6Pages Market Shifts

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, the US labor market is shrinking in ways that feel more structural than cyclical, with a declining employment-population ratio and businesses seeking “headcount-less growth.” So far it’s mostly “small cracks” but between immigration policy and automation, we’re looking at a labor market in transition – and the landing may not be soft.Next, Meta just bet $14.3B on data-labeling startup Scale AI and its CEO Alexandr Wang, securing a 49% stake. With 240K+ taskers and 100K+ domain experts churning out training data, Scale AI has become the go-to vendor for many leading AI players – and now, potentially, Meta’s competitive advantage.Finally, deep-sea desalination is getting real – and may be the most energy-efficient way to turn the ocean into drinking water. By using natural deep-sea pressure to drive reverse osmosis, startups are aiming for automated “water farms” that use less energy, require less shoreline, and disperse brine with less environmental damage.Enjoy.TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, Mary Meeker is back with another 300+ slide deck, her first Trends report since 2019 – this one focused on AI. We highlight what we consider to be the most interesting themes – and we did it by actually reading the deck and writing the brief (vs. running it through AI).Next, AI players are racing to ink distribution deals, with social platforms and smartphone makers hoping to play kingmaker. Elon Musk’s xAI will reportedly pay out $300M to Telegram for a Grok integration, while Perplexity is partnering up with Samsung, Motorola, and maybe Apple.Finally, companies like Morgan Stanley are using AI code assistants to rewrite legacy codebases written in Cobol, Fortran, and Perl. With 800B+ lines of legacy code still out there, this could be key to unlocking modernization – without breaking our financial systems.Enjoy.TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, California’s longtime leadership on climate regulation may be coming to an end. Congress just voted to revoke California’s emissions waivers, in a move set to nullify the state’s authority to enforce stricter-than-federal vehicle standards – a power it’s held since 1967.Next, Texas passed a new law requiring app stores to verify user ages, which means Apple and Google are likely to carry the costs – and liability – of age verification. App stores are becoming the key choke points for policymakers seeking to regulate kids’ access.Finally, vibe coding is all the rage right now in the world of AI. The term references how developers can describe what they want the software to do – i.e. the “vibe” or intent – while letting AI handle the technical implementation details. It’s spawning a new generation of lightweight throwaway apps, developed by “citizen developers” using no-code approaches.Enjoy.TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, AI slop is spreading like kudzu and it’s more than just annoying spam – it’s a threat to online ecosystems as we know them. From YouTube channels to Pinterest recipes to Spotify playlists, slop farmers are exploiting AI’s ability to generate content cheaply and en masse.Next, patient-specific CRISPR gene-editing is here. In a medical first, doctors used base-editing CRISPR to treat a baby with a rare and usually fatal disorder. The customized therapy received accelerated regulatory approval and was delivered within 6 months – a template that could be used for other individualized treatments for rare-disease patients.Finally, Xiaomi just revealed a 3nm mobile chip near the cutting edge of chip development, signaling how China’s chip industry continues to press forward despite US sanctions. While the chip is likely being made by TSMC, it was designed in-house by Xiaomi.Enjoy. TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, we delve into the rise of APIs for AI web search, with Anthropic recently joining Google, Perplexity, OpenAI, and others in releasing a product. It’s looking like AI search will soon be broadly distributed across 3rd-party applications and websites.Next, crypto’s regulatory barriers are coming down, with the OCC, Fed, and FDIC rescinding restrictions and pulling back on enforcement efforts. Banks can engage in crypto activity more freely and without advance notice – including providing banking services to crypto businesses.Finally, Airbnb is now fully in the services business, launching a vetted marketplace of private chefs, personal trainers, beauty treatments, and more. Unlike its prior attempt, this feels like a serious strategic expansion and an effort to position itself vis-à-vis the ongoing AI wave.Enjoy.TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, a federal judge laid down the hammer on