Ruchir Sharma: “America’s profit machine seems extraordinary by historical and global standards. But look closer, and cracks appear. Rising government deficits explain a surprising share of recent US earnings growth. Moreover, the “profitless” dotcom era is a myth. Earnings growth is not dramatically stronger today than it was in the late 1990s. Since then, speculative excess has moved into private markets, making the public markets and the economy look more robust than they really are. In short, this expansion is more dependent on government and the earnings story is less exceptional than investors realise. Overall corporate earnings have risen from 7 per cent of GDP in the late 1990s to 11 per cent today. The dynamism of American business has played a role, but so have tax cuts and government spending. Lately the US deficit has risen to more than 6 per cent of GDP and a deficit that high reflects a large transfer of income to households and corporations.”
CNBC: “There are 857 U.S. startups valued at $1 billion or more, the threshold for being deemed a “unicorn” company, according to PitchBook data. But nearly half of that group hadn’t raised fresh funding in the last three years as of the end 2025, making many of those valuations stale, according to the private markets data firm. Startups that last raised in 2021 were worth 68% less on average at the end of last year, while those that last raised in 2022 saw a 52% decline, according to Pitchbook’s own valuation estimates. As a result, more than 220 companies that had reached billion-dollar valuations in the venture boom were deemed fallen unicorns, according to PitchBook, which provided a list of the companies exclusively to CNBC.”
NYTimes: “The reading crisis is real. But we don’t need new inventions to build a reading city. Exempt books from sales taxes the way we exempt prescription medicine. Invest in library collections and reduce wait lists for books. Open nonprofit and hybrid bookstores when the market alone cannot sustain them. Build on the models that already work: reading in laundromats; libraries in transit systems; books in barbershops, classrooms, homes and pediatric offices.”
TheMaxSource: “Performance marketing is a faucet. Turn it on, water flows. Turn it off, it stops. Growth marketing is a well. It takes longer to dig, but once it’s there, the water costs almost nothing to draw. B2B companies need both. What kills them is running the faucet before the well is dug — or digging a well indefinitely while dying of thirst.”
