Welcome to the weekend!

On Wednesday, the parent company of a major streaming service announced plans to re-brand the product back to an older name. Which streamer was it? Find out with this week’s Pointed quiz. 

What goes well with a good binge-watch? How about a binge-listen to our audio playlist, available in the Bloomberg app. We’ve got six great stories, read by professional voice actors, to get you up to speed in one hour. 

Don’t miss Sunday’s Forecast, in which we prepare for an AI hiring pause. For unlimited access to Bloomberg, subscribe!

Considering Causality

If you wanted to measure the global economy by one number, it might be the price of oil. The many considerations that go into it are dwarfed only by its many impacts, ranging from the flow of trade to the prospects for peace in the Middle East. After OPEC+’s recent decision to expand production, speculation abounded as to Saudi Arabia’s current considerations, setting the mood for Trump’s visit to the Gulf. His wide-ranging agenda highlighted the mutual enrichment particular to this web of relationships, Philip Delves Broughton writes; the tighter that web gets, the more that decisions made in the Gulf will affect American wallets. 

Some causes and effects are straightforward, while others remain frustratingly unclear. Nearly a decade after the 2016 US presidential race produced evidence of attempts to influence voters, no one has proved that it or any election was actually swayed by online sabotage, Morgan Meaker and Andra Timu write. That uncertainty hangs over Romanians this week, as they vote in the final round of an election whose earlier results were annulled amid allegations of a coordinated social media campaign to boost right-wing candidate Călin Georgescu.

Then there are the causes that drive the very effects you were hoping to avoid. OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab dedicated to developing artificial general intelligence to benefit everyone — without spurring a dangerous AI arms race. Since then, the company has pivoted to the pursuit of profit. What happened? Two books on OpenAI and its founder Sam Altman look at how cost, consumer demand and ambition pushed OpenAI toward commercialization, Seth Fiegerman writes, a pivot that helped instigate the arms race it once pledged to prevent.  

Dispatches

Johannesburg, South Africa
Just off a potholed street in the impoverished township of Alexandra, Black teens toss around a rugby ball on a patch of concrete. Every few weeks, some travel for a match against a nearby rival. It’s a scene that would have been unimaginable 30 years ago, when South Africa was emerging from an apartheid era in which Black South Africans were barred from Whites-only clubs and the national team. 

Photographer: Jodi Bieber for Bloomberg

Punta del Este, Uruguay
A short drive from Cipriani’s future oceanfront casino, the Fasano gated community and hotel recently debuted its first polo field. Nearby Estancia Santa Cruz just hosted 200 horses at its polo club and resort, and billionaire Eduardo Costantini is teaming up with polo legend Adolfo Cambiaso to build an all-inclusive club along the coast. It’s all part of a polo renaissance in the beach retreat for Latin America’s rich and famous.

Photographer: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images North America

Tokyo, Japan 
If Yu Kusuda hadn’t met his neighbors, they might not even know he was there — the singer-songwriter’s 283-square-foot apartment is completely soundproof, leaving him free to blast movies and host his friends for band practice. After debuting its first soundproof apartments in 2000, real estate developer Livlan now operates nearly 900 units around the city, and its waiting list is 6,000-strong. 

Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

Agree or Disagree?

It’s OK to be comfortable with German rearmament. It’s not at levels that imply anything like a Nazi war economy, and it could allow escape from a cycle of slow growth while helping Europe — and the US — get their houses in order, John Authers writes for Bloomberg Opinion.

Companies should nix “one world” strategies. Taking lessons from the last great period of deglobalization, corporations should reorganize into federations of national firms and embrace alliances that boost resilience, Adrian Wooldridge writes for Bloomberg Opinion.

75 Years of War

Weekend Plans

What we’re listening to: Everybody’s Business, a podcast that takes listeners into convos in company boardrooms, Zooms and group chats. 

What we’re planning: a trip to Kyoto. Japan’s capital is bursting with culinary and artisanal experiences. We identified the best of the best. 

What we’re buying: secondhand style. Tariffs are boosting demand for preloved apparel. Just ask the shoppers at ThriftCon.

What we’re learning: how to do business in Abu Dhabi. In a power circle run by the ruling family, Marty Edelman is the city’s “man in Manhattan.” 

What we’re reading: The Accursed Kings, French novels that producer Dimitri Rassam wants to adapt for the silver screen. 

What we’re cooking with: beef fat. The US food industry is girding for a shift away from the ingredients that made American diets ultra cheap.

What we’re hunting: aliens. Harvard professor Avi Loeb is bringing a more rigorous approach to the study of unidentified aerial phenomena. 

WATCH: AI’s Most Promising Alien Hunters

One Last Thing

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