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Bon goes solo for a review of The Social Reckoning, then discusses the iPhone Duo and reported plans for Apple’s home hub. This episode contains film spoilers and Bon’s commentary on the stories discussed. Chapters 00:00 Solo episode introduction 01:24 The Social Reckoning review 11:30 iPhone Duo discussion 12:30 Apple home hub discussion Links https://instagram.com/rickerandbon https://tiktok.com/@rickerandbon https://youtube.com/@rickerandbon https://open.spotify.com/show/0n1m0eR2sYZU2EFhSwlqX1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ricker-and-bon/id1367523204

Ricker and Bon discuss the week's AI and business headlines, including Anthropic's reported computing commitments, the America.gov redesign, and reports involving AMD, World Labs, Paramount, Warner Bros. and Skydance. The conversation also takes a long detour through Migos history, live-event booking, hotel brands, airline loyalty and the week's Gen Z word. Chapters00:00 Festival stories and the show open02:35 The week's news begins04:23 Merriam-Webster and online definitions06:27 Anthropic and AI computing costs12:19 AI agents and government websites13:35 Inside the new America.gov20:48 AMD and World Labs22:16 Paramount, Warner Bros. and Skydance31:40 The Migos and Offset rabbit hole40:50 Live bookings and event logistics42:00 Radisson, Choice Hotels and loyalty brands51:40 Airlines, tattoos and the sign-off53:43 Gen Z word of the week: larp Linkshttps://instagram.com/rickerandbonhttps://tiktok.com/@rickerandbonhttps://youtube.com/@rickerandbonhttps://open.spotify.com/show/0n1m0eR2sYZU2EFhSwlqX1https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ricker-and-bon/id1367523204

Jetpack Pals opens with its recorded theme and a live browser demonstration of a multiplayer game set in a version of downtown Los Angeles. Players fly around with jetpacks, meet friends, and play smaller games inside the world. The game has been in development for about three weeks in the recording and is still unfinished. AI coding tools, phone-based prompts, coworkers, and a city map are part of the build process. Coffee ordering leads to a detour through app loyalty points, store habits, and the software behind big food chains. A simple purchase can connect to a surprisingly large technical system. An AI shopping assistant raises questions about what an agent can do in a browser and how personal data shapes its suggestions. Marketplace recommendations and advertising become harder to separate when software shops on someone’s behalf. Payment tools for agents move the discussion from suggestions to transactions. A funded card or account could let an agent buy things for its user, raising questions about controls and trust. Turning a Zoom recording into clips and scheduled posts requires more than one good prompt. The workflow conversation covers documentation, repeated mistakes, prompt design, and how each run can preserve what was learned. Meta glasses become a test of both hardware appeal and product presentation. The conversation examines the images, the landing page, and how the device might fit into daily use. Yahoo search leads to a discussion about AI features, publisher links, and whether an older web brand can become more useful again. The segment also touches on other AI software announcements. Downtown Los Angeles appears both as a real city and as a place represented in Jetpack Pals. Hollywood, buildings, and local landmarks shape the conversation around the game map. Software costs and model limits affect how much can be built in a week. The game still needs graphics, phone performance, and more work before it can be treated as finished. The iPhone’s top display area inspires ideas for small apps and reminders that stay visible during normal phone use. The concept turns a familiar interface detail into a place for lightweight software. Blender is used for game models and Unity for the game itself in the workflow described in the recording. Remote control from a phone lets desktop tools keep working while the developer is away from the computer. Internet slang and creator videos take the conversation away from software products. The detour moves through online forums, short-form videos, and what makes a creator worth sharing. The spoken sign-off is followed by more conversation about transcripts and production systems. That aftertalk remains in the no-cut episode rather than being trimmed at the first goodbye. A short Jetpack Pals promo bumper closes the recording after the aftertalk. It also jokes about Meta glasses and the metaverse. Chapters 00:00 Jetpack Pals theme and game demo 03:05 Three weeks of AI-assisted game building 10:08 Coffee and app detour 14:20 AI shopping assistant 18:18 Paying for AI agents 21:13 Building the Zoom-to-clips workflow 25:24 Meta glasses and landing page 28:16 Yahoo search and AI software 30:25 Los Angeles and the game map 33:57 Software headlines and Jetpack Pals progress 38:19 iPhone interface ideas 40:09 Blender and Unity workflow 43:31 Football and online slang 45:48 Spoken sign-off and workflow aftertalk 47:26 Jetpack Pals promo bumper Links http://instagram.com/rickerandbon http://tiktok.com/@rickerandbon https://youtube.com/@rickerandbon https://open.spotify.com/show/0n1m0eR2sYZU2EFhSwlqX1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ricker-and-bon/id1367523204

