Top stories today:

1. Elon sues Sam Altman, OpenAI for breach of contract, fiduciary duty
2. Microsoft launches Copilot for Finance in preview
3. Core PCE inflation +0.4% MoM / 2.8% YoY, much above Fed’s goal of 2%
4. Startup M&A transactions -11% YoY to 574 in 2023

0. Data and calendar

1. Elon sues Sam Altman, OpenAI for breach of contract, fiduciary duty

• Elon says Altman and OpenAI abandoned its “Founding Agreement” by keeping GPT-4 closed-source, with “no scientific publications describing the design of GPT-4.”

• “Its technology, including GPT-4, is closed-source primarily to serve the proprietary commercial interests of Microsoft. Indeed, as the November 2023 drama was unfolding, Microsoft’s CEO boasted that it would not matter “[i]f OpenAI disappeared tomorrow.” He explained that “[w]e have all the IP rights and all the capability.”

2. Microsoft launches Copilot for Finance in preview

3 main initial features:

1. Automatic data reconciliation.

2. Variance analysis.

3. One-click charts and reports.

TBD: public launch date.

Our view: AI is still not ready for most business uses

Currently available features, like variance analysis, have very limited use cases:

4. Core PCE inflation +0.4% MoM / 2.8% YoY, much above Fed’s goal of 2%

• Fed’s yearly goal of 2% inflation requires 0.16% average monthly inflation.

• PCE: 0.3% MoM / 2.8% YoY in Jan., in line with exp., from 0.1% / 2.6% in Dec.

• Core PCE: 0.4% / 2.8%, in line with exp., from 0.1% / 2.9%.

5. Startup M&A transactions -11% YoY to 574 in 2023, with smaller startups becoming more common targets

6. China expected to overtake Americas as top luxury goods market by 2030

7. California, Oklahoma, Florida lead in cannabis dispensaries

8. Interesting videos, posts, and memes

9. Other headlines

AI

• xAI, X working closer than previously reported.

• Stack Overflow partners with Google regarding AI training data.

• Cruise’s internal valuation -51% QoQ over self-driving woes.

• Windows 11 update with new AI features begins rollout.

• Mistral, IBM announce partnership to distrubute optimized Mixtral-8×7B.

Tech

• Sam Altman’s entities/funds own 9% of Reddit, not him personally.

• Meta to wind down news feature in U.S., Australia.

• Tesla announces more price cuts in China amid competition with BYD.

• Nextdoor came close to selling in 2018, but VC Gurley pushed for IPO.

• Dell’s revenue -11% YoY to $22.3B in quarter.

• HPE’s revenue -14% to $6.8B.

• HubSpot: download the 2024 State of Marketing Report, for free.*

• Zoho's new CRM, Bigin, can be the game changer for your business success.*

• citizenM has 14 tech-ready hotels stateside for the best night's sleep of your life.*

*Sponsored.

Tech & law

• Trump SPAC co-founders sue company, claim Trump tried dilution.

• NSO ordered to hand Pegasus spyware code to WhatsApp.

Biotech

• Alzheimer’s correlated to traffic-related polution.

Business

• China’s factory activity shrinks for 5th consecutive month.

• Disney family pen letter supporting CEO Bob Iger, rebuking Nelson Peltz.

• IRS: 125K individuals made more than $400K and did not file taxes.

• UK home prices +0.7% MoM, +1.2% YoY in Feb.

Crypto

• Exchanges, BTC ETFs set various records amid crypto bull market.

• Clone launches on Solana, bringing “cloned assets.”

• SEC overstepped state authority in Kraken suit: officials from 8 states.

• SEC’s Heister: SEC in “enforcement-only mode.”

• Uniswap: making it easier to buy, sell and trade tokens on Ethereum.*

*Sponsored.

U.S. politics

• Shutdown delayed to Mar. 8 as bipartisan bills pass Congress.

• Aug. 12 requested by Trump as classified docs trial date, Jul. 8 by DOJ.

• Steve Daines pushed by Trump as new GOP Senate leader.

• Southern border sees Trump, Biden visit for speeches.

• Trump warns of losses if forced to do quick property sale to pay $454M.

• Pentagon leak defendant Jack Teixeira to plead guilty on Mon.

• Economy, terrorism, immigration top priorities of U.S. voters.

World

• Russia’s proposed 2022 peace deal barred Ukraine from joining NATO.

• Putin warns of nuclear war in State of the Nation speech.

• Navalny funeral ongoing in Moscow.

• Ceasefire likely delayed beyond Mon.: Biden.

• Xi’s one-man rule: a look at.

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