Could Larry Ellison Burst The AI Bubble All By Himself? This is the full-length NYTimes piece. It’s really good. For those who prefer a summary, this will do quite nicely:
Last September, Larry Ellison briefly became the richest person in the world, after steering Oracle, the data and software storage company he founded, into the new world of A.I. But Ellison’s big bet on A.I. was built on an astronomical amount of debt — with implications far beyond the company.
How did Ellison, at 81, go from being the star of the first formal news conference of the second Trump administration — where the president announced “the largest A.I. infrastructure project by far in history” and said his friend Larry Ellison was just the man to get it done — to the richest person in the world to the most vulnerable player in the increasingly volatile A.I. game?
We reported from Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Hawaii and New York; interviewed dozens of people close to Ellison and Oracle, as well as financial analysts and former national security officials; and reviewed financial filings, analyst reports and court records. Our investigation shows how Ellison, basking in a quieter existence on his own private Hawaiian island just a few years ago, was so startled by the arrival of ChatGPT in 2022 that he took back control of Oracle, courted the Trump administration (which eased restrictions and ignored laws barring his way) and took on increasingly ominous loads of debt — to bet everything on A.I.
Oracle agreed to take on much of the financial burden of building out the data centers that OpenAI would use. In the last few months of 2025, the company borrowed billions of dollars to finance the continuing construction. At the start of 2026, Oracle had more debt than all of its far larger competitors.
Oracle’s annual report in June acknowledged that it could not guarantee that it would be able to manage its outstanding debt. Oracle has pushed the limits of the credit market, facing steeper interest rates from lenders; its credit rating has been downgraded to a notch above “junk” status.
By late July, Oracle’s stock was down 60 percent from its peak last year. Ellison’s own fortune is largely bound up in Oracle’s cratering stock.
The A.I. boom has been driving the entire U.S. economy. Since the release of ChatGPT, A.I.-related stocks have been responsible for as much as 75 percent of the returns of the S&P 500, and data centers now account for a vast majority of America’s G.D.P. growth.
Oracle and the other hyperscalers also now dominate the debt and equity markets, and investors and analysts are increasingly asking whether the huge investments being made in A.I. are sustainable and will ever return the promised profits.
Americans are more heavily invested in the stock market than ever before. By one estimate, an A.I. crash could wipe out $20 trillion in American wealth — far more than the dot-com crash in 2000 or even the 2008 financial crisis.
Al (not A I) would likely call this doomscrolling. Raising the question: What if you’re rooting for doom?
An Unexpected ‘Baby Boom’ From GLP-1’s? As best as I can parse it, GLP-1’s impact how, and when, other drugs are absorbed. Meaning (I think) that birth control medicine might inadvertently be impacted at unexpected times. But I’m no scientist, and some of you are. So, enlighten me:
A statin for your cholesterol. A vitamin D tablet to avoid deficiency. An antidepressant to manage your mood. A contraceptive to ward off unwanted pregnancy, or hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) to get you through the menopause.
We rely on our pills to keep us going, happy, alive. But emerging science has hinted at potential sabotage.
Early evidence suggests GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs – like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro – might weaken the efficacy of certain medications.
(If something seems too good to be true, it’s too good to be true. I just made that up.)
Right now, scientists aren’t sure exactly how. In the words of Korean scientists in 2025, these drug-to-drug interactions “remain poorly understood and require further investigation” to ensure GLP-1s can be used safely. It’s a scientific cliché: more research needed.
But, while we wait for conclusive evidence, the potential risk remains for people who rely on their pills – and who are considering GLP-1 treatments.
So, for now, this is what we do know.
Although there’s much that scientists aren’t sure about, they do know that weight-loss drugs can meddle with medication in the same way they affect your food.
Medicines like Wegovy have been designed to mimic a hormone that your body produces naturally, called GLP-1, which makes you feel full. Extra GLP-1 makes you feel fuller, so you eat less, and lose weight.
