Oprah Winfrey announced yesterday that she’s leaving the board of WW International (formerly known as WeightWatchers), which she’s served on since 2015 as one of the company’s largest shareholders. WW’s share price responded by dropping nearly 20%, or about 70 cents, which in WW terms translates to roughly five almonds.

The longtime face of the company, Oprah said she will not be seeking reelection at the May shareholder meeting. In a statement, WW assured users that there was no drama behind her departure and that she’d stick around to advise the company in some capacity.

But Oprah’s statement appeared to undermine the program. She revealed she’s donating her shares (worth about $18 million before her exit) to the National Museum of African American History and Culture to “eliminate any perceived conflict of interest around her taking weight loss medications.” Oprah revealed last year that she takes a weight loss drug. She didn’t specify which one, but drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy have left WeightWatchers with an uncertain future.

Can WW and Ozempic coexist?

Technically, they are supposed to. Ozempic, Wegovy, and similar drugs have warnings that tell users they should be paired with diet and exercise. WW and other dieting apps like Noom have also invested in prescription drug services to add to their offerings. But the companies are struggling to keep up.

• WW’s revenue dropped nearly 15% ($112 million) in 2023 vs. the prior year.
• In 2021, WW’s share price was just under $40. But, despite a 70% bump last year when WW announced it would buy telehealth company Sequence, the price had plummeted to around $3 yesterday.

It’s hard losing your billionaire media mogul: Cloud software company Snowflake also saw shares crater yesterday when its billionaire CEO Frank Slootman announced he was retiring. The two stock slides underscored just how much one person can be worth to a company.—MM

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The deadly Texas wildfire is now the largest in the state’s history. The Smokehouse Creek Fire, which has scorched 1 million acres in the Texas Panhandle and another 31.5k in Oklahoma, is also the second-largest in US history. At least one person died, several homes and ranches were destroyed, and many others were left without power. As of Thursday, the fire was only 3% contained, CNN reported. Experts warned that the combination of dry air and turbulent wind expected this weekend could make the situation worse. One state official said that thousands of cattle will die.

A horrifying incident in Gaza could complicate cease-fire talks. More than 100 civilians were reportedly killed yesterday after Israeli troops opened fire at an aid site and humanitarian trucks barreled through a crowd of thousands of Palestinians. The Israeli military acknowledged that it opened fire but claimed it did so only on people deemed a threat, and that the majority of deaths were due to the convoy of trucks running over civilians. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry blamed Israel for the deaths, calling it a “massacre.” An eyewitness told the BBC that most of the casualties were not caused by Israeli gunfire but by the trucks. Hamas reportedly paused cease-fire talks because of the incident, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Putin threatened the West with nuclear war over Ukraine intervention. In his annual speech on Thursday, the Russian leader warned that if NATO countries send their own troops to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion, it could lead to a nuclear conflict. “All this truly threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization,” Putin warned. “We also have weapons that can strike targets on their territory. Do they not understand this?” His warning appeared to be in response to French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week saying that the possibility of NATO countries sending troops to Ukraine should not be ruled out.

The silver dude above is the new humanoid on the block, and pretty much everyone in AI wants a piece.

Figure, a less-than-two-year-old robotics company that doesn’t have a commercial product yet but wants to put billions of C-3PO types in workplaces and homes worldwide, announced yesterday that it raised $675 million.

• Investors include Microsoft; Nvidia; the funding divisions of OpenAI, Intel, and Amazon; the personal investment firm of Jeff Bezos; and others.
• The belle of the cyborg ball, valued at $2.6 billion, also snagged the deal that every little robotics startup dreams of: OpenAI will build specialized AI systems to help Figure humanoids see, speak normally with people, and do physical tasks.

Before OpenAI became synonymous with the word chatbot, it struggled to build robotics hardware, so the company dropped that venture in 2021 and went all-in on developing the brains first (aka ChatGPT) and worrying about the body later. But OpenAI “always planned to come back to robotics,” VP Peter Welinder said.

The house of Sam Altman has also invested in one of Figure’s competitors, the Norwegian company 1X, so it could be keeping its options open.

Zoom out: Despite a tight startup funding environment, VC firms are bullish on bots and have been rapidly investing in humanoid robotics companies.—ML

Hope, by the numbers. Last fall, 36% of finance chiefs predicted a recession was on its way. But in 2024, that number dropped to just 8%. Fresh from Oracle NetSuite, check out these 24 ideas that’ll help you plan for success…and a bright economic future. Read the full list.

Looking to chat with billionaire CEOs and celebs but can’t make it to Davos for the World Economic Forum annual meeting? Try heading to Jamnagar, a city in western India, for the wedding event heard ’round the world.

The party of the year kicks off today: a three-day pre-wedding extravaganza—complete with chartered jets, a nine-page dress code, and a performance by Rihanna—to celebrate the nuptials of the youngest son of India’s wealthiest family to his childhood sweetheart. The actual wedding isn’t until July.

The richest man in Asia: Mukesh Ambani is the chair of Reliance Industries, a Fortune 500 company with interests in telecommunications and energy, among other businesses. He has an estimated net worth of $113 billion—so it’s no wonder that his son’s pre-wedding weekend is shaping up to look like a cross between the NYT DealBook Summit and a Filmfare Awards after-party:

• Reportedly on the guest list: Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, Ivanka Trump, and Bollywood superstars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.
• Plenty of tech CEOs are also expected to make an appearance, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, and Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, which this week unveiled an $8.5 billion merger between its Indian business and Reliance.

Zoom out: Though most Indian weddings don’t feature a Grammy-winning artist, they are known for their extravagance. Indian couples spend up to 20% of their lifetime earnings on a wedding, according to Business Insider.—CC

Stat: Someone call Murray, Aykroyd, and Rambis, because ghosts are taking over the job market. Instances of job seekers and employers abruptly ceasing communication with the other party—aka ghosting—are rising. Per a poll conducted by Indeed last year, 78% of applicants said they’ve ghosted an employer during the hiring process, up from 68% the year before. Meanwhile, 40% said they’ve been ghosted by an employer after interviewing, up from 30% the prior year. Experts say the hot job market is largely to blame, as job seekers now have more options. And the more companies think it’s OK to banish applicants to the spirit realm, the more applicants consider it to be normal behavior—and do the same to companies.

Quote: “I’d like to find out who did this.”

Don’t we all, Mr. The Rock, don’t we all. Earlier this week, Dune: Part Two star Rebecca Ferguson revealed on a podcast that an “absolute idiot” of a costar screamed at her on the set of a previous film. That unsurprisingly sent fans into a frenzy trying to figure out who it was (Ferguson would only confirm that it was not Tom Cruise or Hugh Jackman). Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who appeared alongside Ferguson in 2014’s Hercules, ruled himself out in a post on X, saying that he loves Ferguson and wants to unmask the rapscallion just like the rest of us.

Read: If you don’t have a “ski butler,” are you even really skiing? (WSJ)

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