📰On The Record – 16th August 2026

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway increased its Alphabet stake by 83% last quarter, turning Google's parent into its third-largest holding at roughly $37.8 billion — including a $10 billion vote of confidence in Alphabet's AI infrastructure build-out. Berkshire also poured $23.5 billion into stocks overall, trimming its famously enormous cash pile in the process. When the world's most conservative investor starts spending down his war chest on AI infrastructure, it's less a headline and more a weather report — Wall Street tends to check which way Buffett's wind is blowing before deciding how nervous to be about the AI boom.

British entrepreneur James Dacombe, 25, became Europe's youngest self-made billionaire after his AI chip startup Olix raised $312 million at a $3.3 billion valuation — tripling in six months, backed by names like Arm, Netflix's Reed Hastings and the UK's own Sovereign AI Fund. Dacombe dropped out of school in 2017 to build his first startup; eight years later, he owns roughly 30% of a company Silicon Valley heavyweights are racing to fund. His story is basically a stress test for the AI gold rush — proof that in this cycle, speed and conviction can outrun age, credentials, and just about everything else that used to gatekeep serious money.

Even Jeff Bezos can't get into Indian Creek. Miami's most exclusive country club — home to roughly 350 members, a $1 million joining fee, and $44,000 in annual dues — has reportedly rejected Bezos despite him spending $234 million on three properties on the island, alongside Mark Zuckerberg and Jared Kushner. Money alone doesn't buy the sponsorship, recommendations and old-money approval required to get past the gate. It's a neat little reminder that even in an era where tech fortunes dwarf old wealth, the oldest form of exclusivity — simply not letting you in — is still undefeated. New money can buy almost anything except an invitation.

World Liberty Financial, the Trump family-backed crypto venture, received conditional approval from U.S. regulators to open a national trust bank — letting it issue its USD1 stablecoin and offer digital-asset custody, though it still can't take deposits or make loans. It's a genuinely significant moment for crypto's march into the regulated financial system, and it lands with an obvious asterisk: a sitting president's family now has a foothold inside U.S. banking regulation, intensifying scrutiny over conflicts of interest that show no sign of going away. However this plays out, it's a preview of how blurry the line between politics and finance is about to get.

BetterMe founder Victoria Repa grew her social following from 16,000 to more than 5 million by treating her personal brand as core business strategy rather than a side hustle — sharing real leadership lessons and behind-the-scenes moments instead of polished promo content. The lesson generalises well beyond wellness apps: founders who show up as people, not just spokespeople, tend to build trust faster than any ad budget can buy. It's not a universal fix — plenty of founders build great companies without ever posting — but for those willing to be visible, authenticity has quietly become a genuine competitive advantage, not just a nice-to-have.

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Talks to sell PayPal to Stripe and private-equity firm Advent International are heating up again, months after PayPal rejected a $60.50-per-share offer that valued it near $53 billion. The two sides are now discussing a higher price, with new CEO Enrique Lores simultaneously trying to cut costs and modernise the business from the inside. It's a rare split-screen: a company fighting to prove it can turn itself around while quietly shopping itself to the highest bidder just in case it can't.

Apple is testing memory chips from Chinese manufacturers CXMT and Yangtze Memory as a global shortage — driven by the AI data-centre boom — sends prices soaring, drawing immediate pushback from the Trump administration and U.S. chipmaker Micron. Apple insists the shortage is severe enough that it must keep every supply option open, even ones Washington finds politically uncomfortable. It's a preview of the bind every global manufacturer is edging toward: national security politics colliding head-on with the basic math of keeping factories running.

The U.S. and Canada are scrambling to strike a trade deal before August 19, when Trump has threatened 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods, with dairy access, alcohol sales and steel tariffs still unresolved. Canadian officials are warning that missing the deadline could trigger retaliation that drags on for years. For a relationship built on decades of relatively frictionless trade, the fact that this is even a live threat says plenty about how permanent the tariff era has become.

The old debate about where it's better to be wealthy has a cleaner answer than people admit: America is built for making money, Europe is built for enjoying it. Higher incomes, deeper capital markets and a culture that rewards risk make the U.S. the better place to build a fortune — but once you have one, Europe's shorter hours, stronger safety nets and lifestyle-first culture often make it the better place to actually live with it. Neither system is "winning" — they're simply optimising for different stages of the same goal. The real question isn't which continent is better. It's which stage of wealth you're actually trying to enjoy right now.

Building wealth and enjoying wealth turn out to be two very different jobs.

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A wildfire warning, a major earthquake and a peace proposal all landed within hours of each other — here's what else made news.

Around this time last year, U.S. producer prices jumped 0.9% for July 2025 — the sharpest monthly rise in three years — as tariff costs businesses had been quietly absorbing started spilling into what they charged each other. Economists had pencilled in a 0.2% increase; they got more than four times that. A year on, the pass-through those economists warned about has largely played out, with import-cost pressure still working its way through supply chains today. Funny how a "surprise" data point can end up looking less like a shock and more like an early warning nobody quite wanted to hear.

A 25-year-old who dropped out of school became Europe's youngest self-made billionaire in a single funding round, while Apple found itself trapped between a global chip shortage and a government that doesn't want it shopping in China. Dacombe's win is the kind of story that makes the AI boom feel almost mythical — speed, conviction and the right backers turning a six-year-old idea into a multi-billion-dollar company. Apple's squeeze is the opposite: even the world's most powerful company can't fully control its own supply chain when geopolitics gets involved. Together, they're a tidy snapshot of this AI cycle — exhilarating for those building the future, genuinely complicated for those just trying to keep the lights on.