Good Morning! Millennium is nearing $100 billion in assets in a new era for giant hedge funds. The US will take minority stakes in select quantum computing companies through a $300 million CHIPS Act funding deal. And Blackstone's global head of real estate is leaving the firm less than a year after taking the role.

The Trump administration is seeking to rescind a rule designed to stop PE funds from bribing public officials. Apollo portfolio companies pay an "Apollo premium" on loans per a new study. And Qualcomm struck an AI chip deal with Amazon worth up to $60 billion, plus the right to buy ~$4 billion in stock.

Plus: Anthropic and OpenAI's bankers are already thinking about investment-grade credit ratings for life after their IPOs, Hg says ~20% of PE-backed software funds are at risk of becoming zombies, and 25 years after 9/11, Lower Manhattan is thriving.

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SQUEEZ OF THE DAY

The Anti-AI Trade

Over the past couple of decades, some of the largest fortunes in tech were built around the idea that more of life would move onto screens. But now a lot of that same money is chasing the opposite, and no, it’s not AI. Many tech billionaires are plowing capital into sports teams, live events, real estate, and other assets that are physical, scarce, and hard for AI to replicate.

In 2026, that trade might be the most obvious in sports. Last month, Josh Kushner and Bob Iger agreed to buy the Lakers at a $12.5 billion valuation, and they’re far from the only tech investors paying up for teams.

Jeff Bezos is part of a group buying into Liverpool for more than $7 billion, VC investor Marc Stad is taking control of the Timberwolves, and a group led by early OpenAI backer Vinod Khosla is buying the Seahawks.

The appeal makes sense when you consider the scarcity trade: there could be 500 new AI startups next year, but there will still only be one Lakers, one Liverpool, and only 32 NFL teams. And as AI makes almost anything digital easier and cheaper to create, owning something nobody can make more of suddenly looks like a good trade.

VC is joining in on the action too though with smaller checks. Left Lane Capital has backed Real American Freestyle, the Pro Padel League, Shaun White's Snow League, and League One Volleyball, and founder Harley Miller calls these “hard assets” that are difficult to replicate and aren't going to get wiped out by the next large language model release.

That's a pretty interesting pitch coming from a VC, because for years the whole game was finding software that could scale forever without getting much more expensive to run.

Takeaway: It creates an odd barbell because investors are pouring record amounts of money into AI while also paying up for the stuff AI can’t create more of. And while an AI model can generate another app, video, or website almost instantly, it can’t create another Lakers franchise, another Madison Square Garden, or another NBA Finals with 20,000 people packed into an arena. And maybe that’s the irony of the whole trade: the better AI gets at making digital things abundant, the more valuable the genuinely scarce stuff starts to look.

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HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Blackstone's head of real estate is leaving the firm (WSJ)

• Millennium nears $100 billion as Izzy Englander's hedge fund passes rivals (BB)

• U.S. gets minority stakes in D-Wave, Rigetti, Quantinuum in $300 million CHIPS Act funding deal (WSJ)

• SEC wants to end pay-to-play prohibition for private equity (Axios)

• ‘Apollo premium’ drives up debt costs for private equity giant’s portfolio companies (FT)

• Qualcomm issues warrants to Amazon to acquire $4 billion worth of chipmaker's stock as part of AI infrastructure deal (CNBC)

• Anthropic and OpenAI bankers push for top-tier credit ratings post-IPO (FT)

• Hg's Humphries says 20% of PE software firms face zombie risk (BB)

• 25 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Lower Manhattan is thriving (WSJ)

• Retail investors hand control of stock portfolios to AI (WSJ)

• Elon Musk's inner circle is pouring cash into making psychedelics mainstream (WSJ)

• Robinhood wins a new role in the Oura IPO: underwriter (WSJ)

• SEC move could open door to more private-equity political spending (WSJ)

• Welcome to the finance bros redemption era: 'We're not the villains anymore — now it's tech' (NY Post)

• Anthropic said to walk away from $6 billion Decart acquisition (BB)

• Google, Blackstone venture faces delays at data center sites (BB)

• Chime to become bank by buying partner Stride for $590 million (BB)

• The cost of being Apollo (FT)

CAPITAL PULSE

Markets Rundown

Market Update

• The S&P 500 fell 0.6% as WTI crude rose above $93 following reported attacks on Saudi energy facilities; energy and utilities each gained roughly 1%.

