NYTimes: “El Niño is the name given to powerful shifts in Pacific Ocean winds and water temperatures that can drastically transform global weather patterns. Over the centuries these natural patterns have sparked epic droughts and heat waves, and have intensified epidemics…Right now, the world is entering a new El Niño phase. Researchers are warning it could be one of the strongest on record and are invoking this history as an admonition that natural forces, when they reach their highest magnitude, can lead to profound volatility and hardship. In general, El Niño makes for wetter conditions in some parts of the Americas while suppressing the Atlantic hurricane season. The phenomenon raises the risk of dryness in South and Southeast Asia, Australia, and southern Africa.”
FT: “British tech investor James Anderson has warned the curtain is falling on two decades of extraordinary growth among the top US software and internet stocks, as massive AI investments “implode” their cash flows to the lasting benefit of chipmakers such as Nvidia. The spoils of the trillion-dollar AI spending frenzy by the likes of Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft will flow disproportionately to a small number of dominant hardware suppliers such as Nvidia, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and ASML, Anderson told the FT…“The near certainties of the 20-year dominance of the exponential platforms is over,” Anderson said in an annual letter to investors.”
NYTimes: “Just two years ago, Google looked like it was in trouble. In a desperate move to play catch-up with the OpenAI chatbot that had upended the tech industry, the search giant debuted an unpolished version of its artificial intelligence on Google.com. The A.I. spat out shoddy information, including advice for people to eat rocks and put glue on their pizza. Google’s reign over the internet seemed at risk. But today, consensus is forming in Silicon Valley not only that Google has recovered and caught up but that it could actually win the A.I. race, a testament to how so much can change in so little time…Instead of isolating Gemini, Google reinvented itself by blending A.I. into all of its most important products.”
WSJ: “Going back to grad school has long been the Plan B of young professionals who aspire to climb higher in their careers or struggle to get promoted in a tough job market. New data show that getting a master’s degree isn’t the guarantee it used to be. The unemployment rate for workers under 35 with a master’s degree has rarely been higher in the past 20 years, according to the Burning Glass Institute, a labor-market think tank focused on the future of work, which analyzed data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics going back to 2003. At the same time, the unemployment rate for workers under 35 with a Ph.D., law degree or medical degree has rarely been lower.”
