The Daily Briefing highlights the news of the day and research that reveals the spirit of the day.
The Daily Briefing is a newsletter sent straight to your inbox every morning that provides biblical insight on today's news.
Top News
6. Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO after affair with alleged spy (WaPo)
“Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang resigned Thursday amid reports of two affairs that included a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy, a stunning downfall for one of the world’s most powerful executives. "Jensen’s contributions to NVIDIA are profound. NVIDIA is one of the most consequential technology companies in the world,” the company’s board said in a statement. “The Board and the company thank Jensen for his immeasurable contributions to the company and the industry.”
“Colette Kress, the chief financial officer of Nvidia who has been with the company since 2013, will serve as interim CEO while the board looks to replace a leader whose name has been synonymous with the company. Huang transformed Nvidia from a developer of graphics cards used in video game computers to one that controls the precious chips used to develop artificial intelligence.”
“The benefit of failure is an objectivity that success simply can’t offer,” according to Maria Konnikova. In her book The Biggest Bluff, Konnikova writes that a “basic shortcoming of our neural wiring is that we can't quite grasp probabilities.” We make decisions “based on things like 'gut feeling' and 'intuition' and 'what feels right' rather than based on the data they are shown… "Our experiences trump everything else, but mostly, those experiences are incredibly skewed: they teach us, but they don't teach us well.” In this instance, Jensen learned wrongly from the past that he could get away with it.
Triumph is a foe, and disaster is a teacher, according to Maria. “When you're winning, it's just too easy not to stop and analyze your process. When it comes to learning, Triumph is the real foe; it's Disaster that's your teacher. It's Disaster that brings objectivity. It's Disaster that's the antidote to that greatest of delusions, overconfidence. And ultimately, both Triumph and Disaster are impostors. They are results that are subject to chance. One of them just happens to be a better teaching tool than the other."
Like David with Bathsheba, Jensen failed, but God doesn’t. After committing adultery, David begged for mercy, sharing how his failure “haunts him day and night.” Drawing on The Biggest Bluff, David did what felt right, but now he wanted to be right, asking God to teach him “wisdom in the secret heart” so that he may teach other transgressors. David and Jensen knew their actions were wrong, but they did it anyway. Maris observes that “you will never have all the information you want, and you will have to act all the same.” At the core, sin is rarely due to a lack of information and more often a need for heart transformation. (Ps. 51)
5. 2 Children among the 8 dead in Brooklyn building collapse (NY Times)
“Rescue workers stopped searching the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Brooklyn on Thursday, saying they had determined there were no more victims. Eight people, including two children, were killed in the collapse.
“Earlier Thursday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least 18 people, including four firefighters, had been injured when the building collapsed on Wednesday afternoon. Rescuers spent almost 24 hours digging through the site, even as a downpour on Thursday left shin-high pools of water on the surrounding streets.
“This has been a devastating evening and morning for our city,” Mr. Mamdani said. “We are mourning too many people who we love.” Mr. Mamdani said the rescue effort had included hundreds of firefighters who worked through the night. He repeatedly praised the Fire Department’s response, saying the department had arrived at the scene “within one minute” after receiving the emergency call.”
In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer, according to Nicholas Wolterstorff. In his moving book Lament for a Son, Nicholas shares about losing his son, Eric, in an accident. “For we all prize and love; and in this present existence of ours, prizing and loving yield suffering. Love in our world is suffering love. Some do not suffer much, though, for they do not love much. Suffering is for the loving.”
You aren’t supposed to bury your children, but if you do, you will bear witness to your love of them with your grief over them. “Grief is existential testimony to the worth of the one loved. That worth abides. So I own my grief. I do not try to put it behind me, to get over it, to forget it… Every lament is a love-song.”
