Good morning. The moguls are fighting again. Peter Thiel chided Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Larry Fink (BlackRock CEO) in a speech at the Bitcoin 2022 conference yesterday, calling the trio the "finance gerontocracy" and dubbing Buffett specifically a "sociopathic grandpa from Omaha." But Buffett isn't deviating from his strategy. On Wednesday he took a $4.2 billion stake in HP, a company that makes printers, PCs, and other tech hardware. Its stock soared 15% to a record high. —Max Knoblauch, Jamie Wilde, Neal Freyman | | | |  | Nasdaq | 13,897.30 | | | | | S&P | 4,500.21 | | | | | Dow | 34,583.57 | | | | | 10-Year | 2.615% | | |  | Bitcoin | $43,291.66 | | | | | Costco | $608.05 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 9:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: Down for two days straight, the stock market curled up with comfort food from Costco, Walmart, and other consumer staples—and snapped its losing streak.
- Government: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will become the first Black woman to ever serve on the US Supreme Court, after being confirmed by the Senate in a 53–47 vote. She'll replace Justice Stephen Breyer, who is retiring this summer.
| | | | Justin Paget/Getty Images In order to get those Instant Pots where they need to be, faster, Walmart said that it will increase the average starting pay for in-house truck drivers from $87,000 to between $95,000 and $110,000. Feel free to open a new tab and Google, "How to become truck driver." The company also plans to expand a program that trains Walmart workers to become certified truck drivers through a 12-week course. Through the program, the company is aiming to train between 400 and 800 new drivers this year. At first glance, bumping trucker pay up to that of a junior banker (minus the bonus and NFT stipend) is an obvious solution to what some in the industry claim is a driver shortage. According to the American Trucking Association, an industry lobbyist organization, the US is short about 80,000 drivers. Some industry experts and individual drivers disagree with the ATA's assessment, though, claiming that the issues run deeper than just low pay. Drivers are taking the offramp …from mega carriers, at least. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of workers in the trucking industry is actually up 0.9% from two years ago. But the average number of employees at trucking companies has decreased from 10.6 in 2019 to 9.4 at the end of 2021, marking a pivot toward smaller carriers with less demanding schedules. - Drivers in fleets with $30+ million in annual revenue had a whopping 92% turnover rate at the end of 2020.
Part of that high turnover has to do with low pay (the most recent data puts the median annual pay for truck drivers in the US at $47,130), but grueling schedules and long, frequently unpaid wait times also weigh heavily on drivers. Zoom out: While companies like Walmart try to attract and retain truck drivers with higher pay rates in the short term, an existential threat looms for drivers. A University of Michigan study found that self-driving trucks could eliminate about 500,000 jobs in the coming years.—MK | | A Ukrainian military vehicle drives through a street in Borodianka, Ukraine. Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images.  Russia finds itself even more alone. The Senate voted to remove Russia's "most favored nation" trade status by a 100–0 vote, paving the way for higher tariffs on Russian goods. Congress also banned imports of Russian energy, the EU banned coal imports from Russia, and the UN suspended Russia from its Human Rights Council.
 Tesla held a "Cyber Rodeo." With Texas-style flair, the automaker opened its new manufacturing facility near Austin less than one month after it opened a similar hub in Germany. The Texas factory will eventually make the much-hyped Cybertruck electric pickup…but that monstrosity won't enter production until 2023 at the earliest.
 Activision Blizzard is bumping up 1,100 temp workers up to full time. The gaming company is converting its game testers (who occupy an entry-level gig) to full-time employees with benefits and increasing their pay to $20+/hour. The move was likely the result of employee outrage over job cuts announced in December at Activision-owned Raven Software, which is known for its work on Call of Duty.
| | Alex Kokcharov on Twitter | Russians are using their phones very differently than they did before the war. With 504 news sites, 140 financial sites, and three social media sites blocked by the Russian government since the invasion of Ukraine began Feb. 24, Russians are resorting to virtual private networks (VPNs) to disguise their location and connect to the public internet. | | OpenAI What you're looking at is the handiwork of DALL-E, an image generator named for the surrealist artist + the Disney robot. It was created by OpenAI—a lab founded by Elon Musk and backed by Microsoft—and was unveiled to the public on Wednesday. The bot's backstory: The new-and-improved program (its predecessor produced cartoony images) can craft high-res pics from text queries such as "cats playing chess" or "an astronaut riding a horse." DALL-E turns words into visuals by combing through millions of images and their text captions to learn what's in each photo—and then recreates and combines those elements to the limits of the human imagination. There are other limits, too: DALL-E's art is strictly Bob Ross-approved. Obscenities, nudity, conspiracy theories, and actual likenesses aren't allowed, which could help allay fears that DALL-E will be used to spread misinformation—à la "deepfake" tech. For now, the tool is only available to a small batch of testers, and there's a waitlist others can sign up for. OpenAI thinks DALL-E could eventually be a useful tool for graphic artists and programmers.—JW | | Getty Images Stat: Goldfish are American teens' most preferred snack, with 11% listing them as their favorite in the latest Piper Sandler survey. Not only are they teens' fave snack, but 72% of respondents who listed Goldfish as their top choice said they plan to eat at least the same amount or more in the next six months. Conversely, that means 28% plan to cut back on their Goldfish consumption. Quote: "If you do choose to stay on, we encourage you to meaningfully reduce how much time you're spending on the platform, tweeting or scrolling, in relation to other parts of your job." New York Times top editor Dean Baquet urged the paper's journalists to tweet less in a "reset" to its Twitter policies. Journalists "can rely too much on Twitter as a reporting and feedback tool," Baquet said. Read: A must-read on the atrocities in Bucha. (The New Yorker) | | The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to the smell of spring rain on a sidewalk. It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz. | | - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Susan Collins tested positive for Covid-19, part of a wave of infections among DC lawmakers right now.
- Two other NFL coaches joined Brian Flores's racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL.
- Two people were killed in Tel Aviv by at least one gunman in what appears to be the fourth terrorist attack in Israel in less than three weeks.
- Meta is reportedly considering releasing virtual currency for the metaverse, which employees call "Zuck Bucks."
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