Good Morning! Apple hit an all-time high as iPhone 17 sales outpaced the iPhone 16 in both the U.S. and China. BNP Paribas shares slid after a jury found the French bank helped Sudan commit genocide. JPMorgan warned that fallout from First Brands is driving up banks’ funding costs.

OpenEvidence raised $200 million to build a “ChatGPT for medicine.” Bitcoin miner CleanSpark announced plans to expand into AI infrastructure, joining other crypto firms pivoting to support the buildout of data centers. And KKR launched a $500 million maritime leasing platform.

Plus: Goldman sees an “upswing” in investment banking continuing, restaurants are pitching water as a fine-dining experience, and the 10 U.S. cities where Americans can still afford to live alone.

BILL Procurement is officially live. Automate procure-to-pay workflows in one place, from request to reconciliation.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

Internet Takes a Day Off

For 15 hours yesterday, the internet was basically broken. Amazon Web Services, the cloud that powers everything from Zoom calls to McDonald’s drive-thrus to even smart mattresses, went dark, and with it, so did productivity across corporate America.

With Slack frozen and Zoom lagging, chances are you might have been one of millions of Americans pretending to troubleshoot while quietly scrolling Instagram.

It started around 3 a.m. ET when a routine software update to Amazon’s DynamoDB database corrupted DNS info and triggered a cascade of failures across AWS’s East Coast servers. Within hours, more than 100 services were knocked out, including Slack, Zoom, Salesforce, Venmo, Robinhood, Snowflake, and even Amazon’s own Alexa.

By the time engineers restored service around 6 p.m., Amazon had lived through its biggest outage since 2021.

Yet markets barely flinched. The S&P 500 closed higher, and Amazon shares ended the day up 1.6%, as investors shrugged off the disruption as a “technical glitch.” The logic was simple: if one company’s mistake can freeze half the internet, it’s probably not losing market share anytime soon.

Given how interconnected the Internet has become, yesterday’s outage likely cost billions in lost sales and productivity. But Corporate America learned just how dependent it is on invisible infrastructure it doesn’t control. Every Slack ping, Zoom login, and Robinhood trade is one network update away from disaster.

Takeaway: The market treated the AWS meltdown as a bullish signal. Only in 2025 can a company take down half the internet and still close in the green. If one bad update can freeze Zoom, Slack, and McDonald’s at once, maybe Amazon’s monopoly is stronger than anyone thought. Even Jim Cramer thinks this could mark the end of AMZN’s “horrible slide” … though that might be more bearish than bullish.

PRESENTED BY BILL

Purchase. Pay. Done.

For growing companies, procurement workflows become bottlenecks fast. Manual PO approvals, invoice mismatches, and last-minute spend surprises drain finance teams and create compliance risks.

BILL Procurement integrates directly with Accounts Payable to automate your entire procure-to-pay process. Finance teams get pre-purchase spend controls, automated 2-way invoice matching, and complete visibility from request to reconciliation in one platform. With strict approval workflows and separation of duties built in, BILL reduces fraud risk while keeping business operations moving.

Over 475,000 businesses rely on BILL to streamline financial operations and maintain spend control as they scale.

Short Squeez readers get a $200 Amazon gift card when booking a demo.*

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Apple stock rallies after strong iPhone 17 sales in the U.S. and China (CNBC)

• BNP Paribas shares drop after U.S. verdict over alleged role in Sudan (WSJ)

• JPMorgan warns First Brands fallout driving up banks’ funding costs (FT)

• Huge global outage impacts Amazon, Fortnite and Snapchat (CNN)

• OpenEvidence raises $200M in funding to bring ChatGPT-style AI to medicine (NYT)

• KKR launches maritime leasing platform with $500 million pledged (BB)

• Bitcoin miners pivoting into AI (BB)

• Jamie Dimon heads to Argentina ahead of Milei’s key policy test (BB)

• Platinum Equity’s Tom Gores tests fans’ loyalty as Pistons struggles mount (BB)

• Under-the-radar brand everywhere Comfort Colors drives Gildan’s Gen Z-fueled sales surge (CNBC)

• Why credit-risk jitters are spreading across Wall Street (Axios)

• Anthropic expands Claude AI into life-sciences research (CNBC)

• L’Oréal eyes Creed acquisition as luxury-fragrance rivalry with Kering heats up (Axios)

• Women-focused wellness resorts are the next big thing (BB)

• Goldman Sachs sees an “upswing” in investment banking continuing (BB)

• Morgan Stanley tells investors to sell dollars in “Goldilocks” scenario (BB)

• Restaurants are pitching water as a fine dining experience (WSJ)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Stocks opened the week on solid footing after easing trade tensions and positive remarks from policymakers about the government shutdown ending.

