Daily Brew // Morning Brew // Update

June 23, 2026

Guten Morgen. We’re busy constructing an upcoming Sunday Special about home renovations, and we want to know if you have a horror story related to remodeling or repairing your living space. Whether a contractor accidentally bulldozed a load-bearing wall or you discovered a Victorian child poltergeist haunting your attic while you were fashioning it into a Zen den—we’re dying to hear about it.

If you lived through a home renovation that’s still giving you nightmares, you can unload your trauma here. Our favorite responses will be featured in the newsletter.

— Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Neal Freyman, Abby Rubenstein

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

The legacy of legendary Fed Chair Alan Greenspan
Influencers not winning as much on Polymarket as it seems
Why Gen Z’s not going out on dates

MARKETS

Nasdaq

26,166.60

-1.33%

S&P

7,472.79

-0.37%

Dow

51,712.71

+0.29%

10-Year

4.509%

+6.0 bps

Bitcoin

$64,175.54

+0.71%

Alphabet

$348.78

-5.08%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Tech stocks glitched yesterday, pulling the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq down with them. Google had its worst day in over a year as investors fretted over high-profile AI staff departures. Nvidia, Meta, and others dipped too. SpaceX continued a three-day slide that erased $600 billion in value.

RIP

Titan Fed chair Alan Greenspan dead at 100

Bettmann/Getty Images

Alan Greenspan, who led the Federal Reserve under four presidents from both parties, died yesterday at age 100 from Parkinson’s disease complications. The celebrity economist played a lead role in shaping US economic policy while chairing the Fed between 1987 and 2006, a period of massive wealth creation.

Greenspan was hailed for his well-timed interest rate moves to fight inflation, while promoting economic growth. But many prominent economists also blamed his championing of financial deregulation for causing the 2008 financial crisis.

Greenspanomics

Entering government during the Ford administration after co-founding a successful economic forecasting firm, Greenspan became known for basing decisions on meticulous data analysis rather than textbook economics. He ultimately gained guru status for deftly managing monetary policy, including during one of the longest economic booms in the country’s history between 1991 and 2001:

He helped engineer a swift recovery from a massive financial crash during the late Reagan administration by slashing interest rates and pouring money into the economy.
In the mid-90s, he presided over rate increases to stem price growth without causing a recession, a tough balancing act known as a soft landing.
He later didn’t heed calls to keep hiking rates amid an economic upswing, correctly foreseeing that productivity gains from personal computers would help tame inflation.

Greenspan was infamous for using hard-to-decipher jargon known as Fedspeak, but he also pioneered interest rate change announcements as a way to guide markets.

On the other hand…

Shaping the economy comes with criticism. Some said the notion that Greenspan would always rescue the stock market led investors to make riskier bets.

An acolyte of libertarian writer Ayn Rand, Greenspan lobbied for light-touch financial regulation during the Clinton years. That, combined with his refusal to raise interest rates and rein in subprime mortgage lenders to stamp out the housing bubble in the 2000s, caused some (including the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission) to say he was partially responsible for the Great Recession.

His influence remains….“Chairman Greenspan’s legacy endures at the Federal Reserve—in those he mentored directly, in the economists and public servants he inspired, and in the frameworks and practices he helped shape,” the Fed said yesterday.—SK

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WORLD

Tour de headlines

Elke Scholiers/Getty Images

US eases sanctions on Iran’s oil. As negotiators work to hammer out a final peace deal, the Treasury Department yesterday suspended sanctions on Iranian oil for 60 days, reversing longstanding US policy. The US will allow Iran to sell its oil in US dollars for the first time in decades. The change should make it easier for Iran to profit from its oil without continuing to rely on a shadow network to sell mostly to China. The move came as Vice President JD Vance said the weekend’s talks in Switzerland “laid a very good foundation for a successful final deal.” Vance, who returned from Switzerland while technical negotiators remained for further talks, also said Iran had agreed to allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, but Iranian officials did not confirm this and said “no new commitments” had been made.

SpaceX inked another big AI computing deal. SpaceX may not be colonizing Mars yet, but the newly public company is making headway in becoming an AI infrastructure provider here on Earth. Yesterday, the company inked a deal worth up to $6.3 billion to provide access to its Colossus 2 data center to startup Reflection AI for $150 million per month. This comes after it already made computing power deals with Anthropic, Google, and Cursor (a company SpaceX is now acquiring). The announcement wasn’t enough to curb a stock selloff, but it does help show off a potential profit center. The company is also reportedly planning to issue $20 billion in bonds this week.—AR

Lionel Messi becomes the World Cup’s all-time leading scorer. After failing to convert a penalty try earlier in the first half, Messi buried a shot in transition to put Argentina ahead of Austria 1-0 and break a tie with Germany legend Miroslav Klose for the most goals in tournament history with 17. Then, in the closing minutes, he scored again to seal a 2-0 win and push his record to 18 goals. With the victory, the defending champions advanced to the knockout round. Messi, who turns 39 tomorrow, might not hold the record for long—27-year-old France superstar Kylian Mbappé is breathing down his neck, and scored his 16th career World Cup goal yesterday.—DL

ENJOY THE SHOW

A24 gets a big AI investment from Google

Morning Brew Inc.

The Letterboxd warriors are going to have some long-winded opinions about this. Google is investing $75 million into fan-favorite indie movie studio A24 to collaborate on AI tools. The partnership marks a major step in an industry filled with vocal AI critics.

A24, the studio behind Backrooms, won’t be using AI to make movies, but rather working with Google to develop tools like AI-generated storyboards. Other studios have rolled out AI partnerships, though not all have lasted:

Lionsgate announced a deal in 2024 with Runway AI to help producers visualize a film before greenlighting it.
A deal between Disney and OpenAI quickly fell apart when the AI giant shut down its much-hyped video generation program, Sora.
In March, Netflix acquired Ben Affleck’s AI post-production tech company.

Big picture: Despite both companies framing the deal as the good kind of AI, it’s a big gamble for A24, which has built a loyal audience by taking risks on young, emerging talent. Some of the studio’s biggest artists, like Backrooms director Kane Parsons, have repeatedly criticized the technology.—MM

READER POLL

Should movie studios team up with AI companies?

Yes. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
No, keep AI out of the movies.
It depends on the terms of the deal. Some cooperation is good. AI slop is bad.
I want to say no, but the future is here and it’s inevitable.

British trivia

Keir Starmer will last a little more than a year as UK prime minister, but that’s not even close to the shortest tenure for a British leader.

Who is the shortest-serving prime minister, at just 49 days?

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ANSWER

Liz Truss, who headed up the government briefly in 2022. (Remember the lettuce?)

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: Poltergeist, meaning “a noisy usually mischievous ghost held to be responsible for unexplained noises.” Thanks to Joe Sellepack from Binghamton, NY, for the spooky suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

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