Jay Z Wants Your Money: Your Top Headlines for Tuesday

Jay Z, Beyoncé, Kanye, Madonna, Coldplay, Daft Punk, Arcade Fire and more want you to give them money because it’s right. Last night, the world’s wealthiest musicians launched Tidal, a streaming music service that prides itself of being twice as expensive as the competition – Spotify, if we need to name it – in order to properly compensate artists. Musicians would get equity in the company (details are still shady) in exchange for granting it exclusive rights to their music. A heck of a bet, writes my colleague Katie Carroll, when Tidal only reaches 35,000 people so far, against Spotify’s 60 million.

If Tidal is going to position itself as a music service for musicians, with more money going to the artists and less to the labels, great. I’m on board. But right now, all we know about the service is that a handful of the wealthiest musicians in the world are on its side.” ( Read the full post.)

That’s the sentiment on social media too, where music fans are very skeptical. My two cents: next to each of these mega stars on stage, they should have put an up-and-coming artist they like for whom streaming fees do actually pay the Ramen noodles. That would be a statement. As for consumers getting behind something just because it’s right – it’ll get you a yupster niche but never a mass market. That said, I’m a fair trade yupster, so go Jay Z!

Less than a day after he was announced as the new host of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah is facing his first controversy. The Internet, as it does, unearthed Noah’s tweets from a time when he was only a reasonably well known comedian in South Africa. They’re not very funny; they’re also quite offensive, especially to an American sensibility. “Prediction: (the day) will not be kind to Trevor Noah,” tweets Fusion’s Kevin Roose. Let’s see.

Tesla is promising a “major new product line” that isn’t cars. CEO Elon Musk tweeted it would be unveiled April 30. Of course, he already spilled the beans about a home battery in last month’s earnings call, so we’re not quite on the edge of our seats – but that didn’t stop Wall Street adding $900 million to Tesla’s market cap. That’s one valuable tweet. (Alternatively, you can play The Guessing Game with John C. Abell and figure out something else for Musk to build. He might even take you up on it.)

Biotech is hotter than tech. Two massive acquisitions were announced Monday – Auspex Pharmaceuticals for $3.5 billion and Hyperion Therapeutics for $1.1 billion. And that’s nothing next to the $21 billion Abbvie spent on Pharmacyclics earlier this month. These firms have developed high-value drugs, often on previously little-researched diseases. "Big Pharma is buying innovation and growth from biotech,” writes the Street’s Adam Feuerstein. It’s a seller’s market.”

The US is starting to look a bit isolated in refusing to join China’s new development bank. Even Taiwan, the eternal frenemy, is applying for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a World Bank-like fund Beijing’s building because China holds, in its view, too little voting power in other international institutions. Here’s a map if you’re keeping track (take a sharpie to your screen and also colour in Finland, Spain, Sweden, Egypt and Taiwan.)

Amazon is stepping on Angie’s List’s territory. The e-tailer has launched Amazon Home Services, which lets you – residents of major US cities only – find and order a plumber, a handyman or whatever tradesman you need through its website. The idea is that customers will prefer calling a peer-reviewed professional whose prices show up on the site. Yes, that was Angie’s point.

Facebook has moved into new digs. The 430,000-square-foot building designed by Frank Gehry is one giant room, with a green roof the size of seven football fields that doubles as a park. “The building itself is pretty simple and isn’t fancy,” writes CEO Mark Zuckerberg. See for yourself.

MySpace is bigger than Snapchat. You read that right: MySpace had more unique visitors in 2014, according to comScore, than Snapchat, Vine or those wannabe-Buzzfeeds that keep showing up in your Facebook feed – up 469% from 2013’s (really low) base after a pivot into music and video. What I want to know is, who are these 40 million people? Really, if you’ve used MySpace lately, I want to know: leave a comment or write your own post about it.

Every morning, we share the top headlines professionals need to know about right now. To not miss one, click the "Follow" button. Share with your network, read and discuss — and let us know what we missed in the comments below.