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Submit your stock picks here: ausbiz.co/callpicksTed Alexander from BML Funds and Lachlan Hughes from Swell Asset Management go in-depth and stock specific on ‘the call.'FirstRand (JSE: FSR) vs Capitec (JSE: CPI) Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG) Markel Group (NYSE: MKL) Deere & Co (NYSE: DE) Mowi (OSE: MOWI)Zillow Group (NASDAQ: ZG) Block (NYSE: SQ) Vistra Corp. (NASDAQ: VST)Energy Fuels (NYSEAMERICAN: UUUU) Sandstorm Gold (NYSE: SAND) Stocks of the day: Alibaba (HKG: 9988) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) to listen go to https://ausbiz.co/STODGet your stock pick to the front of the queue by becoming an ausbiz contributor: https://ausbiz.co/contributorsAnd we'd love it if you could leave us a review below! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are many market maxims that investors hold close to their hearts. Here are just a few of them: It's time in the market not timing the market. Buy the rumour, sell the fact. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful! It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.  But perhaps one that should also be added to the list is "Two views make a market" - highlighting that to buy shares in a company, someone has to be willing to sell them - and vice versa.  So in this episode, Livewire's Ally Selby was joined by Loftus Peak's Alex Pollak and Magellan's Alan Pullen for a bit of a challenge.  We've tasked our fund managers to analyse each other's highest-conviction ideas in their portfolios today - including stocks like Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and SAP SE (NYSE: SAP).  Plus, they also each name a stock that they would dub a high-conviction "SELL". As you'll soon find out, both of these stocks have sunk into the red in the past week.  Note: This episode was filmed on Wednesday 17 July 2024. You can read an edited transcript below.  https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/buy-hold-sell-2-high-conviction-fundies-analyse-each-other-s-top-picks/ 