• Brent crude traded just below $100 amid what the IEA called the largest oil supply disruption in history.

• Asian markets finished mostly lower, European markets were little changed, and Treasury yields were little changed at 4.79% (10-year) and 4.39% (2-year).

Economic Data

• August PPI and CPI are due Thursday and Friday, the final inflation readings before the September 15-16 Fed meeting.

• Core CPI rose at a 1.6% annualized rate over the three months through July, its first sub-2% reading this year.

• Markets assign roughly a 58% probability to a September rate hike.

Geopolitics and Oil

• WTI crude and Brent crude both jumped after Houthi attacks on Saudi energy facilities, the latest in a string of Middle East disruptions this year.

• Despite the largest oil supply disruption on record per the IEA, the S&P 500 is still up more than 12% year to date through last Friday.

• Emerging-market stocks have risen 27.1% and international developed large-caps over 15%, both outpacing the volatility from oil-driven headlines.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) CoreWeave ($CRWV) +12% after Nvidia publicly celebrated GPT-6’s Astra launch and announced a follow-up 400k-GPU training run.

• (+) Bloom Energy ($BE) +10% because the fuel cell energy company will join the S&P 500 on September 21 and UBS raised its price target.

• (–) Peloton ($PTON) -7% after Morgan Stanley downgraded the connected-fitness company to Underweight from Equal Weight.

Prediction Markets

• The NFL is back tonight!

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

Private Dealmaking

• Mistral, a French AI lab, raised around $3.3 billion

• Stoke Space, a maker of reusable rockets, raised $1 billion

• Apollo agreed to buy $500 million of convertible preferred shares in Cumberland Farms

• The Exploration Co., a developer of reusable cargo spacecraft, raised $450 million

• Forus, an AI platform for doctors' offices, raised $150 million

• Split Pay, a lending startup focused on renters, raised $125 million

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

BOOK OF THE DAY

Short Selling Master

Description:
David Capablanca shares his approach to short selling and day trading, focusing on the strategies and decision-making processes he has developed through years of active trading. The book explores how traders can identify potentially weak stocks, recognize momentum and reversal patterns, manage risk, and structure trades when betting against a stock. Capablanca also emphasizes the psychological side of short selling, where disciplined execution and risk management can be just as important as identifying the right setup.

Book Length: 256 pages
Release Date: August 4, 2026

Ideal For:
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DAILY VISUAL

Since the Fed Started Hiking, Multiple Expansion Has Nearly Vanished as a Source of PE Value

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DAILY ACUMEN

Streisand Effect

In 2003, Barbra Streisand sued a photographer over an aerial picture of her California home, trying to have it removed from a public coastline archive. Before the lawsuit, the photo had been downloaded a handful of times. After it became public that she was suing to suppress it, hundreds of thousands of people went looking for the exact image she was trying to hide.

The attempt to erase something created the very attention it was designed to prevent, and the effect now carries her name. Suppression is not neutral. It is itself a signal, often a louder one than the original information would have generated on its own.

This is worth remembering anytime the instinct is to bury a bad headline or aggressively deny a rumor that would have died on its own. Sometimes the right move is to let something boring stay boring, because fighting it is what makes it interesting.

ENLIGHTENMENT

Short Squeez Picks

• How HIIT can trigger molecular changes in the bloodstream

• The hardest leadership skill to master

• The moral paradox of extreme wealth

• How to protect memory after a sleepless night

• Ditch the 40-oz water bottle - you’re probably hydrated enough

MEME-A-PALOOZA

Memes of the Day

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