Snap’s (SNAP) Evan Spiegel took a major left turn last week away from Silicon Valley talking points.

On Lenny's Podcast, the tech CEO warned of a coming "huge amount of societal pushback" against AI, citing job anxieties and fatter electric bills. He joins Sam Altman, who recently conceded AI is getting less popular.

A March NBC poll found just 26% of voters viewed AI favorably, beating only the Democratic Party and Iran.

Spiegel's solution at Snap: Lay off 16% of staff and credit the AI productivity gains.

The skepticism scans, but… mixed messaging much? 🤔

— Brooks & Cas

What: The superrich are still spending. Just not on fine art. Global art sales rose 4% in 2025 per the Art Basel and UBS (UBS) Art Market Report, but they remain 7% below 2019 levels. Meanwhile, private jet deliveries hit a 15-year high last year, and superyacht sales notched an all-time record, per Edmiston.

Why: Higher interest rates have killed a favorite hedge-fund trade, where billionaires used Picassos as collateral for cheap loans and redeployed the cash into stocks. Art has also been a lousy investment lately. Bank of America (BAC) and ArtTactic data show works flipped within five years lost 5.7% annually on average in 2025 US auctions, and collectors typically need to hold for 10 years just to break even. (Not to mention insurance, commissions, and steep capital-gains taxes.)

What Else: Then there's the generational wrinkle. Boomers bid Warhols and Rothkos to eye-watering levels, but younger collectors prefer overlooked Black and women artists. Warhol auction values fell 85% from 2022 levels last year, per ArtTactic.

Watch: Spring auctions in New York are the next test. The more lots arriving with guaranteed minimum bids, the shakier the floor underneath the whole market.

What: War or no, the pros aren’t panicking. Barron's latest Big Money poll found 54% of professional investors bullish on stocks for the next 12 months, up from 47% in October. Bearish sentiment slipped to 17%.

Why: The survey ran mostly before the Iran cease-fire and rebound, so the results may even understate the optimism. That said, the forecasts lean high floor, low ceiling. Only 19% of respondents expect S&P earnings growth above 10% this year, against analysts' 18% consensus, per FactSet. And the median oil forecast sits at $80 a barrel a year out — 20% above pre-war levels but well short of crisis pricing.

What Else: The interesting part is where they're shopping. Small-caps drew 36% support as the most attractive equity category, mid-caps 30%. Energy was the top sector pick at 24%, with Peter Tuz of Chase Investment Counsel flagging SLB (SLB), Baker Hughes (BKR), and Halliburton (HAL). Nearly 66% are bullish on non-US equities, and Tesla (TSLA) topped the priciest-stock list.

Watch: The Russell 2000's relative strength against the S&P 500. If Big Money is right about small-caps and international, leadership rotates from here.

What: Customers Bancorp (CUBI) CEO Sam Sidhu spent 30 minutes of his recent earnings call letting an AI clone of himself read the prepared remarks. Then he told the analysts.

Why: The $25.9 billion-asset lender's confession was a stunt with a strategy. Customers signed a multiyear deal with OpenAI in 2023, embedded its engineers across commercial banking, and now says 75% of staff use AI tools daily.

What Else: He's not alone in cloning himself. Meta (META) is building a digital twin of Mark Zuckerberg to interact with employees, per the Financial Times. Klarna (KLAR) used an AI version of CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski for a Q1 earnings video, and the company expects its workforce to shrink from 3,000 to under 2,000 by 2030. Zoom (ZM) chief Eric Yuan deployed his own clone for an earnings call earlier this year, and has said he wants to send a digital version to meetings so he can go to the beach.

Watch: Which executives outsource their prepared remarks next earnings season. Sidhu says the goal is removing tedious work, not replacing judgment. But Klarna's headcount math suggests judgment and tedium can be hard to tell apart.