Ricker & Bon return with a wide-ranging conversation about media, technology, markets, AI tools, and the stories shaping the week. The conversation moves from pop culture and press access to AI’s role in daily life, biotech ambitions, debt, and the business of the internet. The hosts talk through everyday AI use, changing personal workflows and software experiments, then turn to technology financing, media-company dealmaking, consumer technology, and digital habits. Chapters 00:00 Host intro 01:07 Opening: media, music, and public debate 09:07 Press access and the changing news landscape 15:07 AI tools, personal workflows, and software experiments 28:07 AI, biotech, and the technology investment cycle 33:07 Debt, markets, and media-company dealmaking 39:07 Consumer technology and digital habits 53:07 Internet culture, finance, and closing conversation Ricker & Bon covers technology, business, media, markets, and the ideas moving through culture each week.

Ricker and Bon talk through foldable phones, the future of phone-first computing, AI safety, the compute race, NVIDIA, workplace productivity, and what debt and bond markets mean for the AI economy. This audio edition opens with the approved 15-second Collar John theme before the conversation.

Follow Ricker and Bon: http://instagram.com/rickerandbon http://tiktok.com/@rickerandbon https://youtube.com/@rickerandbon https://open.spotify.com/show/0n1m0eR2sYZU2EFhSwlqX1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ricker-and-bon/id1367523204 Ricker & Bon are back with a wide-open conversation on the AI work boom, Codex and the terminal barrier, why faster software can create more work instead of fewer jobs, AirPods Pro, NVIDIA, Anthropic's compute buildout, and Tesla Cybercab. 00:00 The drops are back02:39 Codex, AI, and the terminal barrier07:30 Building games and software with AI12:00 Why AI can create more work, not fewer jobs21:20 GTA VI and Xbox cloud gaming25:00 Physical media, ownership, and copyright30:00 Internet research and the music tangent35:35 Azure, cloud spending, and Microsoft42:45 Apple, private CEOs, and AirPods Pro48:00 Anthropic, Lambda, and the AI compute buildout51:00 NVIDIA, Roblox, and market optimism56:00 Jensen Huang watch talk59:00 Tesla Cybercab and the federal safety question64:00 Volkswagen cuts, jobs, and rapid-fire news67:25 Sign-offSubscribe for more Ricker & Bon. Follow @rickerandbon on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Nvidia posted a $96.2 billion quarter, forecast another year of major growth, and set off a conversation about whether the AI buildout is a durable boom or a hyperscaler-funded bubble. Ricker and Bon also get into the reported Nvidia and Hugging Face deal, what open-source AI infrastructure actually means, and why the gap between people who use AI fluently and those who do not may keep widening. They unpack the reported autonomous OpenAI breach of Hugging Face and the state investigations that followed. The conversation turns to whether AI companies, governments and ordinary businesses understand what agents can do when they can work directly with files and systems instead of being limited to a traditional interface. The Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic gets a closer look after a federal judge ruled against it. Ricker and Bon talk through Anthropic's limits on surveillance and autonomous-weapons use, the government's response, and what it says about the demand for frontier AI tools. Trump's proposed 50% tariffs on Canadian autos, parts and steel lead into a conversation about who ultimately pays when a tightly connected supply chain gets hit. They also cover Iran, natural-disaster anxiety, California earthquake scenarios and why a movie like The Dog Stars can make a normal afternoon feel much less normal. Then it is time for restaurant-business analysis. Jersey Mike's, Dave's Hot Chicken, Yum Brands, Blackstone, private equity, celebrity investors, food stocks and the surprisingly serious question of whether restaurant food is mostly mid all make the cut. The episode also includes a Ridley Scott movie review, a detour into the Google AI experience, the evolution of phones and streaming, and the usual weekend conversation. Chapters: 0:00 Episode open and The Dog Stars 3:16 Nvidia, Hugging Face and the weekly tech rundown 10:00 The tech bubble, New York and Silicon Valley 14:20 Nvidia's $96.2B quarter and Canadian tariffs 18:40 Anthropic, the Pentagon and AI use limits 28:42 Reported OpenAI breach of Hugging Face 31:00 AI agents, the GUI and the AI skills gap 35:00 Nepal, natural disasters and California earthquake fears 40:00 Jersey Mike's, private equity and food stocks 49:00 Dave's Hot Chicken, Yum Brands and Pepsi 55:00 Restaurant takes and the cheeseburger origin story 60:00 Basketball stories, The Weeknd and streaming music 66:00 Phones, AI and what comes after the iPhone Follow Ricker and Bon: http://instagram.com/rickerandbon http://tiktok.com/@rickerandbon https://youtube.com/@rickerandbon https://open.spotify.com/show/0n1m0eR2sYZU2EFhSwlqX1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ricker-and-bon/id1367523204

Evan Marks joins Ricker & Bon for a wide-ranging conversation about trading psychology, mental training, performance under pressure, and what it takes to execute consistently in high-stakes environments. Evan traces the path from managing institutional capital on Wall Street to founding M1 Performance Group, where he coaches traders, executives, athletes, and other high performers. The conversation examines the nervous system, burnout, fight-or-flight responses, external and internal stimuli, and why trading requires confidence in behavior even when the market remains uncertain. The discussion then moves into emotional awareness and decision-making: naming what we feel, creating mental space, choosing behavior, and understanding the difference between surviving and thriving. Evan explains how intentional practice, emotional range, and the M1 Mental Trading Academy help performers build stronger mental foundations—and why slowing down can ultimately help them speed up. Chapters: 00:00 Opening podcast teaser 00:36 Meet Evan Marks: Wall Street veteran and M1 Performance Group founder 01:36 From market making to hedge funds 05:26 Why Evan coaches high-pressure performers 07:36 What wins and losses do to the nervous system 09:56 Mental health, coaching, and performance 11:48 Neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and the why behind behavior 14:36 Building new experiences and identity shifts 17:36 Training to become a better coach 20:36 Trading plans, uncertainty, and behavioral confidence 23:21 Emotions, mental space, and choosing behavior 26:11 Slowing down to make intentional decisions 28:36 Validation, self-awareness, and performance 33:23 Naming emotions: from good/bad to an emotional spectrum 39:13 The M1 Mental Trading Academy 43:01 Slow down to speed up—and where to find Evan

Ricker and Bon open with the platform question every podcaster eventually asks: how did Spotify win the culture war while Apple Music and Apple Podcasts still struggle to feel social? They get into discovery, desktop apps, short-form conversion and why technically polished products do not automatically become the cool products people use. The tech rundown starts with a proposed futures market for computing power and the economics of aging data-center hardware. That leads into SpaceX's expanding AI-infrastructure costs, Starlink growth and the question of whether spending on AI is outrunning the business paying for it. From there, the show detours into Silicon Valley, Blue Mountain State and An Extremely Goofy Movie: college nostalgia, Goofy's unemployment crisis, X Games-era Disney synergy and the surprisingly deep economics of a cartoon dog going back to school. The guys compare AI-assisted software building with traditional development, explain how GitHub keeps code and dependencies connected, and react to Google's enormous shared codebase spanning products such as YouTube, Maps and Waymo. If regulators ever forced Google to spin off YouTube, separating the technology could be as difficult as separating the business. Then the Lakers take over the show. Ricker and Bon work through reports of a $12.5 billion agreement involving Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, compare recent NBA-team valuations and sale prices, and debate what brand, location, ticket demand and taxes really mean when a sports franchise changes hands. Weekend hour goes to goth night at The OffBeat in Highland Park: dance music, warehouse afters, tortas, awkward approaches on the dance floor and the strangely perfect names Los Angeles nightlife gives itself. The transportation discussion pits Uber's platform strategy against Waymo's capital-intensive robotaxi operation and Tesla's long-delayed promises. Uber and Pony.ai want to deploy more than 2,000 robotaxis across five European cities, while the hosts argue that Waymo is already delivering the strongest rider experience in Los Angeles. They also cover Apple's China-specific AI model with Alibaba and the regulatory bargain required to bring Apple Intelligence into that market. From there, the conversation moves to beneficial-ownership reporting, anonymous LLCs and whether accountability changes when companies can hide the people controlling them. The episode closes on data centers and public backlash. The hosts argue that the opposition is not always anti-AI: data centers have become a visible symbol of inequality, infrastructure strain and a buildout whose long-term demand is still uncertain. 0:00 Cold open 1:23 Show open and podcast clips 8:09 Spotify vs. Apple 12:18 Compute futures and SpaceX AI costs 13:50 Goofy goes to college 24:36 Wrivid and AI workflows 27:42 Google's monorepo and a YouTube spin-off 32:51 The Lakers' $12.5B deal 46:04 Goth night at The OffBeat 52:34 Uber, Pony.ai, Waymo and robotaxis 56:25 Apple builds AI for China with Alibaba 57:16 Anonymous LLCs and ownership reporting 65:49 Data center backlash Follow Ricker and Bon: http://instagram.com/rickerandbon http://tiktok.com/@rickerandbon https://youtube.com/@rickerandbon https://open.spotify.com/show/0n1m0eR2sYZU2EFhSwlqX1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ricker-and-bon/id1367523204

Ricker and Bon break down South Korea's leveraged-ETF unwind, SpaceX and Starlink's challenge to telecom, GPT-5.6 and agentic work, Christopher Nolan's studio move, Japan's yen problem, and a final Timepiece Hour on Seiko and Orient. They also get into Spotify's copyright crackdown, late-night DJ sets in Los Angeles, Snapchat and dating-app economics, Apple TV, Ted Lasso, and the Your Mom's House breakup. Music playback from the BONES “Seiko” segment was removed while the spoken setup, reactions, lyric discussion, and watch conversation remain. 0:00 Cold open 0:42 Spotify's copyright crackdown 3:59 Weekend DJ adventures 10:55 Weekly tech rundown 14:06 GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work 19:05 South Korea's leverage casino 28:16 SpaceX and Starlink vs. telecom 34:54 Snapchat and dating-app economics 39:09 The Odyssey, Nolan and Universal 42:41 Apple TV's Ptolemy Grey 45:21 Ted Lasso and six-figure debt 49:20 The Your Mom's House breakup 52:12 Japan's yen and bond-market problem 58:48 Timepiece Hour 59:42 BONES' “Seiko” lyric breakdown — music removed 60:51 The mechanical watch collection 69:03 Orient and Seiko history

