Prompts On The Playa: AI Invades Burning Man

The inside story of the crazy, creative financing behind one of America’s best-selling wellness brands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A little-known company called Fluidstack has become a test bed for Google’s plans to sell its own AI chip. That’s helped it hit a $18 billion valuation and minted its founders as new billionaires. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/09/03/a-tiny-startup-helping-google-take-on-nvidia-is-now-worth-18-billion/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Silicon Valley brought sushi, Starlink and luxury camps to Burning Man. Now it’s importing something potentially even more divisive: AI slop. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/annatong/2026/08/30/prompts-on-the-playa-ai-invades-burning-man/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TikTok—the Chinese-owned social network—has been flooded with advertisements pushing street drugs and prescription pills like codeine, benzos and Adderall. Read the full story on Forbes:https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/08/21/tiktok-profits-off-drug-dealer-ads-for-cocaine-opioids-and-xanax/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With $200-million-plus villas and apartments selling for a record $12,900 per square feet, this man-made luxury development overlooking the Mediterranean is home to several billionaires, professional race car drivers and other ultra-wealthy investors who enjoy living tax-free. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2026/08/30/inside-the-worlds-most-expensive-neighborhood-550-million-apartments-f1-stars-and-billionaires/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three Stanford friends-turned-OpenAI-colleagues left the AI behemoth to start an enterprise company that relies on open source models. Fifteen months later, the twenty-something founders are raising $350 million at a $3.25 billion valuation. Read the full story on Forbes:https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2026/09/01/applied-compute-openai-the-ex-openai-guys-building-cheaper-open-source-alternative/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The digital maps platform MapQuest has soared to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings after refusing to adhere to President Donald Trump’s order to change Lake Ontario’s name to Lake America, even as its larger rivals Google Maps and Apple Maps have chosen to do so. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/09/02/mapquest-tops-app-store-download-charts-after-defying-trump-on-lake-ontario/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elon Musk’s fortune jumped more than $200 billion while two other former No. 1 world’s richest both dropped out of the top 10. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

21-year-old Filipino sensation Alex Eala is already one of the most famous figures in her home country. But the U.S. Open provides a stage where a national hero can become an international superstar—and be served supersized paydays. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2026/08/28/the-inside-story-of-tennis-phenom-alex-ealas-rise-and-rise/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After more than a decade away from the spotlight, former world No. 1 Andy Roddick now appears on podcasts, on live TV broadcasts and in movies—on his own terms. Roddick abruptly announced his retirement in 2013, on his 30th birthday. But at that time, podcasting was not yet a viable media category, and Roddick was adamant that he wasn’t going to follow the ATP Tour around as a TV personality, having burnt out on the global travel schedule. Roddick retreated from public view. He invested in commercial real estate, ran a foundation and focused on his young children, moving the family to Charlotte, North Carolina, to be closer to his wife’s family. When he was approached for a profile in GQ around the 20th anniversary of his Grand Slam win, it was his wife—the model and actress Brooklyn Decker—who had to talk him into it. “What’s your deal?” he remembers her saying. “It’s OK to remind people you’re alive.” Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2026/08/28/how-andy-roddick-returned-to-the-center-of-the-tennis-universe/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices