Friday's Fast Five: Week of 1.26

AI, and everything else (Benedict Evans): In the last few years, I've given presentations for companies including Alphabet, Amazon, AT&T, Axa, Bertelsmann, Deutsche Telekom, Hitachi, L’Oréal, LVMH, Nasdaq, Swiss Re, Warner Media, Verizon and Vodafone exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. For 2024, ‘AI, and everything else’.

The Moment That Boeing's Culture Started To Rot (Odd Lots - Podcast): On Jan. 5, the plug door of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 blew out mid-flight, forcing the plane into an emergency landings with a large hole in fuselage. And it was the latest in the persistent string of mechanical and engineering setbacks that have plagued Boeing over the last six years. So what's wrong with Boeing? It's a crucial question, since the company is arguably America's pre-eminent manufacturer and one of the only two dominant global players in commercial jets. We discuss the company's problems, its history and culture, and how it lost its focus on safety and engineering in favor of a focus on pleasing shareholders.

She Talked Like a Millionaire, Slept in a Parking Garage and Fooled Nearly Everybody (The Wall Street Journal): Jo Franklin’s family worried for years about her mental stability, but pushing any homeless person into care is tough—especially if they refuse help.

An Ancient Woolly Mammoth Left a Diary in Her Tusk (The New York Times): Scientists have written the biography of a 14,000-year-old female woolly mammoth by analyzing the chemicals in her tusk. Scientists are beginning to tell such ancient stories by looking at the layers of minerals that once accumulated each day on the outside of the tusks of mammoths and mastodons. As researchers study more tusks, they hope to settle some of the biggest questions about how the hulking mammals thrived for hundreds of thousands of years. They are also gathering clues to how mammoths and mastodons became extinct at the end of the Ice Age — perhaps with some help from humans.

How private credit became one of the hottest investments on Wall Street (CNBC - Video): Private credit has quickly become one of Wall Street’s most popular investment classes in 2023. Alternative data platform Preqin projects this asset class will reach $2.7 trillion by 2027. Watch the video to learn more about what private credit is, how it has changed debt markets and the risks involved.