AI & Tech

Meta is entering the cloud business — and the market loved it Brew Rundown

Meta plans to sell its excess AI computing power and hosted models to outside companies, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The stock surged 8.81% on the news — giving investors a concrete path to returns on Zuckerberg’s $182.9 billion AI infrastructure bet.

It’s the oldest side hustle in Silicon Valley: build an internal tool so good you start selling it to others. Meta has committed to spending nearly $183B on AI data centers and GPU clusters over the next few years, including eye-watering salaries like a reported $14B pay package to lure Alexandr Wang from Scale AI. The problem: Meta hasn’t clearly shown how that spending pays off. AI revenues are buried in broader earnings, and notable public AI launches have been sparse compared to OpenAI or Anthropic.

The cloud move changes the math. Options reportedly range from renting raw compute to letting developers tap Meta-hosted models, including its recently launched Muse Spark. SpaceX already proved the template: xAI’s Colossus data center struck billion-dollar leases with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI this year. SpaceX’s Memphis facility became a standalone profit center — Meta wants the same play.

Zuckerberg first floated the idea last year, saying in May that outside companies ask weekly to buy Meta compute but that the company expected to use it internally. The shift signals Meta now believes it’s overbuilt — a useful admission when cloud providers like CoreWeave, AWS, and Nebius Group are delivering the biggest AI-era investor returns. Meta also just released new AI glasses (including a Kylie Jenner edition) and is reportedly floating its own prediction markets app.

AI Rundown

Anthropic restarts Fable 5 globally after 18-day export control blackout

The Commerce Department lifted its order and Fable 5 is back across Claude tiers. Paid users are capped at half their weekly limits through July 7, then on usage credits. The updated safety filter blocks the cybersecurity vulnerability over 99% of the time, with Opus 4.8 as fallback. GPT 5.6 expected this week.

Sports Brew

USMNT beats Bosnia 2–0 in first World Cup knockout win since 2002

The Americans advance in the 2026 World Cup on home soil. It’s the US national team’s first knockout stage victory in 24 years — a significant milestone for a country hosting the tournament.

Finance Brew

Student loan rules tighten: new borrowing caps and higher monthly payments start today

New rules effective July 2 cap parent loans at $20K/year, cap grad borrowing at $100K total, and replace the expired SAVE plan with RAP. Experts say most borrowers will pay more. 7 million must switch plans within 90 days.

Markets (close)
Nasdaq 26,040.03 -0.66%
S&P 500 7,483.23 -0.22%
Dow 52,305.24 -0.03%
10-Year 4.475% +6.0 bps
Bitcoin $60,759.99 +3.77%
Meta $612.91 +8.81% — cloud business plans
Q3 opens soft. Chip stocks dipped after Q2 surge. Meta the bright spot. Markets closed Friday (July 4).

Are You a Good Example For Them?

“If your choices are beautiful,” Epictetus said, “so too will you be.” You are what your choices make you — nothing more and nothing less.

Isn’t this what we try to teach our kids? That, yes, we love them unconditionally since the moment they were born — but they have this incredible power to choose what kind of person they’re going to be. The reason we read to them, the reason we have rules and incentives, is to try to instill in them a good compass for making good choices.

But here’s a question as we head into the second half of 2026: Are you making beautiful choices? What are your sleep habits like? Are you stuck in your comfort zone? Are you challenging yourself to grow and change? Every day presents opportunities for both small and big choices — what to eat, how to talk to people, whether we pick up the phone or a journal. And some days, bigger ones: whether we stand up for what’s right, what kind of work we do, what standards we hold ourselves to.

There is nothing more powerful than a good habit. Nothing that holds us back quite like a bad habit. We are what we do. If you want a beautiful life, you have to get in the habit of making beautiful choices. And if you want your kids to have a good life, they’ll need to do the same. Who will show them how, if not you?

Use Google’s Design.md to Build Websites That Don’t Feel Like AI Slop

Design.md is a new open-source standard from Google that creates agent-friendly design briefs. Pair it with Claude Code to generate pages that stay on-brand without starting from scratch every time.

  1. Create a project folder, open Terminal inside it, paste npx plugins add google-labs-code/stitch-skills --scope project --target claude-code and hit Return. Keep all items selected when prompted.
  2. In Claude, go to the Code tab and start a Claude Code thread in that folder.
  3. Describe a simple website idea and tell Claude: “Generate a DESIGN.md with the Google Stitch skills.”
  4. Preview the brand: tell Claude Code “Create a one-page prototype based on this DESIGN.md file.”

Pro tip: Use Stitch skills to extract a Design.md from your existing website first. Then hand that file back to Claude whenever you need a new product page or landing page that still feels like your brand.

Community Workflow — Scott T. in Rosarito Beach, Mexico: “I’m a solo founder running nine active ventures — a wine tourism platform, a medical photo platform for plastic surgeons, a smart ring health app, an SEO agency, and more. No employees, no engineering team. The whole operation runs on a two-Claude workflow: Claude in the browser for strategy and architecture; Claude Code in the terminal to write, test, and ship. Last month my app got rejected from the App Store. I pasted the rejection email into Claude, got a diagnosis and fix plan, relayed it to Claude Code, and resubmitted the same afternoon. A normal founder would have lost a week.” Share yours here.

Politics Brew 1%

Trump made $1.2B from crypto in 2025 — as president pushed friendly regulation

Financial disclosures released Wednesday show Trump earned $500M+ from World Liberty Financial crypto products and $600M+ from $TRUMP memecoin sales — part of at least $2.2B in total income his first year back in office. Ethics groups say the scale of presidential self-enrichment is without precedent.

