Good morning.

It’s Friday, February 6. February is cold, slightly unhinged, but oddly optimistic. Like it knows it’s not January and expects applause for that alone. The chaos has softened. The goals are quieter. The vibes are warmer (emotionally, not weather-wise, relax). People are flirting with routines again, daylight is slowly crawling back, and suddenly everyone thinks this month is “romantic.” We support the delusion.

Grab your coffee, feel productive for no clear reason, and enjoy the small win of making it to Friday. Let’s get into it.

Today’s stories:

• AI embeds directly into scientific writing workflows

• Bitcoin’s crash exposes crypto’s fragile optimism

• U.S. ski resorts embrace European-style luxury

• Buyers panic, contracts collapse, leverage flips

• Snack prices fall after consumer backlash

• Tesla pivots from cars to humanoid robots

• Spotify enters physical book sales quietly

• Louis Vuitton goes full luxury watch flex

• Spain bans social media for under-16s

• Human breaks speed limits on skis

  and more…

U.S. stocks slid again Thursday as investors hit the brakes, unwinding crowded bets in tech and bitcoin. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.2%, while the S&P 500 fell 1.23% and slipped into the red for the year; the Nasdaq Composite led the selloff, down 1.59%. At the lows, it was uglier—nearly 700 Dow points gone, with tech taking the hardest hit.

Earnings didn’t help the mood. Alphabet rattled markets by signaling a massive AI spending ramp—up to $185 billion in 2026—sending its shares slightly lower. One investor’s anxiety was another’s opportunity: Broadcom popped nearly 1%, a reminder that even in risk-off mode, the AI trade is already picking its favorites.

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Digital Gold Is Melting

Bitcoin is still falling. The price dropped another 11% to around $67,000, the lowest level in 15 months. Since its peak in October, Bitcoin is down roughly 46%. Digital gold is having a very analog meltdown. After Donald Trump’s election in late 2024, crypto prices ran hot on hopes of a friendly White House. That optimism is now gone. So is a lot of money. Crypto companies are feeling it. Coinbase fell over 9%. Robinhood dropped more than 8%. Mining firm Riot sank 10%. Strategy, the company that mostly just buys Bitcoin for a living, fell 13%. It holds over 700,000 Bitcoin bought at prices above today’s levels. The math is not mathing. Trump-linked crypto projects are also sliding. American Bitcoin is down more than 80% since October. The World Liberty Financial token lost about half its value. The $TRUMP meme coin now trades under $4, far from its pre-inauguration highs.

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Homebuyers are hitting cancel. Homebuyers are ghosting deals like it’s a bad Hinge date. In December, over 40,000 signed home contracts were canceled. That’s 16.3% of all deals, the highest level since tracking began. People sign, panic, and walk away. Homes are expensive. Rates are rude. Sellers outnumber buyers by a lot. About 47% more sellers, actually. Buyers know they have options now, so they’re not settling. Sellers are stressed and calling agents in bulk. Cancellations were worst in Atlanta, Jacksonville, San Antonio, Cleveland, and Tampa. New York and the Bay Area are still holding on, because of course they are. Pending sales already dropped hard in December, so January and February closings are expected to be weak.

Louis Vuitton made a $4.72 million clock. Louis Vuitton just dropped a titanium clock that costs $4.72 million. Casual. Under Jean Arnault, LV is done pretending it’s just a fashion house that happens to sell watches. The brand is going full serious-watch-people mode, teaming up with niche, very respected independents. This time it’s De Bethune. The result is a limited set of 12 travel watches and one handcrafted clock that looks like it belongs in a Bond villain’s living room. It was unveiled in Tokyo, because of course it was. The deal works both ways. LV gets credibility with collectors who usually side-eye fashion brands. De Bethune gets LV-level money and zero production limits. Everyone wins. 

PepsiCo cuts prices. PepsiCo is cutting snack prices. Doritos, Cheetos, Lay’s, and friends are getting price cuts of up to 15%. The reason is simple. People complained. Loudly. Snacks got too expensive for something you inhale during commercials. Shoppers will see lower prices this week, perfectly timed for the Super Bowl. New labels will proudly announce the discounts, like this was always the plan. PepsiCo admits shoppers are stressed and name brands are losing to cheaper store knockoffs. Retailers still control final prices, so results may vary, but the message is clear. Snacks needed a reality check. The move also follows pressure from an activist investor who bought a $4 billion stake and asked the company to fix things. Translation: cut prices, sell more chips. Snack sales have been soft. Volumes are down. PepsiCo is hoping cheaper bags and trendier snacks, like protein Doritos and olive-oil chips, bring people back.

