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February 25, 2024 • 3 min read

with Matt Turner

Hello! Welcome back to our Sunday edition. If you’ve got a networking event on the horizon, check out this 10-second trick that can make anyone a better conversationalist. 

Now, let’s get to some of the biggest stories from the past week.

On the agenda today

But first: NASA is back on the moon with the first-ever commercial lunar landing.

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Intuitive Machines/NASA

Dispatch

Back to the moon

It took more than 50 years, but an American moon lander is back on the lunar surface.

The Odysseus lander, made via a collaboration between NASA and commercial operator Intuitive Machines, touched down on Thursday. It followed a string of failed landings, including one just last month from Astrobotic. 

It’s an incredible feat of science and ingenuity. It also has the potential to fuel a new space race.

The Odysseus launch was part of NASA’s Artemis program, which involves commercial giants like SpaceX and smaller companies like Intuitive Machines, which went public in a SPAC deal last year. 

And whereas the Apollo program was about getting to the moon, Artemis is about staying there. The goal: to pave the road to human settlements beyond earth.

Courtesy of Goldman Sachs, Evercore, Larry Lettera/ Wagner Photos NYC, Tyler Le/BI

Introducing: The Rainmakers

While Wall Street’s mergers-and-acquisitions business dropped to a 10-year low in 2023, banks still benefited from a string of megadeals. 

BI partnered with MergerLinks, a financial-data service that tracks deals, to identify the M&A bankers who orchestrated the largest deals in North America last year. The result is a list of 20 dealmakers from firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Evercore.

See who made the list.

Also read:

Adrián Astorgano for BI

Mapping the future

America isn’t building enough homes. In part, that’s because of zoning rules, which change drastically based on what city or town or village you live in. (To put it numerically, there are more than 30,000 sets of zoning rules in America.)

Now, for the first time, a group of researchers is compiling every city's zoning rules into a National Zoning Atlas. A compilation of every town’s zoning maps could, ultimately, bring down the astronomical cost of housing.

How the new atlas could spark change.

1st Dibs, VPanteon/Getty, Tyler Le/BI

Hermès is on a tear

Despite a slowdown in luxury spending, Hermès’ stock has grown 27% over the past year. And while other brands have leaned into social media marketing and celebrity partnerships, Hermès has not.

Its core products haven’t changed much, it does not gift celebrities its handbags, and it does not have a TikTok. Experts say the key to its success is that it hasn’t tried to meet the masses. Instead, it’s embraced scarcity.

How Hermès became Wall Street’s unbeatable luxury brand.

Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images

China is coming for America’s EV market

Back in 2011, Elon Musk laughed off Chinese electric carmaker BYD, saying the company didn’t “have a great product.” How things have changed.  

Over the past 13 years, BYD has caught up, eclipsing Tesla in 2023 as the best-selling EV maker in the world. As American carmakers figure out how to make good, affordable EVs (and get consumers to buy them), China threatens to upset the global automotive order entirely.

More on Beijing’s plan to dominate the global EV space.

This week's quote

"When people do take a risk and they succeed, everybody enjoys it. But when they lose, they're left hanging out to dry."

— Duke professor Dan Ariely, following the university’s three-year fraud investigation. 

More of this week's top reads

The Insider Today team

Matt Turner, deputy editor-in-chief, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York City. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.

Get in touch. Email us at insidertoday@insider.com

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