Good Morning! CalPERS is trimming its exposure to big US tech companies and moving money into private equity. PE firms, meanwhile, are holding companies beyond the usual three-to-five-year window, leading to more leadership changes at their portfolio companies. And Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman says the firm’s AI bet began with a chance encounter with Alibaba founder Jack Ma in 2015.

Goldman Sachs raised its music industry growth forecast for the first time in three years. Carlyle is adding more Brooklyn rowhouses to its growing rental empire. And Live Nation is going all-in on designing its own concert venues.

Plus: SpaceX teams up with Apollo and Nvidia on a new Grok partnership program, how Blackstone’s chip bet helped fuel a debt boom that’s reshaping credit, and why stale PE valuations are raising questions about fairness.

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The Knicks won their first championship in 53 years in June, and when Madison Square Garden employees got an email last month offering them a free personalized ring, it didn’t seem that crazy considering how hard NYC celebrated the win. 

The email congratulated employees on the title and let them choose between two designs, Championship Gold and Garden Classic, made by the same jeweler with the same craftsmanship as the real thing. But it turns out the email was just a company phishing training, and employees who clicked to reserve one didn’t get a ring; they got assigned mandatory cybersecurity training.

Anyone with a corporate job knows the usual phishing bait: a fake invoice, a package you never ordered, or a request to reset your password, but MSG went straight for the emotional jugular and offered employees a piece of the franchise’s first championship in more than 50 years. Most phishing tests ask whether you’ll trust a suspicious link, but this one asked whether you’d believe your employer wanted to thank you.

MSG had a real reason to test its defenses, and the company said it had recently been hacked and extorted after an employee’s login credentials were stolen in a similar phishing attack. A championship ring was convincing bait precisely because employees had reason to believe they might get one. But the problem is that the thing that made it a great test is also what made it a terrible message to send your own employees.

MSG has since admitted that using the rings as bait was an “unfortunate mistake” and also noted that more than 275 players, coaches, employees and others in the organization are getting real rings and jewelry worth over $3.7 million, or about $13,500 apiece. That list was set separately, though, and clicking the fake email didn’t put anyone on it. For a lot of staff, the only thing they actually got out of the championship email was an hour of compliance training.

Companies don’t get many chances to make employees feel part of a championship, and MSG turned one into a lesson in being suspicious when management offers you something nice. That might make employees think twice before clicking the next email, but it should also make the next employee-engagement survey very interesting.

Takeaway: Testing whether employees will click a suspicious link makes sense, but testing whether they’re gullible enough to believe you appreciate them is a tougher sell. Somewhere on Wall Street, a compliance team just found its next phishing template: “After a record year, we’re pleased to announce an additional bonus.” Click here to turn your afternoon into mandatory training.

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Description: Martin E. P. Seligman explores a fundamental question: what drives human progress, innovation, and prosperity? Drawing on six decades of psychological research and examining 2,500 years of history, Seligman argues that the key factor is agency, the combination of three psychological capabilities: efficacy, optimism, and imagination. Efficacy is the belief that you can accomplish something today, optimism is the expectation that your efforts will pay off in the future, and imagination is the ability to envision possibilities beyond current circumstances.

Book Length: 400 pages
Release Date: September 8, 2026

Ideal For: Investors, executives, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and readers interested in psychology, human behavior, economic development, and personal growth. Particularly valuable for professionals seeking to develop a stronger sense of ownership, improve decision-making, build resilience, and recognize how optimism and long-term thinking can influence career success, organizational performance, and innovation.

Progress begins when people believe they can shape their future, imagine what is possible, and take action to make it real.

Wealth firms have spent 2026 putting AI tools in front of their advisors, because most of an advisor’s day still happens away from clients. A Morningstar study released this month found 80% of US advisors now use AI, yet administrative and operational work remains the biggest barrier to delivering the client service they want.

Earlier this month in New York, Unique AI launched Remy, an AI teammate that keeps an up-to-date picture of every client, from their holdings to the personal details they mentioned on the last call. Before a client review, Remy pulls portfolio information, past meeting notes, and open tasks into a single source-linked briefing.

But what does having an AI teammate actually look like before your next client meeting? On October 29, Unique AI’s Chief Commercial Officer, Anshu Kotak, will show Remy at work in a live, 30-minute walkthrough. Join at 10:00 a.m. ET (or register to get the recording) to see what meeting prep could look like when your teammate already knows the client.

Save your seat.

In 1973, sociologist Mark Granovetter interviewed professionals about how they found their jobs. Most heard about them from friends of friends, often people they barely knew.

In 2022, researchers tested it on more than 20 million LinkedIn users over five years. The most useful contacts were moderately weak ties, people sharing roughly 10 mutual connections, and people you contact rarely.

Your close circle knows the same openings you do. The next opportunity usually sits one step outside it, so send the message to the person you haven’t spoken to in two years.

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