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- 📈 Aussie life satisfaction drops below lockdown lows | OpenAI confidentially files for IPO
📈 Aussie life satisfaction drops below lockdown lows | OpenAI confidentially files for IPO
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The Big Picture
Australian life satisfaction drops below Covid lockdown lows. ABS data indicates overall life satisfaction is at a 7.1 out of 10, lower than the 7.2 recorded during lockdowns in 2020. Young Australians are particularly dissatisfied due to economic impacts, but they’re not alone — over half of Australians now fear an economic crash before Christmas. (9News | 9News)
Iran and Israel reach ceasefire as Trump plays negotiator. Both sides said they would halt their mutual strikes for now after Trump waded into the mix, calling on both sides to cease firing. He claims to have told Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to “use sense” as a “very powerful deal” was close. (BBC)
Markets bounce back following tech selloff. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rallied nearly 1% as investors bought back in after Friday’s 4% dip. The ASX opened down over 1% following the US markets, but made up most of the loss to end the day down just 0.1%. Miners dragged on the index as iron ore prices continued to slide, down 8% this month. (WSJ | AFR)
UK follows Australia’s lead on social media ban. The UK will ban teenagers from social media, joining a handful of nations following Australia’s example. Prime Minister Starmer, whose position as PM is rapidly degrading, initially opposed the ban but now supports the ban, which is popular with parents. (AFR)
Pocock: Passport fees set to rival entire PRRT revenue by 2030. The Australian government forecasts that it will raise $1.2 billion from passport fees and $1.25 billion from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) in 2030. Senator David Pocock called this absurd and called into question why Australians pay more than double for passports than in comparable nations. (News | SBS)
Companies in the news
OpenAI files to go public, completing trio of mega-IPOs. Just a week after rival Anthropic filed for an IPO, OpenAI has followed suit, confidentially filing to go public. These two mega-IPOs, in addition to this week’s SpaceX IPO, will add roughly US$3.5 trillion in AI-related market capitalisation to US markets and further concentrating markets into AI. (FT)
oOH!Media stock jumps 9% after Bain takeover bid. After receiving previous bids, the advertising company announced it had received a $765 million offer from private equity firm Bain Capital. Terms were not disclosed, but shares jumped over 9% on the news. (AFR)
Amazon strikes fiber optic deal for data centres. The multibillion-dollar deal with fibre optics firm Corning highlights the spread of AI investment into adjacent industries. Corning, which signed a similar deal with Nvidia last month, will add an additional 1,000 jobs in North Carolina due to the deal. (Fox)
Apple’s Siri finally gets an AI overhaul. Apple’s well-known voice assistant will get an AI boost, according to an Apple showcase. Apple has notably not committed to significant AI investment, unlike its Magnificent 7 peers, but will launch the new feature in beta next month before coming fully online in following months. (FT)
Canva slows hiring and reviews roles amid AI deployment. The Australian tech company’s headcount has grown by 7% this year and will look to slow this growth in the second half of 2026. Canva is looking to rebrand as an AI company before potentially going public in the near-term. (AFR)
Tobacconomics 101
Here’s an entry-level economic principle: when taxes on an item drive up the price, black markets thrive. Tax now makes up 72% of the price of a cigarette in Australia, and the illicit tobacco market is booming — an estimated 80% of cigarettes and vapes consumed in Australia in 2025 were illegal.
The taxes are supposedly intended to disincentivise smoking, but that doesn’t seem to be working, as nicotine consumption rose almost 40% from 2017 to 2025. The government is now expecting to raise $8 billion less from tobacco taxes, and criminologists are calling the situation a “massive policy failure”. (ABC)
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To Sell a Unicorn
We spoke to Tim Doyle, serial entrepreneur and founder of Eucalyptus, about the recent $1.6 billion sale of Eucalyptus and more broadly about entrepreneurship.
Bryce: What was it about now that made it the right time to sell?
Tim: Yeah, it's a good question. Eucalyptus has been a very up and down journey. So there were like good moments and bad moments. I mean, interestingly, Hims and Hers has been on the same kind of up and down journey. If you look at their stock over five years, incredibly volatile. But one thing that that up and down journey taught me is like the rug can get pulled at any time and momentum doesn't last forever.
I felt a substantial responsibility to not only our team, but also as a kind of custodian of capital for our investors. And so that pressure combined with the fact that I knew things kind of went up and went down and momentum was often fleeting meant that I always was pretty pragmatic about when and how to sell the company.
I was pretty practical about also how I viewed the category, which was like there was going to be consolidation at some point, volume and scale really matters. And so we always had an eye to how we got more scale, whether as the acquirer or the acquired and Hims and Hers is like such a uniquely powerful player in our space that it was an obvious choice when it came around.
