Volv Concierge #73

Hey there,

It’s Priyanka, and I’ve got some fun news! We just got featured in the App Store’s Top Charts, so our little corner of the internet is growing fast. If this is your first time here, welcome to your new favorite weekly cheat sheet on what’s actually happening, so you’re never stuck just nodding along in conversations again. And to the regulars, huge thanks for sticking around 🫶

This week, everyone’s busy pointing fingers over nukes, a guy proposed to ChatGPT, billionaires are collecting kids like Pokémon cards (100+ and counting), and ice baths turned out to be the enemy of your waistline.

NGL, it’s a strange, unsettling mix, but perfect for sparking your weekend dinner conversations. Let’s jump right in.

👊 Can’t They Just Go 1v1?

The Israel-Iran conflict continues this week with everyone's favorite topic: who has nuclear bombs and who's making them. Israel, sitting on an estimated 90 nukes, has spent 25 years insisting Iran is building nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard and the IAEA both say Iran suspended its weapons program in 2003. The math isn't mathing, so we mapped out exactly which nine countries actually have nukes.

America is “trying” to play referee, but diplomatic norms are officially dead. Trump will decide whether to attack in 2 weeks. Turkey's Erdogan called Netanyahu worse than Hitler, Putin's threatening Germany with WW3, and everyone's choosing sides.

Even Netanyahu admits he’s suffering personally: his son’s wedding has been delayed twice due to the ongoing conflict.

Meanwhile, violence keeps escalating: Israel vows more strikes on Iranian government targets after hitting missile launch sites that killed an Iranian commander. Tehran refuses to negotiate with the Trump administration and fired a massive missile salvo back at Israel, striking near the Microsoft office. Israeli troops stormed multiple West Bank towns, issuing evacuations as Iran threatens to hit Israeli news channel.

The internet, as usual, has the most grounded take: "Can't they just go 1v1 and leave the rest of us out of it?" Which, honestly, is valid.

💸 Silicon Valley's New Side Hustle: Warfare

The timing is either incredibly suspicious or Silicon Valley just has amazing market instincts. Within 48 hours of the Israel-Iran conflict escalating, OpenAI secured a $200M Pentagon deal for defense AI, and Spotify's Daniel Ek invested €600M in German defense company Helsing. Add Anthropic's classified military operations work, and we're watching Silicon Valley's new obsession: warfare as a business model.

🍼 100 Kids and 1 Trust Fund

In "rich people doing rich people things" news: Telegram founder Pavel Durov revealed he's fathered 100+ kids (six naturally, 100+ via sperm donation across 12 countries). He also plans to leave them his $13.9B fortune… with one tiny catch: they can’t access any of it for 30 years, because he wants them to “build themselves up alone.”

Small Talk Gold: This Weekend's Edition

• This guy proposed to ChatGPT before the mother of his child…

• Fake it till you make it? This Redditor’s fake bachelor's degree earned him a job and two promotions.

• Trump's latest target is somehow... Juneteenth, threatening to cancel it because America has "too many non-working holidays."

• Drake lost more money gambling last month than most people will see in a lifetime, then posted about it like it's inspirational content. Obviously, people are not having it. 

• Planning that Paris trip this weekend? The Louvre workers are on strike because there are too many of us trying to see the art.

• Even with $100 million offers Meta can't buy talent from OpenAI or convince Ilya Sutskever to sell his company.

• Ayee, another massive breach of our data? So cute, so casual, so exposed. 

• Doctors say don’t trust the fries-and-cola migraine cure, but hey, if TikTok says it works, who are we to argue?

• Would you show up to a dinner where you don’t know anyone or what’s being served? 100 people just did.

• An Australian TikToker hired a PI to unmask her anonymous haters and now knows where they live, what tattoos they have, and their tax numbers because #urnotanonymous apparently.

• Save your weekend ice bath money because science just proved it might be making you eat more instead of burning fat.

And that’s a wrap on this week. Stay informed, stay witty, and never underestimate the power of a well-timed “Did you hear about…?” 

See you soon!

The Volv Team