A reminder for new readers. That Was The Week collects the best writing on critical issues in tech, startups, and venture capital. I selected the articles because they are of interest. The selections often include things I entirely disagree with. But they express common opinions, or they provoke me to think. The articles are only snippets. Click on the headline to go to the original. I express my point of view in the editorial and the weekly video below.Thanks To This Week's Contributors: @TEDchris, @LilyWhitsitt, @RocketToLulu, @saeedtaji, @geneteare, @EricNewcomer, @jeffbeckervc, @jasonlk, @elonmusk, @benshapiro, @StevenLevy, @apple, @bheater, @bmw, @Growcoot, @illscience, @venturetwins, @omooretweets, @conniechanContents* Editorial: Civility and Civilization* Essays of the Week* US Seed Investment Actually Held Up Pretty Well For The Past 2 Years. Here's What That Means For 2024* Lower Valuations, Higher Bar: What It's Like To Raise A Seed Round In 2024 * Unicorns & Inevitabilities* Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager Survey* Why 2024 May Be Tougher on Venture Capital Than 2023* Video of the Week* The Mac at 40* AI of the Week* BMW will deploy Figure's humanoid robot at South Carolina plant* Google's New AI Video Generator Looks Incredible* OpenAI's Sam Altman seeks funds for AI chip factories as demands surge* The Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” Workflows* Andreessen Horowitz's Connie Chan to Leave as Consumer Focus Shifts to AI* OpenAI Is a (Relative) Steal* News Of the Week* Ted fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speaker* Tesla's Slowdown Disqualifies It From ‘Magnificent Seven' Group* TikTok's Testing 30 Minute Uploads as It Looks To Expand Its Content Options* Instagram to scan under-18s' messages to protect against ‘inappropriate images'* Tiger Global Investor Relations Staff Depart After Fundraising Challenges* Worldcoin hints at new Orb for a friendlier iris-scanning experience* Startup of the Week* Loyalty Startup Bilt Rewards Hits $3.1B Valuation After $200M Round* X of the Week* Elon Musk visits Auschwitz with Ben ShapiroEditorialThere is a lot to digest in this week's newsletter. Gené Teare's two essays on Seed investing head up the Essays of the Week, along with Jeff Becker talking about unicorns and inevitabilities, Eric Newcomer on who are the top investors and Jason Lemkin on the reasons 2024 might be harder for Venture Capital than 2023.But my attention was distracted from venture capital by a Guardian article announcing (triumphantly, I might add) that several TED fellows had resigned from the organization due to an invite to Bill Ackman to speak at this year's TED event in Vancouver.“Lucianne Walkowicz and Saeed Taji Farouky accuse Ted of taking anti-Palestinian stand over controversial billionaire's inclusion”It seems Ackman is not alone. They also object to Bari Weiss being invited. The leavers are also not alone; up to 30 others have signed a “solidarity” letter.The accusations echo much of the discussion around the medieval assassination of Jews on 7 October and Israel's efforts to defeat Hamas in the aftermath. Because these speakers are against anti-Semitism and so supportive of Israel's war against Hamas, they are accused of the ridiculous claim of supporting “Genocide” against Palestinians.“We refuse for our work and identities to be exploited to promote the Ted brand while the organisation and its speakers generate income and advance their careers through dehumanising Palestinians and justifying their genocide,” the pair said.It probably will not surprise readers of this newsletter that I applaud TED curators Chris Anderson and Lily James Olds for not backing down on the invitations. Whatever one believes about the current conflict in Israel, it is clear that banning opponents of anti-Semitism because of their stance is not a solution to anything. I believe the cause of fighting anti-Semitism should be close to the heart of any progressive person. It is not anti-Palestinian to support Jews against being slaughtered in the street, to oppose anti-Semitism, or to condemn Hamas as anti-Jewish murderers. Supporting Jews against slaughter by Hamas is not incompatible with supporting Palestinians. The Guardian reported that Ackman responded to the resignations with a statement:“I stand unapologetically with Israel and against antisemitism and terrorism, while strongly supporting the Palestinian people. Attempts to cancel speech and eliminate the free and respectful exchange of ideas among people with differing views are driving much of the divisiveness that plagues our nation. Truth, wisdom and ultimately peace are the result of the free exchange of ideas and debate, precisely what Ted is all about. It is sad that this is not more widely understood,”Unsurprisingly, one of the resigners, Farouky, told the Guardian he did not regard the issue as freedom of speech. It clearly IS about freedom of speech. Speech only needs protecting when opinions are wide apart and strongly held.For example, here are my views on the actual issues:These are trying times. Over 25,000 deaths in Gaza are hard to comprehend. And I certainly cannot. But I can understand that Jews have to defend themselves. And I can understand that progressive thinkers MUST stand up to anti-Semitism, whatever form it takes.In case there is doubt about my support for Muslim victims of racism, my book Under Seige is about the attacks on Muslims in the UK between 1961 and 1981. It starts with recognizing that racism targets differences and that Jews and Muslims are both targets. Indeed, the very ghettoes that Pakistani and Bengali immigrants were being attacked in had earlier, in the 1930s, been inhabited by Jewish settlers fleeing pogroms. I am not Jewish, and I am not Muslim. But I will always be on both of their sides when they are attacked for their ethnic and racial origin.In Israel, Jews were killed for being Jews. Palestinians are being killed because Hamas is hiding in their cities and buildings. I do not consider Israel's response to be racist against Palestinians. I consider it reasonable in the context of 7 October. I consider that Hamas has done this to Palestinians and probably wanted that outcome. I am sad that Hamas has done this for the Palestinian victims. But I do not doubt that Hamas is to blame.My views may anger you. But do you want me banned or silenced?My title this week is Civility and Civilization. The TED events bring both to the fore. Like those I write here, opinions are there to be disagreed with, debated, and interrogated. Civilized behavior requires dialogue and civility within the dialogue. I certainly understand opinions I disagree with, and far from banning them or walking away so that I do not have to hear them, I want to hear them. We all should.This is a different editorial than usual. I hope the humanity of refusing to forget 7 October and the determination to preserve the view that fighting anti-Semitism is a non-negotiable minimum requirement of civilization are grasped. By the same token, Islamaphobia must be fought. But in Israel, there is no Islamophobia at work. Jews are simply reacting to an atrocity. They are right to blame Hamas.Essays of the WeekUS Seed Investment Actually Held Up Pretty Well For The Past 2 Years. Here's What That Means For 2024Gené Teare, January 24, 2024, @geneteareEditor's note: This is the first in a two-part series on the state of seed startup investing at the start of 2024. Check back tomorrow for Part 2.Despite a broad pullback in global startup investment over the past two years, investors say the U.S. seed funding environment was the most vibrant compared to other funding stages during the downturn.In fact, U.S. seed funding in 2022 grew by close to 10% in terms of dollars invested, in contrast to a downturn at all other funding stages. In 2023, U.S. seed funding fell 31% — a significant proportion — but still less than other funding stages year over year, an analysis of Crunchbase data shows. (It's also worth noting that those other stages had already experienced year-over-year declines in 2022.)In the current startup funding market, “we're seeing a lot more great talent excited about starting things,” said Renata Quintini, co-founder of Renegade Partners, a Bay Area-based investment firm that focuses on Series A companies and is therefore close to the seed ecosystem.Other investors share that enthusiasm. “Valuations are coming down, more talent is available in the market,” said Michael Cardamone of New York-based seed investor Forum Ventures. “A lot of these companies at seed and Series A are going to scale into what will likely be the next bull market.”Seed trends over the decadeSeed as an asset class, not surprisingly, has grown in the U.S. over the past decade. In 2014 less than $5 billion was invested at seed. At the market peak in 2022, seed investment was more than $16 billion, although it fell to $11.5 billion in 2023.Despite the downturn, seed funding in 2023 was still $2 billion to $3 billion higher in the U.S. than in the pre-pandemic years of 2019 and 2020.Higher bar, pricier rounds, better valuedBut in a tougher market, seed investors are being more selective about which companies they fund.“We're being far more disciplined and patient knowing how hard it is for these companies to get to Series A and beyond,” said Jenny Lefcourt, a general partner at Bay Area-based seed investor Freestyle Capital. “Our bar for conviction is higher than it had been in the heyday where everything was getting funded.”In the slower funding environment, the firm has been investing later at the seed stage, “gravitating toward ‘seed plus' or ‘A minus' — pick your favorite term for it — because I feel like I get to see more risk mitigated. I get to see more data,” she said.Freestyle seeks to have ownership of around 12% to 15% in the companies it backs. “The reason is because of our model,” Lefcourt said. “We are low-volume, high-conviction investors.”And because the firm invests in companies that are pre-Series A, “our reality has been that our valuations have actually been higher in this market, which is not what we would have predicted.“But the data we've seen is, we're not alone in that,” she said.…MoreLower Valuations, Higher Bar: What It's Like To Raise A Seed Round In 2024 Gené Teare, January 25, 2024, @geneteareEditor's note: This is the second in a two-part series on the state of seed startup investing at the start of 2024. Read Part 1, which looked at seed funding trends over the past decade and the median time period between seed and Series A funding, here.Seed funding to startups has grown into its own asset class over the past decade, with round sizes trending larger, and a bigger pool of investors backing these nascent startups. But in the aftermath of 2021's venture funding heyday and subsequent pullback, investors say that while seed funding has held up better than other startup investment stages, these very young startups will see lower valuations and must now clear a much higher bar to get backing.More companies raised seed funding above $1 million in 2021. Those companies — which raised during a record-smashing year for venture funding — are saddled with valuations that could be too high for this current market — even at seed. Many of those startups have been forced to cut costs to extend their runways, and face a tougher sales environment.“You could then be sacrificing growth, which is one of the main levers that Series A investors are looking for,” said Michael Cardamone of New York-based seed investor Forum Ventures.2021 after effectsIn 2021 it was “grow, grow, grow, grow,” said Jenny Lefcourt, a general partner at Bay Area-based seed investor Freestyle Capital. “It's embarrassing to look back on, but that was the game being played.”Investors got sloppy during the boom times, she said. “I think a lot of VCs were thrilled to back you, and then say, ‘we'll figure it out.' ”“The reality is that almost anything that was done then — call it 2021 — was the wrong price,” she said.This led to down rounds, even at seed, though those are generally not viewed negatively like they were in the past, she said.In fact, “when our companies get their down rounds done, it's a sign of it's a good business. It just had the wrong price on it,” she said.While the bar is higher to raise funding these days, “I think it's so much better for a company who gets to start in this environment,” Lefcourt said.Down rounds can actually be a sign of conviction, she said. “None of us would do all the heavy lifting to not only give the company more capital, but recap it, which takes a lot. It's a heavy lift — none of us would do that if we weren't super jazzed about the company. The lazier approach, the easier approach, is to just put it on the note, keep it flat, and be done,” she said.Renata Quintini, co-founder of Renegade Partners, a Bay Area-based investment firm that focuses on Series A companies, is hearing of “more ‘pay-to-play' these days and it's starting to get ugly.” This happens when new investors wipe out the prior investors, and anyone seeking equity needs to pony up into the new funding round.Median and averages climbNonetheless, “seed round valuations haven't dropped a ton from even the peak,” according to Forum Ventures' Cardamone. But, “the bar to raise a seed [round] is a lot higher.”“Most first-time founders especially, and the vast majority of founders generally — they have to get significant traction to be able to raise that same round they used to be able to raise. And a lot fewer of those rounds are happening,” he said.“A priced seed round of $3 million at $15 million [pre-money] is still happening, but you might have to be at $500,000 ARR, to raise that round now. Whereas in 2021, it was the norm to raise that round pre-revenue,” he said.Series A fundings have gotten harder as “companies are going out and raising three seed rounds,” said Cardamone.Based on an analysis of Crunchbase data, median and average seed round sizes in the U.S. have climbed through the past decade.In 2023, median and average raises are not far from the peak of 2022, Crunchbase data shows, and were well above pre-pandemic levels. (However, this will shift downward somewhat as the long tail of seed fundings are retroactively added to the Crunchbase database.)Seed rounds got larger“If I have conviction, we may need them to have more money, cause we know it's going to take them longer to reach the milestones that are now higher,” said Lefcourt.Per an analysis of Crunchbase data, larger seed rounds — those $1 million and above — have increased through the decade.The amount of funding to seed-stage companies below $1 million hasn't budged much, and is a fraction of what it was earlier in the decade.Seed below $1 million in 2014 represented around 25% of all seed funding.That has come down as a proportion every year since then.And as of 2021 that proportion has dipped below 10% for the first time, ranging from 5% to 7% of all seed dollars invested in the U.S. since then.Earlier in the past decade, the number of seed deals in rounds below $1 million outpaced those rounds at $1 million and above significantly.But 2021 was once again a pivotal year. That's when $1 million and above seed rounds outpaced smaller seed for the first time.In 2023, they are neck and neck in count. (That might shift as the long tail of seed rounds are added to the Crunchbase database long after they close.)What this all shows is that seed has become an increasingly significant and elongated phase in a company's early life cycle, where companies are raising multiple million-dollar seed rounds. And as of late, more companies than ever before are wading in the seed pool.What does this mean for the seed funding market in 2024?…MoreUnicorns & InevitabilitiesUp and to the right, or not so much?JEFF BECKER, JAN 22, 2024TLDR: Go read Aileen Lee's update to the Unicorn Club… and a few inevitabilities.Did anyone catch Aileen Lee & Allegra Simon's Welcome Back to the Unicorn Club, 10 Years Later?If not, go read it. That's your MMM.If you did read it, you can't help but wonder if the tech sector isn't going to resemble the public markets over time. Ups and downs, but consistently up and to the right over a long enough period.After all, we are creating leverage in ways we've never seen before.And for unicorns, that meant 14X growth over a 10-year period.Could you imagine another 14 or even 10X from here? That would be stratospheric, from ~500 to ~5,000 unicorns? What if the exit sizes did too? $5B, $10B, $50B?Crazy to think, but hardly impossible. After all, we've already seen near-centicorns like Uber's IPO at $75B in 2019.The interesting part about that thought exercise though is not the crazy zero interest rate IPO's, but the fact that entry valuations didn't and don't move nearly as fast as top end outcomes because of the time horizon to realizing them.For example, Airbnb raised $20K from Y Combinator for 6%, then they took another $600K for 20% in their seed.That was 2009. The idea of an IPO for $47B just 11 years later in 2020 probably wasn't even a consideration. Paul Graham and the YC team would've had to believe Airbnb's IPO could compete with AT&T, General Motors, and Visa.Insane.Fast forward, that $333,333 valuation at YC has moved to $1.78m (125K for 7%), and they'll stack another 2.6% ownership on average from their $375K MFN with the average YC company raising seed at a $14.4m cap instead of Airbnb's $3m.That's a ~5X increase in valuation at pre-seed & seed for a 47X increase in IPO size if you were modeling $1B outcomes into your VC fund model in 2009.I'm not saying that will continue. There are counterforces of course.* Margins are way too high. The fact that software margins have persisted at 80% or more is just craziness. Companies will start to use price more aggressively to compete for market share as cheap AI tools enter the market and try to unseat them. This compression will change the value of discounted cash flow models.* Pricing models need to change. One way to reduce sticker price and maintain some semblance of healthy long-term margins is to pay a smaller implementation fee, but incur ongoing services & upgrade costs. This is a more traditional pricing model, and creative economics that leverage this kind of thinking run rampant in the titans of tech. It's a game of deeper roots, higher switching costs, and long-term contracts. With API calls and data usage more prevalent, we'll also see more pay-per-use models, the same way we buy copiers. We'll also see more pay-for-performance models with attributable ROI, akin to Amazon's ACoS model or Rakuten's affiliate marketing model. Customers will prefer it too, placing a higher emphasis customer value. This will also drive margins to condense.* AI, AI, AI. AI will cut OpEx costs dramatically. SDR teams, gone. Copywriters at agencies, you don't need as many. Data scientists? Just run a query against your data lakes. The list goes on. Costs of running these companies is going to get shellacked. Good for margins for sure, but also a compelling opportunity for newcomers to undercut and unseat incumbents too.* More hardware. With software margins condensing, hardware margins will start to feel more attractive too, the maintenance and upgrade fees will resemble what we see in SaaS, and the software that powers these machines will be incredible. Skynet for autonomous off-road vehicles, absolutely.* Less dilution, earlier exits, and stratification. We already see it in the S&P 500 with the top end accounting for an outsized share of total value. With that kind of cash on balance sheets, bigger companies will just buy the smaller ones. Think about how Broadcom rolls up companies. If you've built the business more efficiently, you've also raised less, incurred less dilution, and that $100m exit when you still own 50% is looking pretty prett-ty good compared to the same outcome 5-10 grueling years later to own 5% of $1B.* Massive founder salaries, less emphasis on growth. If you've built a company that's profitable from day one, and you have complete control of your board, what's your incentive to keep the pedal down on growth, or stay on the VC treadmill? World domination? Why not pay yourself 10X, stop fundraising, and continue to tighten the core business until someone acquires you? It's better for the founding team and employees for sure, and it's probably better for customers in most instances too.These are just some of things I think we'll see over the next five years until we approach ZIRPy-dirpy times again and massive growth becomes irresistible.But there are also a whole slew of things I think are inevitabilities that will benefit from these dynamics because we will not only have new technologies, with more attractive pricing, but we will be tackling new opportunities that were created by the prior evolutions across adjacent industries.For example…* Cost of energy is going to zero with nuclear fusion* Longevity is starting to work; check out Loyal for Dogs* Batteries & cameras continue to improve; medical devices, for one, will be more personal & affordable* Disintermediation of big ad networks with new global distribution channels; check out Benjamin* Massive cost reductions driven by AI* Software will be built by software* An aging population is retiring (10,000 per day); wealth transfer & SMB's with no exit paths* Climate change* …and so on and so on and so onThe list is long. Much longer than this. If you want the rest, just reply or comment so that I know, and I'll go deeper next week.Net of all of it, I think we're going to see a tale of two cities. Stronger, more profitable businesses, with smaller, but better founder founder exits in the near term, and a continued growth both in number of total unicorns, and what that top-end outcomes look like in the longer-term.And like I said, go read Aileen's post.Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager SurveyI got my hands on a VC scorecard circulating among top founders & VCsERIC NEWCOMERJAN 25, 2024Before we get started, I want to be clear — this isn't the end-all, be-all list of the top venture capital firms or the most promising startups.But I got my hands on a survey of 91 people at 69 different venture capital firms conducted by a well-respected investor in venture capital firms.The survey results are spreading hand-to-hand in Silicon Valley. The results of the survey rank the most desirable venture capital firms and companies, according to VCs themselves. When I was out in San Francisco last week for The Information's 10th anniversary gala, sources kept bringing it up.My sources tell me that the survey was conducted by Ed Hutchinson, managing partner at Golden Bell Partners. Hutchinson is ignoring my emails.Which firms and companies would top VCs themselves put their money into? It's a question everyone wants to know the answer to.I've got my hands on their list of favorites:Firms* (1) Sequoia* (2) Founders Fund* (3) Union Square* (4) Elad Gil* (5) Benchmark…Much More (but only for subscribers)Why 2024 May Be Tougher on Venture Capital Than 2023by Jason Lemkin | Blog Posts, Fundraising, ScaleSo I thought the toughest times for venture would be behind us now.  In 2022, we were in free fall, with public market caps falling like a knife, and the IPO markets frozen.  And 2023 was the year of the Work Out in venture.  Bridge rounds slowed down, and VCs acknowledged a lot of portfolio companies just weren't going to make it.  It got real in 2023, and that realness got normalized.  The drama mostly was behind us.  And public SaaS stocks in many cases did really, really well in 2023.  So shouldn't 2024 at least be better for venture?So I thought.But the reality is I'm a bit more worried the venture drama in 2024 will be bigger than 2023.  Why?  Four core reasons:#1:  Now We Have to Deal With the Reality of the Stumbling Unicorns.The ones that are doing $100m+ ARR, still growing, but there just isn't going to be any more money coming.  This is going to burn up a ton of energy in VC funds.  Even tougher, the reality is while many VC funds marked down their unicorns to lower valuations in 2023, they often didn't mark them down enough.#2.  The Chase for AI Unicorns and Decacorns is All-consuming.  It's Still 2021 There.The one place where paper money seems easy to come by is Hot AI Startups.   And that's probably not you.  It's just consuming all the oxygen in venture, trying to get into the next Imaging AI startup worth $1B in 10 months.  In AI, 2021 never went away.  In AI, it's still 2021.#3.  A Lot of Seasoned VCs are Discouraged. This Doesn't Help Founders.A lot of VCs who have been around for a while are quietly discouraged.  They just don't see a great path to making a ton of money in venture these days.  We're in Year 3 of a venture downturn, and that weighs of most of us.  At a practical level, for founders, it makes it harder to lean it.#4.  More Valuation Markdowns Are Still to ComeRelated to the first point, but more markdowns are like mutliple rounds of layoffs.  They're just tough.  LPs lose confidence.  Coworkers lose confidence.  We should have gotten through a lot of this in 2023, but we didn't.  Personally, I've got several investments for example that I marked down. 70%-80% or more — that my co-investors didn't mark down at all.#5.  VCs Have Run out of ReservesVCs used what extra “reserve” capital they had for bridge rounds in 2022 and 2023.  Now it's gone.  That's adds to the stress as companies struggle.  You don't have a play anymore.The bottom line is there likely is at least another full year of working through the excesses of 2021.  That will weigh across venture.  No matter what some AI headlines suggest.Video of the WeekThe Mac at 40Apple Shares the Secret of Why the 40-Year-Old Mac Still RulesThe pioneering PC revolutionized how people interact with computers. As the Mac enters its fifth decade, Apple says it will continue to evolve.STEVEN LEVY, Jan 19, 2024 10:00 AMON JANUARY 24, Apple's Macintosh computer turns 40. Normally that number is an inexorable milestone of middle age. Indeed, in the last reported sales year, Macintosh sales dipped below $30 billion, more than a 25 percent drop from the previous year's $40 billion. But unlike an aging person, Macs now are slimmer, faster, and last much longer before having to recharge.My own relationship with the computer dates back to its beginnings, when I got a prelaunch peek some weeks before its January 1984 launch. I even wrote a book about the Mac—Insanely Great—in which I described it as “the computer that changed everything.” Unlike every other nonfiction subtitle, the hyperbole was justified. The Mac introduced the way all computers would one day work, and the break from controlling a machine with typed commands ushered us into an era that extends to our mobile interactions. It also heralded a focus on design that transformed our devices.That legacy has been long-lasting. For the first half of its existence, the Mac occupied only a slice of the market, even as it inspired so many rivals; now it's a substantial chunk of PC sales. Even within the Apple juggernaut, $30 billion isn't chicken feed! What's more, when people think of PCs these days, many will envision a Macintosh. More often than not, the open laptops populating coffee shops and tech company workstations beam out glowing Apples from their covers. Apple claims that its Macbook Air is the world's best-selling computer model. One 2019 survey reported that more than two-thirds of all college students prefer a Mac. And Apple has relentlessly improved the product, whether with the increasingly slim profile of the iMac or the 22-hour battery life of the Macbook Pro. Moreover, the Mac is still a thing. Chromebooks and Surface PCs come and go, but Apple's creation remains the pinnacle of PC-dom. “It's not a story of nostalgia, or history passing us by,” says Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in a rare on-the-record interview with five Apple executives involved in its Macintosh operation. “The fact we did this for 40 years is unbelievable.”…Much MoreAI of the WeekBMW will deploy Figure's humanoid robot at South Carolina plantBrian Heater @bheater / 3:00 AM PST•January 18, 2024Image Credits: FigureFigure today announced a “commercial agreement” that will bring its first humanoid robot to a BMW manufacturing facility in South Carolina. The Spartanburg plant is BMW's only in the United States. As of 2019, the 8 million-square-foot campus boasted the highest yield among the German manufacturer's factories anywhere in the world.BMW has not disclosed how many Figure 01 models it will deploy initially. Nor do we know precisely what jobs the robot will be tasked with when it starts work. Figure did, however, confirm with TechCrunch that it is beginning with an initial five tasks, which will be rolled out one at a time.While folks in the space have been cavalierly tossing out the term “general purpose” to describe these sorts of systems, it's important to temper expectations and point out that they will all arrive as single- or multi-purpose systems, growing their skillset over time. Figure CEO Brett Adcock likens the approach to an app store — something that Boston Dynamics currently offers with its Spot robot via SDK.Likely initial applications include standard manufacturing tasks such as box moving, pick and place and pallet unloading and loading — basically the sort of repetitive tasks for which factory owners claim to have difficulty retaining human workers. Adcock says that Figure expects to ship its first commercial robot within a year, an ambitious timeline even for a company that prides itself on quick turnaround times.The initial batch of applications will be largely determined by Figure's early partners like BMW. The system will, for instance, likely be working with sheet metal to start. Adcock adds that the company has signed up additional clients, but declined to disclose their names. It seems likely Figure will instead opt to announce each individually to keep the news cycle spinning in the intervening 12 months.Unlike some other humanoid designers (including Agility), Figure is focused on creating a dexterous, human like hand for manipulation. The thinking behind such an end effector is the same that's driving many toward the humanoid form factor in the first place: Namely, we've designed our workspaces with us in mind. Adcock alludes to Figure 01 being tasked with an initial set of jobs that require high dexterity.As for the importance of legs, the executive suggests that their importance for maneuvering during certain tasks is as — or more — important than things like walking up stairs and over uneven terrain, which tend to get most of the love during these conversations.…MoreGoogle's New AI Video Generator Looks IncredibleJAN 25, 2024MATT GROWCOOTGoogle has announced Lumiere: an AI video generator that looks to be one of the most advanced text-to-video models yet.The name Lumiere is seemingly a nod to the Lumiere brothers who are credited with putting on the first ever cinema showing in 1895. Just as motion picture was cutting-edge technology at the end of the 19th century, the Lumiere name is once more being associated with something new and original.The demo of Lumiere that Google put out focuses firmly on animals. The model can generate a scene using just text; much the same way AI image generators work, the user can dream up any scenario they would like to see a short video clip of.However, the user can also use an image as a prompt. Google provided multiple examples: including some that are real photos such as Joe Rosenthal's iconic Raising the Flag photo; “Soldiers raising the united states flag on a windy day” saw one of the 20th-centuries most recognizable photos suddently come to life as the soliders struggle with the flag that's being affected by gusts.Also in Lumiere is a “Video Stylization” setting which allows users to upload a source video and then ask the generative AI model for various element changes. For example, a person running may be suddenly turned into a toy made of colorful bricks.Another feature Google showed off is “Cinemagraphs”, where just a section of an image is animated while the rest stays still. “Video Inpainting” is included too which involves masking part of the image so that section can be changed to the user's desire.Space-Time Diffusion ModelLumiere is powered by “Space-Time U-Net architecture that generates the entire temporal duration of the video at once, through a single pass in the model.”This difficult-to-understand concept is apparently in contrast to existing video models which “synthesize distant keyframes followed by temporal super-resolution — an approach that inherently makes global temporal consistency difficult to achieve.”