Canceled: $1 Billion In Student Loans | The Upstart Billionaire | America’s Richest Black Person

Plus:  How Materialise’s Founding Couple 3D Printed A Billion-Dollar Fortune

Good morning.

A market rally minted a new fintech billionaire. We also look into who will benefit from the Biden administration’s $1 billion student loan cancellation and explain why America’s richest Black person isn’t Kanye West (yet).

In The News Today

Dozens of young White House staffers have reportedly been suspended, asked to resign or placed in a remote work program after disclosing past marijuana use. 

The first high-level diplomatic talks between the Biden administration and Beijing got off to a tense start as both sides traded barbs on each other's actions and policies.

Top Take-Aways

Shares of AI-enabled fintech lender Upstart Holdings skyrocketed Thursday, minting a new billionaire out of Dave Girouard, the firm's cofounder and CEO.

The SEC charged uBiome cofounders Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte, who kicked off the biotech startup in 2012 via a Kickstarter campaign, with defrauding investors in the company that, just three years ago, was valued at nearly $600 million.

The U.S. Department of Education will enact student loan cancellation for 72,000 student loan borrowers who were scammed by their schools and previously had only some student loans cancelled.

Boom times may be over for Dollar General. The discount chain warned that sales could decline this year as more people become vaccinated, the economy reopens and stimulus checks dry up.

The benefits of parental leave are well documented but in the U.S. they’re only enjoyed by the lucky minority who work for organizations that provide paid time off for their child-caring employees.

Multiple outlets reported that Kanye West is the richest Black person in America, worth as much as $6.6 billion. This estimate is based on projected future earnings, not the current revenue figures Forbes uses to calculate West’s still impressive, but lower, net worth.

Virtuoso, the world’s largest luxury travel network whose motto is “the best of the best,” has quietly removed all 10 Trump-branded hotels and resorts from its list of preferred partners. 

Today's Must Read

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Transact Global was created in 2018 by a group of emerging women venture managers looking to support each other. The network now counts more than 150 women across 12 countries, all looking to raise emerging venture funds, and to expand the group’s membership. 

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