Hi, welcome to your Weekend.

When a team of assassins killed the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul a little over five years ago, Silicon Valley for a moment found its vertebrae. At the time, tech investors and founders were growing increasingly intoxicated by funding from Saudi sources. But those days seemed like they might be over after western intelligence services pointed the finger at the country’s leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for orchestrating the killing (MBS has denied blame but accepted responsibility for it).

“It will be a real moral challenge for anyone to accept money moving forward from Saudi Arabia,” one venture capitalist told The Washington Post at the time. 

Time and an urgent need for fresh sources of capital seems to have cured tech of its moral outrage, as Margaux MacColl and Natasha Mascarenhas show in this Weekend’s cover story. VCs and founders are now openly courting sovereign wealth funds, family offices and other sources of capital in Saudi Arabia (and the United Arab Emirates and other countries in the Middle East). 

Tech leaders may feel like they don’t have much choice, as venture funding withers at home. But it’s likely only a matter of time before something else happens that produces another round of outrage about where Silicon Valley is getting its money from. And now we know that outrage probably won’t last very long. 

Now onto this Weekend’s stories...

The Big Read 

How Silicon Valley Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Middle East Money Again

Five years after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, tech investors and founders are suddenly not shy about accepting—or actively pursuing—Gulf money.

How To...

So You're Going to Raise in the Middle East

Where to stay, where to eat, what to do—and not do—when you're a western investor or entrepreneur looking for money in the middle east.

Party Time

The Information's Birthday Bash

See Photos of Sequoia Capital's Roelof Botha, Instagram co-founder Kevin System and others at our 10th anniversary gala. 

Reading: Polyamory breaks out of the Bay Area

If you thought the polycule died along with SBF's crypto empire, think again. According to the culture forecasters at the New Yorker, the New York Times and New York Magazine, the polyamory trend is just getting started. NYM's cover story—part etiquette guide, part glossary, part reported feature—is particularly fascinating, whether you're a poly diehard, a rookie who just downloaded Feeld, or a voyeuristic normie wondering how people juggle the logistics of it all. (As it turns out, shared Google Calendars are key.) —Julia

Watching: Succession for oenophiles

I was in a television dry spell until a band of women in tech universally recommended the Apple TV+ series Drops of God at a recent dinner. My husband and I are hooked. It’s a drama about succession in the wine industry, family drama and so much more. The show feels familiar (see: Succession’s the Roys) but also fresh and different. Told in three languages (English, French and Japanese), it is culturally rich and interesting—and I know very little about wine. I'm halfway in and curious why Apple TV+ hasn't been pushing this show harder! I predict that will change. —Jessica

Generating: The future of tech-enhanced travel

After a months-long break, I got a harsh reintroduction to the indignities of air travel this week, with three separate plane journeys within 48 hours. There were shows of technological triumph: the developments in facial recognition technology and the Mobile Passport Control app that allowed us to breeze past a long line of tired travelers. Then there were less impressive moments: the Delta gate agent calmly telling me that there was no real explanation for why my flight home from a work trip was delayed for hours, arriving at four in the morning. This week, The New York Times published a package summarizing all the ways (good and bad) that technology will affect travel in the coming year: chatbot-enabled intelligent travel agents, enhanced biometrics, dynamic ticket-pricing algorithms and AI-enhanced bargain-hunting tools. Disrupt away, I say. —Julia

Makes You Think

What a time to be alive.

Until next Weekend, thanks for reading.

—Nick