Vic and Marcus cover Jerome Powell remaining on the Federal Reserve board and concerns around Fed independence, global instability including the UAE exiting OPEC and weakening international institutions, and hyperscaler dominance with strong earnings from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft driven by AI and cloud growth; they discuss venture funding trends including brain-computer interfaces and clinical AI models, FDA adoption of AI to accelerate clinical trials, and policy shifts including the withdrawal of Casey Means’ nomination and Cigna exiting ACA markets; the episode also explores payer performance, Humana’s partnership with Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, pharma consolidation led by Eli Lilly, and rising acquisition costs in biotech; they examine societal impacts of reduced human interaction due to technology, crypto instability and DeFi bailouts, and major AI developments including OpenAI’s slowing growth, legal challenges, China blocking Meta’s acquisition of Manus, and the accelerating gap between AI systems and human expertise in medicine

Links

Story 1: Fed Meeting

3:04 - Powell to Remain on Fed Board, Citing Legal Pressure From Trump WSJ

Story 2: OPEC

5:45 - U.A.E.’s OPEC Exit Deals Major Blow to Cartel Amid Middle East Oil Squeeze WSJ

Story 3: Cloud providers

9:35 - Google Profit Jumps 81% as Cloud Business Booms WSJ

12:49 - Amazon Posts Double-Digit Growth Anchored by Booming Web Services WSJ

13:15 - Microsoft Reports Strong Cloud Growth, but Questions About AI Returns Persist WSJ

Story 4: VC

15:54 - Axoft Raises $55M Series A to Advance Brain-Computer Interface Technology CityBiz

18:11 - Photon: $16 Million Raised To Modernize Prescription Infrastructure And Return Transparency To Patients Pulse 2.0