Insider Today: Apple gets crushed

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; Apple; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI

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Welcome back to our Sunday edition, a roundup of some of our top stories. Ever dream of packing it all in and moving to Southern Europe? You may have to rethink: The golden age of golden visas is already over.

On the agenda today:

Chess is taking over modern culture. It’s never been more toxic.Meet the best early-stage investors of 2024.Blackstone’s high-profile real-estate fund could be in trouble.Want to sell your home? Get ready for disappointment.

But first: Apple’s advertising flub reveals how Silicon Valley, and we, have changed.

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; Apple; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI

This week’s dispatch

Apple under pressure

A Space Invaders arcade game. Brightly colored paint cans. A cute squishy toy. Each slowly succumbs to a hydraulic press. What’s left is a new iPad.

Apple’s ad, titled “Crush,” was meant to show how the new tablet can be a creative tool. Instead it debuted to derision. The company responded by pulling the ad from TV and apologizing, saying it “missed the mark.”

The damage to Apple’s business is likely to be minimal. First quarter iPad sales came in at $7 billion. In comparison, iPhone sales were almost 10x that. Apple is a $2.8 trillion giant.

The reputational damage is to be seen. Thanks to the almost instantaneous backlash, the ad didn’t air widely. If the ad has changed your perceptions of Apple, let me know at mturner@insider.com.

But the ad, and the reaction to it, highlights our changed relationship with our devices.

Apple’s iconic 1984 Super Bowl ad was about the promise of technology, of breaking free from drudgery, of revolution.

Forty years on, creatives are concerned that AI will coopt their work or replace them entirely. Vinyl sales are booming. Teenagers are choosing dumb phones. Digital cameras are back. We’re tracking and limiting screen time for our kids.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that an ad portraying a powerful machine crushing much-loved tools of human creativity hit a nerve.

Apple’s mistake should serve as a lesson to every tech company.

Nicolás Ortega for BI

The dark heart of modern chess

Chess has never been more popular, but its ugly side has also never been more exposed.

The same characteristics that have driven its popularity online — an easy-to-understand eight-by-eight grid, a strategy without chance or luck — have also made it a cheater’s paradise. Meanwhile, rampant sexism festers at chess’ heart.

One reporter’s quest to understand chess’ degeneration.

Courtesy of Laura Rippy, April Underwood, Jenny Fielding, Alice Zhang, and Anu Duggal; Nick Little for BI

2024 top seed investors

Behind most startup founders is an investor who saw their potential, nurtured their ambition, and backed their ideas. Now in its fourth year, our list celebrates these figures, from Y Combinator’s Dalton Caldwell to Verge Genomics’ Alice Zhang.

Plus, we’re also highlighting the top 40 women early-stage investors, including Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee and Array Ventures’ Shruti Gandhi.

Meet the kingmakers:

The Seed 100: The best early-stage investors of 2024The Seed 40: The best women early-stage investors of 2024

Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI

Trouble at Blackstone

Blackstone’s $114 billion real-estate fund has veteran analysts worried. The private-equity giant found success pitching ordinary investors on BREIT, a commercial real-estate fund.

But some veteran analysts, accountants, and investors believe Blackstone’s estimates of BREIT’s assets are wildly inflated, making it essentially a house of cards.

Inside the growing alarm over BREIT.

Deliormanli/Getty, Olivier Verriest/Getty, Andrei Akushevich/Getty, Tyler Le/BI

Home sellers’ summer from hell

Sellers have had the upper hand for the last few years, but that’s about to change.

Home prices are still rising, but buyers are slowly starting to have more options — meaning the days of desperate dealmaking are over. Plus, mortgage rates have spiked back up to 7%, which is deterring prospective buyers and changing the calculus for many sellers.

More on why it’ll be a rough summer for sellers.

This week’s quote:

“I think what we all would want is some acknowledgment about what happened, and at least not completely dismiss the fact that it could have been work-related.”

A junior banker at Bank of America, after the death of a 35-year-old BofA associate.

More of this week’s top reads:

How spending has changed for young adults in the last 30 years.”Seriously underwater” mortgages are on the rise throughout the US.I’ve been offered every job I’ve interviewed for. I always ask five questions.Three reasons Norwegians are so effective at work.OpenAI destroyed a trove of books used to train AI models.

Meet the millennials who accidentally gamed the economy and wound up wealthy.

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. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.