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Happy Monday, !

Remy Zane won last week’s world-famous news haiku competition™ with this beauty about a Waymo $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.32% ) driverless car hitting a child — who fortunately, for good taste reasons, survived! Speaking of, er…good taste:

Congratulations, Remy!

“I’d like to thank the emergency responders in Santa Monica,” Remy wrote in an email on Friday afternoon, on learning of his victory. Classy.

Here’s your congratulatory on-theme GIF image, Remy:

And here’s how y’all voted on the competition:

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Dax Flame said it best: I'd feel waymo safe without | robots killing kids. ~Nomis Balderk (106)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Lawmakers allowed | self-driving cars on the road. Don't let them fool you. ~Samantha Sigelakis-Minski (35)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ A child dashes out | Not my fault says the Waymo | Lessons for both sides ~ Bob Andersen (50)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Glad the kid's alive | Could have been Waymore tragic | I'll see myself out ~ Remy Zane (107)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ I struck him lightly | Humans would have done much worse | Beep boop, I saved you ~ Elise (67)

Meanwhile, Nomis Balderk, you were just one vote shy of the win, as of Friday. I hope you voted for yourself! (360 Votes via @beehiiv polls)

This week’s world-famous news haiku competition™ is about the splendid Winter Olympics, which are now in session. Send me your entry — to our spiffy new email address, haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers!

And now for something completely different.

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• Tech stocks rally after three days of heavy sellin …

• Amazon stock slides 9% on AI spending fear

• From social feeds to Super Bowl: the rise of creat …

• Uber ordered to pay $8 million in sexual assault c …

• Mongolia’s Winter Olympics team outfits are 🔥

• Poll of the day: Buy the dip? Or dip on the buy?

What’s the stock market up to, eh?

$SPX ( ▲ 0.59% ) $DJI ( ▲ 0.06% ) $NDX ( ▲ 0.97% )

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$NVDA ( ▲ 2.44% ) , $AVGO ( ▲ 3.89% ) , $INTC ( ▲ 0.47% ) , $BTC ( ▼ 0.05% ) , $MSTR ( ▲ 1.44% ) , $LZ ( ▼ 1.24% ) , $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.32% ) , $META ( ▲ 3.08% ) , $MSFT ( ▲ 3.3% ) , $AMZN ( ▼ 0.77% ) , $UBER ( ▼ 0.59% )  

Tech stocks rally after three days of heavy selling

Friday marked a notable recovery for technology stocks and bitcoin after days of intense selling caused by investor doubts surrounding AI investments. The Nasdaq Composite index gained 2.1%, easing its weekly loss to a still rather nasty 2%. Leading the rebound was Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 2.44% ) , jumping 7.7%, with chipmakers Broadcom $AVGO ( ▲ 3.89% ) and Intel $INTC ( ▲ 0.47% ) also seeing strong gains. Bitcoin $BTC ( ▼ 0.05% ) surged by 10.5%, reaching $69,884, while Michael Saylor’s Strategy $MSTR ( ▲ 1.44% ) soared by a staggering 23%.

The sell-off earlier in the week was driven by new updates from Anthropic to its Claude coding software, which effectively outstrips a bunch of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms like LegalZoom $LZ ( ▼ 1.24% ) . You can read more about the “Saas-pocalypse” in our recent Big Business This Week newsletter. Markets were also concerned over the scale of AI spending by tech giants like Google $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.32% ) , Meta $META ( ▲ 3.08% ) , and Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 3.3% ) , set to total $660bn this year — a 60% increase from projections for 2025. “The market is rethinking its approach to AI,” said Fabiana Fedeli, chief investment officer for equities at M&G, talking to the Financial Times, and noting that investors are becoming “a lot more selective” in choosing companies to back.

Caroline Shaw of Fidelity International expressed optimism: “The investment case is not broken. This is more of a buying opportunity,” she told the FT.

One company did not join the rallying party on Friday, however…👇🏻

Amazon stock slides 9% on AI spending fear

Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 0.77% ) shares fell by 9% on Friday after the company outlined plans for a $200 billion capital expenditure in 2026, sparking doubts among investors about…guess what…the firm’s aggressive spending on AI. Amazon now joins other tech giants in forecasting record-breaking investments, as the group aims to pour more than $630 billion this year into datacenters and AI chip technologies, a move that has drawn comparisons to the dot-com boom of the early 2000s.

"While the rising capital intensity is not a surprise directionally, the magnitude of the spend is materially greater than consensus expected," noted analysts at MoffettNathanson, talking to Reuters.

Despite market skepticism, Amazon CEO Andy “Sassy” Jassy defended the company's strategy: "AWS is a much larger business than its competitors, and sustaining this level of growth on such a large base is different,” he said.

