The clash of Asia's superpowers

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Welcome back to our Sunday edition, a roundup of some of our top stories. It seems everyone has their own brand of tequila or mezcal. The latest to get in on the act: Tesla, which is selling a $450 bottle of mezcal on its website.

Modi misses

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed a third term this week, but his Bharatiya Janata Party failed to secure an overall majority. He’ll now have to rely on allies to form a government. 

The election result was a blow to Modi, who has governed India for a decade with an increasingly firm grip. The rebuke arrived despite Modi’s record of lifting hundreds of millions of Indians out of poverty, which won praise from business titans like Jamie Dimon. Indian stock indexes fell on the election results before recovering. 

India watchers expect the country’s new government to move slower on some issues following the surprise election result. But experts believe Modi will be largely undeterred in his economic and foreign policy efforts. 

One pain point is India’s rising unemployment rate. That could see Modi supercharge his efforts to turn India into the new factory of the world. Apple is among those investing in manufacturing in the country. 

He has also positioned India as a leader of the Global South, strengthening diplomatic ties with the US and pushing for a permanent position on the UN Security Council. 

That puts India in direct competition with China, with Modi wasting no time in needling his rival shortly after claiming victory.

Climbing Mt. Nvidia

Going up against Nvidia is generally considered a pretty bad idea for startups in Silicon Valley. "Betting against Nvidia is viewed as a very stupid investment,” one VC said. 

But Silicon Valley often thrives when true technologists keep hacking away at something they believe in, even if everyone else thinks it's dumb.

See the startups coming for Nvidia.

Also read:

• AI just catapulted Nvidia into the $3 trillion club at lightning pace

More of this week’s top reads:

• Jack Dorsey gave $10 million to an anonymous founder with a deep devotion to a fascist “guru.”
• Six tips from Satya Nadella on how to run a company and manage your team.
• Why big musical acts can’t sell out concerts anymore.
• An unchecked AI could usher in a new dark age.
• HR exec: If you get put on a PIP, find a new job as fast as possible.
• Microsoft is laying off hundreds in its Azure cloud business.
• Apple alerted Amazon about a potential cloud security risk, prompting a change in AWS's data-deletion process.

Curated by Matt Turner and edited by Jordan Parker Erb.

This is a shorter version of our flagship newsletter, which brings you in-depth analysis and summaries of the top stories from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.

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