Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🤖 Anthropic files for historic IPO
• 🏟️ 33rd Sports Equinox
• 👻 How many Americans believe in ghosts?

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.72-minute read (989 words).

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"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

–Albus Dumbledore (1881-1997)

The AI industry is preparing for its biggest Wall Street debut yet, with a potential price tag that makes the GDP of most countries look like Monopoly money.

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, filed paperwork yesterday to go public, setting the stage for what could become the largest IPO in history.

The move would make Anthropic the first of the major AI startups to hit the stock market, giving everyday investors a chance to buy into the ever-growing AI race.

Here's what we know

Anthropic shares will list on the tech-heavy Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "ANT," per the company's filing.

• Anthropic also reported $16.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026, up ~14x from a year earlier, largely driven by businesses using its AI software.
• The company disclosed an $80.7 billion net loss over the same period, largely reflecting an accounting adjustment tied to financing agreements.

What we don’t know: Anthropic hasn't revealed its target valuation or how many shares it plans to sell. Anthropic could raise $100 billion or more—eclipsing SpaceX’s all-time IPO record of $75 billion—at a valuation between $1.5 trillion–$2 trillion, per the Wall Street Journal, with exact details expected when Anthropic files updated paperwork after gauging investor feedback.

What to expect: Analysts say Anthropic’s IPO, which comes months ahead of a similar move from OpenAI, is likely to become a referendum on the business of AI, as investors increasingly look for returns to justify the trillions of dollars being poured into AI infrastructure costs.

Looking ahead… Anthropic is reportedly targeting the week of November 16 for its market debut, though the company says its plans could change.

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Nothing says "relaxing vacation" quite like stripping the beds, doing the dishes, and taking out the trash before checking out of your Airbnb.

But those lengthy checkout chore lists will soon be a thing of the past.

Airbnb late last week announced new restrictions prohibiting hosts to ask guests to complete tasks that "require significant effort or time.”

Cleaning up their act

The policy marks the latest effort by Airbnb to address longstanding guest complaints over excessive checkout chores and cleaning fees.

• In 2022, the company began discouraging unreasonable checkout tasks, including stripping beds and doing laundry.
• Last year, the company made transparent, total-price displays – including all fees but excluding taxes – the default in search results worldwide.

Not all hosts are celebrating. Some have pushed back against the new restrictions in Airbnb's community forums, arguing that basic checkout chores help maintain their properties and make cleaning between guests more manageable.

Looking ahead…Airbnb’s new guidelines on time-consuming tasks will apply to reservations made on or after November 20.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📱 Meta unveils plans to raise up to $95 billion in stock offerings, including up to $60 billion of new non-voting Class C shares beginning as early as Q1 2027.
• 💻 Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to ~60,000 employees across four countries—the US, UK, Canada, and India—representing ~27% of the tech giant’s workforce.
• 🛍️ DoorDash is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire rival delivery giant Instacart at a ~$17 billion valuation, though sources say the deal isn’t guaranteed.

SPORTS, MEDIA, & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏟️ 33rd Sports Equinox: The NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, were all in action yesterday, with the WNBA also joining the fun for just the fourth time ever.
• 🎸 Elvis Presley’s rights holder, Authentic Brands Group, sues Anthropic for allegedly using Presley’s copyrighted lyrics without permission to train its AI models, among other charges. | 🚨 Chris Brown receives suspended eight-month jail sentence in relation to a 2023 attack at a London nightclub.
• 🙏 Eric Bauza, Emmy-award winning voice actor best known for his roles as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig in Looney Tunes, passed away at 46.

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SCIENCE, SPACE, & EMERGING TECH

• 🔬 New AI model detected early warning signs of pancreatic cancer ~475 days before patients were diagnosed, with nearly 2x the sensitivity of experienced radiologists, per new retrospective study.
• 🦖 Europes first megaraptoran dinosaur is identified from a skull fragment stored in London’s Natural History Museum for over a century; the 16-foot-long, giant-clawed carnivore lived ~120 million years ago.
• 🔭 Lumina, a record-breaking simulation of the early universe, created by scientists using data from NASA’s James Webb and other major telescopes.

US, WORLD, & POLITICS

• 🏛️ Justice Department charges former FBI Director James Comey with knowingly communicating information related to national defense to a person not entitled to receive it, allegedly relating to a 2016 incident; it’s the third time Comey has been investigating by the DOJ under President Trump, who fired him as FBI director in 2017. | Federal judge rules Trump admin unlawfully fired federal prosecutor Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey.
• 🖥️ Anthropic’s Claude AI bypassed a paywall to access Georgia voter data without authorization while working on a statistics project, per new report; no individual voter records were accessed or altered, with safeguards added to prevent similar incidents.
• 🗳️ Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wins surprise 4th term over Flávio Bolsonaro after losing the first round, though Bolsonaro reportedly refuses to concede; Brazil’s currency falls ~11% against the dollar on the news, while the country’s benchmark stock index dips ~14%. | Israeli legislative elections take place today, in the country’s first since the 2023 Hamas attack.

☝️ Houston parents Dorian Ojemen and Tiffany Ikwuagwu became the first couple in the US to use the Skincubator, a wearable incubator that allows parents to safely hold their premature babies skin-to-skin while keeping them connected to essential medical equipment. The couple's twins were born at just 26 weeks, with the new technology allowing both parents to hold their babies for the first time after 10 days in the NICU.

🤔 Did you know? In the ‘Great Diamond Hoax of 1872,’ a pair of conmen from Kentucky planted thousands of dollars worth of gemstones in the Wyoming dirt and fooled wealthy investors into believing they’d discovered a massive diamond field.

📰 Worth a read: 100 years later, the mystery of Houdini's death still begs to be solved.

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• How to pack a suitcase, from a flight attendant
• What percentage of Americans believe in spirits and the afterlife?
• The #1 phrase to shut down a manipulator

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Yesterday we covered a reported memo that shows Iran is stepping up efforts to target US officials abroad, raising the possibility of renewed US strikes against Iran following next week’s midterm elections in America.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, when will the ongoing US-Iran conflict officially conclude?

• 0-3 months: 7%
• 3-6 months: 5%
• 6-12 months: 17%
• At least 1 year: 71%

📅 Results from the last time we asked that question (on July 20):

• 0-3 months: 10%
• 3-6 months: 15%
• 6-12 months: 17%
• At least 1 year: 58%

Read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 503 votes and 44 longform responses.

📖 Get the word out: Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year is one of the most viral—and controversial—terms to date

🐈 Cat in the (hard) hat: Hardware stores have a secret weapon for wooing customers.

🤔 Pick your poison passion: What hobby should you try? Take this quiz and find one you'll actually keep.

💼🔐 Career advice from women who’ve already done it…The Assist shares leadership insights and productivity strategies straight from women executives—4x weekly. Join 310k+ professional women reading it.*

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❓ Trivia: Which king of Greek and Roman legend had a golden touch?

🎓 True or false?...The "black box" on a commercial aircraft is painted black.

🤔 Riddle me this: A person and their boss have the same parents, but they aren’t siblings. How is this possible?

(keep scrolling for the answer)

👆 99-year-old Helga Duffy recently became the world’s oldest wing-walker, breaking a record set by another nonagenarian just three months earlier. Figuring this might be “the last time [she could] do something different,” Duffy spent 5+ minutes soaring through the skies while strapped to the wing of a plane. 

❓ Trivia: King Midas

🎓 T/F: False; they’re bright orange so they can easily be spotted.

🤔 Riddle: The person is self-employed.

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