Quote of the Day

From social feeds to Super Bowl: the rise of creator-led ads

Remember when the pinnacle of advertising was a 30-second network television spot featuring Jerry Seinfeld slinging ugly Acura motor vehicles $HMC ( ▼ 3.02% ) , that cost, like, more than the CEO's yacht to produce? Cute. As the old-guard (sorry, Jerry) "Hollywood economy" shrivels up, brands are desperately running to the "creator economy," putting influencers at the center of their biggest ad campaigns — even those featured at the Super Bowl.

Why the sudden shift? According to Zoe “Too?” Soon, head of creator at the Interactive Ad Bureau, it boils down to fragmented attention, and, bless their hearts, brands want "cultural relevance." Consumers aren't "TV first" anymore; their short attention spans have "splintered across platforms." That means brands are following the eyeballs of younger viewers wherever they land — i.e., most likely on daily newsletters such as this one, right?

Why bother with a traditional ad that "costs around $8 million for 30 seconds of air time" when the same budget "with creators can drive billions of impressions"? It's simply more cost-effective to let a few internet stars — like Addison “I haven’t heard of her, I’m afraid” Rae and Alex “him either, awfully sorry” Earl — handle your campaign. This isn't a trend you can ignore, either. It's "essentially the new norm," because, as the experts put it, the creator economy is simply "the new TV." 

Whatever, Zoe. I watched the ‘bowl on my father-in-law’s 60-inch television LIKE THE AMERICAN CITIZEN I TECHNICALLY AM. And I ate RIBS.

Song of the Day: Galdive, ‘20 Weeks’

Here’s a nice nostalgic track by Indonesian R&B duo Galdive, who are currently on their North American Tour.

Uber ordered to pay $8 million in sexual assault case

A federal jury has ordered Uber $UBER ( ▼ 0.59% ) to pay $8.5 million in compensatory damages to a 19-year-old passenger who was sexually assaulted by a driver in 2023. While the jury cleared Uber of negligence and design defects, they found the company liable under the principle of "apparent agency." That’s a legal doctrine where a company is held liable for the actions of someone who isn't technically their employee, but appeared to be one to a reasonable observer.

The trial revealed that Uber’s internal "Safety Risk Assessed Dispatch" algorithm had flagged Dean’s trip as having an "elevated risk," yet the ride was dispatched regardless. The plaintiff’s attorneys noted that Uber’s internal data showed intoxicated women riding alone faced "heightened danger," but the company allegedly "chose not to disclose these risks because doing so posed ‘serious business implications.’"

As the first "bellwether" trial in a litigation involving over 3,000 similar lawsuits, the outcome carries a heavy weight. “This verdict for the plaintiff in the very first bellwether trial is a harbinger of what’s to come,” said Sarah London, co-lead trial attorney.

Uber, however, plans to appeal, with a spokesman saying: “The jury rejected claims that Uber was negligent... This verdict affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety.”

Good luck with that.

Mongolia’s Winter Olympics team outfits are 🔥

Move over, Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armani. While the heavyweights brought their usual polish to the Milan Cortina Winter Games, the real fashion gold belongs to a delegation of just three athletes: Team Mongolia.

Clad in intricate deels — traditional robes lined with yak down, n00b! — and horn-shaped hats, the Mongolian team paraded outfits that were less tracksuit and more "track-outure." Designed by Goyol Cashmere, the collection was inspired by the 13th-century Mongol Empire, blending nomadic heritage with high-end luxury and just the right amount of murderous rampage. Fire!

The buzz isn't just local; global preorders for more Goyol ‘shmere are flooding in. Creative director Baysa Delgerbat — an alumna of Milan’s prestigious Istituto Marangoni — wanted the attire to reflect national pride. “We chose the specific period when our country was the strongest,” Delgerbat explained to the Wall Street Journal. “The resilience, the hard work, the warrior spirit... It all came from the endurance of the harsh winters of Mongolia.”

The impact has been immediate. Undral Amarsaikhan, senior adviser to the Mongolian National Olympic Committee, summed it up perfectly: “Everyone is talking about our uniform,” he said.

Meanwhile, my wife fans of gay hockey show “Heated Rivalry” are all trying to get their hands on the fake Team Canada fleece from the show. Smartly, a Canadian apparel maker called Province of Canada has come good on this thing, and you can sign up for updates on their website. What do we think they’re going to charge for it? $200? $400? However they price it, I hope it’s in Canadian dollars.

Should you check your 401(k) today?

👍️ 

Might as well check out the damage after last week, but I warn you, it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Poll of the day: Buy the dip? Or dip on the buy?

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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.