Plus, is Google search over? May 12, 2025 Sign Up | View online IN THIS ISSUE 8 min read 🔍 Search suffers 🤑 Buffett’s brain 🏢 Cool companies The new pope has some big tasks ahead of him, including setting the tone for the Vatican’s finances. We explain below. | HBO Worried, perplexed, confused, or just bored? We want to hear from you! Send us a voice memo with your most pressing macro or micro money questions, from the global economy to your own personal finances. You can leave a voicemail for us at 226-444-2833 or send a voice memo to tldrpodcast@wealthsimple.com. Thanks! Now, on to the newsletter. —The Editors THE WEEK IN MARKETS From trade war to Trader Don? Did the trade war just end? Or at least turn a corner? New narratives! They come at you fast. The global markets were already rallying last week — the S&P, TSX, and Nasdaq were each up another 1%-ish — when the Trump administration announced a surprise “deal” with China (that China has yet to confirm) and gave investors more reason to hope this whole saga might’ve been just a passing tantrum. In fact, there are enough positive indicators from the ongoing earnings season to proffer a case that the boom times could soon be back if — huge if — Trump remains in a deal-making mood. Another reason for optimism? Everyone’s still spending. Based on the healthy numbers for Disney’s theme parks and sales data from Shopify and MercadoLibre (Latin America’s Amazon), global consumers seem far less ruffled by all this geopolitical anxiety than investors and journalists. And, based on the aggressive revenue forecast from AMD, Nvidia’s biggest rival, the AI arms race is as lucrative as ever. It’s the kind of war that investors hope never ends. THE WEEK IN ONE CHART WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK IMPORTANT Is this the beginning of the end for Google search? Google has dominated the online-search-engine business so completely for so long — roughly 90% market share for the past 15 years — that it’s hard to conceive of anyone threatening it, even as the gripes pile up about its flaws. But Apple exec Eddy Cue changed all that last week with a brief bit of testimony during the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google-parent Alphabet. According to Cue, in-browser searches by Apple users have fallen for the first time ever, and in response Apple is considering replacing Google search with AI search (supplied by OpenAI or Perplexity) on the Safari browser. The mere prospect sent Alphabet’s stock tumbling by 8%. How much government red tape is too much? Ontario Premier Doug Ford is proposing the designation of “special economic zones” where businesses will be exempted from certain laws. Which laws? Well, the current legislation is pretty vague about that. On one hand, cumbersome regulation can slow productivity and job growth. On the other, regulations tend to exist for a reason. Ontario’s plan is intended to speed up sluggish approvals for projects like critical-mineral mines or highway redevelopments. But the Canadian Civil Liberties Association argues that allowing the government to pick and choose which companies need to follow, say, labour laws would be a very bad idea. INTERESTING Stock up on wisdom from the Oracle. It’s been more than a week now since Warren Buffett announced that he was retiring after 60 years atop Berkshire Hathaway, and the think pieces just…won’t…stop. So, we figured we’d save you time by sifting out our favourites: Bloomberg’s Matt Levine writes about how Buffett’s investing style was actually sorta basic; Byrne Hobart considers that Buffett’s nerdy, Coca-Cola-powered mental math abilities made him the optimal investor for his era; and FT’s Robin Wigglesworth recaps Buffett’s “bet of the century” that index funds beat stock-pickers every time. Apple TV+ renews the comedy that explains the modern movie business. TLDR culture rec! If you want to understand why Hollywood seems to make nothing but Minecraft adaptations and Marvel sequels, The Studio, which stars Seth Rogen and was just renewed for a second season by Apple TV+, spells it out in hilariously humiliating detail. The new pope could be inheriting some money trouble. For the first time, the Catholic church will be led by an American. Chicago deep dish all around! One of the less godly parts of the job for Pope Leo XIV will be running the Vatican’s vast financial empire, and on last week’s TLDR podcast, we dived into the US$6 billion Vatican Bank’s scandalous past and challenges for its future. —Sarah Rieger FROM OUR SPONSOR THE FOMO INDEX by Stacey Woods IMPORTANT 🧸 Mattel plans to offset tariffs by raising prices on American toys. Country braces for future generation of single-issue voters. Source ✈️ WestJet cuts nine U.S. routes due to low demand. Too bad, they were really looking forward to delaying those flights. Source 🎥 Google signs multiyear deal with production company to develop tech-focused film and TV. Look for upcoming projects AI Overview and Did You Mean…? Source 🇨🇭 Credit Suisse ordered to pay $707 million for helping people dodge taxes. Might have to drain their Swiss bank account. Source CRASH & BURN TO THE MOON 🍔 Lawsuit against Burger King alleges Whoppers are much smaller than they look in pictures. “You can get sued for that?” ask men. Source ⛴️ Saskatoon riverboat Prairie Lily cancels season because of low water levels. Find some other stuff to do with your in-laws. Source 📺 Netflix completely redesigns its home screen. It had to — some people could still find what they were looking for. Source 🪐 Scientists spot what might be the solar system’s ninth planet. Which one of us is going to tell Pluto? Source WHO CARES THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY INNOVATION Five Super-Neat (and Super-Canadian!) Companies to Watch It’s been an anxious few months here in Canadian Economytown, and we just wanted to remind everyone that cool and positive things are still happening. So this week, we’re highlighting five new (or new-ish) Canadian companies with the potential to shift the narrative around our startup ecosystem. We can’t promise this bunch includes the next Shopify, but we can say they’re all attracting serious investment. Eavor Based in: Calgary Founded: 2017 Industry: Energy