We talk the foldable iPhone, Michael Jackson's death, and Trump passports. Some other notable news:Micron delivered one of the most stunning quarters in semiconductor history, reporting roughly $41.5 billion in fiscal-Q3 revenue, up about 346% year over year, and guiding next quarter to about $50 billion with an 81% gross margin. The read-through is that AI has turned high-bandwidth memory from a boom-bust commodity into a scarce, contracted input for the next generation of compute.SpaceX's record IPO unwound almost as violently as it launched, with the stock falling 31% in four sessions from its June 16 peak and erasing more than $600 billion of market value. A 4.2% public float, a $20 billion bond sale, newly listed options, August lockup risk, and a $4.9 billion 2025 net loss all collided in one of the clearest market-structure lessons of the AI trade.Oracle disclosed about 21,000 job cuts and directly tied the reductions to AI adoption in its own annual filing, even as it expands AI cloud capacity through major data-center deals linked to OpenAI and Meta. China also reclaimed the world's-fastest-supercomputer crown with LineShine, an all-domestic CPU-only system that hit 2.198 exaflops under U.S. export controls.A fatal Tesla crash in Katy, Texas, reopened the self-driving accountability fight after the driver said he had been using Tesla's partially automated driving system and both NHTSA and NTSB opened investigations. Robotics funding added the other side of the physical-AI story, with about $55.8 billion raised so far in 2026 and Figure banking a $1 billion Series C at a $39 billion valuation.The runner-ups: FedEx beat expectations and completed the FedEx Freight spin-off, onsemi agreed to buy Synaptics for about $7 billion to push deeper into edge and physical AI, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pressed AI companies to disclose data-center emissions, water use, land use, and energy sources. The 30,000-ft view: Q1 GDP was revised up to 2.1%, PCE inflation ran at 4.6%, markets repriced toward possible Fed hikes, Nvidia's Vera CPUs entered full production, and the mega-IPO pipeline still has Anthropic and OpenAI queued. If you want a prize, send us a DM: instagram.com/rickerandbon tiktok.com/@rickerandbon youtube.com/@rickerandbon

SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share on June 11 and began trading on the Nasdaq under ticker SPCX on June 12, raising roughly $75 billion at a $1.75 trillion valuation - the largest initial public offering ever, dwarfing Saudi Aramco's $29B record from 2019. The stock opened at $150, jumped more than 20% intraday, and closed its first session at $161.11, up about 19% from the offer price. With about 556.6 million shares sold, SpaceX instantly became one of the most valuable companies ever to go public and gave public investors their first direct stake in Starlink and Starship.The U.S.-Iran confrontation that has kept the Strait of Hormuz contested for months drove another volatile week in energy markets, with crude having spiked toward triple digits earlier in the standoff before easing back toward the mid-$80s as diplomacy gained traction. Roughly 27% of seaborne crude moves through Hormuz, and analysts have warned prices could spike dramatically if the chokepoint stays disrupted. By Friday, Iranian media described a draft deal that would lift oil sanctions and reopen the Strait, with reports of a possible signing in Switzerland as soon as the weekend - sending crude down about 2% to near $85 and lifting risk assets.OpenAI said on June 8 that it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the SEC, the clearest signal yet that the AI leader is moving toward a public listing. Reporting puts the targeted valuation in the roughly $850 billion to $1 trillion range, building on the $852 billion post-money valuation from its March 2026 raise led by SoftBank and Microsoft. OpenAI has reportedly tapped Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to lead the deal, with a possible listing window stretching from September into Q4 2026.At WWDC on June 8, Apple unveiled Siri AI, a rebuilt assistant with conversation history, personal-context awareness, a dedicated Siri app, and customizable voice and pacing - the long-delayed AI overhaul it has been under pressure to deliver. The company also showed iOS 27, refinements to its Liquid Glass design language, new family-safety tools, and the next macOS, named Golden Gate. The event doubled as Tim Cook's final WWDC keynote as CEO; John Ternus is set to take over in September.Tesla and Elon Musk's xAI unveiled a joint project called Digital Optimus, billed as the first major outcome of Tesla's roughly $2 billion investment in xAI. The effort fuses Tesla's humanoid-robot hardware and efficiency with xAI's reasoning models, and Musk said a user-ready version could arrive within about six months - targeting roughly September 2026. The reveal deepens the cross-pollination between Musk's companies and lands alongside a June 12 signal from Musk that Tesla's partnership with Nvidia is heading to the next level.Anthropic launched the Claude Partner Network - including a new Services Track and Partner Hub - and committed an initial $100 million to help consulting firms, professional-services providers and specialist AI shops deploy Claude inside enterprises. The company said it will expand its partner-facing team roughly fivefold with applied AI engineers and technical architects, and reported early traction of more than 40,000 firm applications and over 10,000 certified consultants. It is a clear move to win the enterprise layer, where adoption is gated by integration and services rather than raw model quality.If you want a prize, send us a DM:instagram.com/rickerandbontiktok.com/@rickerandbonyoutube.com/@rickerandbon