…Much MoreOpenAI's Sam Altman seeks funds for AI chip factories as demands surgeOpenAI CEO Sam Altman has opened discussions with global investors over the possibility of funding a network of artificial intelligence (AI) chip factories to keep pace with soaring demand.Altman is seeking around $8 billion to $10 billion worth of funds to set up several AI chip fabrication plants around the globe, an endeavor that will require synergy between leading chip manufacturers backed by investment giants.Altman is reportedly in talks with Japanese-based financial giant SoftBank Group (NASDAQ: SFTBF) and Abu Dhabi's G42 over funding plans, but details remain sparse. The discussions with G42 have been underway since 2023, with Altman describing a potential chip partnership as laying the foundation “for equitable advancements in generative AI across the globe.”Aside from SoftBank and G42, insiders say that Altman is still pursuing collaborations with other industry players to set up a network of chip fabrication plants. Although exact entities were not namechecked, industry experts are noting Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Samsung Electronics, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (NASDAQ: TSM) as potential partners.Altman's approach to raising funds hinges on concerns that the chip supply will not be able to meet global demands for AI offerings by 2030. The OpenAI's CEO argues that the ideal solution will be a collaborative effort to set up chip manufacturing plants rather than build in silos.OpenAI has had its fair share of chip scarcity, rolling back a number of its offerings over a steady chip supply. To meet the rising demand, the company is reportedly mulling several options, including the prospect of building its chips from scratch and joining ranks with Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) to explore an in-house solution.Given the costs associated with an in-house approach, OpenAI may pursue the acquisition of a chip manufacturer as a short-term solution or expand its collaboration with existing partners. However, a potential acquisition opens its own can of worms, including an inquiry by antitrust regulators.Governments are also involvedIn 2023, Altman urged the South Korean government to double their investments in AI chip manufacturing as a veritable strategy to play a leading role in the nascent ecosystem. Currently, South Korea ranks behind the U.S., China, and Japan in chip manufacturing, but a concerted government involvement could see the country climb up the charts.The OpenAI boss disclosed during his visit to South Korea that his firm will back local entities building chips for AI and other emerging technologies, with Samsung rumored to be in top position.“We are exploring how to increase our investment in Korean startups,” said Altman. “We are excited to meet as many as we can here today. I think this type of collaboration is essential to our work.”..MoreThe Future of Prosumer: The Rise of “AI Native” WorkflowsAnish Acharya, Justine Moore, and Olivia MoorePosted January 25, 2024Few people love the software they use to get things done. And it's no surprise why. Whether it's a slide deck builder, a video editor, or a photo enhancer, today's work tools were conceived decades ago — and it shows! Even best-in-class products often feel either too inflexible and unsophisticated to do real work, or have steep, inaccessible learning curves (we're looking at you, Adobe InDesign). Generative AI offers founders an opportunity to completely reinvent workflows — and will spawn a new cohort of companies that are not just AI-augmented, but fully AI-native. These companies will start from scratch with the technology we have now, and build new products around the generation, editing, and composition capabilities that are uniquely possible due to AI. On the most surface level, we believe AI will help users do their existing work more efficiently. AI-native platforms will “up level” user interactions with software, allowing them to delegate lower skill tasks to an AI assistant and spend their time on higher-level thinking. This applies not only to traditional office workers, but to small business owners, freelancers, creators, and artists — who arguably have even more complex demands on their time. But AI will also help users unlock completely new skill sets, on both a technical and an aesthetic level. We've already seen this with products like Midjourney and ChatGPT's Code Interpreter. Everyone can now be a programmer, a producer, a designer, or a musician, shrinking the gap between creativity and craft. With access to professional-grade yet consumer-friendly products with AI-powered workflows, everyone can be a part of a new generation of “prosumers.”In this piece, we aim to highlight the features of today's — and tomorrow's — most successful Gen AI-native workflows, as well as hypothesize about how we see these products evolving.What Will GenAI Native Prosumer Products Look Like?All products with Gen AI-native workflows will share one crucial trait: translating cutting-edge models into an accessible, effective UI.Users of workflow tools typically don't care what infrastructure is behind a product; they care about how it helps them! While the technological leaps we've made with Generative AI are amazing, successful products will importantly still start from a deep understanding of the user and their pain points. What can be abstracted away with AI? Where are the key “decision points” that need approval, if any? And where are the highest points of leverage? There are a few key features we believe products in this category will have: * Generation tools that kill the “blank page” problem. The earliest and most obvious consumer AI use cases have come from translating a natural language prompt into a media output — e.g., image, video, and text generators. The same will be true in prosumer. These tools might help transform true “blank pages” (e.g., a text prompt to slide deck), or take incremental assets (e.g., a sketch or an outline) and turn them into a more fleshed-out product.Some companies will do this via a proprietary model, while others may mix or stitch together multiple models (open source, proprietary, or via API) behind the scenes. One example here is Vizcom's rendering tool. Users can input a text prompt, sketch, or 3D model, and instantly get a photorealistic rendering to further iterate on.Another example is Durable's website builder product, which the company says has been used to generate more than 6 million sites so far. Users input their company name, segment, and location, and Durable will spit out a site for them to customize. As LLMs get more powerful, we expect to see products like Durable pull real information about your business from elsewhere on the internet and social media — the history, team, reviews, logos, etc. — and generate an even more sophisticated output from just one generation. * Multimodal (and multimedia!) combinations. Many creative projects require more than one type of content. For example, you may want to combine an image with text, music with video, or an animation with a voiceover. As of now, there isn't one model that can generate all of these asset types. This creates an opportunity for workflow products which allow users to generate, refine, and stitch different content types in one place.…MoreAndreessen Horowitz's Connie Chan to Leave as Consumer Focus Shifts to AIBy Kate Clark, Erin Woo and Cory WeinbergJan 23, 2024, 7:22am PSTFor years, partners at Andreessen Horowitz proclaimed they would scour the startup world for the next big consumer marketplace like Airbnb or the next hit consumer app out of China, areas in which the firm had unique expertise. Now, it's shifting toward an area more en vogue across venture capital: consumer apps powered by artificial intelligence.Those changes are happening amid an overhaul of its consumer team. Connie Chan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who formerly led a team of consumer investors and was known for spotting internet trends coming from China, said she is leaving the firm.  She may raise her own fund, a person familiar with the matter said. Anish Acharya, a general partner at the firm who invested in enterprise-focused and financial technology businesses, now leads the consumer team, said people familiar with the change.Chan's move also follows a distancing by U.S. VC firms from investments in China tech, once a hotbed for U.S.  investors. In recent months, Chan has privately said it's becoming more difficult for her to work at Andreessen Horowitz because the partners have been increasingly disinterested in anything China related, another person said.The Takeaway• Fintech-focused GP Anish Acharya leading consumer deals• Consumer GP Connie Chan is leaving the firm• Consumer partner Anne Lee Skates left to start own fundThe changes are part of a broader personnel shakeup, including the decision by senior consumer investor and Airbnb board member Jeff Jordan to step back from making new investments last year. Of the four general partners that led the firm through a consumer deal blitz, none remain on the consumer team.Meanwhile, Anne Lee Skates, a consumer partner who worked on the firm's investment in live shopping app WhatNot, left in the fall to raise her own fund, according to two people familiar with the matter. Axios first reported that Chan was leaving the firm.The Andreessen Horowitz changes are emblematic of a broader VC industry gravitation toward AI and away from once-hot sectors like consumer marketplaces and financial technology, as a spike in interest rates undercut the growth aspirations of startups trying to elbow out incumbent social platforms and banking institutions.“We've gotten into this cycle now where, generally speaking, investors are less interested in consumer,” said Ben Lerer, managing partner at Lerer Hippeau. Known for its consumer investments in Warby Parker and Allbirds, the firm has invested 70% of its latest fund in enterprise companies, he said. “And AI feels like this very hopeful, very exciting, fresh thing.”Founders of some consumer startups have noticed the shift at Andreessen Horowitz. One founder of a consumer startup in the firm's portfolio said they had heard little from investment partners over the last year, a contrast to a steady drumbeat of emails the founder got in prior years from Andreessen staff who support portfolio companies with marketing and operations advice.Andreessen Horowitz's consumer investing team has been perhaps most well known for its focus on backing digital marketplaces, from peer-to-peer self-storage to real estate investment marketplaces, that could turn into the next Airbnb. Every year, it releases a ranking of top marketplace startups. “We are obsessed with marketplaces and have been since our inception,” Chan, who led investments in  social fashion startup Cider for the firm in 2021.But some of those startups backed by the firm, such as self-storage startup Neighbor, have struggled to take off in recent years. And like other venture firms, Andreessen Horowitz has also stepped back from investing in Chinese startups, an area of focus for Chan. She had championed the idea that the next wave of breakout U.S. consumer startups will model themselves after China's internet success stories, like all-in-one app WeChat.With $53 billion in assets under management, Andreessen Horowitz is one of the largest of traditional Silicon Valley firms and closely watched among other VC firms as a trend setter. And its track record of sniffing out hitmakers primed its partners to find the next trendy consumer app.The number of consumer deals Andreessen Horowitz has led dropped to 13 last year from 30 in 2021, a record for the firm, according to PitchBook data. It's possible the firm completed more consumer deals and that those investments haven't been announced. Its investments in AI companies have jumped to 23 from nine over the same years, including leading a $415 million investment in Mistral, the French developer of an open-source large language model.The firm has beefed up this team of investors primarily focused on enterprise, software infrastructure and AI startups. Led by Martin Casado, a close confidante to the firm's founders Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, it is raising its first standalone fund and has brought on two new general partners, Anjney Midha and Zane Lackey, since 2022, as well as a number of junior partners.As the infrastructure team gained power, the consumer team's profile shrank. The firm in 2023 combined its consumer and fintech teams and created a new group, called apps, led by general partner Alex Rampell, who previously co-founded installment lender Affirm, The Information reported last year. Under Rampell's leadership, the newly formed apps team will also soon launch a dedicated apps fund, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The consolidated team has been encouraged to pursue AI deals.Within Rampell's apps group, Acharya now leads the consumer sub-group. His portfolio of companies includes payroll company Deel and Silo, a provider of supply chain automation software. He's also an investor in Titan, a consumer investment application.Fueling the firm's shift away from consumer apps are likely disappointing returns. The startups that captivated consumers during the pandemic shutdowns have failed to retain their attention. Growth at companies the consumer team bet on, like Clubhouse, which Andreessen Horowitz backed three times in one year, and photo-sharing app BeReal, which it backed in 2021, has stalled.…MoreOpenAI Is a (Relative) StealBy Stephanie PalazzoloJan 22, 2024, 7:35am PSTOver the past year, we've seen billions in funding thrown at AI startups at eye-popping valuations. More important than the absolute valuation figures, though, is how they stack up to those startups' revenue numbers.In the chart above, we've tracked the valuations of eight AI startups that have recently raised funding, calculated against their projected revenue. On average, these companies raised money at a price that is 83 times their projected sales for the next twelve months. That's a big multiple by any measure, reflecting the rocket ship nature of these startups. But what makes the comparison noteworthy is that OpenAI has one of the lowest multiples, even though its business has the most traction.Venture capitalists tend to value early-stage startups at a premium based on their growth rates. OpenAI's business is far bigger and more mature—if we can use that word for a company growing as fast as OpenAI—than other generative AI companies. So, as fast as its revenue pace is growing—more than 20% in just two months most recently—newer firms are growing even faster.For instance, AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI doubled its annual recurring revenue from $3 million to $6 million from October to January. VCs were likely taking that expected growth into account at the time of investment, as the company would have garnered a much lower 75-times forward revenue multiple if it had raised at the same price just a few months later. Similarly, even though OpenAI rival Anthropic was likely generating around $200 million in annualized revenue at the end of last year (according to its October estimates), its projection that it would reach $850 million in annualized revenue by the end of this year surely made its mind-boggling valuation more palatable to investors.When you see the details of these AI startup funding rounds, it can sometimes feel like investors are throwing darts at nine-figure numbers on a wall. The chart suggests there's a method to the madness. Typically, startups selling to companies are valued based on the sector in which they operate. The lowest valuation multiples are accorded to startups offering industry-specific applications, while those offering more generalized applications draw a premium. The most highly valued firms are often infrastructure startups, which create the tools that developers use to build these apps. This order stems from how big the target market of these startups are, ranging from a specific industry (like healthcare or education) to all developers. We can see that general order reflected in burgeoning AI startups. For instance, Harvey, which sells an AI application for lawyers, has one of the lower multiples, while broader-reaching companies like Glean and VAST Data land higher multiples.It seems like investors aren't quite sure yet where model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic fall on this spectrum. Their costs are very different from a typical software startup due to how much computing power they need, and many investors are still worried that closed-source model developers may be overtaken by their cheaper, open-source counterparts.…MoreNews Of the WeekTed fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speakerLucianne Walkowicz and Saeed Taji Farouky accuse Ted of taking anti-Palestinian stand over controversial billionaire's inclusionChris McGrealThe Ted organisation has been hit with resignations and criticisms after naming the controversial activist billionaire Bill Ackman, who was instrumental in forcing out Harvard's president over antisemitism allegations, among its main speakers at this year's conference.Four Ted fellows, led by the astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz and the filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky, resigned from the group on Wednesday, accusing it of taking an anti-Palestinian stand and aligning itself “with enablers and supporters of genocide” in Gaza.“2024 main stage speaker Bill Ackman has defended Israel's genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and has cynically weaponised antisemitism in his programme to purge American universities of Pro-Palestinian freedom of speech,” the pair wrote to Chris Anderson, who leads Ted, and Lily James Olds, director of the fellows programme.“We've become increasingly concerned about the fundamental values and moral compass of the organisation over the years, but with this year's speaker selection, it is clear Ted has crossed a red line.”The conference will be held in Vancouver, Canada, in April, under the banner The Brave and the Brilliant”. The theme of Ackman's talk has not been revealed but his selection was announced last week after he was accused of using his money and influence to help force Claudine Gay's resignation as Harvard's president following her disastrous appearance before Congress in December when she was questioned about on-campus antisemitism during the Israel-Gaza war.Ackman has taken stridently pro-Israel positions, including justifying the scale of the attacks on Gaza in which more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, and the forced removal of about 2 million Palestinians from their homes. He has described criticism of Israel as antisemitism and called for the blacklisting from employment of American students who signed petitions denouncing the offensive in Gaza in the wake of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.Farouky and Walkowicz's resignation letter noted that other speakers announced by Ted include the journalist Bari Weiss, who they describe as having “a long, sordid, and well-documented history of anti-Palestinian speech”, but that there are no Palestinians in the line-up.“We refuse for our work and identities to be exploited to promote the Ted brand while the organisation and its speakers generate income and advance their careers through dehumanising Palestinians and justifying their genocide,” the pair said.After the resignation letter was published, two other fellows – the entrepreneur Ayah Bdeir and cosmologist Renée Hlozek – also quit. Nearly 30 others added their names “in solidarity” without leaving Ted.…MoreTesla's Slowdown Disqualifies It From ‘Magnificent Seven' GroupBy Martin Peers, Jan 24, 2024, 5:00pm PSTStock market pundits may want to come up with a new name for the big tech stocks driving the overall market. The “magnificent seven” descriptor—referring to Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nvidia and Tesla—no longer seems to make much sense. I'd like to suggest that's because none of the company CEOs look like cowboy gunslingers from the 1960 movie that made the phrase famous. It's hard to imagine Steve McQueen playing Tim Cook or Andy Jassy, for instance (although Yul Brynner admittedly could have filled the role of horseback-riding Jeff Bezos).The real reason the moniker no longer works, however, is that at least one member of the group, Tesla, has had anything but a magnificent 2024 so far, and its fourth-quarter earnings report, released Wednesday, only made things worse. Before Tesla reported earnings tonight, its stock had fallen 16% so far this year, and it tumbled another 3% after hours to around $200 a share. This isn't a reaction to CEO Elon Musk's antics, which include asking for a bunch more stock, although that surely doesn't help. The stock decline reflects the slowdown in sales suffered by Tesla, which observers attribute to increased competition and a loss of government incentives. Automotive revenues, which make up the bulk of Tesla's top line, grew just 1% in the fourth quarter—down from 18% in the first quarter.In its outlook for this year issued today, the company said its growth in the volume of car sales would be lower than in 2023, and noted that its team is working on its “next-generation vehicle.” Meantime, expenses have been skyrocketing, eroding its profit margin. But our less-than-rigorous takedown of the magnificent seven branding isn't just about Tesla. If you look at the year-to-date performance of big tech stocks, or even their 2023 performance, you can see that just two tech stocks have roared this year. One is Nvidia, which is in a class of its own: up 27% since Jan. 1, thanks to its stranglehold on the specialized chips used in artificial intelligence. The other is Meta Platforms, which is up nearly 13%, reflecting confidence in its ad business.  In comparison, Microsoft and Alphabet are each up around 8%, likely thanks to expectations that AI will lift their businesses, while Apple and Amazon lag behind with year-to-date stock price rises of less than 5% each. Instead of the magnificent seven, it might be more appropriate to refer to the group as Nvidia, Meta and the humble five.… MoreTikTok's Testing 30 Minute Uploads as It Looks To Expand Its Content OptionsBy Andrew Hutchinson Content and Social Media ManagerThe next stage of TikTok is coming, with some users now seeing the option to upload 30 minute long videos in the app.As you can see in this example, shared by social media expert Matt Navarra, TikTok's currently testing the new 30 minute upload option in the beta version of the app.Which, if you've been paying attention, is not really any big surprise.TikTok has been steadily increasing its maximum post limit for years, with the platform originally starting at 15 seconds per clip, which was then extended to 60 seconds, then 3 minutes, then 5 minutes, before rising to 10 minutes in 2022.Last October, TikTok began experimenting with 15 minute uploads, so the trend towards longer clips isn't new.Though 30 minutes is likely the upper limit, based on the Chinese version of the app. Douyin, which is TikTok in China, expanded its upload limit to 30 minutes per clip in 2022, and it hasn't gone any further as yet.And presumably, Douyin has also seen good response to this longer time limit, which is why TikTok is now looking to implement the same, though it does seem like a long time to be watching a TikTok clip in-stream.Will users really warm to TV show length clips in the app?…MoreInstagram to scan under-18s' messages to protect against ‘inappropriate images'Feature will work even on encrypted messages, suggesting platform plans to implement client-side scanningAlex Hern and Dan MilmoInstagram will begin scanning messages sent to and from under-18s to protect them from “inappropriate images”, Meta has announced.The feature, being kept under wraps until later this year, would work even on encrypted messages, a spokesperson said, suggesting the company intends to implement a so-called client-side scanning service for the first time.But the update will not meet controversial demands for inappropriate messages to be reported back to Instagram servers.Instead, only a user's personal device will ever know whether or not a message has been filtered out, leading to criticism of the promise as another example of the company “grading its own homework”.“We're planning to launch a new feature designed to help protect teens from seeing unwanted and potentially inappropriate images in their messages from people they're already connected to,” the company said in a blogpost, “and to discourage them from sending these types of images themselves. We'll have more to share on this feature, which will also work in encrypted chats, later this year.”…Much MoreTiger Global Investor Relations Staff Depart After Fundraising ChallengesBy Francesca Friday and Maria HeeterJan 24, 2024, 4:46pm PSTSeveral Tiger Global Management employees focused on raising capital for the New York firm's venture funds have taken buyout offers, according to a person familiar with the matter. The departures of the staff, who worked with prospective investors, come as the firm has struggled to raise money for its latest venture capital fund after a collapse in startup valuations soured its paper returns for earlier funds.As of the second quarter of 2023, a $12.7 billion fund that Tiger started making investments from in October 2021 had a paper loss of 18%, calculated as an annualized return net of management fees, according to internal data distributed to investors in the fund. That's a slight improvement from six months earlier, when the 2021 fund showed a loss of 20%. The fund's performance is in the bottom quartile of funds started that year, the document said, and has also lagged the S&P 500's annualized net return in the same period.The Takeaway• Tiger employee buyouts are the latest example of VC cost-cutting• Tiger's $12.7 billion had lost 18% on paper as of June* Tiger could soon show a $350 million gain from OpenAI stakeAs of June 30, 2023, the $12.7 billion fund hadn't returned any cash to investors, which isn't unusual for such a young fund. But the paper losses are closely guarded secrets that reflect the kind of write-downs other venture firms have been making over the past two years as tech valuations have fallen.It isn't clear how big Tiger's investor relations team is, but the departures are the latest example of belt-tightening across the venture industry. Firms are raising smaller funds and striking fewer deals, reducing the need for sprawling support staff—including those who help firms raise money from pension funds and endowments...MoreWorldcoin hints at new Orb for a friendlier iris-scanning experienceby Vivian NguyenThe next-gen device will feature various colors and shapes to enhance its visual appeal.Worldcoin, an iris biometric crypto project, is set to launch a new Orb that aims to offer a more user-friendly iris-scanning experience, said Alex Blania, CEO and co-founder of Tools for Humanity, the developer behind the project, in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch today.“The next Orb will roll out in the first half of this year and will feature alternative colors and form factors in an effort to look ‘much more friendly,'” Blania explained. “Overall, it is going to look way more tuned down and similar to an Apple product.”Blania acknowledges that the initial design of the Orb predated his time at the company. “The new orb is coming and the next iterations will look quite different,” he remarked during a fireside chat at a recent StrictlyVC event, signaling a departure from the current, more controversial design.The goal of Worldcoin, as described by Blania, is to reach billions of users as fast as possible.“The thesis is very simple. We race toward billions of users as fast as we possibly can,” said Blania.Founded by Blania, Sam Altman, and Max Novendstern, Tools for Humanity has raised around $250 million from prominent investors like a16z and Bain Capital Crypto, among others. The project is famous for its unique Orb device designed to scan people's irises and assign them a “World ID,” granting access to Worldcoin's application and a digital passport. Worldcoin's vision is to authenticate individual identities and prevent the creation of multiple accounts.The current design of the Orb has been a topic of much debate due to its intimidating look, similar to a prop from a sci-fi movie, according to Blania. The company has also faced criticism for its beta testing approaches in developing economies and concerns over privacy and data security.Despite some skepticism, the Orb has seen practical use. At the StrictlyVC event in downtown San Francisco, a Tools for Humanity employee reported that a “couple dozen” attendees scanned their iris to receive a World ID. There has also been “field testing” of the new Orb design.…MoreStartup of the WeekLoyalty Startup Bilt Rewards Hits $3.1B Valuation After $200M RoundChris MetinkoJanuary 24, 2024Bilt Rewards, a loyalty rewards startup, raised a $200 million round led by General Catalyst at a $3.1 billion valuation — more than double the number after its last fundraising in 2022.The round also included participation from Eldridge Industries, Left Lane Capital, Camber Creek and Prosus Ventures.The New York-based startup allows consumers to earn rewards on the rent they pay. Bilt plans to use some of the proceeds to expand its network to include local dining, grocery stores, ridesharing and other retail purchases.“We're not just building a loyalty program; we're creating a community-centric ecosystem that benefits everyone from renters to local businesses,” said founder and CEO Ankur Jain.The company also appointed some big names to roles in the company. Bilt named Ken Chenault, former chairman and CEO of American Express, as its chairman, and Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, as an independent director.Big moneyThe company reported its annualized member spend is nearing $20 billion. It also became profitable on an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization basis last year.Those metrics must have impressed investors, as Bilt has seen its valuation shoot up after raising a $150 million Series B at a pre-money valuation of $1.4 billion in October 2022. Founded in 2021, the company has raised a total of $413 million, per Crunchbase.Last year was a slow go for loyalty startups. Such companies raised only $74 million, per Crunchbase data. However in 2022, loyalty startups raised more than a half-billion dollars thanks to big raises that included Bilt's Series B and Madison, Wisconsin-based Fetch's $240 million Series E.With this fundraise, things are looking up for loyalty startups again.X of the Week This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thatwastheweek.substack.com/subscribe

