Friday's Fast Five: Week of 10.18
The Family That Went Against the Grain—and Built a Billion-Dollar Company (The Wall Street Journal): It was a side hustle. Now it’s a tortilla empire. Siete Foods did it in seven steps. In only 10 years, their products have gone from a single grocery store to just about every supermarket. These days, Siete’s collection of grain-free snacks includes tortillas, chips, taco shells, cookies, churro strips, beans, queso puffs, salsas and sauces. What started as a side hustle has become one of America’s most successful food startups.
Who died and left the US $7 billion? (Sherwood): Last year, observers with the economic equivalent of a radio telescope detected a radiating anomaly on the February 28, 2023, daily balance sheet of the US Treasury Department: a $7 billion estate- and gift-tax payment. John Ricco, now an analyst at Yale University’s Budget Lab, first spotted the huge receipt while trying to answer a somewhat macabre question: how did senior-citizen deaths from Covid affect government revenues? He was struck, though, by the appearance of that enormous deposit. “The degree by which this payment exceeds others in modern history — it’s not just, ‘Oh, this was the biggest one by 20%,’” Ricco said later. This was the biggest one by a factor of seven.
Restoring the Pillsbury Castle of Minneapolis Took Two Entrepreneurs and 30 Designers (Mansion Global): Matthew Trettel and Ryan Hanson took three steps inside the Alfred F. Pillsbury House and knew they had found their forever home. The couple had always been drawn to buildings with a story, and the Minneapolis mansion has a fabled past. The castle, designed by local architect Ernest Kennedy, dates to 1903. It was once the residence of Alfred F. Pillsbury, the son of Mahala Fisk and John S. Pillsbury, who co-founded the renowned flour milling company.
Machines of Loving Grace (Dario Amodei): I think and talk a lot about the risks of powerful AI. The company I’m the CEO of, Anthropic, does a lot of research on how to reduce these risks. Because of this, people sometimes draw the conclusion that I’m a pessimist or “doomer” who thinks AI will be mostly bad or dangerous. I don’t think that at all. In fact, one of my main reasons for focusing on risks is that they’re the only thing standing between us and what I see as a fundamentally positive future.
Uber has discussed a bid for travel booking company Expedia (CNBC): Uber discussed a bid for travel booking company Expedia, CNBC confirmed, in a deal that would push the ride-hailing company into new markets beyond car travel and food delivery. Expedia is familiar territory for Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who served as CEO of the travel group from 2005 to 2017. Khosrowshahi is still a nonexecutive member of Expedia’s board.