(Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images) |
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AI is making your cookies now: according to an exec at Mondelez, the company’s AI product development tool helped create its Gluten Free Golden Oreo cookies and refreshed its recipe for Chips Ahoy. No word on whether AI was involved in Mondelez’s Toblerone Crystal Bar collab with Swarovski, which seems to be targeting people who love everything about chocolate, except eating it.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all rose yesterday as the AI trade regained steam, with investors rotating out of defensive sectors and into chip stocks and Big Tech names. |
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Microsoft cuts deep, slashing the Xbox team |
Microsoft announced on Monday that it would cut 2.1% of its global workforce, or 4,800 roles. In particular, the cuts raise serious questions about the future of its video game business. |
- Those cuts disproportionately came down on the Xbox team, which lost 1,600 people on Monday and will cut 1,250 more over the course of the year.
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This comes at a bit of an inflection point for Microsoft’s games business. As it stands, it’s not entirely clear what the next generation of consoles ought to look like, or even if there will be a next generation of consoles.
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“Our business today is not healthy,” said Xbox CEO Asha Sharma in the memo outlining the cuts. “We are operating at margins that are 3–10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.”
- The tech industry has seen 154,000 people lose their jobs in the first half of this year.
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The cuts affect about 20% of Xbox employees. |
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Microsoft has struggled to satisfy the astronomical growth expectations of investors when it comes to its games business, which simply has not and arguably cannot scale the same way that an AI business in its infancy can.
For instance, Microsoft currently has 30 million Game Pass subscribers and projected it would hit 77 million. It’s not clear that the total addressable market of Xbox gamers comes close to that. |
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It’s been a roller-coaster career for Naomi Osaka, the Japanese tennis star who burst onto the Grand Slam scene at age 21 by beating Serena Williams in the 2018 US Open final, then won three of the next eight major tournaments held from 2019-21. But she hasn’t won a Slam since, in part due to several hiatuses for personal reasons, and in part because she only made it to the semifinals once in 10 major attempts from 2024-26. That might change at Wimbledon, however, as Osaka upset world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka on Sunday to make the Round of 8 — and she is now listed as the prediction market favorite to win the tournament ahead of her quarterfinal matchup with Karolína Muchová today.
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⚽ ️Argentina vs. Egypt: This is a fairly lopsided contest for a Round of 16 game, with Mo Salah’s Egypt as steep underdogs against Lionel Messi’s Argentina, which markets price at an 86% chance to win.*
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⚽ Switzerland vs. Colombia: Colombia is the favorite at 62% to beat the Swiss, in the game that will wrap up a Round of 16 that has been edge-of-your-seat action.
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*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC. |
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