“It’s like walking off a cliff you can’t see, until suddenly you’re falling”… The Dow hit an all-time high, marking 13 straight years with at least one all-time high – beating the 12-year streak achieved from 1989-2000.
“Here comes the sun, it’s all right”… State Street’s Private Markets Survey shows 56% of institutional investors expect that within two years retail-style, semi-liquid vehicles will drive over half of private-market flows into private equity, real estate, credit, and infrastructure.
“People, people who love people”… The CEO of Microsoft AI warned that “seemingly conscious AI” systems that mimic memory, personality, and subjective experience could mislead users into believing they are alive, and urged companies to market AI as tools for people, not as people.
“A man’s wealth is measured by the things he collects”… Pop Mart, a Chinese toy company famed for its collectible blind-box figurines, has surged in prominence thanks to the craze over its mischievous elf-like character Labubu, catapulting CEO Wang Ning’s net worth to $24 billion – making him one of China’s wealthiest entrepreneurs.
“Crazy, but that’s how it goes, millions of people living as foes”… In the first half of 2025, approximately $2.5 billion was lost across 344 Web3 incidents, including wallet compromises, phishing/insider threats, protocol flaws, and web front-end vulnerabilities. Bybit ($1.5 billion) and Cetus ($220 million) made up a large portion of the losses.
“He sees his children jumping off at the stations one by one”… Elon Musk’s Boring Company has raised over $900 million but delivered little beyond a small Las Vegas Loop, far from its futuristic vision for pods in vacuum tubes reaching airplane speeds, with several projects abandoned amid cost, safety, and regulatory hurdles. [Are you paying attention to the lyric context???]
“Trends die. That’s the natural thing about a trend, reliance on them leads to oblivion”… Metaverse platform The Sandbox cut over half of roughly 250 staff, closed multiple overseas offices, and placed oversight with Animoca Brands CEO Yat Siu as part of a restructuring, after daily users fell to a few hundred and its SAND token declined about 90% from its peak.
“The difference between reality and hallucination is not in the impression itself but in the judgment we form of it”… The 2025 IPO market is on track to be the weakest in over a decade, as only a few price near the valuations purported by their VC owners, however the window may be gradually reopening – concentrated in defense, fintech, AI, and crypto, with profitability and strong revenues required.
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