Good morning! Anthropic saw an 11% jump in users after its OpenAI-jabbing Super Bowl ad. Wall Street is paying CEOs like it’s 2006 again, with the top six bank chiefs collecting a combined $250 million in 2025. Gains in SpaceX and OpenAI helped drive a 20% return in BXPE, a Blackstone fund for wealthy investors.

Big Food is using AI to test recipes for flavor, beef prices are up 15% as the U.S. cattle herd shrinks to its smallest level since the early 1950s, and Gen Z, living in an “always on, always judged” world, is spending more on luxury items to enhance their online presence.

Plus: Blackstone is racing to unlock $7 trillion in Japanese cash, the businessmen pitching Greenland as an AI hub, and how to ask for a better haircut.

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SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

PE on Academic Probation

For decades, private equity was the Ivy League’s golden goose. The most elite American universities could rely on the asset class to cover a large portion of their budgets. 

But after a few years of sluggish returns, elite universities are starting to quietly trim back.

Princeton is lowering its long-term return assumptions for its endowment and is explicitly citing weaker private-market performance. Yale trimmed its leveraged buyout exposure for the first time in a decade, and Harvard is leveraging secondary sales of private equity stakes as a strategic tool.

While none of the eight Ivy League universities are abandoning private equity, for the first time in a generation, elite endowments are recalibrating expectations in public view.

The key reason is that the days of outsized returns, thanks to falling rates, cheap leverage, and expanding exit multiples, might be over. U.S. private equity returned an annualized 7.4% over the three years ending June 30, according to Cambridge Associates, which much of it unrealized.

Over the same stretch, the S&P 500 returned 19.7% per year. For schools where private equity makes up more than 40% of assets, that gap compounds quickly. 

And an analysis of leading university endowments showed many trailed a simple 70% stock, 30% bond portfolio over the past three years. The Yale Model was built on illiquidity premiums and access to elite managers, but that thesis looks less airtight when public markets win by double digits.

For the Ivy League schools, secondary sales are more liquidity management than panic selling. Private equity firms globally are stuck with more than 31,000 portfolio companies they’ve been unable to exit. And since fewer exits mean fewer distributions, universities that rely on endowment payouts to fund operations and financial aid are realizing private equity may be too illiquid for their goals.

Yale expects to collect roughly $1 billion from secondary sales. Harvard sold about $1 billion in PE stakes last year, following a similar transaction in 2021.

Takeaway: As rates reset and public markets reassert themselves, the Ivies are adjusting in real time. The Yale Model is not being scrapped, but it is being repriced. And when the most sophisticated capital allocators in the world start lowering return targets, it could be the end of private equity’s golden era.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• SpaceX said to weigh dual-class IPO shares to empower Musk (BB)

• Anthropic got an 11% user boost from its OpenAI-bashing Super Bowl ad (CNBC)

• Wall Street banks are paying their CEOs like it’s 2006 again (BB)

• Six Wall Street bank chiefs bring in combined pay of $250M in 2025 (FT)

• AI startups want to crack open the recipe book in Big Food’s test kitchens (CNBC)

• America's vanishing cattle herd drives 15% price hikes for beef (YF)

• SpaceX, OpenAI drive 20% gain in Blackstone fund for the wealthy (BB)

• Blackstone leads the race to unlock $7 trillion of cash in Japan (BB)

• They want to turn Greenland into an AI powerhouse. Locals aren’t buying it (WSJ)

• Private equity’s workaround to buy law firms (FT)

• Automaker CEOs sound alarm on Chinese competition (YF)

• Consumer prices rose 2.4% annually in January, less than expected (CNBC)

• McDonald's CEO says company is preparing to battle weight-loss drugs (YF)

• The AI scare trade accelerates (Axios)

• Enterprise AI startup Cohere tops revenue target as momentum builds to IPO (CNBC)

• Goldman leads $3.5 billion private loan for Clearwater purchase (BB)

• Gold reclaims $5,000 as cooling inflation lifts Fed easing bets (YF)

• Young consumers spend more on luxury items in TikTok era (LI)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• U.S. equities finished near the flatline after an in-line January CPI report

• Value and rate-sensitive sectors led, with utilities and real estate outperforming

