The Brutalist Report

Fortune

• Anthropic is launching a ‘presidential engagement’ effort to advise candidates on AI policy ahead of the 2028 election [15d]
• ‘We are so excited to be back’: SpaceX’s recovery ship brought back four astronauts to Earth after an eight-month mission [15d]
• A FEMA administrator created the Waffle House Index after looking for a place to eat during hurricane clean up and only Waffle House was open [15d]
• Trump presents national medal to Microsoft CEO after suspending its H-1B visas and alleging ‘foreign indentured servants’ replaced domestic workers [15d]
• NFL urges Supreme Court to back state gambling rules—breaking with other leagues on prediction markets [15d]
• Trump admin suspends green cards to Microsoft as Vance accuses the company of replacing laid-off workers with ‘foreign indentured servants’ [15d]
• FBI says it seized phishing tools used by Chinese hackers in ‘indiscriminate and reckless’ cyber operation [15d]
• ‘We don’t feel good’: PepsiCo plans price hike on Doritos, Ruffles, SunChips and sodas after offsetting costs with $178 million tariff refund [15d]
• Mark Cuban on why AI is the wrong job-killer target: it’s the healthcare costs, stupid [15d]
• The Facebook whistleblower behind ‘The Social Reckoning’ says Zuckerberg is ‘playing with fire’ on AI [15d]
• Jev, an AI for making quick decisions, has been a viral hit in Silicon Valley. But OpenAI is hot on its heels [15d]
• ‘Everybody knows you’re out of touch’: Palantir CEO Alex Karp says his own exec told him to stop hyping Foundry [15d]
• ‘Lipstick on a pig’: Trump’s red-dyed diesel plan is more midterms appeal than gas price solution, experts say—and even truckers are calling his bluff [15d]
• Martha Stewart says Kmart once paid her $65 million a year in royalties—enough to bankroll her entire empire [15d]
• Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro faces new U.S. torture charges after 9 months in a New York jail [15d]
• ‘Things are better now’: Foreign workers who said they were exploited while building U.S. consulate in Milan settle for record $35 million [15d]
• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says he wishes he were 26 again because the opportunities post-ChatGPT ‘are so much more powerful’ [15d]
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says if you want to be successful, prepare to suffer: ‘If it’s a walk in the park, anybody could do it’ [15d]
• Gen Z is questioning college altogether. Meanwhile, older generations are coming back to finish it [15d]
• USS Abraham Lincoln returns to San Diego after 265 straight days at sea, food shortages and reports of deteriorating morale [15d]
• ‘A matter of life and death for me’: Millions of Americans who rely on cheap drugs from Canada could see prices soar due to new federal rule [15d]
• France and Germany float ‘trade bazooka’ against China as the EU sends envoy to Beijing [15d]
• 64% of Americans say AI is developing too fast—and 8 in 10 want the government to keep it under human control [15d]
• Jim Farley is right about Gen Z and blue-collar work. We see firsthand how the industry is failing them [15d]
• Amazon launches premium Alexa tablets to take on Apple and Samsung [15d]
• AWS pricing team turns 18-tab Excel model into an AI chatbot to evaluate customer deals, CFO says [15d]
• Europeans are drinking less beer. Heineken’s Europe boss has a plan to avoid a brewing hangover [15d]
• Your next manager may have three employees and 19 agents. Who’s accountable? [15d]
• Sequoia-backed Catalyst raises $30 million to build AI trading agents for everyday investors [15d]
• IBM cyber response chief: After 26 years in incident response, I’m more concerned about burnout than AI [15d]
• Current price of oil as of October 8, 2026 [15d]
• As Trump eyes a new round of major combat operations in Iran, rising oil prices and European bond contagion risk spark global stock selloff [15d]
• Whole Foods CEO says grocery will turn Amazon from the ‘everything store’ into the ‘everyday store’ [15d]
• Want to fix the broken university model in the age of AI? Look to tradition [15d]
• Trump keeps changing who gets his $5,000 dividend, and only 21% of voters believe he’ll actually pay it [15d]
• The ultrawealthy are buying nearby homes to keep staff close—and Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg are two examples [15d]
• Meta VP: AI in advertising and the rise of single-person billion-dollar company [15d]
• Move over DINKs: SPLITs are the new financial power couple—they have two incomes, no kids yet and no joint bank account [15d]
• Financial insiders are buying their own stock at the slowest pace in nearly 23 years—a ‘negative data point’ just as bank earnings kick off [15d]
• ‘Where you come from shouldn’t dictate where you finish’: How Standard Chartered is taking on the banking industry’s class problem [15d]
• Nvidia’s secret to retaining staff? No org charts, a flat structure, and two extra days off every quarter [15d]
• How Siemens Healthineers is helping its international staff feel at home [15d]
• How Marriott’s leadership pipeline is helping it navigate Europe’s hospitality talent shortfall [15d]
• Hilton is betting on people in an industry that can’t afford to lose them [15d]
• Gen Z is spending more on art than ever before. It’s a key piece of the Great Wealth Transfer, UBS says [15d]
• Wealthy Gen Zers’ quiet love of art collecting, revealed: They’re outspending boomers and millennials—but keeping their collections off Instagram [15d]