The weightless era of software is over. This week the AI buildout slammed into the physical world: concrete, copper, electricity, water, and capital. We map the paradox of record wealth at the top of the stack and intense friction everywhere else. Alphabet announced an $80 billion equity raise, its first major stock sale since the 2004 IPO, to fund an estimated $180 to $190 billion in AI compute capex for 2026, with Berkshire Hathaway taking a $10 billion private placement. Broadcom posted a record fiscal Q2 of $22.19 billion, AI chip revenue up 143%, and Marvell shipped the first 102.4 Tbps switch that Jensen Huang called the next trillion-dollar company. SoftBank overtook Toyota to become Japan's most valuable company after pledging 75 billion euros for 5 gigawatts of AI data centers in France. The bill for the combined ~$700 billion buildout is landing on workers: 2026 tech layoffs have reached roughly 142,000, and employment for developers under 26 has dropped nearly 20% since 2024. GitHub Copilot switched to token-based billing, with power-user bills jumping from about $29 to $750 and outliers hitting $3,000. NVIDIA and Microsoft launched the RTX Spark to run 120-billion-parameter models locally, Anthropic filed confidentially for a roughly $1 trillion IPO, and Ohio suspended its data-center tax break as a citizen petition aims to ban hyperscale data centers. Community consent, water, and energy are the real bottlenecks. If you want a prize, send us a DM:instagram.com/rickerandbontiktok.com/@rickerandbonyoutube.com/@rickerandbon