• Russell 2000 gained about 1%, extending small-cap outperformance

• Growth sectors such as technology and communication services lagged

• Treasury yields moved lower, with the 10-year falling to 4.05%, the lowest since last fall

• Asia and Europe closed modestly lower

Economic Data Highlights

• Headline CPI rose 0.2% MoM and 2.4% YoY

• Core CPI increased 0.3% MoM and 2.5% YoY, the lowest annual core reading since 2021

• Core goods were flat, led by a –1.8% decline in used vehicles

• Shelter rose a modest 0.2% MoM; services inflation ticked up 0.4% MoM

• Disinflation remains intact, though inflation is still above the Fed’s 2% target

• We expect the Fed to stay on hold near term, with potential for 1–2 cuts in the second half of 2026 if inflation continues to ease

Sector Trends

• Technology, particularly software, remains under pressure amid AI disruption concerns

• Materials, industrials, energy, and consumer staples are each up 12%+ YTD

• Mid-caps and small-caps continue to outperform large caps

• International equities remain strong, with developed markets +8% YTD and emerging markets +11% YTD

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Rivian ($RIVN) +27% after the EV maker beat earnings and revenue expectations.

• (+) Coinbase ($COIN) +16% because the crypto exchange reported strong improvement in free cash flow.

• (–) DraftKings ($DKNG) -14% after the gambling company announced a Q4 earnings miss, weak guidance.

Prediction Markets

• Congress couldn’t agree on DHS funding, so time for another government shutdown.

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

Private Dealmaking

• Kindred, a home-swapping platform, raised $125 million

• Lunar Energy, a developer of home battery systems and virtual power plant software, raised $102 million

• Midi Health, a women’s midlife health care company, raised $100 million

• Mendra, a biotechnology company developing treatments for rare diseases, raised $82 million

• Bretton AI, a financial crime compliance software company, raised $75 million

• Benepass, a benefits and perks management platform for employers, raised $40 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

The Overthinker’s Guide To Making Decisions

Description: A clear, practical guide for anyone trapped in analysis paralysis and decision overwhelm. Nguyen explains why overthinking is not a flaw but a sign of care, then offers a proven framework to break the mental loops that stall choices. Through step-by-step tools and methods readers can use in real time, the book transforms the anxiety of choices into clarity, confidence, and alignment with what truly matters.

Book Length: 192 pages
Release Date: November 11, 2025

Ideal For: Thinkers, leaders, creatives, professionals, and anyone who overanalyzes and wants to make decisions with confidence and peace.

“The goal is not perfect choice. The goal is aligned choice from a clear mind.”

DAILY VISUAL

SharkNinja on a Generational Run

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DAILY ACUMEN

Abundance

We're living through the most consequential transformation in human history, and most people don't even realize it.

For millennia, progress was limited by scarcity. First, we lacked knowledge, so we invented the scientific method. Then we lacked muscle, so we built engines. Then we lacked connectivity, so we created the internet. Now we face the final scarcity: expert attention. There simply aren't enough brilliant minds to solve all our problems. But AI just shattered that constraint.

When thinking becomes as cheap as electricity, the bottleneck shifts. We stop worrying about how to solve problems and start choosing which problems deserve solving. The math problem that would take a PhD student a year? An AI solves it in minutes for pennies. The drug discovery that required decades? Soon, it will be a weekend project.

This isn't incremental improvement. This is a phase change, like water turning to steam. Within a decade, entire domains will "collapse" from artisanal crafts into industrial processes. Medicine. Energy. Education. Materials science. Not improved. Solved.

But here's the critical part most people miss. This abundance isn't automatic. It requires rails. We need public scoreboards that measure real outcomes, not effort. We need to pay for results, not hours. We need to pre-commit computing power to problems that matter.

The industrial revolution took 200 years. This one will take 10. Your job, your industry, your assumptions about what's possible are all being rewritten right now. The only question is whether you're helping build the rails or waiting for the train to arrive.

Remember, we're not in the age of asking "can we do this?" We're in the age of asking "what's worth doing?" Choose your targets wisely. The machines are waiting for coordinates.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• How to ask for a better haircut

• 20 ways to connect when public speaking

• Why reading more is underrated advice

• How to get unstuck in your career

• 10 things I stopped doing to improve my life

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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