Wolterstorff put it well in his conclusion: “God is not only the God of the sufferers but the God who suffers. ... It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one could see his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps it meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor... Instead of explaining our suffering God shares it.” (Ps. 34)
4. Hegseth awards medal to guard who scolded him at Tomb of Unknown Soldier (USA Today)
“Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth bestowed a prestigious medal on the U.S. Army sentinel who scolded Hegseth and a group of his senior advisers for laughing at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after a Veterans Day ceremony. Hegseth invited a group of tomb's guards, known as Army sentinels, to the Pentagon on Nov. 12, and awarded the prestigious Joint Service Commendation Medal to Specialist Thomas Iglesias, the sentinel who yelled at him a day earlier.
"We love standards," Hegseth wrote in a post on social media. "Well done, Specialist." Iglesias admonished Hegseth, his wife and a group of his senior advisers for laughing after they posed for photos in front of the tomb at Arlington National Cemetery, one of the most sacred war memorials in the country. "All visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times," Iglesias yelled, prompting Hegseth and other members of the group to turn around in surprise as they were walking away from the memorial. The incident was captured by television cameras and quickly went viral on social media.”
Microsoft Outlook is still down, but this officer stepped up with radical candor… In her book Radical Candor, Kim Scott argues that a “strong leader has the humility to listen, the confidence to challenge, and the wisdom to know when to quit arguing and to get on board.”
There are 2 pitfalls in leadership when it comes to feedback, according to Scott: ruinous empathy and obnoxious aggression. The former refers to a leader being so concerned about being liked that they fail to offer necessary feedback. Then there is obnoxious aggression, which is when feedback is given without any care for the individual, leading to disengagement.
From a stubborn donkey to a gentle couple (Num. 22, 2 Tim. 1), God uses a variety of means to direct our path toward his glory and our good. GK Chesterton put it well: “What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism.”
Cultural News
3. The mental health benefit of striking up conversations with strangers (WaPo)
“But in dozens of studies involving more than 30,000 people, he and other researchers have found that people are happier when they are more social. Even if they consider themselves introverts. Even if they fear that reaching out to another person will be embarrassing.
“In one study, Epley found that after having a conversation with a stranger, people predict that a future conversation with another stranger will be more enjoyable. But that effect fades pretty quickly. “It’s not like you go out and have a nice conversation with somebody in the elevator and [the anxiety] disappears,” Epley said.
“The main reason people feel uneasy about socializing, he said, is that we focus on the wrong thing. We worry about what we’ll say rather than how we’ll say it. This was certainly true for me... One of the most surprising findings in the research on happiness is that introverts and extroverts alike feel better when they act like extroverts. This was so perplexing to social scientists that for years they looked for some cost to pretending to be more outgoing than we feel.”
How Do You Like Me Now – Toby Keith sang it and we ask it… reluctantly. Known as the liking gap, this refers to the mismatch between our impression and the reality. We tend to underestimate how much other people view us positively, but interestingly enough, we overestimate how many people would call us a friend.
Are you a supercommunicator? Charles Duhigg, in his book Supercommunicators, writes that to “communicate with someone, we must connect with them. When we absorb what someone is saying and they comprehend what we say, it's because our brains have, to some degree, aligned.” This requires grasping the nuances of the 3 core conversation types: practical, emotional, and social. “Miscommunication occurs when people are having different kinds of conversations. If you are speaking emotionally, while I’m talking practically, we are, in essence, using different cognitive languages.”
We are more than puzzles to be solved but adventures to be explored, according to David Brooks. Channeling the woman at the well, Brooks writes: “Every person I meet is fascinating on some topic. If I approach you in this respectful way, I’ll know that you are not a puzzle that can be solved but a mystery that can never be gotten to the bottom of. I’ll do you the honor of suspending judgment and letting you be as you are.” (Jn. 4)
News You Can Use
2. Officer shot 6 times celebrates wedding
Watch it here. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Ps. 46:1)
1. A tribute to our dear friend and colleague, Dan Hicks. Narrated by Jimmy Roberts.
Watch it here. “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Mt. 25:23)