Steve talks to Bango's Anil Malhotra, Chief Marketing Officer (and co-founder) speaking from the UK, and Andy Suzuki, SVP for APAC, based in Tokyo. Bango's recent acquisition of the global payment business of Japanese telecommunications giant NTT Docomo, prompted us to get in touch with Andy and Anil for a discussion on the route they have taken to build trust and establish themselves in the Japanese market. Learn about the origins and rise of Bango and its long connection with Japan. Hear Anil and Andy's perspective on long-term relationships, persistence and investment needed to achieve success in Japan. It was such a fruitful discussion that it has extended into two parts!  More information about Bango: Bango has developed unique purchase behavior technology that enables millions more users to buy the products and services they want, using innovative methods of payment including carrier billing, digital wallets and subscription bundling. Bango harnesses this purchase activity into valuable marketing segments, called Bango Audiences. Merchants use these audiences to target their marketing at paying customers based on their purchase behavior. Better targeting increases spend through the Bango payments business, in turn generating more data insights, creating a powerful virtuous circle that drives continuous growth. Everyone connected to the Bango Platform thrives as the virtuous circle grows. The world's largest online merchants, including Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), use Bango technology to acquire more paying users. Find out more at Bango.com

The second part of Steve's chat with Anil Malhotra, Chief Marketing Officer (and co-founder) speaking from the UK, and Andy Suzuki, SVP for APAC, based in Tokyo. Bango's recent acquisition of the global payment business of Japanese telecommunications giant NTT Docomo, prompted us to get in touch with Andy and Anil for a discussion on the route they have taken to build trust and establish themselves in the Japanese market. Learn about the rise of Bango, its long connection with Japan and hear Anil and Andy's perspective on long-term relationships, persistence and investment needed to achieve success in Japan. Don't forget to listen to Part 1 first: More information about Bango: Bango has developed unique purchase behavior technology that enables millions more users to buy the products and services they want, using innovative methods of payment including carrier billing, digital wallets and subscription bundling. Bango harnesses this purchase activity into valuable marketing segments, called Bango Audiences. Merchants use these audiences to target their marketing at paying customers based on their purchase behavior. Better targeting increases spend through the Bango payments business, in turn generating more data insights, creating a powerful virtuous circle that drives continuous growth. Everyone connected to the Bango Platform thrives as the virtuous circle grows. The world's largest online merchants, including Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), use Bango technology to acquire more paying users. Find out more at Bango.com  

