Wendy D won last week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ with this beauty about how AI is making viruses now:

Congratulations, Wendy!

“Wow!! That is great, thank you!” she writes. “I love this newsletter and your journalist talents! Haikus are really fun but my absolute favorite are the cheese puns! 😊”

And here’s your congratulatory gif!

(For those in the dark, if you want these famous “cheese puns” Wendy mentions, you have to opt-in by answering “true” on this survey, and submit it after subscribing to the Beehiiv version of our newsletter here. Otherwise, we’ll never speak of them again!).

And here’s how Wendy fared against the competition:

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 1. Mix Ebola and Flu? AI makes new viruses. But where's the new cures? ~ Scott Bauer (15)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 2. You thought COVID was bad, Wait and see what AI makes. Beam me up Scotty! ~ Wendy D (17)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 3. Just what we needed. AI slop meets the genome. Not gonna end well! -MTS (8)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 4. AI has gone rogue. Who is surprised? No one. Without rules--nightmare.~Susan Weinstein (11)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 5. AI Saves Humans, by Creating Grave Virus.- Headline by AI~ Kaitlyn Pino (7)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 6. AI built viruses. 2026 really said, "Hold my GPU." ~ Cynthia Shultz (4)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 7. It's safe, they will say. Remember Jurassic Park: Life will find a way.~Tim Olsen (15)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 8. Glass labs birth shadows, Code hums where no conscience lives. Mercy leaves the room. ~Jill LeBrasseur (10)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 9. What hath AI wrought? A virus! What could go wrong? Pardon my sniffling.~Stephen Balzac (11)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 10. AI saves the day! Nothing could ever go wrong, making viruses.~Margaret Lea (11)
109 Votes via @beehiiv polls

This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how the Los Angeles Lakers are worth $12.5 billion now, or the GDP of Chad. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

Now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• Did Prediction Markets Make Gambling ‘Trading’?

• Vibe Coding Firm Lovable Secures $13B Valuation

• The Lakers Just Became Sports’ Most Expensive Team

• Bill Ackman Is Mad You Won't Buy His Fund

• JPMorgan Debanked Polymarket Last Year

• Poll of the Day: The Four Day Week

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.17% )  $DJI ( ▼ 0.2% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$KALSZZX ( ▲ 0.3% )  $PLYRZZX ( ▲ 0.09% )  $APO ( ▼ 1.96% )  $PSUS ( ▲ 0.2% )  $NFLX ( ▼ 0.1% )  $V ( ▼ 0.36% )  $MA ( ▲ 0.4% )  $GOOGL ( ▼ 0.13% )  $HTZWW ( ▼ 3.45% )  $JPM ( ▼ 0.07% )  

Did Prediction Markets Make Gambling ‘Trading’?

Welcome to 2026, where every touchdown is a financial derivative and every game is an active “trading session.” At least, that’s according to Frank Zacconelli, partner of Pass the Wire, who says the shift is absolute. Thirty years ago, a team executive couldn't even step foot in a casino sportsbook without violating league rules. Today? "Every major sport has embraced gambling... the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NHL, everybody is promoting sports gambling," Zacconelli told us.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett recently lamented this transactional shift on CNBC, wishing "people were more long-term investment oriented." But as Zacconelli bluntly observes, "the new generation is not in that mode." Why wait decades for Berkshire Hathaway to compound its investment in a stock when you can day-trade the Raiders' win-total on a Sunday afternoon?

(*Er, I think it has something to do with managing risk, Matt — ed. *Not Financial Advice*)

This is where prediction markets like Kalshi $KALSZZX ( ▲ 0.3% ) and Polymarket $PLYRZZX ( ▲ 0.09% ) are completely rewriting the playbook, effectively turning sports betting into a "mini stock market," Zacconelli said. In a prediction market, if your team wins their first three games, "you could turn around at that moment and cash your tickets... it's almost like a stock that's trending... you really own an asset."

Naturally, the government wants its slice. Pointing to legal challenges against these platforms filed in New York this week, Zacconelli suggests the real battlefield is financial: New York sportsbooks pay a steep 52% tax, while prediction markets pay only 7.2%. So, as Zacconelli puts it, "This is not about the legitimacy. This is about money."

The future of sports isn't about cheering for your team; it's about liquidating your trade on their performance before the fourth quarter, it seems.

Quote of the Day

Vibe Coding Firm Lovable Secures $13B Valuation

Imagine a world where turning a brilliant business idea into fully functioning software doesn't require a computer science degree or millions in development capital. Thanks to Sweden’s AI pioneer Lovable, that world has officially arrived. The Stockholm-based startup has confirmed a $400 million Series C funding round, catapulting its valuation to $13.3 billion.

By enabling teams to build applications using everyday language, Lovable is democratizing the tech landscape. The platform is already trusted by employees at nearly two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies. Across the globe, users have generated over 60 million projects with Lovable-built apps, drawing a staggering 900 million monthly visits.

Venture capitalists and technology leaders are ecstatic about this paradigm shift. Matt Murphy, Partner at Menlo Ventures, noted that: “From the very start, Lovable was built for the billions of people with the creativity and knowledge to make something, but who had always been blocked by technical ability.”

This empowering approach is transforming how modern enterprises operate. Regent’s Founder and CEO, Michael Reinstein, whose firm adopted Lovable across its global portfolio before investing, explained: “The constraint is rarely ideas — it’s the distance between the person who sees a problem and the ability to solve it. Lovable collapses that distance. This isn’t simply a faster way to build software. It’s a different way to run a business.”

[Disclaimer: One of Lovable’s new Series C investors is Regent, the investment firm that also owns Cheddar.]

