Good Morning! Meta settled its social media addiction case with California and 29 other states for $16.7 billion. The FDA approved a “life-altering” pancreatic cancer drug that nearly doubles life expectancy in trials. And Bill Gates dropped a 6,500-word essay proposing major limits on AI development.

Private equity firms are using structured equity deals to placate investors frustrated by a lack of cash returns. Vanguard bought wealth management platform Altruist in a $4 billion deal. And an AI startup that upends junior bankers’ work has set up shop in Singapore.

Plus: Mark Walter’s TWG Global says there’s “no fraud” amid a probe of insurers’ disclosures, First Brands will wind down after its bankruptcy plan was blocked, and the new science of brain workouts.

Gold just hit its highest price in 3 months. Want in? Check out Priority Gold’s free Gold & Silver Guide to learn the ropes.

SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

PE’s AI Consulting Firm Era

Private equity firms have spent decades telling LPs they do more than buy companies, lever them up, and wait. Megafunds like Blackstone and Apollo employ dozens of operating partners, procurement teams, and pricing consultants, entire armies whose job is squeezing more value out of the portfolio. The latest addition to that playbook is an AI consulting firm they built for themselves.

Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman teamed up with Anthropic to create Ode, a ~160-person team of AI experts to deploy at businesses, starting with their own portfolio companies. The venture has $1.5 billion behind it, with Apollo, General Atlantic, and Goldman Sachs also backing it.

Blackstone, H&F, and Anthropic are each committing ~$300 million. In appropriate private equity fashion, they didn't build the engineering team from scratch: Ode acquired Fractional AI in May, and most of the venture's engineers came over with it.

Blackstone plans to deploy Ode across 25 of its 270-plus portfolio companies and already has teams inside six. H&F can do the same across its own, and eventually Ode wants to sell to companies its sponsors don't own at all.

One of the best success stories might be how Ode AI engineers ended up inside a Blackstone-owned garage-door company in suburban Chicago. Blackstone bought Chamberlain Group, the maker of LiftMaster garage-door openers, at a $5 billion valuation in 2021. Ode’s engineers are now building AI features that recognize familiar faces, alert homeowners when a package arrives, and learn a household's routine well enough to flag when something looks off.

And it’s already paying off. Chamberlain is adding more than 3 million cameras to homes this year, up from 1.7 million last year, and Chamberlain's digital business grew from roughly $40 million in revenue last year to a projected $100 million this year, with its CEO now targeting $500 million by 2030, up from an earlier forecast of just $160 million.

The bigger bet is that everyone can buy Claude or ChatGPT, but the hard part is knowing what to do with it. OpenAI reached the same conclusion, forming a rival consulting venture with a $4 billion investment led by TPG. Two of the largest AI labs, backed by some of the largest PE firms, are simultaneously building businesses around the idea that the scarce resource in AI may no longer be the model; it’s knowing how to deploy it.

Takeaway: Ode is private equity's own McKinsey, and the structure is what makes it interesting. Blackstone and H&F can use Ode to raise the value of companies they already own, those companies pay Ode for the work, and if Ode itself becomes valuable, the sponsors capture that too. The firms say the decision sits with each portfolio company, but the setup still means PE may end up owning both the consultant and the client.

PRESENTED BY MONEY

Gold Hits Its Highest Price in 3 Months

Precious metals prices are finally rallying after a mostly stagnant summer, with gold recently hitting its highest price in three months. Why? Analysts point to a weaker dollar and the Treasury Department’s announcement that it would ramp up buybacks of longer-dated government debt. 

Want to get in on Gold? Adding gold to your portfolio not only helps with diversification, but can also serve as a long-term hedge against inflation, market swings, or global uncertainty. Priority Gold makes the process approachable with one-on-one support, transparent pricing, and helpful resources for first-time buyers and retirement investors alike.

Download their free Gold & Silver Guide and see how gold could help you build a more stable financial future.*

HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Nvidia crushed earnings with another blowout quarter (WSJ)

• Meta settles social media addiction case with California, other states for $16.7 billion (CNBC)

• FDA approves ‘life-altering’ pancreatic cancer drug that nearly doubles life expectancy (NYP)

• Three takeaways from Bill Gates's 5,784-word warning on AI: 'There is no plan' (WSJ)

• Fed's preferred inflation gauge shows core prices rose 3.3% annually in July (CNBC)

• Private market firms like Apollo and Bain move into private equity funding niche (BB)

• Vanguard buys wealth management platform Altruist in $4 billion deal (WSJ)

• AI startup that upends junior bankers' work sets up in Singapore (BB)

• Mark Walter's TWG Global blasts 'multipronged attacks' after Lakers sale (CNBC)

• First Brands to wind down after bankruptcy plan blocked (WSJ)

• Anthropic and Nscale strike $45 billion cloud deal, sources say (CNBC)

