Latest Matt Mullenweg wants his vanity top-level domain nameMorning links — October 9, 2026Evening links — October 8, 2026Evening links — October 7, 2026SRX moves forward with ETFs built around Eric Jackson’s AI model
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Matt Mullenweg wants his vanity top-level domain name

by LewDiscuss

Not content with his eponymous blog URL (ma.tt) or company (Automattic), Matt Mullenweg & co have now applied for ownership of the top-level domain extension .matt. TLDs are expensive, the application alone costs $227,000.

It’s well-known after last month’s failed boardroom coup that Matt controls Automattic through large ownership of the voting stock, so Matt (despite once describing himself as “post-economic”) is dragging minority shareholders along for the purchase of his vanity domain extension. Maybe it’s moves like these, which lead lead to his removal in the first place?

Filed underAutomatticMatt Mullenweg
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Morning links — October 9, 2026

by LizDiscuss

An Asos breach included shoppers’ search histories <The Guardian>
Asos says an intruder who impersonated a trusted contact reached a service provider’s data, exposing customer contact details and recent app searches—but not payment cards or passwords.

Lululemon’s new product boss arrives from struggling Athleta <Retail Dive>
CEO Heidi O’Neill recruited Athleta’s Maggie Gauger to fix Lululemon’s product pipeline as Americas comparable sales fell 12% in its latest quarter; analysts are divided on the choice.

Chick-fil-A’s boss is keeping humans at the drive-through <Restaurant Business>
CEO Andrew Cathy says he has no plans to replace order takers with AI, even as McDonald’s pursues more chicken-market share and the category outgrows burgers.

Filed underAndrew CathyAsosAthletaChick-fil-AHeidi O’NeillLululemonMaggie GaugerMcDonald’s
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Evening links — October 8, 2026

by LizDiscuss

Subway’s purchasing co-op faces a $200 million reckoning <Restaurant Business>
The co-op’s former chief is accused of routing about $80 million in kickbacks through brokers and shell companies; legal filings put the alleged scheme’s broader cost above $200 million, including higher prices for franchisees.

OpenAI’s fired researchers challenge its account <TechCrunch>
Three former researchers say their dismissal could chill safety work with outside evaluators; OpenAI says an investigation found a pattern of mishandling research information, not retaliation for raising concerns.

Goldman’s 20-person bonus pool could reach $500 million <The Guardian>
A stock-linked award devised in 2021 could pay CEO David Solomon about $100 million—more than twice his record 2025 pay package—if the final performance calculation holds.

Filed underDavid SolomonGoldman SachsIndependent Purchasing CooperativeOpenAISubway
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Links

Evening links — October 7, 2026

by LizDiscuss

McDonald’s pricing tool lands in an antitrust lawsuit <The Guardian>
A customer alleges the chain’s pricing tool coordinates supposedly independent franchisees; McDonald’s says stores set their own prices and the optional software does not fix them.

Bed Bath’s latest reinvention loses its finance chief <Retail Dive>
The CFO of the company now called Neighborhood Intelligence quit months after its Container Store deal, just as it announced $45.5 million in new financing and brought in an interim executive from its restructuring adviser.

Microsoft recruits Nvidia for its $2,600 MacBook rival <The Verge>
The Surface Laptop Ultra puts Nvidia’s first Arm-based PC chip inside a machine starting at $2,599.99—a bid to prove Windows laptops can compete at the expensive end of Apple’s market.

Filed underAppleBed Bath & BeyondMcDonald'sMicrosoftNeighborhood IntelligenceNvidiaThe Container Store
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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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