Vote or Die returns

Hi everyone! The next post you read from me will be Situation Bali. But today I’m pleased to bring you a special election edition of Situation Normal. The following is a satirical collaboration with two very funny writers: Dennard Dayle of Extra Evil and Amran Gowani of Field Research. Enjoy! And if you live in…

Google’s wildfire detection is available in US, Mexico, Canada and parts of Australia

At an AI-focused press event today in New York, Google announced that it’s bringing its AI-powered wildfire detection system to the U.S. Canada, Mexico and parts of Australia. It’s one of several “AI for good” efforts the company detailed this morning, which also included Google’s efforts to expand flood forecasting to more regions around the…

PlayStation VR2 launches February 22 for $549.99, pre-orders November 15

Sony is launching its second-generation virtual reality headset for PlayStation on February 22, 2023 (exactly a year after its initial reveal, by the way). The PS VR2 will cost $549.99, which includes the headset and controllers, as well as stereo headphones. The PS VR2 headset will open for pre-orders exclusively through the PlayStation store on…

Paramount+ reaches 46M global subscribers in Q3, but stock drops ~9% on revenue miss

Paramount reported its earnings results for the third quarter this morning, citing growth in global streaming subscribers. The company’s flagship streaming service, Paramount+, saw a slight increase of 2.7 million subscribers in Q3, bringing the total to 46 million, up from 43.3 million in the second quarter when Paramount+ experienced a net add of 3.7…

Eric Schmidt backs former Google exec’s digital family office platform in $90 million funding

Caesar Sengupta has worked on, and oversaw, several category-defining projects in the past decade and a half. As a product lead at Google, he was in charge of ChromeOS, the company’s desktop operating system. He then headed the Android-maker’s Next Billion Users initiative that made products such as Google Pay in India to serve and…

Investors are either ghosting, quiet quitting or rewriting their entire playbook

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex interviewed one of their favorite reporters, Business Insider’s…