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| Today's newsletter covers: - 🌎 The BRICS bloc's decision to accept Argentina, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the U.A.E., and Iran as new members
- 🥪 Subway's sale of itself to PE firm Roark Capital for $9.55B
- 🧒 Lego's new braille-coded bricks for visually impaired children
And much more! If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you. Your faithful IDB writer, Daniel
p/Dan-Smith | |
| 1 | | Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a mutiny against the Russian military in June, is presumed dead after a plane he was riding on crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday. The circumstances of the crash, which reportedly was caused by a mid-air blast, have fueled speculation that the Kremlin may be responsible. Quoting unnamed U.S. intelligence officials, the Associated Press reported that the crash was "intentionally caused by an explosion." More: - Prigozhin and several of his top lieutenants were aboard the plane, an Embraer Legacy 600 jet carrying seven passengers and three crew members.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin offered condolences to the families of those onboard, and described Prigozhin as a "talented businessman" who "made serious mistakes in life."
- Sergei Mironov, a former member of the Russian Parliament and leader of the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia party, suggested in a Telegram post that Prigozhin was killed after "his number of enemies reached a critical point."
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock both suggested that the Kremlin may be behind the crash.
Zoom Out: - In late June, Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary group led a short-lived mutiny against the Russian military.
- Putin initially described the mutiny as "treason" but he later agreed to a deal under which Prigozhin and his top commanders would move to Belarus.
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| 2 | | Nvidia stock is up 3% on Thursday after the red-hot chipmaker posted a positive Q2 earnings report. 
What the numbers say: Nvidia's year-over-year sales growth was 101% in Q2, with quarterly revenue jumping to $13.5B, from $6.7B last year. The company's non-adjusted profits were up 429% from Q2 2022 to Q2 2023. Nvidia stock is up 222% this year, more than any other company in the S&P 500. AI-fueled growth: The blockbuster growth was driven primarily by strong demand for the company's AI chips. Datacenter chip sales, primarily for AI training, reached a record-breaking $10.3B, more than doubling in a single quarter. Nvidia currently accounts for approximately 70% of AI chip sales, although competition is on the rise from rivals like AMD and Intel. Looking forward: The company projected that it will generate $16B in revenue in Q3, significantly exceeding analysts' expectations and nearly tripling the previous year's figures. Nvidia also announced that its board authorized a $25B stock buyback program, indicating that the board sees the stock as undervalued. | | | |
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| 3 | | Top American technology companies including Google, Amazon, and Nvidia invested in a $235M funding round for AI startup Hugging Face. The company runs an open-source platform that provides AI developers with tools and allows them to share their work with others. More: - Salesforce, AMD, Intel, IBM, and Qualcomm also participated in the funding round, which valued the company at $4.45B.
- Hugging Face's platform is designed to foster collaboration among AI developers. This approach has gained traction after Facebook parent Meta open-sourced its Llama large language model, making it free of charge for research and commercial use.
- Hugging Face hosts half a million AI models and a quarter million data sets, and has ~10,000 paying customers.
- CEO Clement Delangue said that Hugging Face will use most of the capital to hire new talent.
- He said that in five years there could be 100 million AI coders, adding that if most of them rely on Hugging Face for their work "we'll obviously be in a good position."
Zoom Out: - Hugging Face is named after the 🤗 emoji.
- Delangue said he and his co-founders joked about becoming the first company to go public "with an emoji instead of the three-letter ticker."
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| 4 | | GOOD NEWS: Lego will start selling braille-coded bricks to help vision-impaired children learn braille. The toymaker has been testing the bricks in schools that teach vision-impaired children over the past three years. More: - The bricks, which feature numbers and letters both in print form and in braille, will be available next month.
- The packages will include a list of ideas for educational games that families can play together.
- Parents who have tested the bricks say they allow vision-impaired children to better learn braille alongside the rest of the family.
- Lisa Taylor said her seven-year-old daughter Olivia, who lost her sight to a brain tumor when she was a baby, enjoys playing with the bricks.
- "Olivia first discovered Lego braille bricks at school and they had such a big impact on her curiosity for braille. Before then, she found it hard to get started with the symbols but now she's improving all the time," Taylor said.
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| 5 | | The BRICS bloc said it will welcome Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia as new members next year. The bloc is expanding to help provide a greater voice for developing economies in global economic institutions that are largely dominated by the U.S. and EU. More: - BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
- The leaders of the BRICS nations ― excluding Russian President Vladimir Putin ― are meeting for a summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, this week.
- The BRICS formed the New Development Bank (NDB) as an alternative to the Western-led World Bank in 2014.
- The NDB will issue its first Indian rupee-denominated bond in October after issuing a South African rand-denominated bond last week.
Zoom Out: - A Goldman Sachs economist coined the term BRICS in a 2001 paper to describe the developing economies. The countries adopted the moniker and formed the BRICS group eight years later.
- The bloc accounts for 25% of global GDP up from 15% in 2009.
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| 6 | | Subway agreed to sell itself to private equity firm Roark Capital for up to $9.55B. The deal includes conditions that could affect the payout received by the two families that own Subway. More: - The agreement follows an auction that started in February. The DeLuca and Buck families that own Subway were hoping to sell the chain for $10B.
- Under the so-called "earn-out" conditions, the families will receive the full amount if certain performance targets are met within two years. If those conditions are not met, they will receive $8.95B.
- Subway CEO John Chidsey said the deal will help the company open ~23,000 new restaurants in the coming years.
Zoom Out: - Subway has roughly 37,000 restaurants in over 100 countries.
- The deal will allow Roark, which controls the company that owns Jimmy John's, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Arby's, to become one of the world's largest restaurant operators.
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- Donald Trump is set to become the first former U.S. president to have his mug shot taken. He is set to appear at an Atlanta jail on Thursday to be arraigned over charges that he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
- FIFA opened disciplinary proceedings against Luis Rubiales, the Spanish soccer executive who has come under fire for kissing Spanish footballer Jenni Hermoso on the lips without her consent after the Women's World Cup Final.
- Japan began dumping treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, prompting China to block the import of seafood from Japan starting on Thursday.
- Economist James Bullard, who previously led the St. Louis Federal Reserve, said that worries about a recession in the U.S. were overblown and that the country's economy is in a strong position.
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 | Writer | | Dr. Daniel Smith is an Inside writer with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Follow him on Twitter @DJS12321 or email him at Daniel@inside.com. | | This newsletter was edited by NO ACCOUNT ASSOCIATED WITH THE EDITOR | |
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