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|  |  | Tuesday, November 18, 2025 | |  | | Cheng Xin/Getty Images | Good morning, Quartz readers! It’s Shannon Carroll with the Daily Brief. Today, Nvidia braces for a high-voltage check-in, Berkshire sparks a Google search, Bezos fires up Project Prometheus, and Starbucks brews up a Target-only twist. | | HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW | Washington is hoping China keeps its
promises. But fresh reports of rare earths limits and soft soybean buying are stirring doubts about a still-unsigned deal that Scott Bessent insists will be finalized by Thanksgiving. | Air travel is finally back to normal. The FAA has lifted all remaining shutdown-era restrictions after a safety review showed staffing
pressures easing, ending weeks of disruptions across journeys at major U.S. airports. | Bezos is chasing a different kind of fire. Project Prometheus — his new, still-stealth AI startup — is quietly assembling top researchers and billions in capital to build industrial-grade systems for manufacturing and hardware. | Crypto’s Trump-trade glow is wearing off. Bitcoin’s drop below $100,000 is part of a sharp shift in expectations around December’s rate-cut odds as weaker data and tariff threats rattle what had been euphoric sentiment. | | | SPONSORED |  | A Lamborghini Got Everyday Investors 14%
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| | FULL STACK PRESSURE | The mood in tech-land has the eerie stillness of a storm that hasn’t yet committed to breaking. Markets have sagged, nerves have thinned, and the AI trade that has spent the last two-ish years roaring like a jet engine is suddenly feeling the barometer drop. Nvidia’s earnings on Wednesday — a previously routine spot on the calendar — have become something closer to a meteorological hinge. Investors are treating the company like a pressure system: If the report snaps open, the entire market exhales; if it doesn’t, the sky
could get a few shades darker.
The Street already expects a colossal quarter — revenue about $54.6 billion, EPS roughly $1.24, data-center demand still in its vertical climb — and no one is seriously gaming out a miss. The real scrutiny sits in the margins of the earnings call: how the company describes power ceilings that are starting to pinch, whether the Blackwell ramp still sounds like acceleration rather than maintenance, how China fits into a world where Beijing is yanking
chips from state-funded projects and Washington keeps redrawing the rulebook. Nvidia can post a record print and still move the market the wrong way if its tone implies drag.
And that’s why Wednesday feels heavier than it should. Analysts have inflated their models to near-mythic proportions — capex arcs, sovereign AI spending, multiyear revenue curves that would have looked delusional a year ago — and Nvidia is being asked to both validate and calm that enthusiasm. Investors want
conviction without bravado, reassurance without retreat. It’s a strange demand to make of a company, but Nvidia has become the cycle’s protagonist, the plotline everyone follows to see if the story still has altitude. This week’s earnings aren’t about the numbers; they’re about whether Nvidia can restore a little blue sky to a market that has suddenly forgotten how to breathe. Quartz’s Shannon Carroll has more on the storm chatter building ahead of Wednesday. | | BERKSHIRE’S SEARCH PARTY | Warren Buffett has spent decades treating high-growth tech like an amusement park he’s happy to stroll past but rarely buys a ticket for. So when Berkshire Hathaway’s latest filing revealed a
multibillion-dollar stake in Google parent Alphabet — its first ever — traders basically did a double-take. Google is already up nearly 50% this year, yet Berkshire’s surprise arrival still sent the stock jumping over 3% into Monday’s close. Even in the AI era, one quiet Buffett reveal can make a megacap move like a small-cap on caffeine.
Today’s intrigue isn’t about the dollar amount so much as it is about the moment Berkshire chose to step in. Berkshire is famous for buying
bargains, not hopping on bandwagons at mile 49 of a 50-mile rally. But the 13F filing shows roughly 18 million Alphabet shares — around $4.3 billion — picked up sometime last quarter, almost certainly by Todd Combs or Ted Weschler, the two lieutenants who nudged Berkshire into Amazon and Apple long before Buffett himself warmed up to tech. Their latest pick adds more than financial heft. It props up Alphabet’s AI narrative just as Wall Street has begun scrutinizing how much megacaps are spending to stay in the
race.
The move also closes a loop Buffett has left open for years. He has repeatedly said he “blew it” by not buying Google early. Now, at 95, he’s finally amending the record — and giving investors a preview of a post-Buffett Berkshire that’s more comfortable sitting near the front row of the tech show. The firm is still trimming elsewhere, including another 15% cut to its massive Apple stake. But Apple remains the crown jewel. Alphabet is simply the latest proof that Berkshire’s
future looks a little more Silicon Valley than its past. Quartz’s Catherine Baab has more on the alphabet Buffett finally learned. | | | SPONSORED | | A Lamborghini Got Everyday Investors 14%
Returns? | A Lamborghini investment? So it’s expensive right? We know it may sound too good to be true, but with MCQ Markets’ automotive investing platform, you can diversify into classics like an all-white Lamborghini Countach for just $20 dollars a share. Even better, investors in that Countach that MCQ Markets already closed saw a 14% net return after less than 9 months. Invest with just a credit card, and let MCQ Markets take care of the rest. | |
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