The company that helped create meme stocks is becoming a stock.

Reddit filed to go public last week in an IPO that will resemble the platform itself—unusual, chaotic, and reliant on its opinionated users. Planned for next month, Reddit’s public listing will be the first social media IPO since Pinterest in 2019 and the first major tech IPO of the year.

What’s so unusual about it? Reddit reportedly plans to offer 75,000 of its power users the opportunity to buy shares at the IPO price, a privilege not normally afforded to individual investors. Companies going public typically sell IPO shares to professional investors, who are expected to hold the stock for long periods and lower the potential for massive swings in the share price.

It’s an attempt to reward unpaid moderators

Reddit depends on a volunteer army of 60,000 moderators (aka “mods”) to manage its communities, known as subreddits. Though the mods are unpaid, Reddit would descend into chaos without them, and CEO Steve Huffman hopes that by giving them skin in the game, they’ll feel more like owners in the company.

Early signs indicate the mods are not appeased. Reports from Wired and The Verge show that the Reddit IPO is being poorly received on Reddit, with the No. 1 comment on a news article of the IPO predicting, “The beginning of the end.”

They’re probably not excited about Reddit’s financial prospects. While it’s one of the most-visited websites in the US, Reddit has struggled to make money compared to other social media platforms. In its IPO filing, the company said it’s been unprofitable since it was founded in 2005 and pulled in $804 million in revenue in 2023 (X is projected to have made $2.5 billion last year). Its list of “risk factors” is longer than Facebook’s and Twitter’s combined when they filed to go public, Bloomberg Opinion’s Dave Lee noted.

Could AI help boost sales? Reddit, which makes most of its money through ads, aims to tap a new revenue stream—licensing its vast number of messages to train AI models. Last week, it announced a reported $60 million per year deal with Google for AI training, and it could look to ink similar partnerships with other tech companies.—NF

Lithium is essential for batteries in electric cars, renewable energy storage, and even smartphones. That’s why demand for lithium is projected to grow 20x by 2040.

So when EnergyX revealed that their technology could extract 300% more lithium than traditional methods, investors everywhere took note—General Motors included.

GM is the lead investor in EnergyX’s $50m funding round. And you can join them. That means you have the unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a company just as they’re set to unlock the US lithium supply.

EnergyX’s stock price just increased, thanks to growing demand and their first acquisition of lithium resources in Chile. Don’t miss your chance to share in their growth as an EnergyX shareholder.

Donald Trump defeats Nikki Haley in her home state. Trump romped in another presidential primary, securing 60% of the South Carolina vote compared to just 40% for Haley, the former SC governor. The victory kept Trump undefeated during primary season to date, having secured 44 of the 50 delegates available after similarly comfortable wins in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and the US Virgin Islands. Haley said she has no intention of dropping out of the race, despite it looking like a foregone conclusion that Trump will nab the GOP nomination and set up a rematch with President Joe Biden in November.

Volodymyr Zelensky reveals death toll in war with Russia. In a rare acknowledgment of losses, Ukraine’s president announced that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the war, as the world marked two years since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion. Zelensky is anxiously awaiting a decision from the Republican-led House on $60 billion in aid that he said was needed within the month. Zelensky emphasized that US assistance was not “financial support” but weapons for Ukraine’s military, such as the $1.5 billion Patriot air defense system. He said that the upcoming US elections would be a “tipping point” for how the war would end, with Trump-allied Republicans opposing more support to Ukraine.

Progress reported in Israel–Hamas cease-fire deal. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan suggested on CNN that a temporary cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas could be reached “in the coming days”—one that involves the freeing of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu was more tempered, telling CBS that Hamas would have to abandon their “crazy demands” for a deal to be finalized. Elsewhere in the Middle East, US and UK forces carried out another round of strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the militant group’s attacks on commercial shipping.

Never has two dogs recording a podcast created this level of existential fear.

Entertainment mogul Tyler Perry said he was halting plans for an $800 million expansion of his Atlanta movie studios after seeing the capabilities of Sora, OpenAI’s jaw-dropping text-to-video model that debuted on social media less than two weeks ago. The sight of dolphins riding bicycles compelled Perry to sound an alarm about the future of filmmaking in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

“This will touch every corner of our industry.” Perry sees advantages to leveraging AI in his work—less travel, fewer sets to build, more exotic locations built through text—but they don’t outweigh his concerns for everyone in the moviemaking business, from actors to crew members to transportation employees. These worries are not new: The use of AI was one of the big sticking points for striking writers and actors last year, who negotiated guardrails into their new contracts.

Is it too soon to panic? Many filmmakers are saying yes…for now. The technology as it exists is, at best, a replacement for stock footage, and OpenAI says it will reject requests to replicate celebrities in its videos. But even industry leaders who don’t share Perry’s level of concern for Sora concede that text-to-video technology will likely cost people their jobs in the future.—DL

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SCOTUS will hear arguments today that could change how social media operates. After major social media platforms barred then-President Donald Trump’s account following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, Florida passed a law preventing the banning of political candidates, and Texas passed a similar law that said political content can’t be removed. Industry organizations sued to block the laws, arguing social media companies are allowed to police their platforms under the First Amendment. Now, the issue goes before SCOTUS: If the justices side with the states, it could lead to the government forcing social media platforms to carry content against their will.

Michigan primary presents a big test for Biden. While Donald Trump is expected to continue his roll in the Republican race, how much support the unopposed Joe Biden receives in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary in the swing state of Michigan could serve as a litmus test for the general election. Arab American and Muslim community leaders in Michigan are urging Democratic voters to vote “uncommitted” on their ballots to protest Biden’s handling of the Israel–Hamas war.

Mobile World Congress starts today in Barcelona. If you hear your American tech friends pronouncing it Barthelona, it might be because they’re in town for this week’s MWC. The trade show known for the launches of smartphones and wearables will likely feature a glimpse into the future of how generative AI will pair with mobile technology.

Everything else…

• It’s the Golden Corral of earnings weeks. An endless variety of companies will report their Q4 results, including Macy’s, Domino’s, Zoom, Birkenstock, Salesforce, AMC, and Cava.
• Leap Day is on Thursday. Happy birthday to all the leap babies, aka the only people excited that February is longer than usual.
• Get your inappropriate popcorn bucket ready—Dune: Part 2 hits US theaters on Friday.
• The Formula 1 season begins on a Saturday with the Bahrain Grand Prix. The switch from the traditional Sunday race day is to accommodate the start of Ramadan.
• Wanna feel old? Justin Bieber turns 30 on Friday.

Stat: Dudes don’t often find themselves outnumbered at sporting events—except in South Korea. Women account for 55% of fans for pro sports there, per a 2022 estimate from the Korea Professional Sports Association, compared to less than half in the US and a quarter or less in Britain and Australia, the NYT reported. Analysts say the high share of women fans can be explained by a family-friendly environment at venues and the country’s high-octane fan culture, where K-pop musicians and athletes are glorified as national heroes.

Quote: “Charlie never sought to take credit for his role as creator but instead let me take the bows and receive the accolades.”

In his annual shareholder letter released Saturday, Warren Buffett honored his longtime business partner, Charlie Munger, who died last year at 99, as the “architect” of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett also issued a warning about his business’s growth, writing that his $905 billion conglomerate had become so large, and there exist so few tasty investment opportunities, that Berkshire has “no possibility of eye-popping performance.” You can read the entire letter here.

Read: The 52-part saga “Who TF Did I Marry?!?” that’s taking over TikTok. (Reesa Teesa) (Explainer here)