🧳 Uber is coming for Expedia

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TOP STORY
🧳 Uber is coming for Expedia

Uber is eyeing a major move beyond rides and food delivery.

Rumor has it that Uber is exploring a bid to acquire travel booking giant Expedia.

The talks are still in the early stages, so don’t expect any immediate announcements. But if a deal goes through, it could be huge for Uber.

For those who don’t know, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi knows Expedia well; he was their CEO from 2005-2017 and still sits on their board.

The ride-hailing company has been on fire lately, with an 80% rally in the past year, pushing its market cap to around $168 billion.

Compare that to Expedia, which is worth about $20 billion.

While Expedia’s stock hasn’t quite recovered from 2022 levels, it’s still a key player in the travel space with brands like Hotels.com, Vrbo, and Orbitz under its umbrella.

Some analysts are calling this a potential “strategic home run” for Uber.

By acquiring Expedia, Uber could move closer to its vision of becoming a “super app,” offering everything from rides to vacations in one place.

We’ll have to wait and see if Uber actually makes the leap, but either way, it’s clear they’re hungry for more growth.

WORD OF THE DAY

COMMODITIES
🏗️ Saudi Arabia’s project is using 20% of the world’s steel

For those who haven’t been keeping up with the Saudis, Saudi Arabia is planning to build a megacity called “Neom.”

Neom is like a city straight out of the future.

• It’ll reportedly cover 10,000 square miles and feature "The Line," a 170-kilometer smart city with no cars or streets, powered entirely by clean energy.

• There’s also Trojena, a mountain tourist destination, and Oxagon, a floating industrial hub.

I don’t even know what a normal industrial hub is, and now we’re getting a floating one. How awesome is that?

Must be costing a fortune, right?

Yup, the whole thing is backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and is estimated to cost a spine-tingling hundreds of billions of dollars.

But the wildest part? I just found out that Neom is consuming one-fifth of the world’s steel production. 

That’s right, 20% of the entire world’s steel is being poured into this Saudi Arabian fever dream.

So, if you ever need a loan, some lunch money, or now even mounds of steel, you know who to call.

TECHNOLOGY
🤨 Meta fires employees over $25 meal credits

Things are getting crazy at Meta.

Earlier this week, while some of us were out shaking our fruit and mini trees like we just didn’t care, Meta went on a firing spree.

The social media giant reportedly let go of two dozen employees because they, wait for it, used their $25 meal credits to buy household items like toothpaste, laundry detergent, and, most importantly, wine glasses.

So many questions come to mind, but first, how did this all go down?

Meta gives daily meal credits to employees in smaller offices without cafeterias, so hungry coders can munch during work hours using apps like UberEats or Grubhub. 

Very sweet.

Some employees, though, decided to use the apps to buy household items, which, in the eyes of Zuck and others, was a big no-no.

Ok, got it. But why?

One employee gave a pretty compelling answer:

"On days when I wasn’t eating at the office, like if my husband was cooking or I was grabbing dinner with friends, I figured I ought not to waste the dinner credit” said an unnamed Meta worker earning a $400,000 salary.

Apparently, this is a company-wide issue. Last week, WhatsApp, which Meta owns, also dismissed workers after an investigation revealed staff abusing the same system.

Damn, who knew the tech world could be so cutthroat? 

Looks like Meta employees better start packing their lunches from home!