Hey Snackers,
The American consumer is exhausted and enraged by rising prices, and ready, according to consumer data, to spend a $1 billion on packaged food that’s labeled “seed-oil free.”
Seed oils are, of course, the fashionable, if scientifically dubious, boogeyman. Data doesn’t back up claims of various health harms caused by seed oils but the Americans aren’t letting that get in the way: seed-oil-free products saw a 72% gain compared to a year earlier, and sales of seed-oil-free salty snacks climbed 87%, compared to just 2.9% for products without the label, Bloomberg News reported based on NIQ data. Big food companies like PepsiCo and ConAgra are making the switch by relying on olive and avocado oil.
Markets bounced back Monday, rising after last week’s AI-trade induced wipeout, despite news over the weekend about Jensen Huang’s relationship with a suspected Chinese spy (more on that story below.)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang admits to affair with suspected Chinese spy
“We’ve spent all this time worrying about AI cybersecurity risks when our true vulnerabilities come from human frailty,” was how Entrypoint’s Luke Kawa summed it up.
On Sunday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang released a statement admitting to an extra-marital affair with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. Huang’s statement comes after the New York Times first reported on the CEO’s “close” relationship with Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le. American officials, the NYT reported, had concluded that she was a Chinese intelligence asset and involved in helping China evade constraints limiting its ability to import high-powered AI chips.
Nvidia’s board of directors has opened an investigation into Huang’s conduct but has said it does not believe US national security or its own intellectual property have been compromised.Â
The specifics don’t look good: Alice Huang is the CEO of Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company that has been an absolutely massive buyer of Nvidia chips. She is believed by US intelligence officials to have been recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), the Financial Times reported. The MSS fulfills a role similar to a combination of the CIA, FBI, and NSA.Â
The US Commerce Department had been investigating Megaspeed over suspicions that it was buying Nvidia AI chips in order to smuggle them into China before the probe was suddenly called off and transferred to the Justice Department late last year, the New York Times reported Monday. That switch came after Nvidia’s general counsel emailed Commerce Department investigators seeking information about the inquiry.Â
The TakeawayÂ
Other tech stocks surged on Monday – the PHLX Semiconductor index gained almost 7% despite Nvdia falling about 4.5% on the day.
As Kawa pointed out in yesterday’s Entrypoint newsletter, the market has for months now been a bit skeptical about the medium-term outlook for Nvdia’s profits. If you assume the chip giant’s quarter-on-quarter earnings-per-share growth dips to less than half its current average and investors give the stock a valuation in its recent lowest quartile, Kawa ballparks that Nvidia would be worth… about what it is today. Score one for the strong-form efficient markets hypothesis, I guess.Â
At the same time, it’s hard exactly to know how Jensen Huang will respond to being put under a very new kind of public spotlight, and whether investors will have confidence in anyone but him to deliver the kind of returns he has overseen.
— Ben Walsh
That’s how many French supermarket refrigerators were hacked in October, causing tens of millions of euros worth of food to spoil and at least 20 fires to break out as temperatures were remotely set to as high as 175 F. French authorities on Monday blamed Iran for the cyberattack, which was repeated across several European countries.Â
What else we’re Snackin’
Elizabeth Warren set to take over the Senate banking committee. Here’s what she plans to do.
An internal Disney presentation reveals its top streaming priorities, from creator content to a free tier.
YouTube streaming data returns to Billboard charts, ending major disagreement
The new corporate status symbol is how much AI access you have.
There’s an emerging subculture – called “spirited lads” and “spirited girls” – in China of relatively poor young people who feel they have been left behind by the country’s economy, Bloomberg News reports.Â
Tuesday
D-Wave Quantum results due out premarket.
October CPI inflation report due out at 8:30 a.m. ET.
CoreWeave and Rigetti results scheduled for release in the postmarket.