| China's online commerce giant Alibaba announced this week it would split its $250 billion empire into six separate companies. The historic restructuring would allow the divisions to operate more independently and opens the door for future initial public offerings — a potential boon for Hong Kong's stock market. Perhaps more notably though, the overhaul could serve as a template for shaking up China's broader tech sector, which Beijing has scrutinized for years. It would achieve the government's aim of curtailing increasingly powerful private firms while unlocking shareholder value. Alibaba has gained more than $30 billion of market value since Tuesday's announcement, which also fired up a rally in fellow Chinese technology shares. With all the attention on the restructuring, the face of China's big tech industry — Alibaba's founder Jack Ma — made his first public appearance in years. But it's his long absence that may be more telling.  The US Treasury building in Washington, DC. Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg In the US, the panic over the collapse of several regional banks and Credit Suisse seems to have subsided with the Nasdaq back to a bull market. But the turmoil has raised a new existential question for US banks. The flow of deposits out of banks underscores that Americans have found other places to park their spare cash and get a better interest rate. Despite rates rising, banks have been slow to boost the rates they offer to customers, fearing what it will mean for their margins. "The bottom line is, deposits were really taken for granted for a very, very long time because of the zero interest rate environment, and now that's completely changed," said Joseph Plevelich, senior research analyst at Pekin Hardy Strauss Wealth Management. The Big Take podcast heads to Knoxville, Tennessee to check out Frontier, the world's fastest supercomputer. So what's it really capable of? What problems is it solving? Subscribe and listen on iHeart, Apple and Spotify. | 
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