This earnings season has been a terrifying time for Big Tech. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) are all facing significant organizational challenges while also facing constant pressure from the market to be more efficient. What are these Big Tech executives to do? Some CEO's and CFO's are making difficult decisions about which growth programs to cut, while other companies, such as Meta (NASDAQ: META), are doubling down on their commitment to growth, specifically in their focus on the metaverse. Yet other companies, like Snap (NYSE:SNAP) that are more exposed to cyclical markets such as advertising, are completely overhauling and reorganizing. Which method will prove to be more effective? Join 7investing Lead Advisors Simon Erickson and Luke Hallard for a recorded Twitter Spaces conversation from November 1st as the two discuss what big tech's earnings will mean for the market. Simon and Luke also discuss (at the time of the recording) Airbnb's (NASDAQ: ABNB) upcoming earnings, as well as Elon's official purchase of Twitter. Welcome to 7investing. We are here to empower you to invest in your future! We publish our 7 best ideas in the stock market to our subscribers for just $49 per month or $399 per year. Start your journey toward's financial independence: https://www.7investing.com/subscribe Stop by our website to level-up your investing education: https://www.7investing.com Join the 7investing Community Forum: https://discord.gg/6YvazDf9sw Follow us: ► https://www.facebook.com/7investing ► https://twitter.com/7investing ► https://instagram.com/7investing --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message

