Hi! “Marty Supreme” suffered the equivalent of a whitewash in a table tennis match yesterday, going 0-11 at the BAFTA awards, making it only the third film ever to get that many nods without picking up a single gong. Today we’re exploring: |
- Norge ahead: Norway won more gold medals than any other country in Winter Olympics history.
- CashGPT: The amount of money OpenAI is burning through is insane.
- Under pressure: De Beers’ value got written down again as natural diamonds struggle.
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Norway wins 18 gold medals at the Winter Olympics, more than any other country in history |
The closing ceremony of Milano Cortina 2026 took place at the Verona Arena on Sunday, bringing an action-packed 19 days of half-pipes, heroic comebacks, and heated rivalries to a close. But, as the 93 participating countries celebrated one of the most-watched and most-talked-about Games ever, the final tallies across a record 116 events saw one nation come out on top for a third consecutive Winter Olympics by total medals, and a fourth in a row by gold medals. This year’s Games saw Norway notch an impressive 18 gold medals, the highest number achieved by any country in Winter Olympics history, bringing its total medal count to 41. Meanwhile, Team USA came in second place on both measures, with 12 golds and 33 medals in total. |
Norway’s victory is all the more impressive considering that its total population is under 5.7 million, which is roughly 2% of the ~342 million people in the US and slightly less than the population of Colorado alone. This brings Norway’s number of medals per 10 million inhabitants to a massive 73.6 — several orders of magnitude greater than host country Italy, as well as sporting superpowers like China and Germany. And, even with Norway’s massive oil fund making it one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the world, it manages a lot of podium positions in relation to its relatively small GDP. Indeed, only Slovenia comes close to the Nordic nation on the economy-adjusted leaderboard. Boosting Norway’s count considerably was cross-country skier Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, who became the first athlete in history to win six gold medals at a single Winter Olympics... and while another Norwegian athlete, Sturla Holm Lægreid, won five medals in all, he might be better remembered for a more personal loss. |
OpenAI’s planned cash burn was unlike anything we’d ever seen — now they’re doubling it |
Many of the world’s most successful tech startups burned cash for years before they got out of the red. Lighting tens of millions of dollars — or even a few billion in the most extreme cases, like Uber, Tesla, or Netflix — on fire every year became the norm as growth-obsessed disruptors invested in software, hardware, branding, and content to reach the scale required for their margins to turn positive. But, as we noted last year, the sheer scale of OpenAI’s cash burn plans has been unlike anything we’ve ever seen. And, thanks to some great new reporting from The Information late last week, we know that the company’s cash burn forecasts are actually even more insane than previously thought. Per the new reported figures, OpenAI expects to burn through $218 billion between 2026 and 2029, about $111 billion more than the company’s internal projections from just two quarters ago. For context, that’s 23x what Tesla burned in its cash-incinerating phase from 2007 to 2018. |
In fairness to OpenAI, ChatGPT is probably still the fastest-growing stand-alone product of all time, and if the company hits its revenue goal, it certainly won’t be the cash burn of previous years that gets people talking. Indeed, after chewing through the equivalent of the GDP of Ukraine, the company expects cash flow to turn dramatically positive in 2030 as revenue is forecast to soar to ~$280 billion, thanks to consumer ChatGPT subscriptions as well as a plethora of new revenue streams — such as API access, dedicated agentic enterprise subscriptions, advertising, and even AI-powered hardware (maybe including a smart speaker and a smart lamp). |
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Anglo American halves De Beers’ value as the natural diamond slump deepens |
The gemstone giant that once sold the world on “A Diamond is Forever” just got its value slashed again. On Friday, Anglo American announced a $2.3 billion impairment on its De Beers unit — the world’s largest diamond miner by value — in 2025, its third writedown in as many years. |
De Beers’ natural stone business has been losing its luster for some time, as China’s luxury slowdown has weighed on demand and cheaper, near-identical lab-grown diamonds have intensified competition, putting downward pressure on natural diamond prices. Excess supply of rough diamonds and US tariffs on India — where 90% of diamonds are either traded, cut, or polished, per Bloomberg — have only added further strain. To boost slowing sales volumes, De Beers offered bulk discounts… but that cut into margins. Its billion-dollar profits vanished in 2023 and 2024, before turning into heavy losses last year as the company booked EBITDA of -$511 million. |
Anglo American’s net loss came in at $3.7 billion for the year, driven largely by the De Beers impairment. Fortunately for the mining group, diamonds are no longer its core business. After fending off a ~$50 billion takeover bid from BHP Group in 2024, Anglo is pivoting away from diamonds and coal to copper and iron ore. In September, the company agreed to merge with Canada’s Teck Resources to form a $53 billion copper mining giant, as the metal becomes more precious owing to its importance amid the EV and AI infrastructure booms. Meanwhile, Anglo is pressing ahead with plans to sell De Beers, with potential buyers including African governments, notably Botswana (already a 15% shareholder) and Angola. CEO Duncan Wanblad said Friday that he’s “optimistic” a deal will be signed in 2026. |
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- After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s unilateral tariffs on Friday, the US government could owe more than $175 billion in refunds, per estimates from the Penn Wharton Budget Model.
- Everything’s bigger: Texas is on track to become the world’s largest data center market by 2030, according to new analysis from JLL.
- An estimated 41 million people across parts of the Northeast currently face blizzard warnings, with Central Park recording over 15 inches of snow as of 7 a.m. ET.
- Smells a bit less like teen spirit… Deodorant brand Axe is reducing its bottles from 4 oz to 2.9 oz and including a less heavy-handed spray mechanism.
- (CONT’D): Paramount will likely raise its offer for Warner Bros. Discovery to $32 per share, Variety reports, ahead of the deadline for its “best and final offer” at 11:59 p.m. ET today.
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- Private burrito taxis: YouGov charts how food takeout and delivery habits vary across different generations.
- Almost two decades on from the 2008 financial crisis, trust in banks across the 25 most affected countries has now recovered to 63% — a new high, per Gallup polling.
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Off the charts: Which album topped the US vinyl charts last year, shifting 1.6 million units, per Luminate data? [Answer below]. |
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