Latest SRX moves forward with ETFs built around Eric Jackson’s AI modelMorning links — October 7, 2026Evening links — October 6, 2026Morning links — October 6, 2026Evening links — October 5, 2026
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SRX moves forward with ETFs built around Eric Jackson’s AI model

by CranDiscuss
Illustration of Eric Jackson in blue behind a red banner reading ETFs?

There’s a new development in the Eric Jackson/SRX mystery we’ve been following.

This morning, SRX announced its long-anticipated plan for Jackson: a suite of ETFs funded by the company with $1.5 million.

1.5? That sounds paltry for an “family of actively managed Exchange Traded Funds.” SRX calls it initial capital, without spelling out how much buys fund holdings (or what they are) and how much pays launch expenses. Jackson will manage the ETFs and presumably market them to other investors (though he hasn’t yet posted on X about it despite making several posts since the announcement).

The new name in this chapter is Andy Kim, whose Kupa AI will handle launch logistics. Kupa’s founder and chief product officer previously managed hedge funds at Millennium and Paloma, according to his company biography. 

Kupa is an AI holding company whose businesses include the Unlok investing app, financial infrastructure and AI-generated learning. SRX describes Unlok’s offerings as spanning stocks, bonds, and prediction markets.

First up, in early 2027: a digital-asset ETF using the EMJX model to adjust market exposure and hedge crypto risks. 

For SRX shareholders, there’s another promise to follow: the company intends to distribute its ETF holdings to them, but details on this are scant…

Filed underAndy KimEMJXEric JacksonKupa AISRX GlobalUnlok
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Links

Morning links — October 7, 2026

by LizDiscuss

A restaurant bankruptcy reveals the cost of emergency cash <Restaurant Business>
About a quarter of True Food Kitchen’s $42 million-plus debt came from alternative advances, including arrangements repaid through delivery orders and discounted meals.

Google’s nuclear power deal has a much larger, less nuclear companion <The Verge>
Google’s deal with Constellation promises 890 megawatts of added nuclear capacity; a separate agreement for 2,700 megawatts of existing power is not limited to nuclear plants.

Uber pays $2.3 billion for a seat at the office lunch table <TechCrunch>
Uber is buying ezCater to reach workplace meal budgets; the platform had $2.5 billion in gross bookings—not revenue—over the past year, according to Uber.

Filed underConstellationezCaterGoogleTrue Food KitchenUber
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Links

Evening links — October 6, 2026

by LizDiscuss

A Lego claim exposes a bigger insurance-fraud bill <The Guardian>
A fake theft claim for collectible Lego helped expose one fraudster; insurers say they detected £1.34 billion in bogus UK claims last year, up 14% even as the number of cases fell.

Lambda’s $50 billion backlog has a $35 billion catch <TechCrunch>
Lambda is seeking up to $4 billion before a planned IPO, TechCrunch reports citing the Wall Street Journal; $35 billion of its $50 billion order backlog comes from Anthropic, leaving its debt-funded expansion heavily exposed to one customer.

Mattel gets another invitation to sell itself <Retail Dive>
A second major investor wants Mattel to consider a sale or breakup; quarterly sales rose 10%, but the Barbie maker swung to an $18 million loss, and the activist says progress has stalled.

Hy-Vee puts its dollar-store experiment back in the box <Grocery Dive>
Hy-Vee is rebranding its remaining Dollar Fresh stores after finding that its 96-year-old supermarket name resonates better than the discount spin-off.

Filed underAnthropicDollar Fresh MarketHy-VeeLambdaLegoMattel
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Links

Morning links — October 6, 2026

by LizDiscuss

Lindt’s $94,000 ticket to a chocolate suitcase <Business Insider>
A voting share costs about 78,000 Swiss francs; shareholders who vote at Lindt’s annual meeting get a blue briefcase of chocolate, an unusually edible status symbol.

ChatGPT’s image generator gets an ad break <TechCrunch>
OpenAI says labeled ads will appear alongside generated images for U.S. users later this month, giving its free and low-cost tiers another way to make money.

Museums license their way into hotel rooms <The Guardian>
London’s Natural History Museum has licensed a hotel suite with T. rex bunk beds starting at £724 a night, part of a wider push to turn collections into revenue as costs rise.