Andrew, Matt and Kev chat Meta's metaverse bet, the US tech stock hammering, China, trade and decoupling, Aussie tech takeovers (Nitro Software, ReadyTech Holdings, Pushpay, & PropTech), Elon becoming the CEO of Twitter, and the RBA and house prices. Follow us on Twitter: @BabyGiantsPod-----0:57 - Good News: Moon base and augmented reality2:38 - Meta's (NASDAQ: META) metaverse bet10:08 - VR and augmented reality13:47 - China and Taiwan14:34 - Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and tech stocks19:08 - TikTok20:40 - China, trade and decoupling29:45 - Aussie tech takeovers (Nitro Software, ReadyTech Holdings, Pushpay, & PropTech)34:44 - Elon becomes CEO of Twitter42:42 - RBA and house prices

The world's largest tech companies are driving forward with important new projects. And they're obsessive about designing custom chips to make them happen. We see examples of this in products that we use every day. Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) has designed its own chip so that Alexa can understand the questions you're asking and then respond with accurate answers. Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) has designed chips for image recognition and is designing new ones to power the Metaverse. Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) has designed custom chips so its self-driving cars can understand their surroundings react to them autonomously. These projects are massive in scope and can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to implement. Where's the opportunity in this for investors? In today's 7investing podcast, 7investing lead advisors Anirban Mahanti and Simon Erickson take a closer look at the process that goes into custom chip design and manufacturing. The two look at several consumer-facing companies -- including Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), and Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) -- and analyze the specific chip designers and manufacturers they work with to make these projects into a reality. There's big money up for grabs, for investors who are a step ahead in deciphering which direction the industry is heading. Anirban and Simon recorded this episode of the 7investing Podcast in front of a live audience on Monday, September 19th. If you would like to attend future live recordings of our podcast, we invite you to sign up for free on our new 7investing Events page. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this interview include Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Broadcom, Intel, Meta Platforms, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Taiwan Semiconductor. 7investing's advisors or its guests may have positions in the companies mentioned. Welcome to 7investing. We are here to empower you to invest in your future! We publish our 7 best ideas in the stock market to our subscribers for just $49 per month or $399 per year. Start your journey toward's financial independence: https://www.7investing.com/subscribe Stop by our website to level-up your investing education: https://www.7investing.com Join the 7investing Community Forum: https://discord.gg/6YvazDf9sw Follow us: ► https://www.facebook.com/7investing ► https://twitter.com/7investing ► https://instagram.com/7investing --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message

Amazon's New Kindle 11th Generation Links Click here to buy the new Kindle for $99.99 - ships October 12, 2022 Kevin Keith on TKC 533 October 19, 2018 - New Kindle Paperwhite! Steven King at launch of Kindle 2 - February 10, 2009 (YouTube) Full Press Release: Introducing Kindle and Kindle Kids: Now with 300 ppi High-Resolution Display, USB-C Charging, and 2X Storage The lightest and most compact Kindle provides a glare-free, 6-inch, high-resolution display, up to six weeks of battery life and USB-C charging, adjustable front light, dark mode, and 16 GB of storage—all for only $99.99 Kindle Kids comes with a kid-friendly cover, one year of Amazon Kids+ providing unlimited access to thousands of age-appropriate books, and a two-year worry-free guarantee—for only $119.99 A free, four-month Kindle Unlimited membership is included with Kindle for a limited time, offering access to over 2 million titles, thousands of audiobooks, and more SEATTLE—September 13, 2022—Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the next generation of Kindle—the lightest and smallest Kindle. Starting at just $99.99, the new Kindle combines premium features with an affordable price, including a 300 ppi high-resolution 6-inch display, USB-C charging, longer battery life of up to six weeks, and room for thousands of books with twice the storage. The same features also come with Kindle Kids, which includes a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+ that provides kids with unlimited access to thousands of books. Kindle and Kindle Kids pre-orders start today and will begin shipping October 12. Learn more at http://www.amazon.com/kindle. “With a high-resolution display that delivers three-times more pixels than our previous base Kindle, USB-C charging, 16GB of storage, and built-in adjustable front light, the new ultralight Kindle is the latest example of how we continue to bring premium features to our entry-level devices for even more customers to enjoy,” said Kevin Keith, vice president of Amazon Devices and Services. “And since we launched Kindle Kids three years ago, kids have logged nearly 3 billion minutes reading on Kindle devices. The new Kindle Kids provides an even better reading experience to help kids become lifelong readers.” All-New High-Resolution Display Kindle and Kindle Kids feature an all-new 6-inch, glare-free, 300 ppi high-resolution display with three-times more pixels for laser-quality text and sharp images that read like paper. Dark mode and adjustable front light provide a comfortable reading experience in all conditions, including bright sunlight or no light at all. The device comes packed with customer favorites like X-Ray, which provides important details about people or places mentioned in a book, and a built-in dictionary to quickly look up any word. Simplified setup on the Kindle app for iOS and Android offers an option to register your device in fewer steps and to jump into a book even faster. Lightest and Most Compact Kindle Kindle and Kindle Kids are the lightest and most compact Kindle models available—carry them in your pocket and comfortably read one-handed for even longer. The device's longer battery life of up to six weeks maximizes the time you can spend reading, and the USB-C port makes charging more effortless than ever. The all-new Kindle comes with 16GB of storage—twice the storage of the previous generation—enough to hold thousands of titles, so you can take your library with you. More for Young Readers Since the first Kindle Kids device debuted three years ago, kids have logged nearly 3 billion minutes of reading time on their Kindle devices, with no distractions on their devices from games, videos, social media, or apps. In fact, when the average kid reader sits down with their Kindle, they read more than an hour a day, making Kindle Kids the perfect reading companion for kids between 7-13 years old. Every Kindle Kids comes with a one-year subscription of Amazon Kids+, providing unlimited access to thousands of books, from timeless classics to newer, popular page-turners. Kids can explore and discover their favorite titles from a large selection of content, opening new opportunities to fall in love with reading. The Amazon Kids+ experience on Kindle Kids includes: · Latest hits and award-winners: Explore popular titles like Divergent, Artemis Fowl, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid; books from series like Big Nate, Percy Jackson, Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and Harry Potter; and titles that have won the Newbery Medal, Coretta Scott King Award, Children's Choice Award, and other awards, all in the Amazon Kids+ library. · Add from your library: Get instant access to new releases and bestsellers, plus over a million titles, each $2.99 or less to add even more stories to your child's Kindle Kids library. · Switch between reading and listening: When kids want to listen to a book instead of reading one, they can use Bluetooth-enabled speakers or headphones with Audible. With Amazon Kids+, hundreds of Audible books are available, including gaming and tween books like Escape from the Overworld, classics like The Secret Garden and Peter Pan, and Audible Originals like Interview with the Robot and The Mystwick School of Musicraft. The Amazon Parent Dashboard for Kindle Kids also provides complete control for parents to set reading and bedtime schedules. Kids can request books for parents and guardians to add to their library, while literacy tools like Word Wise and Vocabulary Builder assist with showing definitions of unfamiliar words and enriching vocabulary through flashcards. With the lightweight design, kid-friendly features, and longer battery life, Kindle Kids makes reading fun, easy, and convenient. The World's Best eBook Store All Kindle devices come with instant access to the world's best eBook store, which includes: Massive selection—Discover millions of books, including the latest best sellers on Amazon Charts and reading recommendations from the Amazon Book Review. Kindle Unlimited—Get unlimited access to an ever-growing selection of over 2 million eBooks, thousands of audiobooks, and more. For a limited time, Kindle will come with a free four-month Kindle Unlimited membership. Amazon Original Stories—Read or listen to binge-worthy short fiction and nonfiction from best-selling authors, acclaimed storytellers, and new voices including Dean Koontz, Mindy Kaling, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Margaret Atwood, Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Andy Weir, all included at no additional cost for Prime and Kindle Unlimited members. A diverse set of voices: Access a variety of stories from millions of self-published authors around the world with Kindle Direct Publishing. Additionally, Prime members can read from a rotating selection of thousands of books, magazines, and more—at no additional cost to their Prime membership. Designed with Sustainability in Mind The all-new Kindle and Kindle Kids were designed with sustainability in mind and carry the Climate Pledge Friendly badge, acknowledging further reduction in carbon emissions from previous product generations. Both devices were thoughtfully sourced and built with 90% recycled magnesium. Plus, following our goal to make Amazon device packaging 100% recyclable by 2023, for the first time ever, Kindle device packaging is 100% recyclable in the U.S. and is also made of 100% wood fiber-based materials from responsibly managed forests or recycled sources. In addition, Kindle accessory covers follow suit with packaging made from 99% wood fiber-based materials. Amazon continues to reduce impact on the planet through decreasing waste and providing more-sustainable options, and our efforts with Kindle and Kindle Kids are no different. Pricing and Availability The all-new Kindle will be available starting at $99.99 in 16GB and in Black or Denim colors. New fabric covers for Kindle will be available in Black, Rose, Denim, and Dark Emerald. Kindle Kids will be available starting at $119.99 in 16GB in Black. Customers can select from three kid-friendly cover designs: Space Whale, Unicorn Valley, and Ocean Explorer. Each Kindle Kids device comes with a two-year, worry-free guarantee and one year of Amazon Kids+, an award-winning, all-in-one kid-friendly content service with thousands of ad-free books, games, videos, apps, and Alexa Skills from brands like Disney, LEGO, and National Geographic. On Kindle Kids, Amazon Kids+ provides access to thousands of age-appropriate books. Amazon Kids+ auto-renews after one year starting at $4.99 a month and can be canceled at any time. Both devices are available today for pre-order http://www.amazon.com/kindle. About Amazon Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Amazon strives to be Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company, Earth's Best Employer, and Earth's Safest Place to Work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews. ### If you'd like brief updates on technology, books, marriage, and puppies, you can follow along with my Morning Journal flash briefing. tFrom your Echo device, just say, “Alexa, enable Morning Journal.” Then each morning say, “Alexa, what's my flash briefing?” I post a five-minute audio journal each weekday except usually by 8 a.m. Eastern Time. Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.   If you'd like brief updates on technology, books, marriage, and puppies, you can follow along with my Morning Journal flash briefing. tFrom your Echo device, just say, “Alexa, enable Morning Journal.” Then each morning say, “Alexa, what's my flash briefing?” I post a five-minute audio journal each weekday except usually by 8 a.m. Eastern Time.  Right-click here and then click "Save Link As..." to download the audio to your computer, phone, or MP3 player.  

Lors des résultats du premier trimestre, certaines compagnies avaient commencé à mettre la table pour un ralentissement de leurs activités face au stade de l'économie. Le déroulement de ce ralentissement, quoique peu surprenant, a tout de même donné raison à ces derniers. Alphabet (Nasdaq : GOOGL), avait rapporté un ralentissement dans les revenues de publicité. Amazon (Nasdaq : AMZN) avait quant à eux, enregistré une perte de 3.8 milliards au 1er trimestre de 2022, une première perte depuis 2015. Alors que les résultats de mi-année sont maintenant à nos portes, les premiers à dévoiler leurs résultats semblent plutôt servir de cobayes au marché.https://daytradercanada.com/billet-boursier/quand-les-tableaux-de-bord-tournent-au-rouge/

As of this writing, the Nasdaq Composite Index has plunged more than 33% from its November 2021 high. Around half of all stocks listed on the exchange have fallen at least 50% from their rolling highs. So, with seemingly no end in sight to the broader market's plunge, it might feel crazy to own particularly volatile tech stocks right now. But here at 7investing, we recognize that historic drops like these create extraordinary opportunities for investors capable of keeping a level head and focusing on buying and holding shares of the most promising businesses the market has to offer. 7investing Lead Advisor Steve Symington is convinced that many of those high-quality businesses reside in the nascent artificial intelligence and robotics industries. In this episode of the 7investing Podcast, Steve is joined by Lauren Hein, Head of Advisor Relations at ROBO Global. ROBO Global is an index, advisory, and research company dedicated to helping investors capture the best opportunities in the fast-growing robotics, AI, and healthcare technology spaces. Among the topics Steve and Lauren discuss are: Why investors should have tech stocks in their portfolios, even amid a market selloff, The growth opportunity in tech outside of traditional megacaps like Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN), and Meta (NASDAQ: META), How industrial robotics stocks fit into the broader robotics and automation ecosystem, Investment criteria and several industrial-focused robotics stocks ROBO Global is following closely, including Fanuc (OTCMKTS: FANUY), Teradyne (NASDAQ: TER), and Cognex (NASDAQ: CGNX). Welcome to 7investing. We are here to empower you to invest in your future! We publish our 7 best ideas in the stock market to our subscribers for just $49 per month or $399 per year. Start your journey toward's financial independence: https://www.7investing.com/subscribe Stop by our website to level-up your investing education: https://www.7investing.com Join the 7investing Community Forum: https://discord.gg/6YvazDf9sw Follow us: ► https://www.facebook.com/7investing ► https://twitter.com/7investing ► https://instagram.com/7investing --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message

Did you buy a Peloton in the lockdown? I know a couple of people that did. I nearly did. I certainly looked at them online and lusted after one. But then I didn't get round to buying one. Can't remember why not. It might have been the waiting list. It might be because I don't have anywhere to put it…The tech bubble has well and truly burstA Peloton, by the way, is an indoor exercise bike that comes with an app with loads of classes built in, so you can have someone shout at you while you cycle. They do treadmills and things as well.Peloton Interactive (Nasdaq:PTON) was one of the go-to stock darlings of the Covid tech boom. It IPO'd in September 2019 at $29 a share. The IPO price was probably a bit high because over the next month the stock fell by a third to $20. It rallied a bit, but at the height of the Covid panic in March 2020 it sunk even lower to $17.Then people like me started wondering how we could exercise during a lockdown. Over the next nine months the stock went up ten times. By January 2021 it was $171. Then it started falling. Yesterday it hit $11.That's a fall of somewhere between 93% and 94%. It's now trading at roughly a third of the IPO price. It can still fall by another 93%.But I still think I want a Peloton. Though where would I put it?Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX) has gone from $700 in December  to $177 yesterday. It's “only” fallen by 75%. But my kids still watch Netflix. I don't. But that's because I'm a stroppy old grinch who doesn't like TV. I can't bear actors with shoddy diction, you see, and there are rather too many of them. They brutalise the language and nobody seems to care (except me). Another example of falling standards.Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN) has gone from $3,773 to $2,177 yesterday. It's “only” down 43% and it actually makes money. Or so I'm told.Whatever, I still use Amazon ALL the time.The tech bubble has well and truly burst. But tech companies are a lot more real than they were in 2000, last time around.The bursting cannot be blamed on Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, I don't think. It was a speculative bubble and speculative bubbles, even though they can go on much longer than is “rational”, pop. Suppressed interest rates and digital money printers endlessly brr-ing keep them going, but one day they pop.And it's not like these declines are confined to Nasdaq stocks.Over the last week the defi protocol Terra has fallen by over 90% and, in doing so, collapsed the entire bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem. We are deep in the bleak cryptocurrency midwinter and eyes are bleeding.Over in the similarly stupidly speculative sector that is junior mining, pain is apparent across the board. Markets are puking. Selfies of speculators now seeking work at McDonald's abound.The bearish factors at play are obvious - the war in Ukraine, rising geopolitical tension, inflation, interest rates that don't reflect inflation, fear that interest rates will soon have to reflect inflation, and the likely popping of the global debt bubble.Ukraine aside, these aren't anything new, it's just now they all seem to matter, when previously they didn't.Where can you hide? Bonds are tanking, stocks are tanking, commodities are tanking, precious metals are tanking, crypto is tanking, even cash is tanking – in that it's losing 10% of its purchasing power every year.Well, that last point may be true, but during a global margin call, cash suddenly starts to look valuable. The good thing about bear markets is that they don't last forever. I don't know when this one will end, but it will end, eventually.At a certain point, real businesses with cash flow are going to look very attractive - if they don't already.The secret I guess is to look around at all those companies you wanted to buy when times were good. Have they changed? No? Well, now's your chance to pick them up at a discount. When TVs and computers are on sale, people queue overnight round the block to get their bargains. When stocks are on sale, everybody panics and sells.The lesson is to always keep some cash in reserve for times like this. The problem is you spend it when you think something is cheap. It falls by more and you don't have any cash left to buy it when it is cheaper.Gosh these markets are difficult. The sheer speed of the declines over the last month have been extraordinary.Are we at peak panic yet? I can see lots of opportunities out there. But I don't think we are quite at the final flush point yet. But I dare say we are not that far away.This would seem to be a bear market of the grinding variety. Far more painful than the short and sharp crash-boom variety we saw during Covid.Stay safe! Awful expression, but I guess in this case it means don't use too much leverage. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