SpaceX filed its public S-1 with the SEC, revealing 2025 revenue of $18.7 billion — up 33% year over year — anchored by Starlink's $11.4 billion connectivity segment. The Goldman-led syndicate is targeting a $1.75 to $2 trillion valuation, more than double the December 2025 tender offer mark, with a Nasdaq debut under SPCX as early as June. If it prices at range, it will be the largest IPO in history. Cerebras just had one of the biggest tech IPO debuts in years. The AI chip company listed at $185, opened at $350, and closed up 68% at $311 — giving it a roughly $95 billion valuation and making it the largest U.S. tech IPO since Uber. The AI hardware window is officially open, and the market is now treating non-NVIDIA AI infrastructure as a real public-market category. Cisco shocked the market with a major AI infrastructure guide. Revenue hit $15.84 billion, AI infrastructure orders were lifted from $5 billion to $9 billion for fiscal 2026, and the stock jumped 15%. The same day, Cisco cut 4,000 jobs to fund the pivot. The AI capex boom is no longer just NVIDIA — it is spreading into networking, optics, security, and the second layer of the infrastructure stack. The Trump-Xi Beijing summit ended without a formal AI deal. The U.S. cleared major Chinese companies including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD, and Lenovo to buy up to 75,000 NVIDIA H200 chips each, but Beijing paused the orders almost immediately. AI infrastructure is no longer just a company-level decision — it is now a geopolitical bargaining chip. Google disclosed the first confirmed AI-built zero-day exploit used in the wild. The attack targeted a two-factor authentication flow in a widely used open-source system administration tool, and Google says the planned mass exploitation event was stopped before it scaled. The cybersecurity impact of AI is no longer theoretical — AI is now accelerating both offense and defense. Inflation came in hot again. April CPI rose 0.6% month over month, the Fed held rates at 3.50-3.75%, and markets are now pricing a higher chance of a rate hike than a cut. And yet the S&P 500 still closed above 7,500, while the Nasdaq and Dow also hit major levels. The AI trade is overpowering the macro signal — for now. Runner-up: Anthropic and the Gates Foundation signed a $200 million four-year partnership directing grants, Claude credits, and engineering support toward global health, K-12 tutoring, and smallholder-farm agronomy. The deal lands the same week Anthropic absorbed Colossus 1 and signed Google for $200 billion in TPUs. The model lab is becoming an infrastructure-scale institution. Runner-up: VoltaGrid raised $1 billion from Blackstone and Halliburton at a $10 billion-plus valuation to build behind-the-meter power systems for AI data centers. Power, not just chips, is becoming one of the biggest constraints in the AI boom. Runner-up: Amazon is reportedly preparing another 14,000 corporate layoffs, which would bring 2026 reductions to roughly 30,000 jobs if confirmed. The AI labor reduction cycle is widening across Big Tech. Runner-up: A former Google engineer was convicted of stealing TPU trade secrets after transferring more than 500 confidential files tied to Google's AI chip architecture and software stack. It is one of the clearest legal templates yet for AI-era intellectual property enforcement. If you want a prize, send us a DM:instagram.com/rickerandbontiktok.com/@rickerandbonyoutube.com/@rickerandbon

Anthropic is making the AI infrastructure race look less like software and more like an industrial arms race. The company reportedly committed $200 billion to Google Cloud over five years, stacked on top of its existing Amazon compute arrangement, while also striking a separate agreement tied to SpaceX and xAI’s Colossus supercomputer infrastructure.  Cerebras is blowing past expectations in what could become the largest tech IPO of 2026. The wafer-scale AI chip company is reportedly oversubscribed more than 20x, with a potential valuation up to $26.6 billion. After years of NVIDIA dominating the AI hardware story, public markets are now showing real appetite for the next layer of AI infrastructure. Meta is cutting roughly 8,000 jobs and canceling another 6,000 open roles as it redirects up to $135 billion toward AI infrastructure in 2026. The AI labor transition is no longer theoretical.  The Cleveland Fed’s inflation nowcast is projecting May headline CPI at 3.89%, while the S&P 500’s Shiller P/E ratio reached 41.83, the second-highest reading in more than a century of market history. Stocks are expensive, inflation is reaccelerating, and rate cuts are moving further out of reach. Stagflation risk is back in the market conversation. Runner-up: The Trump-Xi summit is reportedly adding AI to the agenda for the first formal U.S.-China bilateral AI dialogue. The talks are expected to focus on autonomous weapons, frontier model behavior, and risks from open-source models in the hands of nonstate actors.  Runner-up: OpenAI released GPT-5.5 Instant as the new default ChatGPT model, with a focus on reducing hallucinations in legal, medical, and financial use cases. The model wars are increasingly being fought on reliability, latency, and enterprise trust rather than raw benchmark dominance. Runner-up: Google, Microsoft, and xAI joined OpenAI and Anthropic in giving the U.S. Commerce Department’s AI standards office pre-release access to frontier models for evaluation. Government review is becoming part of the frontier AI release process. Runner-up: AMD and Arista both posted blowout Q1 results, showing that the AI capex boom is spreading beyond NVIDIA into accelerators, networking, optics, power, and cooling. The picks-and-shovels trade is broadening. If you want a prize, send us a DM on Instagram: http://instagram.com/rickerandbon ttps://www.tiktok.com/@rickerandbon