But GLP-1 does more than just encourage you to put down your fork. It also controls the speed at which your dinner travels from your plate to your toilet.
Take it from Prof Giles Yeo, a scientist who specialises in appetite hormones and metabolism at the University of Cambridge.
“The role of these gut hormones is to regulate the flow of food between here,” he says, pointing to his mouth, “and here,” turning his hand downwards. “That can be, for example, the speed at which food is released from the stomach.”
That’s true not just for the spaghetti you had for dinner, but for any medication you swallow. GLP-1s slow down their journey from your mouth to your bloodstream.
That matters if your medicine needs to be taken at a precise time to be maximally effective – for instance, drugs that interact with hormone cycles, such as contraception or HRT. In this scenario, your pill is like an ambulance in a hurry to reach its patient – and GLP-1s hold it up in a digestive traffic jam.
In a similar way, GLP-1s might not just delay your medicine from reaching your bloodstream, they may also weaken its impact when it first arrives.
Indeed, a 2024 paper found that GLP-1 treatment affected both the timing and peak concentration of a range of medications in the blood – including blood thinners (specifically warfarin), statins and certain contraceptive pills.
I’m here to edjicate.
RIP–Vicki Wickham. You don’t know her, but you should know her. Especially if you’re a fan of Dusty Springfield and/or Labelle:
Vicki Wickham, a behind-the-scenes force in popular music who helped oversee the influential British television showcase “Ready Steady Go!” and managed artists including the vocal trio Labelle and the singer Dusty Springfield, died on Friday in the Bronx. She was 87.
Admittedly naïve about music — she confessed to being late to the Beatles craze — she first made her mark when a friend introduced her to a television executive in 1962. He was about to create a youth-oriented showcase for pop music, and she jumped at an offer to help produce, write scripts and book guests.
The show, “Ready Steady Go!,” began airing in 1963, and Ms. Wickham was a vital part of the operation during its three-year run. She was instrumental in booking the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and Cilla Black, and in making the program a crucial forum for introducing British audiences to Black American pop singers and musicians like Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding.
Ms. Springfield, who performed on the show’s first episode and became a recurring musical guest and presenter, forged a close friendship with Ms. Wickham and introduced her to songs by Black American artists that weren’t yet played on British radio.
Their shared passion for the music led to Ms. Springfield’s hosting a special Motown-themed episode in 1965. The performers included the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and “Little” Stevie Wonder.
She moved to New York in 1970 and, with a colleague, Nancy Lewis, helped establish and run the American office of the London-based Track Records. She also signed on to manage Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles, who had been musical guests on “Ready Steady Go!”
Ms. Wickham soon persuaded the group — Ms. LaBelle along with Sarah Dash and Nona Hendryx — to ditch the identical gowns, gloves and wigs that had hemmed them in as a “girl group.” She also suggested a new name for them — simply Labelle — to reflect a change in sound and direction.
In 1971, the trio spent six months in London immersing themselves in funk, glam and rock before reintroducing themselves on their debut album, “Labelle,” which was produced by Ms. Wickham and Kit Lambert, a founder of Track Records and a manager of the Who.
The group’s 1974 single “Lady Marmalade,” written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan, went to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Labelle performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and, in 1975, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone; both achievements were firsts for a Black female musical group.
After Labelle broke up in 1976, Ms. Wickham managed the adventurous solo career of Ms. Hendryx, as well as other artists, including the Canadian new wave band Rough Trade, whose 1981 song “High School Confidential” became Canada’s first explicitly lesbian-themed hit.
Ms. Wickham also helped engineer the comeback of Ms. Springfield, who had spent years in and out of rehab for drug addictions. She facilitated a collaboration between Ms. Springfield and the English duo the Pet Shop Boys on the hit song “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” in 1987 and on her album “Reputation” in 1990.
Let’s all dance out to one of the greatest singles of ALL-TIME:
