During Meta’s earnings call in February, Mark Zuckerberg delivered a clunker of historic proportions: After reporting its first ever decline in daily users, the company’s stock suffered the biggest one-day wipeout on Wall Street.

This time around, all Meta had to clear was a limbo stick seven feet in the air, and…it passed. Shares popped more than 18% after hours when the company revealed that it returned to user growth last quarter.

Still, the road to the metaverse is filled with potholes. As it shifts its focus to virtual worlds, Meta increased revenue just 7% last quarter, its slowest sales growth in its 10 years as a public company. And if its gloomy outlook proves correct, revenue may flatline completely in the second quarter.

Given Meta’s malaise and the downturn in tech stocks more broadly, it’s worth asking:

Is the FAANG era over?

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google had for years been lumped together as a group of fast-growing, Big Tech behemoths with limitless potential. Streaming, health, fitness—they’d dominate it all, eventually. And when the pandemic hit, their stock prices surged higher still with the expectation that we’d spend even more of our lives in front of screens.

But tastes shift, challengers emerge, and after a world-beating run together, the band is breaking up. Now, each member must face the daunting challenge of pursuing a solo career in a world with soaring inflation, the war in Ukraine, and continued disruptions from Covid.

Facebook is having a rough go, but it’s not the only one:

• Netflix stock has plunged nearly 70% this year after seemingly hitting a ceiling on subscriber growth. At one point, it was worth more than Disney; now, it’s not even half as valuable.
• Even Google is googling “ways to make more money.” Its parent company, Alphabet, reported a slowdown in growth last quarter because, like Facebook, YouTube’s also being been dinged by TikTok and Apple’s privacy changes: The video platform’s revenue came in more than $500 million below expectations.

But for every Louis Tomlinson, there’s a Harry Styles: Microsoft, which wasn’t even in FAANG to begin with (but should have been), is playing sold-out shows thanks to its success in the B2B market. After a gain of 4.8% yesterday, its stock is only down ~15% for the year, which, while not…good, is a better performance than every FAANG company outside of Apple.—NF

Archegos execs were indicted. Remember last year’s collapse of Archegos Family Management, the obscure investment firm that defaulted on margin calls and caused more than $100 billion in losses across Wall Street? Prosecutors are calling it criminal activity. Yesterday, founder Bill Hwang and CFO Patrick Halligan were arrested and charged with racketeering, securities fraud, wire fraud, and market manipulation.

A former US marine was released from Russian prison. Trevor Reed, who had been detained in Russia since 2019, is headed home in exchange for the release of a Russian pilot convicted on drug smuggling charges by a US court. (The negotiation was unrelated to the war in Ukraine, both countries said.) Two other high-profile Americans are still detained in Russia: former marine Paul Whelan and pro basketball player Brittney Griner.

Apple lets customers be their own geniuses. Apple’s Self Service Repair store is now open for business, allowing customers to order parts and manuals to fix their own devices. Previously, only Apple’s official stores and authorized retailers had access to those parts and DIY knowledge, but in July, the FTC unanimously voted to change that.

Today marks the beginning of a ban on palm oil exports from Indonesia, which accounts for one-third of the world’s edible oil supply. It’s one of the most extreme examples yet of how the war in Ukraine is rattling global supply chains and stoking concerns of food shortages, thousands of miles away from the fighting.

If you’re reading this like, “Actually, I’m an EVOO guy”...

We have bad news: Palm oil is the most common cooking oil globally. On the edible side, it’s used in everything from instant noodles to ice cream, and on the inedible side, from makeup to biodiesel. After prices spiked, the Indonesian government decided to lock down its palm oil supply to ensure its own population doesn’t experience shortages.

Indonesia’s ban could send vegetable oil prices spiraling upwards. Unilever, which uses palm oil in products like Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, warned investors it may need to jack up prices in the second half of this year.

Zoom out: The world may be on the brink of the “largest commodity shock” since the 70s, the World Bank warned this week. In a hyperconnected global marketplace, a supply ripple can turn into a tsunami, fast.—JW

If your team is hitting a wall trying to brainstorm a shocking TikTok concept the Duolingo owl hasn’t already done, try taking it IRL. A new study published in the journal Nature yesterday found that video meetings make it harder to generate creative ideas.

Researchers paired up 1,490 engineers to brainstorm creative uses for two common items: Frisbees and bubble wrap. Some pairs were in the same room, and some were meeting via video call. The study found that groups meeting in person came up with one more idea on average than their virtual counterparts. And when the researchers tracked eye movements, they observed that the virtual pairs hardly looked away from their screens, whereas the face-to-face pairs let their eyes and minds wander.

What can we learn? Our eyes are drawn to faces, which can distract our minds, especially in a virtual setting. In person, it’d be pretty awkward, and even more ineffective, if you stared directly into the eyes of your coworker for an entire meeting (unless, of course, you two are in love).

The study’s author, Melanie Brucks, told the AP that the engineers communicating on their computers were “too focused on specifically the task at hand and that made them narrower in their thinking.”—MM

Stat: The development of two replacement airplanes for Air Force One has cost Boeing $660 million in Q1 and more than $1.1 billion in total. CEO Dave Calhoun didn’t seem thrilled that the company even agreed to build the planes, which former boss Dennis Muilenburg negotiated with former President Trump in 2018. “Air Force One I’m just going to call a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation, a very unique set of risks that Boeing probably shouldn’t have taken,” Calhoun said.

Quote: “We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase.”

Dr. Fauci told PBS Newshour on Tuesday that the Covid pandemic as we know it is over in the US. Well…hold on a sec. In comments to the Washington Post yesterday, he appeared to clarify that stance a bit, saying that the US was “out of the full-blown explosive pandemic phase” but is in the process of “transitioning into endemicity”—where case counts may rise but hospitalizations and deaths won’t jump as a result.

Read: The mostly untold story of how the sports bra conquered the world and tore its inventors apart. (Defector)

Ask: Yesterday we asked you whether Elon Musk would improve Twitter under his ownership.

47% said yes, it will improve

27% said it would get worse

26% said it would mostly stay the same

Holy Jupiter: This visual shows celestial objects to scale in size, rotation speed, and tilt.

Rents are rising everywhere: See how bad the damage is in your area with this interactive map.

TikTok sensation Tinx has a new podcast. Dive into all the hot topics and burning questions you want to hear about products, relationships, and so much more in a snackable 20 minutes. Listen here.

Brew Mini: In today’s uniquely shaped puzzle, you can unlock a bonus word that’ll be hiding in the circles. Play it here.

Three headlines and a lie

Three of these news headlines are real and one is faker than a CEO calling their company a “family.” Can you guess the odd one out?

1. Family terrorized by golf balls wins nearly $5 million from neighboring country club
2. “Oreology” investigates mystery of why Oreo cream filling usually sticks to one side
3. Ohio real estate agency fined $60,000 for upselling houses by claiming Neil Armstrong lived in them
4. Woman rescued after falling in toilet trying to get phone