Filed underChatGPTLindtNatural History MuseumOpenAI
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Links

Evening links — October 5, 2026

by LizDiscuss

Crumbl’s cookie empire starts to crack <Restaurant Business>
Restaurant Business reports at least 57 store closures this year and August sales 70% below two years earlier, even as franchisees were pressed to spend $30,000–$50,000 on dirty-soda equipment that has not revived sales.

Has Publix lost its magic? <Grocery Dive>
The employee-owned grocer’s same-store sales fell 0.5% last quarter, versus 6% growth a year earlier; even a beloved sub sandwich is a tough defense against Walmart and Costco.

BT’s TalkTalk rescue comes with an unpaid bill <The Guardian>
BT’s rescue of the collapsed broadband provider is expected to cost £400 million, including £100 million in unpaid revenue owed to BT’s own Openreach network; the deal also brings 1.5 million customers and a competition review.

Filed underBTCostcoCrumblOpenreachPublixTalkTalkWalmart
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Links

Evening links — October 2, 2026

by LizDiscuss

Rick Santelli says goodbye after nearly 30 years at CNBC <Talking Biz News>
Bon voyage, Rick Santelli. CNBC will be much less entertaining without him.

Ikea to shutter 3 small-format plan and order stores <Retail Dive>
One Georgetown shop opened less than a year ago; closing it alongside two other plan-and-order locations complicates Ikea’s small-store experiment, launched amid a $2.2 billion U.S. expansion plan.

David Ellison has a new name for the combined Paramount and WBD <Business Insider>
The proposed $110 billion combination would take the name of Ellison’s original film studio, Skydance, while Paramount and Warner Bros. remain the legacy brands; the merger has not yet closed.

Filed underCNBCDavid EllisonIkeaParamountRick SantelliSkydanceWarner Bros. Discovery
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Links

Morning links — October 2, 2026

by LizDiscuss

California says Lyft will pay $272.5M to resolve driver-pay claims <California Labor Commissioner>
The state calls it its largest wage-and-hour settlement; 87% is slated to go directly to drivers over alleged 2016–20 violations, before Proposition 22 changed the rules.

Reddit is closing the free pipes to its data <TechCrunch>
RSS ends November 13 and public API access in March 2027; meanwhile, Reddit’s “other revenue” rose 24% to $43 million as licensing grows—leaving moderators, researchers and third-party tools to find another route in.

Bending Spoons’ acquisition machine lifted revenue to $1.31 billion <Euronews Next>
Most of the company’s revenue jump since 2023 came from acquisitions, while subscriptions supplied 84% of first-quarter sales; the roll-up still has to keep users through post-deal changes.

Filed underBending SpoonsLyftReddit
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Lawsuits

Mullenweg’s “full nuclear” message

by CranDiscuss

According to court documents publicly refiled September 30, Matt Mullenweg was talking about going “full nuclear with WPE,” with “partnerships/merger/M&A as an exit,” before the WordPress feud went public.

The August 15, 2024 Slack message was put to Mullenweg during his deposition. He said he didn’t recall it but could see it in the document; he wanted more context before explaining “full nuclear.”

Another refiled exhibit opens a window onto WordPress.org’s “Mission Control” dashboard. Automattic CTO Barry Abrahamson testified that it graphed active installations of rival WP Engine’s ACF Pro plugin “that WordPress.org knows about.” The data came through WordPress.org’s API; he said it was anonymized and aggregated before storage.

Matt Mullenweg (deposition testimony), U.S. District Court, Northern District of California / CourtListener
ECF 418-1: Mullenweg deposition excerpts, refiled September 30, 2026
Barry Abrahamson (deposition testimony), U.S. District Court, Northern District of California / CourtListener
ECF 419: Abrahamson deposition excerpts, refiled September 30, 2026
Filed underAutomatticMatt MullenwegWP Engine
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Boardroom intrigue

New SRX investment raises more questions on EJ

by LewDiscuss

A curious development in the Eric Jackson–SRX mystery is yesterday’s announcement that SRX has invested in a company called Onconetix, betting on its pending acquisition of Realbotix. The pitch? Robotic eyeballs with an AI vision system. Mmmmk.

No investment size or purchase price was disclosed, nor was any word of Eric Jackson’s involvement. Given his history as a high-profile investor, you’d think there would at least be a cursory mention of his endorsement. In fact, he didn’t even seem to re-circulate the news on either his X or LinkedIn pages.

Filed underEric JacksonOnconetixSRX Global
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