What I Read This Week: a summary of the content that I consumed this past week…
Caught My Eye…
1) The Trade Map: AI Drove One-Third of Global Growth
McKinsey recently published “Geopolitics and the Geometry of Global Trade: 2026 Update”, covering economies that account for more than 90% of global commerce. The main finding was that AI-related trade, including semiconductors, servers, networking equipment, and data-center hardware, grew by close to 40% in 2025, compared with a 6.5% global average, and accounted for roughly 30% of total trade growth.
The April 2025 Liberation Day tariffs were expected to compress global trade, but the data showed that trade grew faster than the global economy. Instead, it changed how trades were routed more than volume. The US-China bilateral trade fell by roughly 30% in 2025, wiping out about $130 billion of Chinese exports to the US. But the U.S. replaced roughly two-thirds of that gap through imports from other countries. ASEAN absorbed much of the displacement: exports from Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia jumped nearly 14%, more than double the global average. India also added $15 billion in smartphone exports to the U.S. alone.
In response, China made some shifts in what it sells. McKinsey found consumer-goods exports declined while intermediate-goods exports rose. This reinforced a broader move from finished goods to components and materials inside global supply chains. This means supply-chain dependence is even harder to unwind than consumer-facing trade.
Europe also had major shifts in trade. Rising competition from China weighed heavily on Europe’s manufacturing base as imports from China increased by over $60 billion. Their auto industry was one of the hardest hit. Germany, the region’s largest carmaker for more than half a century, imported more cars from China than it exported for the first time in history. By the end of 2025, EVs assembled in China were about 15% of all EV sales in the EU.
2) The Massive Deal Wave in Pharma
Late March brought a sharp acceleration in pharma dealmaking. The two largest moves came on March 31: Biogen, a neurology-focused drugmaker, agreed to acquire Apellis, which sells treatments for rare diseases and eye disorders, for $5.6 billion. Eli Lilly, one of the largest diabetes and obesity drug companies, agreed to buy Centessa, a biotech developing a narcolepsy drug, for up to $7.8 billion.
Days earlier, Lilly also signed a collaboration with Insilico Medicine, an AI drug-discovery company, worth up to $2.75 billion. Around the same time, Novartis, a global Swiss pharma group, agreed to acquire Excellergy, a radiopharmaceutical company, for up to $2 billion.
We are seeing a broader pattern in pharma: companies facing future patent pressure are using M&A and licensing to add either near-term revenue assets or promising pipeline programs.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which lets Medicare negotiate prices for some drugs, adds more context. Small-molecule drugs can face Medicare price negotiation sooner than biologics, after 9 years from FDA approval, versus 13 years. That does not erase profits, but it can reduce the later-year upside for some drugs, making longer protected earning windows more valuable at the margin.
3) Whoop’s $575M Raise: The IPO Clock Starts
On March 31, 2026, Whoop, the wearable human performance device company, raised $575 million at a $10.1 billion valuation. This is nearly triple from its 2021 Series F valuation of $3.6 billion. The company said it now has more than 2.5 million members globally, that 2025 bookings grew 103% year over year, and that it exited the year at a $1.1 billion run rate.
“It’s our expectation this is the last round private round of financing that we’ll do,” – Will Ahmed, CEO and Founder of Whoop
The business model is quite distinct in consumer wearables. Whoop gives away a screenless wrist device and monetizes through a $239 annual subscription. This positions the product less as hardware and more as a recurring health platform. The investor list is just as interesting as the valuation. Abbott Laboratories participated in the round, alongside Mayo Clinic, Mubadala, and QIA. Abbott’s presence is notable because their FreeStyle Libre device is the most widely used CGM platform. Ahmed has publicly said noninvasive glucose monitoring is a priority and that current CGM technology has “problems at every layer.”
Whoop’s expansion plans show where it thinks growth will come from. The company says it is hiring for 600-plus roles in research and international expansion. They also see women becoming a much larger part of the member base, with 150% year-over-year growth in new female members. Within the niche, their main competitor is Oura, which also raised a massive $900 million round at an $11 billion valuation in late 2025.
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Other Reading…
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Sycophantic Chatbots Cause Delusional Spiraling, Even in Ideal Bayesians (ARXIV)
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From Hierarchy to Intelligence (Jack Dorsey)