🌏 Boeing’s ‘best and final’ olive branch

Good morning, Quartz readers!

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Boeing is losing patience with its striking machinists. The company gave them a “best and final” 30% raise offer.

Ozempic made at least one entity heavier. Manufacturer Novo Nordisk’s market cap is now bigger than the entire GDP of its native Denmark.

Crypto raced higher as the Fed took rates lower. Bitcoin jumped 8% over the last week, and Ether is up twice that.

President Joe Biden thinks Chinese smart car software is too smart. His administration is banning the technology over national security concerns — and its threat to domestic U.S. automakers.

Sam Altman is baking something with Apple’s ex-design guru. The OpenAI CEO and Jony Ive are working on an AI device startup.  

Breaking up (Google) is hard to do

There’s an increasingly vocal chorus that hopes Google’s dominance of the search and ad tech markets will come to an end soon. If it’s not because business slows down, then there’s hope that the government will break the company down into smaller, less dominant pieces.

Competitors and industry observers alike are calling increasing attention to Google’s size and opacity — and many feel that the way it uses both to cement its position is unfair. “Market competition is the answer and regulation is where market competition comes from,” says one observer who thinks innovation has taken a back seat to monopolistic tendencies.

Quartz’s Peter Green offers a lay of the land when it comes to Google antitrust sentiment and how it complicates the context of all the lawsuits it is facing.

Hotel bed-makers want better for themselves

There’s a strike wave afoot that’s making things messy in the hotel industry. More than 1,500 hotel workers in San Francisco are walking off the job to demand better wages and treatment from employers like Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt.

After the COVID-19 pandemic led to softer demand for hotels, many cleaners and other staffers felt the brunt of resultant layoffs and reduced hours. But now that the industry is experiencing boom times and record profits, those workers are seeking a bigger piece of the pie.

Quartz’s Ben Kesslen explains why coast-to-coast labor unrest is developing in the hotel sector and what is driving its unions into work stoppages and hard-bargaining. 

MORE FROM QUARTZ

🛒 Target might reject your return if it suspects something fishy

🔻 Trump Media stock sinks to another new low — even as Donald Trump holds onto shares

🌈 Meanwhile, Melania made $237,000 speaking at a pair of Log Cabin Republican fundraisers

🎁 Americans are sitting on an estimated $27 billion in unused gift cards

⛽ Gas hasn’t been this cheap in years — and it could get cheaper this fall

📇 Nvidia gets almost half of its revenue from just 4 customers. Here’s who they might be

🥥 Kamala Harris promised to boost AI and crypto at a campaign fundraiser

SURPRISING DISCOVERIES

People are sleeping in Goldman Sachs’s offices. The company’s former headquarters is now a residential building with $4,000-a-month apartments (paywall).

The trail is going cold on a beloved hot pepper. The sweet, savory Chimayo is getting increasingly difficult to come by.

Lego’s Lego-figure business “cards” are a cult toy figure. Unfortunately, the company is restricting how many employees get to carry them (paywall).

Cards Against Humanity is mad at Elon Musk’s junk. It’s suing SpaceX for leaving debris all over a piece of land the party game producer owns.

There’s still one last Kmart store in the continental U.S. But not for long: The Bridgehampton, New York store is closing next month.

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Our best wishes on a safe start to the day. Send any news, comments, increased wage offers, and cheap gas to [email protected]. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Melvin Backman and Morgan Haefner.