Apple last week for “willful violation” of her 2021 injunction. Developers like Spotify, Amazon, and Patreon are now moving quickly to cut Apple out of transactions, now that Apple can’t charge commissions on off-app purchases.Next, Visa and Mastercard are opening up their networks to AI agents, with new tools for secure, tokenized payments by AI agents on behalf of users as well as “personalization signals” based on spend data. The card giants hope to stay relevant in a future of agentic commerce.Finally, multi-agent AI systems are officially in the wild, with Accenture running 50+ of them (and targeting 100+ by year-end). Meanwhile, Google’s Agent2Agent open protocol for agent-to-agent interoperability and coordination is gaining traction. Enjoy.– TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version]. We’re opening this one up to everyone because of the importance of some of these topics. Feel free to forward and share. First, Waymo is pulling away in the robotaxi race with now 250K+ paid robotaxi rides per week, amid a flurry of industry activity and Tesla in hot pursuit. If Waymo is not just better and safer but also getting better and safer faster, its leadership may already be sealed.Next, OpenAI is rolling out shopping in ChatGPT, as it inches closer to advertising. Its search results are “organic” for now but OpenAI has avenues for making money from this that are not sponsored ads. Its moves are a threat to Google, Amazon, and media companies’ affiliate-marketing sites.Finally, researchers are learning that AI models “think” like bags of heuristics. Mechanistic interpretability researchers, led by Anthropic, are racing to make AI models more understandable – before models take on higher-stakes responsibilities as autonomous agents.Enjoy.– TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, the US government is restarting student loan collections, with garnishment of wages, social-security benefits, and tax refunds all back on the table starting May 5. Borrowers avoiding their loan balances might want to check their mail – and maybe their blood pressure too.Next, protein is taking over everything we eat, from popcorn to ice cream to your morning coffee. With weight-loss drugs booming and muscle-mass preservation suddenly a national hobby, the $24B protein-snack market is exploding.Finally, there’s a brewing problem with AI benchmarks. Popular benchmarks are becoming saturated, AI players are overfitting models, and models that do well on benchmarks aren’t doing well in the real world. On the other hand, it seems we’re in the “thousand flowers blooming” era of AI benchmarks.Enjoy.– TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, OpenAI is on its way to becoming the next consumer big tech giant, with ChatGPT surging to 800M+ weekly users. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are chasing power users with $200/month tiers but the real story might be what’s happening on the free end of freemium.Next, manufacturing in certain sectors may be coming back to the US, although numbers are inflated and not every sector will come back easily. Still, some of these investments reflect a new world order where importing to the US has suddenly become much more expensive.Finally, factory-direct shopping is having a moment, as shoppers flood to Chinese app DHgate to buy directly from Chinese factories, amid tariffs and the de minimis closure. It’s a messy story – full of Hermès-quality products that could be dupes or counterfeits, and viral videos that might be a coordinated China-backed campaign.Enjoy.– TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com

Hi everyone – welcome to your 3 Shifts Edition [AI-generated audio version].First, Trump’s tariff rollercoaster is giving the markets whiplash, with a surprise 90-day pause on most “reciprocal” tariffs alongside a major hike on China. The S&P 500 bounced, the dollar sank, and 10-year Treasury yields surged, leaving some wondering if bond traders (or China) are casting votes of no confidence.Next, the de minimis loophole is seeing its endgame, leaving low-cost ecommerce players like Shein and Temu scrambling. With duties of 120% or $100-200 per shipment coming soon, that $3 phone case is going to get a lot pricier. The effects will ripple through to US sellers and US consumers.Finally, Google’s new Workspace Flows will let users automate multi-step workflows across its productivity suite. What makes it interesting is how deeply integrated it is with Google’s widely used tools (e.g. Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Chat, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Meet, NotebookLM) – and the utter mundanity of the tasks it might handle out of the box.Enjoy.– TamSign up for free briefs written by real people on 6Pages.com