👀 Fewer juniors

SCOREBOARD

Friday close. S&P down 1.1%, with every AI giant on the board lower and Oracle down 4.6%. On the week: Nvidia −6.6%, S&P −2.0%, Nasdaq −4.5%, its worst week since June. Prices via CNBC.

ON WATCH

Anthropic published a study of its own workforce on Friday. Since early 2025, the share of its technical hires who are junior has fallen from 27% to 9%.

About a third of its machine-learning managers said they're hiring less because of AI. By August, the AI agents its staff direct were working six times as many hours as the staff themselves.

Read across the economy, the report says, AI "could risk worker displacement". Protecting people already in jobs "will not benefit those not hired to begin with."

On Sunday, Anthropic said it will put 5% of its shares into a new Public Benefit Fund, if shareholders agree. The board can add 2% more for every 50% rise in the company's value.

"AI may generate enormous economic value, but it could also cause instability for many workers," the announcement says. The fund could pay for direct distributions to specific groups of people.

Elon Musk replied on X that he'd recommend "giving the shares directly to the public." An IPO adviser told CNBC the timing also polishes Anthropic's image before its listing.

Then again, Anthropic has tripled in size in the past year, so a smaller junior share can still mean more juniors hired. The report gives percentages, not head counts.

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THE MACHINE

Microsoft has pulled out of a deal to be the main tenant at Nscale's first British data centre, in Loughton, Essex, the Telegraph reported on Sunday. Nscale has been told not to expect a grid connection there until the 2030s.

Nscale rents out AI computing power and wants to raise up to $3 billion in a New York listing as soon as this month. Its IPO filing says Microsoft and Anthropic account for about 85% of its contracts.

Let Meerkat translate. Buyers want a discount before they sign, and Bloomberg reports some are pushing for a valuation of $16 billion to $19 billion, against the roughly $30 billion Nscale is aiming for.

Other AI landlords had a rough week too. CoreWeave, the biggest of them, fell 25% last week, its worst week since November.

Nscale calls Loughton "a London-wide grid issue" with "no impact on our other contracts", and says its Microsoft relationship "remains strong". In its defence, Anthropic agreed in August to spend $45 billion on Nscale's computing over six years.

SOMEONE SMART SAID

Warsh was talking about AI at the IMF meetings in Bangkok on Friday. He called the AI spending boom a "shock" the Fed has to take seriously.

Say it back simply. The money pouring into chips and data centres pushes up prices now, and the extra goods and services it should produce turn up later.

He's still an optimist, saying AI will make economies richer, but the road there is likely to be "a very bumpy one." He gave no hint about this month's meeting, and traders put the odds of no change on 28 October at about 72%, CME FedWatch data cited by CNBC show.

THE CHART

The richest 1% of American households held 32.5% of the country's wealth this spring, the highest share in Federal Reserve records going back to 1989. At the top of the dot-com boom in 2000, it was about 28%.

The same Fed data show the top 1% hold about half of all shares and mutual funds (50.9%). When AI stocks soar, most of the gain lands with them.

The other side of it is that stock ownership reaches well beyond the rich. Gallup found 62% of US adults owned shares in 2025, many of them through workplace retirement plans, so a rising market lifts more than the top.

HEADS UP

ON THE HORIZON

MEERKAT ON YOUTUBE

The AI Bubble Is About To Break The Market! Meerkat asks what the AI bubble leaves behind when it pops. Last time it was cheap fibre that built the internet; this time it could be piles of ageing chips and power plants nobody needs. Watch on Meerkat Explains.

THE BURROW

Quick vote. Anthropic is putting 5% of its shares into a fund for people hit by AI. What should it do with the money?

Trivia. In 1999, Nvidia launched the GeForce 256 and sold it as the world's first what? Answer's at the bottom of the email. No peeking.

ALSO WORTH YOUR INBOX

The daily crypto brief from the same burrow. Crypto Nutshell is Bitcoin, the news and the numbers in a five-minute read.

HOW DID WE DO?

One tap, and Meerkat listens. How did today's issue land? Hit a button, and add a line if you want to tell Meerkat why.

SpaceX opens its books tomorrow night. Bring a calculator and low expectations.

Got a friend whose kid just finished a coding degree? Forward them this.

Meerkat is not a financial adviser, and nothing here is advice. Meerkat is a small animal with a whiteboard and a power socket the grid won't switch on until the 2030s. Please do not sue Meerkat.

TRIVIA ANSWER

A GPU, or graphics processing unit. Nvidia coined the term for the GeForce 256, and the same kind of chip now runs most of the world's AI.