Lyft is letting go of its self-driving car unit, Level 5—reaching a deal with Toyota’s Woven Planet subsidiary for $200M, with an additional $350M in payments over the next 5 years. Lyft revealed that “unloading Level 5 would cut about $100 million in annual expenses, helping the company edge closer to profitability after the pandemic sliced into its revenue” - NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch and TechCrunch
Apple announced on Monday that “would increase its spending in the United States by 20 percent, or $80 billion, over the next five years,” including a more-than $1B investment in new office space in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch and Marketplace
Credit Suisse investors are looking to shake up the bank’s Board of Directors after the recent Archegos and Greensill mega-failures. Risk committee chair Andreas Gottschling appears to be a particular target of the ouster campaign - WSJ
Turns out Archegos is leaving a lasting mark on others as well (see Nomura and UBS in addition to the already-disclosed Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi) - WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
Big news in the podcasting realm (and especially here as a 99PI fanatic myself), with satellite radio powerhouse SiriusXM reaching a deal (for undisclosed terms) this week to acquire the architecture and design podcast “99% Invisible” for its Stitcher platform. The hit show will “remain available at no cost on all platforms supported by ads,” but there may be “exclusive partnerships for some products down the line” - NYTimes
To the extent the rise of cryptos is making even the most tech savvy of you feel like a Luddite, know, at minimum, that you’re in good company. Why, the excellent folks at the Federal Reserve are still doing what they can to sort out whether the public wants or needs a “new digital form of central bank money” - NYTimes
Amazon—which has some practice by now at challenging government contracts that didn’t go its way—is protesting the decision by NASA to award its $2.9 billion moon lander contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX rather than its Blue Origin program - NYTimes
Speaking of Elon, along with a head-scratching SNL hosting gig, the Tesla CEO was pleased to reveal record-breaking quarterly profit for the electric carmaker on Monday “driven by both its popular Model Y compact sport-utility vehicle and sustained demand in China” - WSJ and NYTimes and Bloomberg and MarketWatch and TechCrunch
With spring somehow unable to fully win out over the repeated last gasps of winter here in the North, I sure needed this taste of Sweden in bloom. Enjoy - NYTimes
Stay safe,
MDR
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