The private markets are heading for a year of stark contrasts. According to Fortune’s survey, capital is concentrating at the top, the middle is collapsing, and AI startups face a brutal reckoning. Meanwhile, private equity expects a 20% volume jump and a new focus on exits.
Investment firm Baird has upgraded chemical manufacturer Albemarle to ‘outperform’ from ‘neutral’. Analyst Ben Kallo nearly doubled his price target to $210, implying a potential 33% upside from current levels.
Serial entrepreneur Bill Harris, who was the founding CEO of PayPal for five months, now runs a self-funded IRA advisory called Evergreen Wealth. He credits his energy to a radically simple personal life, living in a small Miami Beach cottage and biking everywhere.
Jim Cramer’s market notes highlight Nvidia’s CES keynote announcing its Vera Rubin AI chips are in “full production.” Meanwhile, Wells Fargo got a surprising sell rating, and analysts are split on oilfield services and homebuilders.
Brex is taking a radical approach to enterprise AI, arguing that complex orchestration is now a bottleneck. Its “Agent Mesh” uses many small, specialized agents that chat in plain English to automate finance tasks, aiming for near-total invisibility.
The co-founders of Twitter and Pinterest have launched Tangle, an invite-only app focused on sharing personal goals. It’s part of a $29 million startup and a direct response to the “devastation” of modern social media.
While tech stocks soared in 2025, the insiders were selling. Executives like Jeff Bezos and Jensen Huang turned paper wealth into over $16 billion in cash. Most sales were planned, but the scale is staggering.
IronCalc is an open-source spreadsheet engine written in Rust that runs directly in your browser via WebAssembly. It aims to provide serious spreadsheet functionality without the cloud dependency or subscription fees of the major suites. The project focuses on data control, compatibility, and being
European universities are proving to be a powerhouse for valuable deep tech companies. Despite a broader VC slump, spinouts are raising near-record funding and scoring billion-dollar exits.
Despite three straight years of strong returns, market strategists remain optimistic for 2026. They point to projected earnings growth of over 15% and a resilient economy as key drivers for another potential bull market year.