The $TRUMP memecoin now trades near $1.67, down roughly 80% from its peak — the retail buyers who funded Trump’s $600M payday mostly lost money. An Emirati-linked firm also bought a 49% stake in his World Liberty Financial venture. Real estate and foreign licensing added more, including $14M+ from Saudi Arabia and Qatar projects.

Trump dismissed conflict-of-interest concerns: “The stock market was going up and we’re all profiting. I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.” The WSJ has a full breakdown of how the wealth accumulated during his presidency.

Trade & Economy Brew

US declines to renew USMCA — the Canada-Mexico trade deal is now subject to annual reviews

A deadline passed Wednesday with the US not opting for a standard longer-term renewal of USMCA. The treaty remains in effect for 10 years, but annual reviews mean major provisions are perpetually up for renegotiation — adding lasting uncertainty for businesses across auto, farming, retail, and energy.

The USMCA was signed during Trump’s first term. Choosing annual reviews over the 6-year renewal signals the administration wants ongoing leverage to renegotiate provisions rather than lock in the current framework. Industries from automakers to avocado farmers are watching closely.

The move compounds tariff-policy turbulence that has already disrupted supply chains. Annual review uncertainty means businesses can’t make multi-year capital investment decisions with confidence in the underlying trade rules.

AI Research Rundown

AI now matches human freelancers on 1 in 6 tasks — up 6x in under a year

The Center for AI Safety and Scale Labs released the Remote Labor Index, testing AI agents on 240 real freelance jobs — 3D jewelry design, animated ads, floor plans — graded against professional-quality output. Fable 5 led at 16.1% match rate vs. a 2.5% rate for GPT 5.2 just 8 months ago.

Opus 4.8 came in second at 8.3%, OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 third at 6.3%. The jump is significant, but 5 in 6 tasks still need a human in the loop for judgment and finish quality.

The more likely near-term impact: massive output increases for freelancers using the tech, not full displacement. The human stays in the loop for taste, client relationships, and the final 10% that separates professional from generic.

Consumer 1%

DOJ: America’s three largest egg producers ran a price-fixing operation from 2022–2025

The Justice Department alleged that Cal-Maine, Hickman’s, and Versova coordinated bids on the Egg Clearinghouse to push benchmark prices higher during peak grocery inflation. Because retail grocery contracts track the Urner Barry benchmark, shoppers felt it directly.

Executives allegedly flooded the marketplace with aggressive bids — some later canceled — to manipulate the benchmark. The companies denied wrongdoing but agreed to settle by donating 50M+ eggs to food banks and paying $3.3M to states. A judge must still approve.

The settlement follows a sharp drop in egg prices from 2023–2024 highs. The alleged cartel operated during the years when “egg prices” became a household political flashpoint and a centerpiece of inflation complaints across party lines.

Finance & Longevity

5 habits that actually add years to your life — plus an AI plan builder 1%

The short list: grip strength (predicts death better than blood pressure), VO2 max (most important longevity number), creatine (safest supplement there is), daily walking, and sauna. Free guide includes exact doses and a one-prompt AI workout builder.

Fed Chair Warsh refuses to signal July rate moves, says prices still “too high” Brew

New Fed chair Kevin Warsh declined to preview the July meeting. His message: the inflation fight isn’t over. Markets had priced in at least one cut before year-end.

SpaceX shows investors slim AI handset prototype ahead of mega IPO 1%

The device runs Musk’s xAI tech. The reveal comes as SpaceX navigates a high-profile IPO process while Musk manages Tesla, xAI, and his administration role simultaneously.

Sports & Culture

Couple arrested after scaling Empire State Building’s 1,454-foot antenna — one proposed, she said yes 1%

Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, both from NJ, unfurled a banner and got engaged near the spire. The pair starred in Netflix’s 2024 documentary “Skywalkers: A Love Story.” Charges pending — misdemeanor, up to a year in jail.

Love Island villain’s LA café offers free drinks to anyone named Jen — TikTok explodes Brew

Saba Surf, co-founded by Love Island USA contestant Gal Tshnieder (the season’s most-disliked cast member), leaned into the backlash. The “free drinks for Jens” TikTok got 2.7M+ views. A staff-reaction video got 11M+ views. All press is good press.

Melat Kiros, 29, unseats 68-year-old Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado Dem primary 1%

Kiros won 51% to 42% — one of the sharper generational upsets of the cycle. DeGette had held her seat since 1997. Full results.

Also Today

NASA doubles down on moon base, may reroute Mars rover “Promise” to lunar surface by 2028 1%

The agency is weighing redirecting its Mars-bound rover mission to accelerate a permanent lunar presence. The decision reflects tightening budgets and a push to build a sustainable foothold before any crewed Mars attempt.

Ex-CIA Director Brennan sues Trump admin, demands records to defend against “vindictive” prosecution Brew

Brennan filed suit requesting DOJ preserve records he says are necessary for his defense. Latest escalation between former national security officials and the current administration.

Elton John, 79, signs seven-figure hologram deal to perform in Vegas after death 1%

John, who retired from touring in 2023, is planning his posthumous residency. The deal follows a wave of holographic performer agreements across the music industry. Details.

Canada joins Eurovision 2027 Brew

In what may be the most Canadian response to continental trade tensions, Canada is entering the Eurovision Song Contest. They will, presumably, apologize to every other competitor and still finish top five.