Elon Musk Is Over Cars

Tesla’s earnings call confirmed one thing. Elon Musk is bored of cars again. Tesla is planning to shut down Model S and Model X production and turn that factory space into an Optimus robot factory. The long-term goal is a million humanoid robots a year. Cars out. Robots in. Musk says Optimus is Tesla’s next big thing. Version three is coming this year. He claims it will learn by watching humans and even by watching videos. Very normal sentence. For now, the robot is doing basic tasks inside Tesla factories. Nothing serious yet. Mostly training, learning, and existing. Tesla also plans to spend $20 billion this year, including on the Optimus project. Tesla is still selling cars. Elon is already living in the robot future.

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AI moved into scientific writing. OpenAI just launched Prism, a free web workspace for scientific writing. Think LaTeX, but with GPT-5.2 living inside the document. No side chat. The model sees the whole paper, edits text, fixes equations, handles references, and cleans up messy math. It even turns whiteboard scribbles into LaTeX. Prism exists because research work is fragmented and annoying. It grew out of OpenAI’s Crixet acquisition and is clearly a workflow play, not AI doing science alone. Competitors are doing similar things in different ways. Google has NotebookLM. Microsoft is baking Copilot into Word. Everyone wants AI inside the work, not next to it. Enterprise access is coming soon. Controls and guardrails are still TBD.

Spotify is selling real books now. Spotify is raising prices again. But it brought a peace offering. Books. Physical ones. Spotify is expanding its audiobook business into actual printed books. Users in the U.S. and U.K. will soon be able to buy physical copies straight from the app. The former digital-only platform now wants space on your bookshelf. It’s also rolling out new audiobook features. “Page Match” lets users scan a page from a real book and jump to that exact spot in the audiobook. Audiobook Recaps are coming to Android, offering quick summaries so you don’t pretend you remember the last chapter. Spotify is now quietly competing with Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Bold move. To soften it, Spotify partnered with Bookshop.org, which supports local indie bookstores. Spotify gets an affiliate cut. Indie shops get sales. Everyone smiles. The feature rolls out this spring. You’ll see a button that says “Add to your bookshelf at home.” Clicking it sends you to Bookshop to actually buy the book.

The Fastest Man On Skis

Simon Billy goes downhill faster than most things should. Wrapped in a red suit and a helmet that blocks sound and vision, Billy’s only job is speed. No turns. No tricks. Just gravity and commitment. Speed skiers regularly hit over 120 mph. Billy went further. In 2023, on the slopes of Vars, he hit 255.5 km/h, or 158.7 mph. That’s faster than a human body falling through the air without help. On skis. He also broke a family record. His father held a previous world mark from 1997. Casual inheritance. Billy calls it freedom and pushing limits. Everyone else calls it unhinged bravery. Despite the speeds and spectacle, the sport won’t appear at the next Winter Olympics. Fastest man on skis. Zero medals. Maximum flex.

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Spain is kicking kids off social media. Spain is banning social media for kids under 16. The government says children are being dropped into a digital mess filled with addiction, abuse, porn, and algorithm-fueled chaos. Spain’s prime minister called it the digital Wild West and said the country is done pretending this is fine. Platforms will be forced to use strict age verification. Executives could face criminal charges if illegal or hateful content stays up. Algorithms that boost illegal content will also be treated as a crime. Hate, but make it punishable. The lawmaking process starts next week. Spain joins Australia, France, and Denmark, all tightening the rules. Britain is watching closely. Parents everywhere are quietly cheering.

American ski resorts finally got fancy. North American ski resorts finally decided to act rich. For years, Europe had the polish and the champagne energy. The U.S. had powder and vibes. That gap is closing fast. Five-star hotels, chefy restaurants, and fashion-brand everything are turning American ski towns into Courchevel with accents. Aspen started it. When the Little Nell opened, Aspen dropped the hippie thing and leaned hard into luxury. Now it’s designer stores, champagne après, and restaurants that know what truffles are. This winter, White Elephant arrives with Nantucket energy and a nightly price that confirms Aspen is not joking. Hotel Jerome also just got a glow-up. Think Old West, but expensive. There’s now an après tea situation involving caviar and champagne, because skiing apparently needs ceremony. Restaurants followed. Sant Ambroeus showed up with truffle pizza and DJ-backed cocktails. Chef Ludo Lefebvre opened Petit Trois for people who want French food between runs. Park City joined the luxury chat once Auberge arrived. The Lodge at Blue Sky sits on a massive nature preserve and is quietly flexing with cliffside spas, private ski lounges, and pop-up dinners with serious winemakers. Après now includes tequila yurts, because why not. Deer Valley Resort also benefits from the glow-up. The skiing was always elite. The hotels finally caught up. Big Sky is next. Huge terrain, aggressive runs, and a new ultra-fast gondola with heated seats. Luxury lodging and dining are finally arriving, even if getting there still requires commitment and patience. America’s ski scene is officially fancy now. The only thing still unreliable is the snow.

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