In a saga that rivaled GoJo’s acquisition of Waystar, Microsoft finally completed its purchase of Activision Blizzard yesterday after nearly two years of sparring with antitrust regulators. The deal is the biggest in Microsoft’s history—and for CEO Satya Nadella, it’s the grand prize that caps off a decade of dealmaking at the company’s helm.

What makes this deal such a BFD? Aside from the $69 billion price tag, it took a lot of effort to get it across the finish line…

• It needed approval from 16 different governments. Regulators scrutinizing the deal included the Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission, and Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority, all of which were concerned that the purchase would decrease competition in the video game market.
• Microsoft made agreements with Nintendo and Sony to keep Activision’s most popular game, Call of Duty, available for their platforms to quell fears that the Xbox owner controlling it would hurt their gaming businesses.

Microsoft is in its deal era

Under Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft has sought out acquisitions with the same determination that you seek out a BEC on a Sunday morning.

• Since 2014, Nadella has made 326 deals worth over $170 billion, per Dealogic, making Microsoft the most acquisition-happy tech company.
• Key acquisitions spearheaded by Nadella include GitHub, LinkedIn, video game-maker ZeniMax Media, Nuance Communications and Mojang Studios (creator of Minecraft).

Investors are probably pretty happy, too: Nadella has almost tripled Microsoft’s revenue during his tenure and increased its share price eightfold.

With the Activision deal done, Microsoft will now focus on AI and cloud computing. Despite all the attention the Activision deal brought to Xbox’s place in the video game industry, console gaming isn’t a top priority for Microsoft. Instead, Nadella and his execs are going all in on cloud gaming (i.e., playing games through phones or TVs instead of dedicated hardware) and AI. Microsoft now owns a cheeky 49% of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, so it’s tied to the company without attracting the same level of attention from regulators as a straight-up acquisition.—CC

Israel-Hamas war update: Palestinians scrambled to leave the Northern part of the Gaza Strip yesterday after Israel gave the 1.1 million people in that part of the territory 24 hours to evacuate, which the UN called impossible. As it prepares for a ground war, Israel continued to launch airstrikes and began ground raids in response to Hamas’s attack last weekend targeting civilians and, per NBC, schools and a youth center, which killed 1,300 people. Meanwhile, as the conflict escalates, Saudi Arabia said it was putting the deal to normalize relations with Israel, which the US had been brokering, on hold. And President Biden pledged the US would work with other governments to surge humanitarian aid to Gaza, saying Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas’s terrorism were suffering.

Jamie Dimon says it’s “the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades.” The JPMorgan CEO said in the bank’s Q3 earnings statement that “the war in Ukraine compounded by last week’s attacks on Israel may have far-reaching impacts on energy and food markets, global trade, and geopolitical relationships.” But for now…JPMorgan and the other big banks are doing just fine despite that uncertainty and the Fed’s rate hikes. JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo kicked off earnings season yesterday by beating Wall Street’s expectations.

Jim Jordan is the latest nominee in the chaotic House speaker race. Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, fended off a challenge from little-known Rep. Scott Austin of Georgia to get his party’s nomination to replace ousted leader Kevin McCarthy—but it’s not clear that he actually has the 217 votes he would need from his colleagues to claim the gavel in a floor vote with both parties (as the Democrats will nominate and vote for their own leader). Until Republicans can unite around a speaker candidate, the House is poised to remain unable to conduct business.

Craving a new fave show? Apple TV+’s adaptation of acclaimed global book phenomenon Lessons in Chemistry is fresh out of the oven, streaming now.

Dig into Elizabeth Zott’s story about the recipe to success—and how it can unexpectedly change. Aspiring scientist Elizabeth finds herself fired from her job in a lab in the 1950s. Scientific dreams momentarily dashed, she accepts a new challenge: hosting a TV cooking show.

With a brand-new audience at her fingertips, she starts teaching a nation of overlooked housewives (and the men who are suddenly listening) a lot more than recipes.

