Tim Cook returned $1 trillion to shareholders. John Ternus is being given permission to keep it.
Tim Cook returned $1 trillion to shareholders. John Ternus is being given permission to keep it.

  For nearly 15 years, Apple’s financial strategy has been defined by a single number: more than $1 trillion returned to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends. Tim Cook inherited a company sitting on a cash mountain that Steve Jobs had accu…

The factory that built your iPhone is now building the robot that will assemble the next one
The factory that built your iPhone is now building the robot that will assemble the next one

In April, a humanoid robot called the Honor D1 completed the Beijing half-marathon in 48 minutes and 19 seconds under remote control and 50 minutes and 26 seconds in fully autonomous mode, beating every other robot in the 112-team field. The machine th…

Foreign automakers are not staging a comeback in China. They are learning to be the junior partner.
Foreign automakers are not staging a comeback in China. They are learning to be the junior partner.

In January and February 2026, Volkswagen reclaimed the top position in China’s passenger vehicle market with a 13.9 per cent share, narrowly ahead of Geely at 13.8 per cent. Toyota’s joint ventures held 7.8 per cent. BYD, which dominated 2024 and much …

Nvidia built the AI engine. Alphabet is building the car, the road, and the toll booth. The market is pricing accordingly.
Nvidia built the AI engine. Alphabet is building the car, the road, and the toll booth. The market is pricing accordingly.

On Thursday, Alphabet’s share price rose nearly 10 per cent after the company reported first-quarter revenue of $109.9 billion, a 22 per cent increase year over year that beat analyst estimates by almost $3 billion. Google Cloud crossed $20 billion in …

China has decided that firing a worker because an AI can do their job is illegal. No Western country has done the same.
China has decided that firing a worker because an AI can do their job is illegal. No Western country has done the same.

A quality assurance supervisor identified only as Zhou joined a technology company in Hangzhou in November 2022. His job was to work with AI large language models, optimising their outputs and filtering sensitive content. He earned 25,000 yuan per mont…

Y Combinator built its empire on software. Its latest investment thesis says the garage is no longer enough.
Y Combinator built its empire on software. Its latest investment thesis says the garage is no longer enough.

Y Combinator published its Summer 2026 Request for Startups in late April, just days before the application deadline. The document lists 15 categories of companies that YC’s partners want to fund. Eight of them require capital, hardware, or both. The l…

Seven minutes from JFK to Midtown. Joby just flew the route it plans to sell.
Seven minutes from JFK to Midtown. Joby just flew the route it plans to sell.

The flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport to the East 34th Street Heliport in Midtown Manhattan took seven minutes. By car, depending on the time of day, the same journey takes between 60 and 120 minutes. On Friday, Joby Aviation landed its…

The company that built TikTok’s algorithm is now designing drugs for diseases pharma called undruggable
The company that built TikTok’s algorithm is now designing drugs for diseases pharma called undruggable

The company that built TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, the system that predicts with unsettling accuracy what a person wants to watch next, is now using a related class of AI to predict how molecules will behave inside a human body. ByteDance’s drug…

Musk’s case against OpenAI lands roughly in its first week
Musk’s case against OpenAI lands roughly in its first week

Three days of cross-examination in Oakland produced a $130bn lawsuit’s most awkward admissions, including that xAI trains on OpenAI’s models. The judge, not the jury, will decide. Elon Musk took the stand in Oakland on Tuesday with a story he has been …

Wall Street says Oracle is a buy. The investors selling it can count to $300 billion.
Wall Street says Oracle is a buy. The investors selling it can count to $300 billion.

Oracle’s stock has fallen nearly 50 per cent since hitting a record in September and dropped 14 per cent in the six sessions through Thursday, its worst stretch in months. Of the 51 Wall Street analysts tracked by Bloomberg who follow the company, 41 h…