Good morning, Quartz readers!
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Boeing is losing patience with its striking engineers. The company gave them a “Best and Final” 30% salary increase.
Ozempic has made at least one unit harder. The market capitalization of the manufacturer Novo Nordisk is now larger than the entire GDP of his homeland Denmark.
When the Fed cut interest rates, cryptocurrencies rose rapidly. Bitcoin has risen 8% in the last week and Ether is twice as high.
President Joe Biden believes the software of Chinese smart cars is too intelligent. His government bans the technology for reasons of national security – and its Threat to domestic US automakers.
Sam Altman is planning something with Apple’s former design guru. The OpenAI CEO and Jony Ive are working on an AI device startup.
Breaking up (with Google) is hard
There is growing hope that Google’s dominance in the search and adtech market will soon come to an end. If this is not due to a declining business, there is at least hope that the government will break the company up into smaller, less dominant parts.
Competitors and industry observers alike are drawing attention to Google’s size and lack of transparency – and many say it’s unfair how the company uses both to consolidate its position. “Market competition is the answer, and regulation is the source of market competition,” says one observer who believes innovation has taken a back seat to monopolistic tendencies.
Peter Green from Quartz provides an overview of the country when it comes to Google’s antitrust stance and how it complicates the context of all the legal proceedings the company faces.
Hotel bed manufacturers want better
A wave of strikes is underway, causing chaos in the hotel industry. More than 1,500 hotel workers in San Francisco are walking off the job to demand better wages and treatment from employers such as Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt.
After the COVID-19 pandemic led to weaker demand in hotels, many cleaners and other employees felt the brunt of the resulting layoffs and reduced hours. But now, as the industry experiences boom times and record profits, these workers want a bigger piece of the pie.
Ben Kesslen of Quartz explains why Labor unrest from coast to coast is developing in the hotel sector and what is driving the unions there to strike and engage in tough collective bargaining.
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SURPRISING DISCOVERIES
People are sleeping in the offices of Goldman Sachs. The former company headquarters is now a residential building with Apartments for $4,000 a month (Paywall).
The trail of a popular hot pepper is lost. The sweet, savory Chimayo is increasingly difficult to obtain.
The Lego figure business cards from Lego are an iconic toy figure. Unfortunately, the company limits the number of employees to be allowed to wear them (Paywall).
Cards Against Humanity is angry about Elon Musk’s penis. It is suing SpaceX for leaving debris all over a piece of land the party game manufacturer owns.
There is one last Kmart store in the continental USA But not for long: The store in Bridgehampton, New York, is Closing next month.
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We wish you a safe start to the day. Send news, comments, offers for higher wages and cheap petrol to [email protected]Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Melvin Backman and Morgan Haefner.
