Top stories today:

1. Microsoft acquihires Inflection AI, including CEO Mustafa Suleyman
2. GPT-5 coming likely during summer, ”materially better” than GPT-4
3. Fed expected to keep rates at 5.25% - 5.50%
4. Temu hopes to reduce U.S.'s GMV % to 30% in 2025
5. Finland remains #1 in World Happiness Report, U.S. drops to #23

0. Data and calendar

1. Microsoft acquihires Inflection AI, including CEO Mustafa Suleyman

• Suleyman, former Deepmind, co-founder, to become CEO of Microsoft AI.

• Investors to be made whole, having invested $1.5B.

• Not a direct acquihire, potentially to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

• Co-founder Reid Hoffman is a Microsoft board member.

• Inflection to keep operating as an “AI studio business.”

Our view: this strengthens Microsoft’s position in the AI wars, but Google and Anthropic are running right behind

2. GPT-5 coming likely during summer, ”materially better” than GPT-4

GPT-4 already ranks on par with Claude 3 (in user voting, see below), even as Anthropic claims it has a higher MMLU score:

• Still in training, and will require “red-teaming.”

4. Fed expected to keep rates at 5.25% - 5.50%, potentially signaling June cut, at 2:00 PM ET

• Fed Chair Powell speaks at 2:30 PM ET.

Markets price in 100 bps of rate cuts starting in June

A June cut would total 12 months since the last rate increase, in line with previous economic cycles

5. Temu hopes to reduce U.S.'s GMV % from 60% in 2023 to 30% in 2025

Non-U.S. traffic to Temu is already larger than U.S. traffic:

• Expansion happening in Europe, Middle East, Japan, and South Korea.

• Temu parent PDD will report Q4 results today, with its earnings call at 7:30 AM ET.

6. Finland remains #1 in World Happiness Report, U.S. drops to #23

7. Interesting videos, posts, and memes

8. Other headlines

AI

• Saudi Arabia may invest $40B in AI.

• Astera Labs seeks to raise ~$713M at $5.5B in IPO.

• TacticAI: Deepmind announces AI assistant for football tactics.

• NVIDIA CEO: B200 AI chips to cost $30K-$40K.

• Perplexity uses Google, Bing data for search results.

• Google-owned Fitbit using Gemini for fitness coach AI.

• HubSpot: download the guide on how to use AI for better results, for free.*

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Tech

• Samsung’s stock +6% over NVIDIA CEO’s hints on partnership.

• Tencent’s revenue +7% to $22B in Q4.

• Incogni: keep your SSN off the dark web.*

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Tech & law

• Intel to get $8.5B in grants, $11B in loans from U.S. for factories.

• TikTok hawks in Senate hope briefing will encourage support for ban bill.

• Google fined €250M by France over failing to negotiate with publishers.

• Biden admin weighing blacklisting Chinese chip firms linked to Huawei.

• Meta tells EU it's OK with dropping premium price from €10 to €6/mo.

Business

• EU’s Lagarde: June data key for rate cut decision.

• UK inflation drops from 4% to 3.4% in Feb.

• George Lucas backs CEO Iger in Disney proxy fight.

Crypto

• SBF's lawyers call 40 to 50-year sentence “disturbing.”

• 3AC co-founder Kyle Davies won’t apologize for bankruptcy.

• Genesis agrees to pay $21M fine to SEC after bankruptcy claims.

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

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U.S. politics

• Texas law allowing for arrests of migrants back on hold.

• Trump argues for absolute immunity, SCOTUS hears arguments Apr. 25.

• Trump-backed Bernie Moreno wins Ohio GOP Senate primary,

World

• Netanyahu: “I emphasized” to Biden that Rafah attack will happen.

• Kushner: Gaza's “waterfront property could be very valuable.”

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