🍋 LaGuardia No Longer a Disaster

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Good Morning! Hope you had a nice weekend! Gautam Adani definitely enjoyed his as he passed Jeff Bezos to become the world's 2nd richest person on Friday. Volkswagen is targeting a valuation of up to 75 billion euros and looking to raise 9.4 billion euros for luxury sportscar maker Porsche, which will be Germany’s second-largest IPO in history.

FedEx is sending tough signals about the economy as the shipping and logistics giant had a weak quarter, hinting at a broader downturn. Puerto Rico is already having a tough time, as Hurricane Fiona makes landfall, and much of the island is without power.

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1. Story of the Day: LaGuardia No Longer a Disaster

LaGuardia Airport used to be the laughing stock of the travel world, but recently, it's gotten quite the makeover. In fact, Terminal B just won an award for the world's best new airport building. WHAT exactly is going on over there?

LaGuardia's ORAT team, which stands for operational readiness and transition, was in place to mitigate risks and reduce uncertainty. Led by Canadian engineer Frank Scremin, who had never actually been to Terminal B, had heard how much people hated it, and wanted to help facilitate the identity shift.

It was quite the task as the building had a leaky roof and birds (not a cool synonym for planes) everywhere. At one point Joe Biden even called it "third-world" during a 2014 speech on infrastructure.

Between 2016 and 2022, five employees focused on ORAT rotated 12 hour shifts to make sure there was 24 hour surveillance of what was going on. ORAT workers even walked outside to direct traffic. If there was a problem, these guys would solve it.

Apparently, the passion behind this team can really be felt when you are flying through Terminal B now. While "peaceful" probably isn't a word you'd use to describe traveling through New York, apparently ORAT team member from Queens, Stephanie Baccalie, and the rest of the crew have been insanely thoughtful about everything in the revamp. Even the bathrooms are supposed to be "beautiful."

Short Squeez Takeaway: Even though the ORAT team has put Terminal B through stress tests and optimized functionality across the building, you just know some Karens are going to be complaining about something minor, like the wrong walk time on a screen. Don't worry team, we'll be sure to acknowledge you next time we fly through LaGuardia.

2. Markets Rundown

All markets were lower as more inflationary concerns stoke fears of a recession.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Netflix ($NFLX) +2% after Citi raised the price target for the streaming platform.

• (+) FirstEnergy ($FE) +2% as CEO Steve Strah announced that he will be retiring.

• (–) FedEx ($FDX) -21% after preannouncing disappointing results for the recent quarter, citing weakness in global shipment volumes.

Private Dealmaking

• Ratio, a buy-now-pay-later startup, raised $411 million

• Atlas, an employment compliance startup, raised $200 million

• Fortanix, a network security startup, raised $90 million 

• Portofino Technologies, a developer of high frequency crypto trading tech, raised $50 million

• Kojo, a platform for construction companies, raised $39 million 

• Federato, an insurance startup, raised $15 million

3. Top Reads

• How media and T-Mobile got the best of AT&T and Verizon (YF)

• FedEx miss is worse DB analysts have seen in twenty years (YF)

• Lazard names a woman as Saudi chair to grow mideast advisory unit (BB)

• Strong dollar keeping lid on US import prices (Axios)

• The end of zero interest rates send stock market falling (Axios)

• Wall Street drops to two-month low as recession fears mount (Reuters)

• Kanye West fed up with corporate America, ends Gap partnership (Vibe)

• Meta shares plunge to pre-pandemic low (CNBC)

• Goldman cuts 2023 outlook for US growth (Fox)

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4. Book of the Day: Survival of the Richest

The tech elite have a plan to survive the apocalypse: they want to leave us all behind.

Five mysterious billionaires summoned theorist Douglas Rushkoff to a desert resort for a private talk. The topic? How to survive the “Event”: the societal catastrophe they know is coming.

Rushkoff came to understand that these men were under the influence of The Mindset, a Silicon Valley–style certainty that they and their cohort can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making―as long as they have enough money and the right technology.

In Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff traces the origins of The Mindset in science and technology through its current expression in missions to Mars, island bunkers, AI futurism, and the metaverse. In a dozen urgent, electrifying chapters, he confronts tech utopianism, the datafication of all human interaction, and the exploitation of that data by corporations.

This mind-blowing work of social analysis shows us how to transcend the landscape The Mindset created―a world alive with algorithms and intelligences actively rewarding our most selfish tendencies―and rediscover community, mutual aid, and human interdependency.

In a thundering conclusion, Survival of the Richest argues that the only way to survive the coming catastrophe is to ensure it doesn’t happen in the first place.

Named One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by Kirkus and Literary Hub

“He finally disclosed that he wasn’t a full-time driver but a day trader a bit down on his luck after a few “poorly timed puts.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• How much Queen Elizabeth’s funeral could cost

• Six exercises to reduce back pain and maintain a flexible spine

• The tax break for billionaires you can use, too

• Why Stanford researcher says you should ask friends for more favors

• 3 productivity tips to help you focus this fall

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6. Daily Visual: US Consumer Electricity Prices

Year-over-year change; Dec '69 - Aug '22

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: Doomscrolling

“There’s no shortage of bad news in the media to “doomscroll”, from a global pandemic to the war in Ukraine and an impending climate crisis, but new research suggests the compulsive urge to surf the web can lead to poor mental and physical health outcomes.

Doomscrolling is the tendency to “continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening or depressing”, a practice researchers found has boomed since the onset of the pandemic.

The study, published in the journal Health Communication, found 16.5% of about 1,100 people surveyed showed signs of “severely problematic” news consumption, leading to greater levels stress, anxiety and poor health.

“For these individuals, a vicious cycle can develop in which, rather than tuning out, they become drawn further in, obsessing over the news and checking for updates around the clock to alleviate their emotional distress,” he said.

But it doesn’t help, and the more they check the news, the more it begins to interfere with other aspects of their lives.”

Source: The Guardian

8. Crypto Corner

• Institutions are still wait-and-see with Ethereum

• White House issues plan for crypto regulation

• The biggest crypto fantasy of all

• After the crypto crash, has Hollywood given up on NFTs?

• What does a crypto recovery look like?

• Ether falls to two-month low as Merge hype fades

9. Memes of the Day

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