Good Morning! Private dealmaking is making a comeback in 2024. First, Google’s parent company Alphabet is considering buying software company HubSpot for $32 billion. But one Massachusetts Senator wants to ban private equity from dealmaking in the healthcare space. Trump Media is the most expensive stock to short, and TikTok claims a $242 billion impact on the American GDP. Plus 5 money rules that helped self-made millionaires be more successful and why we all want to become our own boss. 

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AI Getting Rid of Fridays

This week, billionaire hedge fund investor Steve Cohen says he thinks that, because of artificial intelligence, working on Fridays could soon become a relic of the past. But if you ask some economists, a lot of Americans are already sort of taking the day off.

According to ActivTrak, a company that tracked the routines of 75,000 Americans, the average worker clocks out on Friday at the average time of 4:03pm.

Fridays becoming more casual isn't just about work. ClassPass says that it's the busiest day for its members to book a workout session. And while before Covid, Friday lunches were the busiest reservation of the week in NYC, that baton has been passed to Saturday brunch.

Many Americans are making Friday the go-to day for experimenting with how we can all make work a little more casual. Enter Focus Fridays, free of meetings, or Summer Fridays year-round. Some workers are even taking the initiative to craft extended weekends.

And for those of you who've traded in your office chair for the driver's seat, TomTom's traffic data says Friday mornings are the best time to hit the road, while the early afternoon sees a spike as Americans kickstart their weekend plans.

Takeaway: Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist, says that working from home on Fridays doesn't doom productivity. His study found that despite working two hours less from home, employees made up most of that time during the rest of the week, with no dip in their performance scores. It's all about giving back time for personal errands and mental health breaks, proving that sometimes less really is more.

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Boost Performance, Eliminate Jet Lag, and Accelerate Recovery

Want to maximize your mental and physical output? Louder for the people in the back! 

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Whether you’re training for a marathon or looking for the edge in your career, Fount Pro helps you dial in the perfect routine for elite mind and body performance, everyday. 

Forget ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions – Fount Pro combines blood, wearable, and psychological data, weekly 1-on-1 sessions with your coach, and N=1 experiments to identify the tools that work uniquely for your body. 

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Top Reads

• Senator offers bill to block private equity deals in healthcare (Axios)

• Alphabet is weighing a $32B offer for HubSpot (YF)

• Trump Media is most expensive U.S. stock to short (CNBC)

• TikTok touts $242B impact to U.S. GDP as platform faces potential ban (YF)

• Rebound in credit markets hides growing strain (Axios)

• Disney will start password crackdown in June (YF)

• Why does steam float over the streets of NYC? (NYT)

• Oil advances near $90 because of production cuts (YF)

• Turkey’s inflation climbs to 68.5% despite continued rate hikes (CNBC)

• Citi, JPMorgan, RBC to give new climate metric in deals with New York City (Reuters)

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Markets Rundown

Wall Street sells off ahead of the jobs report.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Zeta Global ($ZETA) +13% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the software stock.

• (+) Levi Strauss ($LEVI) +12% because the apparel company beat Q1 earnings.

• (–) Hertz ($HTZ) -5% after a downgrade by Goldman Sachs.

Private Dealmaking

• Mitsui & Co. bought Eu Yan Sang, a medicines maker, for $594 million 

• Pigment, a business planning and forecasting platform, raised $145 million

• Aerospike, a NoSQL database, raised $109 million

• Alsym Energy, a battery startup, raised $78 million

• SiMa.ai, an on-chip company, raised $70 million 

• Homebase, an HR and team management app, raised $60 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

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Our Biggest Fight

It was once a utopian dream. But today’s internet, despite its conveniences and connectivity, is the primary cause of a pervasive unease that has taken hold in the U.S. and other democratic societies. It’s why youth suicide rates are rising, why politics has become toxic, and why our most important institutions are faltering.

Information is the lifeblood of any society, and our current system for distributing it is corrupted at its heart. Everything comes down to our ability to communicate openly and trustfully with each other. But, thanks to the dominant digital platforms and the ways they distort human behavior, we have lost that ability—while, at the same time, we’ve been robbed of the data that is rightfully ours.

The roots of this crisis, argue Frank McCourt and Michael Casey, lie in the prevailing order of the internet. In plain but forceful language, the authors—a civic entrepreneur and an acclaimed journalist—show how a centralized system controlled by a small group of for-profit entities has set this catastrophe in motion and eroded our personhood.

And then they describe a groundbreaking solution to reclaim it: rather than superficial, patchwork regulations, we must reimagine the very architecture of the internet. The resulting “third-generation internet” would replace the status quo with a new model marked by digital property rights, autonomy, and ownership.

Inspired by historical calls to action like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, Our Biggest Fight argues that we must act now to embed the core values of a free, democratic society in the internet of tomorrow. Do it right and we will finally, properly, unlock its immense potential.

“The internet as we know it is broken. Here’s how we can seize back control of our lives from the corporate algorithms and create a better internet—before it’s too late.”

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Rise of America's Centenarians

Every 10 years; 2024 and 2054 projected

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Public Speaking

Overcoming the fear of public speaking is a common challenge, but with the right strategies, it can be significantly eased. It's essential to understand your audience beforehand to tailor your message more effectively.

Focusing on the message you want to convey rather than worrying about how you're perceived can also shift the focus away from personal anxieties. An outline can keep your presentation structured, while connecting with the organizer can ensure alignment with the event's goals.

Practicing your speech is crucial for confidence; recording your practice sessions can provide valuable feedback on your delivery and body language. Understanding and finding your pacing can help in maintaining the audience's attention and ensuring your message is clear. Speaking with passion about your subject matter can resonate more deeply with your audience, making your message more impactful. 

Being true to your personality rather than adopting a facade can make your presentation more authentic and relatable. Utilizing the physical space you're given and engaging with your surroundings can make your presentation more dynamic and engaging.

Honesty about what you know and what you don't can build trust with your audience. For those whose fear of public speaking is deeply rooted, hypnotherapy might offer a novel approach to overcoming these barriers, suggesting the importance of addressing underlying beliefs and self-esteem issues.

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Short Squeez Picks

• 5 money rules that helped self-made millionaires be more successful

• Why we all want to become our own boss

• 6 ways to give that aren’t about money 

• 65 weird but genius things for your home

• 5 skills to make yourself irreplaceable in the workforce

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Memes of the Day