• Victory Capital to buy First Eagle for $7 billion (WSJ)

• Why Oura and Whoop are bound for IPO glory (BB)

• How do we explain OpenAI's executive exodus? (TechCrunch)

• Temasek-backed investor behind Unitree pitches Singapore as Chinese robots' path to U.S. (CNBC)

• The connections that turned a precocious teen into the fallen 'Nostradamus of AI' (WSJ)

• Institutional investors back Blackstone and KKR funds for wealthy individuals (FT)

• Some patients have gap in care when private equity-backed clinics close (BB)

• Rolls-Royce bets big on Indiana for defense production (Axios)

• SpaceX windfall presents dilemma for California pension fund (BB)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• Nasdaq lagged the S&P 500 as markets closed modestly lower; WTI crude fell about 0.5% to $82.

• The 10-year Treasury yield ticked up to 4.65% after headline PCE inflation rose to 3.7% year over year.

• Core PCE inflation, the Fed's preferred gauge, held at 3.3%, in line with forecasts but well above the 2.0% target.

Economic Data

• Goods inflation fell 0.1% in July on lower gasoline and household equipment prices, while services inflation rose 0.3%.

• Stickier core inflation adds to the case for a Fed hike, with CPI and labor data due before the September 16 FOMC meeting.

• Emerging-market stocks are favored for AI-linked profit growth while trading below their 10-year average forward P/E.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Abercrombie & Fitch ($ANF) +36% after the apparel retailer beat Q2 earnings and revenue estimates and raised its full-year outlook.

• (+) SolarEdge ($SEDG) +11% because UBS upgraded the solar energy technology company to Buy from Neutral.

• (–) Zoom Communications ($ZM) -7% after the video platform’s Q3 EPS guidance of $1.46–$1.48 missed the $1.50 consensus.

Prediction Markets

• Karoline Leavitt departs from her role as Press Secretary at the end of August.

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

Private Dealmaking

• Vanguard agreed to acquire Altruist, a provider of software for RIAs, for $4.6 billion

• Dogotix, a robotics subsidiary of Xpeng, raised $900 million

• Gatik, a developer of self-driving box trucks, raised $200 million

• Kalshi added around $120 million to its Series F round

• Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 women's basketball league, raised $106 million

• Breedr, a digital system of record for cattle, raised $27 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

Stay Calm

Description:
David Booth, founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors and one of the pioneers of evidence-based investing, makes the case that successful investing is less about predicting the future and more about accepting uncertainty. Drawing on more than five decades in finance, Booth explains why diversification, patience, discipline, and trusting markets are more reliable than stock-picking, market timing, or chasing financial gurus. He also connects these investing principles to broader lessons about living with uncertainty, making decisions, and building a meaningful life.

Book Length: 240 pages
Release Date: September 1, 2026

Ideal For:
Investors, entrepreneurs, finance professionals, and anyone interested in long-term investing, behavioral finance, and developing a calmer approach to uncertainty.

“Uncertainty isn’t something to fear, it’s where possibility lives.”

DAILY VISUAL

Washington Fights Rate Surge

PRESENTED BY MOSAIC

Job Opening at Mosaic for IB/PE professionals

Mosaic is an AI-driven deal modeling platform that automates financial modeling, including LBOs and DCFs. Clients include Warburg Pincus, CVC, New Mountain, and Evercore, and it's used by five of the top ten PE firms. They raised an $18M Series A led by Radical Ventures in April, and plan to grow from 16 employees to more than 40 by the end of the year

The role: Deployment Strategist

• Owns the post-sale relationship across PE and IB clients, from onboarding to renewal

• Leads onboarding, training, and workflow design, including mapping Mosaic onto legacy Excel models

• Partners with senior investment professionals and feeds client input into the product roadmap

Who's the ideal fit

• 1-3 years in private equity, investment banking, or a related field

• Fluency in financial modeling and valuation

• Full-time, on-site in NYC. Base salary, performance bonus, and equity

Apply today.

DAILY ACUMEN

Illusory Truth

A claim repeated enough times starts to feel true, independent of whether any evidence ever supported it. This is not a flaw limited to gullible people. Studies show it works even on people who knew the correct answer beforehand, simply because familiarity gets processed by the brain as a proxy for accuracy.

This is why a mediocre thesis, repeated confidently across enough conversations and headlines, eventually starts to feel like settled fact to people who never independently verified a single part of it. Repetition did the work that evidence was supposed to do.

The defense is noticing when a belief feels true mainly because it feels familiar, rather than because you can trace the actual evidence behind it. If you cannot remember why you believe something, only that you have heard it many times, the belief may be built on nothing but repetition.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• Why you should practice inside-out leadership

• The new science of brain workouts

• The most life-changing cleaning tips

• How social isolation inhibits your success

• Why executive judgement depends on recovery

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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