best thing to do was to wait for the market to come around. Almost overnight, it did. Today, Baseten is valued at $5 billion, with revenue growing over 10 times in the past year. (It’s now reportedly in talks to raise at an $11 billion valuation.) Guo invested in every round, first from Greylock and then from her own VC firm Conviction, which she launched in October 2022. Today, she says her stake is worth 10 times its initial value. “We own the most from day zero and it's clearly going to be a winner company,” says Guo, 36. By Rashi Shrivastava, Writer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 5 June 2026

Ina 12-acre industrial campus in Sacramento across the street from a U.S. Navy recruiting center, Natura grows 80,000 pounds of weed a year inside 18 glass-ceilinged hot houses. Most of the cannabis will eventually be ground up and made into pre-rolled joints, which are infused with hash and dusted with an extra punch of THC, the compound that gets people high.  Every day, Natura produces 40,000 of its pre-rolls for its in-house brand Sluggers Hit, or about 1.2 million joints a month, generating around $60 million in revenue last year and is on track to hit $85 million by the end of 2026. Leaning into sports tropes, Sluggers’ best-selling product is its five-pack of pre-rolls in a tin wrapped in a metallic mylar bag like the kind collectible sports cards come in. Sluggers’ branding is eye-catching and riffs off sports teams—its New York Diesel pack is emblazoned with a logo reminiscent of the Knicks’ orange and blue and its Green Monster five-pack is an ode to Fenway Park. Sluggers even has a collaboration with actor Chauncey Leopardi, who played Squints in the classic 1993 baseball movie The Sandlot, and just released a limited edition run with rapper Xzibit. By Will Yakowicz, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 June 2026