To ensure a lightning-fast experience, Lovable has also partnered with chipmaker Cerebras Systems to run real-time workloads. As Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman put it: “Fast AI is more valuable than slow AI. Creators don’t want to wait.” 

Thanks to Lovable, they no longer have to…

The Lakers Just Became Sports’ Most Expensive Team

If you thought inflation was just hitting your grocery bill, console yourself with the fact that it is also hitting the billionaire class. Venture capitalist Josh Kushner and former Disney chief Bob Iger have announced plans to buy the Los Angeles Lakers for a record-shattering $12.5 billion.

For those keeping track at home, the seller, Mark Walter, bought control of the franchise just last year at a $10 billion valuation. That is a casual 25 percent jump in valuation in just over a year. Why the sudden rush to sell? Well, federal prosecutors have reportedly been "examining loans made by his insurance business," prompting Walter’s firm to hunt for quick cash to pay down those debts.

Why are Kushner and Iger happily coughing up the GDP of Burundi? Well, according to Kushner's investment vehicle, Thrive Eternal, the appeal lies in acquiring "iconic franchises" that can "withstand technological disruption." In a world where generative AI threatens to upend every traditional white-collar industry, live sports games remain uniquely resilient "can't-miss live events for their global fan bases.” You simply cannot automate or deepfake the emotional desperation of sports fandom. At least, that’s the theory.

The Lakers aren't the only team being treated like gold bars with mascots. With Apollo Global Management $APO ( ▼ 1.96% ) dropping $2.6 billion on a stake in the Yankees and Jeff Bezos circling Liverpool F.C., it seems the ultra-rich have decided that stadium seats are the ultimate safe-haven asset class.

Song of the Day: Weezer, “C.E.O.”

Weezer’s new single “C.E.O.” is widely praised as a self-aware, crunchy power-pop meta-commentary. Serving as a preview for The Gold Album, the track blends a nostalgic 1990s throwback structure reminiscent of "Undone (The Sweater Song)" with confessional lyrics about the corporate pressure of managing a legacy rock band. So, it’s just like this newsletter!

Bill Ackman Is Mad You Won't Buy His Fund

Billionaire activist investor Bill Ackman has a message for the stock market: you are trading his new fund wrong, and it is “frankly absurd.”

After taking his new closed-end fund, Pershing Square USA $PSUS ( ▲ 0.2% ) , public in April, Ackman has watched it gain a whopping 0.6% on its investments through August. Meanwhile, his London-listed vehicle, Pershing Square Holdings, actually lost over 4% this year. Contrast that with the S&P 500's 13.7% total return over the same period, and you begin to see why the billionaire is a bit testy…

His funds sat out the massive AI and chip-maker rally while dragging around anchors like Fannie Mae and Universal Music Group. But do not worry, Ackman and CIO Ryan Israel have a master plan: a complete portfolio makeover. They are diving back into Netflix $NFLX ( ▼ 0.1% ) , declaring that the platform “has effectively won the streaming wars” and can “outspend rivals on content while spreading the cost across the industry’s largest user base.” This comes after Ackman famously bought Netflix in 2022 only to dump it months later at a loss. They have also added card networks Visa $V ( ▼ 0.36% ) and Mastercard $MA ( ▲ 0.4% ) while exiting Alphabet $GOOGL ( ▼ 0.13% ) and Hertz $HTZWW ( ▼ 3.45% ) .

Acknowledging some IPO missteps where retail investors got too much stock and immediately sold, Ackman told the Wall Street Journal: “It was an ideal environment to take PSUS public in terms of the ability to deploy capital in a volatile market... not the ideal environment to launch something new that no one’s ever heard of before.” To fix this obscurity, he is launching a marketing blitz and has helpfully suggested that his current shareholders do some free PR by "spreading the word.”

So, you heard it here second, I guess?

JPMorgan Debanked Polymarket Last Year

JPMorgan Chase $JPM ( ▼ 0.07% )  quietly handed prediction platform Polymarket its walking papers last October, the Financial Times reports, terminating their primary relationship over "regulatory concerns." 

Who can really blame them? Polymarket has been playing a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ever since its 2022 enforcement action for operating an unregistered derivatives platform. Add to that a few minor public relations speed bumps, like a US soldier who allegedly netted $400,000 by betting on his own top-secret military raid in Venezuela, and you can see why JPMorgan’s compliance officers might have wanted to clear the room.

But do not weep for Polymarket’s chief executive, Shayne Coplan. Despite being officially "debanked," Coplan was still cordially invited by JPMorgan to speak alongside ex-NFL legend Tom Brady at their ultra-exclusive private banking client conference in Miami this past February.

Why the mixed signals? Because Polymarket is currently eyeing a massive $20 billion float on the stock market, and JPMorgan desperately wants to lead the underwriting parade if the platform attempts to go public. As one person close to the prediction platform helpfully explained to the FT: “They don’t want to burn all their bridges.”

For its part, Polymarket insists there is absolutely no trouble in paradise. The company maintains that it still shares “a close, active relationship with JPMorgan across multiple entities,” declaring that “any suggestion otherwise fundamentally mischaracterises our relationship.”

Apart from the debanking, of course. You might be too legally radioactive for a checking account, friend, but you are still just the right vibe for a float. Put that on a t-shirt!

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P.S. So, you remember the cheese puns that used to open this newsletter? Suffice to say, they were divisive. Now, thanks to a thing called “dynamic content options,” I can offer you the option to see cheese puns again, if you’re one of the thousands who got in touch bemoaning their departure six months ago. All you need to do is answer “true” on this survey, and submit it. If you never want to see cheese puns in this newsletter again, don’t click that link, don’t fill out the survey, don’t submit it. Just keep reading and pretend this conversation never happened. Mmmkay? Thank you.