Grab your favorite TV-time snacks and catch stars Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman in Lessons in Chemistry, now streaming on Apple TV+.

NASA got a hoist into outer space from its travel buddy SpaceX yesterday, kicking off a historic mission to explore a mysterious metallic asteroid.

The space upstart’s Falcon Heavy rocket launched NASA’s uncrewed Psyche spacecraft on its 2.2 billion-mile journey to a massive, metal-rich space rock. The launch marks the first time the Falcon Heavy, SpaceX’s most powerful operational rocket, has kicked off a NASA scientific mission.

The probe’s $1.2 billion trip from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the asteroid (also named Psyche) located between Mars and Jupiter is pretty metal:

• Upon arrival in July 2029, the van-sized Psyche will study its namesake’s surface and composition with high-resolution cameras from close orbit.
• Psyche, the asteroid, is about the size of Massachusetts and is believed to be coated in iron and nickel. Getting close could allow NASA researchers to better understand the Earth’s metallic core without having to do the impossible and drill thousands of miles into the ground.
• NASA won’t mine Psyche, but the journey could inform future attempts to excavate asteroids for their valuable metals.

More collabs are coming…NASA paid SpaceX $131 million for this send-off, and it’ll use Falcon Heavy rockets again next year to launch a weather satellite and to conduct a mission to Jupiter.—SK

Netflix has finally realized that we all want to go on a first date in the Love is Blind pods. The streamer plans to open two permanent retail locations in 2025 so fans can eat, shop, drink, and vibe in the midst of Netflix IP.

So far, Netflix has kept mum on the details—in part because they’re still being worked out—revealing only that its IRL venues will be called “Netflix House” and will feature rotating installations, live shows, and a menu that reference both scripted and unscripted shows, according to Bloomberg.

The company has experimented with moving events off the screen over the last few years by throwing Bridgerton balls and setting up the LA pop-up restaurant “Netflix Bites,” which featured popular chefs from the channel. But, like the love between Too Hot To Handle contestants, these experiences were all temporary.

Big picture: Investing in permanent spaces means Netflix is doubling down on its experiential division, which its Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann recently called “small today” but growing, as the company leans more into the Disneylike realms of merch and location-based entertainment. After opening the initial two Houses in the US, Netflix is eyeing a global rollout.—MM

Stat: Your Health teacher was right—you don’t need alcohol to have a good time. Beer that won’t leave you buzzed (or hungover) is gaining ground: Sales of nonalcoholic beer rose 32% during the one-year period that ended September 9 compared to the year before, according to NielsenIQ. That’s in keeping with its 31% average sales growth over the last four years, even as sales of alcoholic drinks mostly plateaued after the pandemic. But it’s not just teetotalers knocking back zero-proof brewskis—NielsenIQ found most nonalcoholic beer buyers also bought the hard stuff.

Quote: “To state the obvious, the way we watch movies and TV shows is much different today than it was decades ago.”

DVDs may soon become the next hot collectible for fedora-wearing lovers of records and typewriters. On the heels of Netflix’s decision to stop sending out red envelopes after 25 years, Best Buy announced yesterday that it’ll stop selling DVDs and Blu-rays by early next year. The big-box retailer said bowing to the streaming era and ditching the discs will free up store space for “new and innovative tech.”

Read: The 22-year-old influencer whose podcast (briefly) beat Joe Rogan. (Slate)

Watch: This video boldly goes to the real places in space depicted in Star Trek and other sci-fi shows.

Flip out: Scientists proved that the odds for a coin toss aren’t really 50/50.

Chill: Peruse this collection of calming photos when you need to stop and take a breath.

Walk the lonely road: Here’s a guide to the least traveled route in each state.

Learn: NBA Wellness & Development Director Alex Auerbach will teach you the tactics to unlock your full potential even in the most stressful environments in our new course, Performance Under Pressure. It begins on Oct. 16 and will help you turn stress into your superpower. Register today.

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