Why it’s interesting: Eavor is a pioneer in “closed-loop” geothermal energy, which means it builds two really deep wells alongside each other and then connects them both aboveground and deep under the ground (as far as 5.5 kilometres) to create a loop. Fluid flowing through the loop gets hot beneath the Earth’s surface, rises upward, and heats homes and powers buildings as it cools down. BP, Chevron, and Microsoft are all backers, and a recent Bloomberg research report cited Eavor’s next-generation geothermal tech as a “possible game changer.” What it’s up to: Building its first active “closed-loop” facility in Germany, which is slated to heat and power 20,000 homes. Cohere Based in: Toronto Founded: 2019 Industry: AI (but not the scary kind) Why it’s interesting: Unlike competitors such as OpenAI, Cohere sells its gen-AI “agent” exclusively to businesses, pitching it as an electronic assistant that will speed up and take over tedious tasks, like payroll management. Basically, its AI is deployed to take over mundane work for highly secure industries, like banking. In other words, unlike some other LLMs, it’s refreshingly not trying to convince the public that it’s capable of writing heartfelt notes to family members. Says Cohere’s CEO: “When I think about my personal life, there’s actually not a ton that I want to automate.” Same! What it’s up to: The company just locked down $240 million from Canada’s government — the first payout from its $2 billion Sovereign AI Compute Strategy fund. Clio Based in: Burnaby Founded: 2008 Industry: Legal tech (or legaltech, for those in the know) Why it’s interesting: Clio started out by putting legal-management software on the cloud back when that was a really novel idea. Now, it’s a $50 billion market. Because Clio was early to the cloud, the company was perfectly positioned to capitalize when drafting legal contracts and other technical documents emerged as one of the first commercially viable use cases for gen AI. What it’s up to: Being worth $4 billion, buying a British firm that could help it double its market size, and sponsoring the Canucks’ away jerseys. Activate Games Based in: Winnipeg Founded: 2019 Industry: Leisure Why it’s interesting: Activate is a recreation chain with more than 30 locations across Canada and the U.S. that feature what it calls “live-action gaming adventures” — one- to three-minute mental and physical challenges in screen- and light-filled rooms that evoke the feeling of being dropped into a vintage arcade game. It’s a small but ambitious business, in other words, whose $40 million or so in annual revenue reflects an AI-esque growth of 1,105% over the past three years. What it’s up to: Opening a location in Dubai and expanding into Scandinavia. PulseMedica Based in: Edmonton Founded: 2018 Industry: Health care Why it’s interesting: The company aspires to take eye surgery to frankly ridiculous levels of precision by developing noninvasive “nanosurgery” technology that uses laser pulses lasting only a quadrillionth of a second (also known as a “femtosecond”). Millions of people have eye conditions, like macular degeneration, that PulseMedica’s tech could potentially treat, so its growth potential is giant. Femtoseconds! What it’s up to: The company was chosen to join Google’s latest startup accelerator cohort and has raised $12 million for clinical trials of what would be its first commercially available treatment. —Ben Mathis-Lilley & Sarah Rieger OTHER VERY GOOD READS 🏦 The Hold-Up Artist The legendary bank robber on the run from Toronto police. | Toronto Life 💐 Rebel With a Vase The local florists taking on a $30B global industry. | The Walrus 👔 North Korea Stole Your Job The nation is secretly placing young IT workers at Western companies. | Wired THE WISDOM OF SOCIAL And unlike LinkedIn, Indeed doesn’t even have games! THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? Love it Good So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Ben Mathis-Lilley (writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Stacey Woods (writer), Sarah Rieger (news writer), Ambrose Martos (fact checker), Ciara Rickard (copy editor), Maude Campbell (copy editor), Sara Black McCulloch (fact checker), Mohini Tailor (lifecycle marketing manager), Eva Grace Clement Cruz (editorial producer), Matthew Karasz (markets editor) Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Peter Martin (senior editor), and Devin Friedman (editor-in-chief). Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE *Oura Rings Giveaway: No purchase required. Contest begins on May 5, 2025 at 12:01am Eastern Time (ET) and ends on June 5, 2025 at 11:59pm ET. Ten (10) prizes available to be won in Canada, each consisting of one Oura Ring 4 (ARV CAD$649). To enter for one (1) entry into the contest, make ten (10) qualifying transactions, of a minimum of $3.00 each, in the Wealthsimple chequing account ("Chequing Account") during the contest period. Limit of one (1) entry during the Contest Period. Odds of winning depend on the total number of eligible entries received during the Contest Period. Skill-testing question required. Open only to New and Existing Chequing Account clients, who are legal residents of Canada and are the age of majority in the province or territory of residence at the time of entry. Full rules and entry details available here. TLDR is offered by Wealthsimple Media Inc. and is for informational purposes only. Any views expressed are those of the individual author and/or of Wealthsimple Media Inc., not of Wealthsimple Financial Corp or any of its other subsidiaries or affiliates. The content in TLDR is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell assets or securities, nor any other kind of professional advice. TLDR is not a research report and should not serve as the basis for making investment decisions. Wealthsimple Media Inc. does not endorse any third-party views referenced in this content. When you invest, your money is at risk and it is possible that you may lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Historical returns, hypothetical returns, expected returns and images included in this content are for illustrative purposes only. Always research before investing. © 2025 Wealthsimple Media Inc.