Good morning. We hope you’ve enjoyed Fat Bear Week so far! The annual public vote for the fattest bear in Alaska’s Katmai National Park has opened… but this year’s competition has had a grisly start, after bear #469 attacked and killed bear #402 on Monday morning.

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The latest version of the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey — a broad gauge of the economic and social issues affecting American households — found some not-so-surprising news: Americans are lonely.

The survey conducted between August 20th and September 16th reported that 1 in 8 people (12.6%) were feeling lonely either “always” or “usually”, including nearly a quarter (23.3%) of the younger population (those aged 18 to 29). Since the Household Pulse Survey at the start of the year, slightly more people are now feeling lonely a lot of the time. 40% of people reported feeling lonely at least sometimes.

The consistent findings of the Pulse Surveys follow on from the watershed moment last year when US surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an epidemic, equating a lack of social connection to being as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or consuming 6 alcoholic drinks a day.

So it’s no wonder there’s been a rise in running clubs, knitting groups, pickleball, and more, as people search — quite literally — for ways to meet new people. Google searches for terms like “how to meet people” and “where to make friends” are at, or near, an all time high.

There’s an app for that?

Tech companies are picking up the trend: at an interview with TIME earlier last year, Bumble founder and executive chair Whitney Wolfe Herd commented, “loneliness is killing us,” as if to reflect the dating app company’s recent decision to acquire friendship app Geneva, which came with the catchphrase, “The online place to find your offline people.”

But so far, these online friendship platforms – more like dating app doppelgängers – don’t seem to have the solution. Experts note that the tech that these companies offer tend to just replicate existing cures for loneliness. After all, it doesn’t seem to be a problem of technology: we’ve had the ability to phone almost anyone on the planet for decades. 

Earlier this week, OpenAI, the tech startup behind gen-AI chatbot ChatGPT, closed its latest funding round. The deal — one of the largest funding rounds ever for a private company, counting investors such as Thrive Capital, Microsoft, and Nvidia — added $6.6 billion to the company’s coffers, and values the world’s hottest AI startup at $157 billion.

That makes OpenAI worth roughly the same as Goldman Sachs (~$153 billion), despite being some 146 years younger than the investment bank. It makes it more valuable than Nike or Starbucks. In fact, OpenAI’s market cap is bigger than the valuation of 12 of America’s best-known multi-billion-dollar companies, including Zoom (~$21 billion) and Warner Music Group (~$16 billion), combined. Pretty remarkable for any young company, let alone one expecting to rack up a loss of $5 billion this year.

Chat, is this real?

OpenAI has had a far more eventful 12 months than your average startup, weathering a dramatic CEO ousting, major copyright lawsuits, more copyright lawsuits, a high-profile voice usage dispute, and, most recently, a huge leadership upheaval, which left only 3 out of 11 co-founders remaining at the company. Then again, OpenAI is not your average startup.

While the meteoric rise of ChatGPT has provoked concerns about the ethical use of AI, OpenAI’s rampant growth has sent investors clamoring to buy a slice of it, the company’s restructuring as a for-profit corporation has only caused interest to swell further. On top of the equity investment, OpenAI has also tapped several banks for a $4 billion revolving credit line, giving it access to more than $10 billion in liquidity.

But, as our colleague Jack Raines asked last week: Is OpenAI worth anywhere near $150 billion without the senior employees who actually built it?

Gold is now up 29% so far in 2024 —The precious metal is having one of its best years on record, with prices rising almost 30% so far this year, fuelled by the start of US interest rate cuts, and, more recently, rising geopolitical tension. That’s better than the 20% rise that the S&P 500 Index has mustered in 2024 so far.

To view the interactive year-by-year chart, click here.

Typically known as a good hedge against inflation and a safe-haven asset in times of stress, the metal has been trading at or around its all-time record for more than a week — one ounce will set you back ~$2,665.

Off the charts: What has dropped by ~13,000 after peaking in 2012?

Answer here.

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Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate... See more