SBF Found Guilty on All Counts

Hot off the presses: The jury in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried convicted the FTX founder and former CEO of all seven fraud and conspiracy charges he was facing. The quick verdict—jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon—felt fitting for a case that federal prosecutors filed less than a year ago. Bankman-Fried now faces a maximum sentence of 110 years on all counts, though some attorneys believe he’s likely to get significantly less than that. You can catch up on the most recent installments of Aidan’s coverage of the trial here and here.     

Apple’s Growth Issues

“Difficult compares.” That was the expression Apple’s finance chief Luca Maestri used to explain the poor showing from the company’s Mac and iPad businesses, especially the former, which saw revenue fall nearly 34% in the September quarter it reported Thursday. That’s not the kind of result one would hope to see from a product line Apple has sought to rejuvenate in recent years with zippy new Apple-designed microprocessors. The unflattering comparison Maestri was alluding to was the sensational performance of the Mac in last year’s September quarter—revenue grew 25% compared to a year earlier—when Apple benefited from the end of supply shortages. He also blamed the results on “challenging market conditions.”  

Still, the Mac is only around 9% of Apple’s total revenue. Unfortunately, Apple’s wearables and iPad businesses also saw sales drop during the quarter, leading to a nearly 1% decline in total Apple revenue to $89.5 billion. Revenue for the full year fell nearly 3% to $383 billion.