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

19:22 - Aidoc banks $150M backed by Goldman Sachs to scale clinical AI foundation model Fierce Healthcare

Story 5:  FDA Looking to RWD 

24:30 - FDA Turns to AI to Speed Up Clinical Trials WSJ

Story 6:  Surgeon General 

26:23 - Trump Withdraws Nomination of Casey Means for Surgeon General NYT

Story 7:  Payors

29:54 - Cigna to exit ACA market, pursue strategic alternatives for eviCore unit Fierce Healthcare

31:01 - Centene swings to $1.5B profit as Medicaid business improves even as ACA membership falls by 2 million Fierce Healthcare

34:24 - Humana teams with Mark Cuban's Cost-Plus Drug Company Healthcare Finance

Story 8:  UHS

36:13 - Universal Health Services' Q1 2026 earnings growth dampened by volume hits Fierce Healthcare

Story 9:  Pharma

37:36 - Eli Lilly to Buy Ajax Therapeutics for Up to $2.3 Billion WSJ

39:06 - Sun Pharma to Buy U.S. Healthcare Firm Organon in $11.75 Billion Deal WSJ

40:47 - There’s a Revolution in Cancer. But Can Big Pharma Afford It? WSJ

Story 10:  

43:20 - We’re All Talking to Each Other Less Than We Did a Decade Ago WSJ

Story 11:  Robinhood

50:00 - Robinhood Profit Rises on Boost From Prediction Markets, Gold Subscriptions WSJ

Story 12:  Aave

51:48 - Crypto Rushes to Bail Out Decentralized Lender Targeted by Hackers WSJ

Story 13:  AI Diagnosing Patients

56:23 - In real-world test, an AI model did better than ER doctors at diagnosing patients NPR

N/A - Performance of a large language model on the reasoning tasks of a physician Science

Story 14:  OpenAI

58: 11 -OpenAI Misses Key Revenue, User Targets in High-Stakes Sprint Toward IPO WSJ

1:00:20 - OpenAI Sued by Seven Families Over Mass Shooting Suspect’s ChatGPT Use WSJ

1:01:35 - Elon Musk Testifies He Was a ‘Fool’ to Fund OpenAI WSJ

Story 15:  China

1:02:41 - China Bans Meta’s Acquisition of Manus on National Security Grounds WSJ

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