• Regional banks rebounded following last week’s sell-off, supported by improved banking earnings.

• Trade news: the U.S. outlined demands ahead of meetings with China in Asia, with signs of potential tariff softenings.

• Markets favored risk assets: small-caps and tech outperformed; gold reached a new high, while the dollar and 10-year Treasury yield were little changed.

Economic Data Highlights

• Near-term challenges remain: an unprecedented stretch without a 5% correction, trade uncertainty, delayed labour and economic data due to the shutdown.

• The longer-term backdrop is supportive in our view: resilient corporate earnings, strong AI investment, potential fiscal stimulus, and further Fed rate cuts expected in 2026.

Reported Earnings

• AGNC Investment Corp. (AGNC) — Missed earnings by $0.04 (EPS $0.35 vs $0.39 estimate), but revenue topped expectations at $903M vs ~$883M.

Earnings Today

• Coca-Cola (KO) — Focus: beverage volume growth, pricing power, currency effects.

• Netflix (NFLX) — Focus: streaming subscriber growth and profitability trends.

• Lockheed Martin (LMT) — Focus: defense contract backlog and global spending dynamics.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Cleveland-Cliffs ($CLF) +22% after the company announced strong earnings and plans to develop rare earth mining.

• (+) Apple ($AAPL) +4% because of strong iPhone 17 sales in U.S. and China.

• (–) BNP Paribas ($BNPQY) -9% after a jury found the French bank helped Sudan commit genocide.

Prediction Markets

• Predict GDP growth for Q3

• Trade on real-world events with Kalshi. Use code OWS to get a $10 bonus when you trade $10.

Private Dealmaking

• Holcim agreed to buy Xella for $2.16 billion

• 26North Partners invested $700 million in NEP Group

• Boston Scientific agreed to acquire Nalu Medical for $533 million

• OpenEvidence, an AI medical assistant for doctors, raised $200 million

• Dexory, a warehouse robotics startup, raised $165 million

• Suno, an AI music generator, raised $125 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

How Progress Ends

Description: A sweeping examination of how technological breakthroughs spring up, thrive, and then stall and why progress isn’t guaranteed. Drawing on a millennium of history and global case studies, Frey challenges the notion that innovation will always “save” us. He argues that institutions, incentives, and cultural systems matter just as much as inventions, and that without the right mix, societies can slip into stagnation despite their supposed edge.

Book Length: 552 pages

Ideal For: Tech skeptics, economists, policymakers, futurists, and anyone grappling with what the next wave of innovation (think AI, green tech) will actually deliver.

“Progress is not self-perpetuating; its survival depends on institutions that can scale and sustain innovation without stifling what makes it possible in the first place.”

DAILY VISUAL

Gucci’s Losing Its Glam

PRESENTED BY BLUEFLAME AI

AI Built for Investment Firms

General enterprise LLMs like ChatGPT Enterprise or Claude for Business offer broad capabilities, but when it comes to deal execution, due diligence, and portfolio monitoring, their domain gaps become costly roadblocks. Blueflame AI is built specifically for investment managers and deal professionals.

Blueflame’s purpose‑built AI connects natively across your ecosystem, whether it’s SharePoint, your CRM, market data providers, or internal research systems. It doesn’t just summarize; it reasons, executes multi‑step tasks, and builds a unified “firm memory” that’s tailored to private markets. One global PE firm using Blueflame’s workflows cut email drafting time by 60%, with 90% of outputs needing only light edits.

General models remain useful for generic content and experimentation. But for firms seeking sustained ROI and true operational leverage, the edge comes from AI built around the deal lifecycle, financial nuance, and integrated systems.

DAILY ACUMEN

Comfort Trap

Comfort feels safe but quietly erodes ambition.

Every comfort gained demands a tradeoff in growth.

The human mind was built for mild stress and forward motion.

Comfort numbs both.

The best performers engineer discomfort into their routines to stay sharp.

They take cold calls, cold showers, or cold risks.

Comfort is not bad—it just has a high opportunity cost.

Growth is the interest paid on discomfort.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Everything I learned at Blackstone in 26 minutes

• 3 signs your boss is high on toxic positivity

• 8 signs someone isn’t a good person

• The new rules of dining out

• Why it might pay to be playful at work

• 10 U.S. cities where Americans can afford to live alone

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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