Did you buy a Peloton in the lockdown? I know a couple of people that did. I nearly did. I certainly looked at them online and lusted after one. But then I didn't get round to buying one. Can't remember why not. It might have been the waiting list. It might be because I don't have anywhere to put it…The tech bubble has well and truly burstA Peloton, by the way, is an indoor exercise bike that comes with an app with loads of classes built in, so you can have someone shout at you while you cycle. They do treadmills and things as well.Peloton Interactive (Nasdaq:PTON) was one of the go-to stock darlings of the Covid tech boom. It IPO'd in September 2019 at $29 a share. The IPO price was probably a bit high because over the next month the stock fell by a third to $20. It rallied a bit, but at the height of the Covid panic in March 2020 it sunk even lower to $17.Then people like me started wondering how we could exercise during a lockdown. Over the next nine months the stock went up ten times. By January 2021 it was $171. Then it started falling. Yesterday it hit $11.That's a fall of somewhere between 93% and 94%. It's now trading at roughly a third of the IPO price. It can still fall by another 93%.But I still think I want a Peloton. Though where would I put it?Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX) has gone from $700 in December  to $177 yesterday. It's “only” fallen by 75%. But my kids still watch Netflix. I don't. But that's because I'm a stroppy old grinch who doesn't like TV. I can't bear actors with shoddy diction, you see, and there are rather too many of them. They brutalise the language and nobody seems to care (except me). Another example of falling standards.Amazon (Nasdaq:AMZN) has gone from $3,773 to $2,177 yesterday. It's “only” down 43% and it actually makes money. Or so I'm told.Whatever, I still use Amazon ALL the time.The tech bubble has well and truly burst. But tech companies are a lot more real than they were in 2000, last time around.The bursting cannot be blamed on Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, I don't think. It was a speculative bubble and speculative bubbles, even though they can go on much longer than is “rational”, pop. Suppressed interest rates and digital money printers endlessly brr-ing keep them going, but one day they pop.And it's not like these declines are confined to Nasdaq stocks.Over the last week the defi protocol Terra has fallen by over 90% and, in doing so, collapsed the entire bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem. We are deep in the bleak cryptocurrency midwinter and eyes are bleeding.Over in the similarly stupidly speculative sector that is junior mining, pain is apparent across the board. Markets are puking. Selfies of speculators now seeking work at McDonald's abound.The bearish factors at play are obvious - the war in Ukraine, rising geopolitical tension, inflation, interest rates that don't reflect inflation, fear that interest rates will soon have to reflect inflation, and the likely popping of the global debt bubble.Ukraine aside, these aren't anything new, it's just now they all seem to matter, when previously they didn't.Where can you hide? Bonds are tanking, stocks are tanking, commodities are tanking, precious metals are tanking, crypto is tanking, even cash is tanking – in that it's losing 10% of its purchasing power every year.Well, that last point may be true, but during a global margin call, cash suddenly starts to look valuable. The good thing about bear markets is that they don't last forever. I don't know when this one will end, but it will end, eventually.At a certain point, real businesses with cash flow are going to look very attractive - if they don't already.The secret I guess is to look around at all those companies you wanted to buy when times were good. Have they changed? No? Well, now's your chance to pick them up at a discount. When TVs and computers are on sale, people queue overnight round the block to get their bargains. When stocks are on sale, everybody panics and sells.The lesson is to always keep some cash in reserve for times like this. The problem is you spend it when you think something is cheap. It falls by more and you don't have any cash left to buy it when it is cheaper.Gosh these markets are difficult. The sheer speed of the declines over the last month have been extraordinary.Are we at peak panic yet? I can see lots of opportunities out there. But I don't think we are quite at the final flush point yet. But I dare say we are not that far away.This would seem to be a bear market of the grinding variety. Far more painful than the short and sharp crash-boom variety we saw during Covid.Stay safe! Awful expression, but I guess in this case it means don't use too much leverage. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit frisby.substack.com/subscribe

Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) shareholders are having a rough April. The stock has gone into a freefall and has now sold off more than 50% during the past month. The common consensus believes this is due to a drop in its paying subscriber count, as well as an admission that competition from Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), and Disney(NYSE: DIS) is heating up. Netflix has been a one-trick pony thus far. Its revenue has been entirely tied to its global subscriber count, and also the regional pricing that it charges those subscribers. But things are getting more interesting now. Netflix is attempting to monetize its freeloaders, who are getting the service for free by using the login details of others. It's also considering a lower-priced, ad-supported tier for potential subscribers who don't want to pay their standard rates. The stock market is always forward-looking, and everything that has happened this past month is now in the rear-view mirror. Ultimately, investors must now answer the question of whether Netflix at an $85 billion market cap is a good opportunity going forward? To answer that question, 7investing lead advisors Anirban Mahanti and Simon Erickson teamed up with TheStreet's Managing Editor (and former 7investing advisor) Dan Kline in a special "Netflix's Past, Present, and Future" discussion. The three describe what it was that made Netflix so special, what present challenges it faces, and whether they believe it will ultimately solve its current issues in the future. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this interview include Amazon, Disney, and Netflix. 7investing's advisors and/or guests may have positions in the companies that are mentioned. This discussion was originally recorded on Twitter Spaces on April 20, 2022. Welcome to 7investing. We are here to empower you to invest in your future! We publish our 7 best ideas in the stock market to our subscribers for just $49 per month or $399 per year. Start your journey toward's financial independence: https://www.7investing.com/subscribe Stop by our website to level-up your investing education: https://www.7investing.com Join the 7investing Community Forum: https://discord.gg/6YvazDf9sw Follow us: ► https://www.facebook.com/7investing ► https://twitter.com/7investing ► https://instagram.com/7investing --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/7investing/support

Businesses around the world spend nearly $800 billion on advertising every year, and two thirds of that is taking place digitally. There are three players who dominate the ads we see when we're glued to the screen, as Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL), Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: FB), and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) together capture 74% of the digital advertising market opportunity. Yet there are big changes underway that might cause a shift in the balance of power. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) recently announced in its IOS 14.5 update enhanced privacy controls, which now allow iPhone users to opt-out of seeing personalized advertisements. Specifically, this move shields the mobile device's IDFA identifier from websites and apps, who might want to use it to place targeted advertisements for users. It was a crushing blow for companies who rely on those targeted ads. Facebook/Meta Platforms CFO Dave Wehner has mentioned the move will likely cost their company $10 billion in lost revenue in 2022. As expected, this restricted led to a mass-migration of mobile ad budgets away from Apple iPhones and toward Android devices instead. But now even Google is disrupting its own cash cow in the interest of protecting user privacy. Big G has announced it will be curtailing cross-app ad tracking within the next two years. These are important changes! The business world needs to advertise to drive sales conversions, and it needs direction from the tech giants on how they'll do personalized advertising while still respecting data privacy. Is this the beginning of the the walled gardens of Google and Facebook toppling, and being replaced instead by a new "Open Internet"? Are there new advertising media -- perhaps Connected TV -- that are becoming the battlegrounds that tech companies know they absolutely must win? How should investors decipher these technology changes? And are there specific stock market opportunities they should be considering? To answer these questions, we've brought in an expert. Dhaval Kotecha is an individual investor with years of experience in the digital advertising space. He has worked for programmatic advertising platforms and has accurately read the tea leaves to invest in many of the industry's top-performers. In this exclusive interview, Dhaval chats with 7investing founder Simon Erickson about the higher-level impact of Apple and Google's recent changes. The two discuss Roku's (Nasdaq: ROKU) recent earnings release and what might have caused the stock's significant selloff. Dhaval then describes several programmatic ad platforms, including The Trade Desk (Nasdaq: TTD), PubMatic (Nasdaq: PUBM), and Magnite (Nasdaq: MGNI). And as a fun way to wrap things up, he explains his recent interest in non-fungible token ("NFT") marketplaces and how investors might think about their rising popularity. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this interview include Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Magnite, Meta Platforms, PubMatic, ROKU, and The Trade Desk. 7investing's advisors or its guests may have positions in the companies mentioned. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/7investing/support

John Garrett is a Portfolio Manager at MA Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MAF) (formerly Moelis Australia) and shares investing wisdom on his website, mastersinvest.com. He joins Raymond Jang on The Australian Investors Podcast to share his investing knowledge and lessons with our investing community. John's career in the financial markets has spanned across over nearly 25 years and currently manages three funds at MA Financial Group. His significant experience combined with an insatiable appetite for consuming books along with learning from the greats has helped him build an encyclopedic knowledge of mental models to find great businesses, which can compound at high rates over long periods of time. Talking points 00:00 - How John felt when he heard that Ben Rundle said he was the most influential person in his investing career. 02:40 - John's personal journey as an investor. 05:15 - First decade of John's career in REITs with UBS Investment Bank and the impact of the Asian financial crisis and the tech bubble. We talk about CISCO Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSC), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). 13:00 - John's experience in hedge fund advisory and building live model portfolios for institutional clients. 20:00 - What was going through John's mind during the global financial crisis and how Mark Twain's quote, 'History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes' was relevant. John also mentions the book, House of Morgan. 24:55 - John's foray into the buy-side and the investing philosophy of the funds he currently manages at MA Financial Group. John shares some interesting statistics highlighting where the best ASX investing opportunities lie. 34:10 - Why focusing on the destination is important to John when he approaches valuation. John uses Nick Sleep and Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) as an example. 38:00 - Using Australian Ethical Investment Ltd (ASX: AEF) as a case study of where the valuation became overstretched. 42:15 - How John works out the risk and reward payoff when assessing investment opportunities, using Johns Lyng Group Ltd (ASX: JLG) as an illustration. 46:30 - What John does to take his mind off investing. 48:40 - The key lessons John gained from studying the great investors. Watch the video version on the Rask Australia YouTube page. Take one of our intelligent & FREE investing courses (think ETFs, shares & valuation) on Rask Education and join our insightful FB community. Score $100 off Owen's high conviction ASX & US share research service, Rask Invest! If you want to thank us for putting this show together, please give The Australian Investors Podcast a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts - it's a 5-second task that really helps support the show (and puts a big smile on Owen's face). Full individual disclosures for each guest are available via the show notes page. Owen and The Rask Group Pty Ltd do NOT receive anything for mentioning Super funds, products, shares, bank accounts, etc. DISCLAIMER: This podcast contains general financial information only. That means the information does not take into account your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Because of that, you should consider if the information is appropriate to you and your needs, before acting on it. If you're confused about what that means or what your needs are, you should always consult a licensed and trusted financial planner. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information in this podcast, including any financial, taxation, and/or legal information. Remember, past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. The Rask Group is NOT a qualified tax accountant, financial (tax) adviser, or financial adviser. Access The Rask Group's Financial Services Guide (FSG): https://www.rask.com.au/fsg Date recorded:18th Jan 2022

John Garrett is a Portfolio Manager at MA Financial Group Ltd (ASX: MAF) (formerly Moelis Australia) and shares investing wisdom on his website, mastersinvest.com. He joins Raymond Jang on The Australian Investors Podcast to share his investing knowledge and lessons with our investing community.John's career in the financial markets has spanned across over nearly 25 years and currently manages three funds at MA Financial Group. His significant experience combined with an insatiable appetite for consuming books along with learning from the greats has helped him build an encyclopedic knowledge of mental models to find great businesses, which can compound at high rates over long periods of time.Talking points00:00 - How John felt when he heard that Ben Rundle said he was the most influential person in his investing career.02:40 - John's personal journey as an investor.05:15 - First decade of John's career in REITs with UBS Investment Bank and the impact of the Asian financial crisis and the tech bubble. We talk about CISCO Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CSC), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).13:00 - John's experience in hedge fund advisory and building live model portfolios for institutional clients.20:00 - What was going through John's mind during the global financial crisis and how Mark Twain's quote, 'History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes' was relevant. John also mentions the book, House of Morgan.24:55 - John's foray into the buy-side and the investing philosophy of the funds he currently manages at MA Financial Group. John shares some interesting statistics highlighting where the best ASX investing opportunities lie.34:10 - Why focusing on the destination is important to John when he approaches valuation. John uses Nick Sleep and Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) as an example.38:00 - Using Australian Ethical Investment Ltd (ASX: AEF) as a case study of where the valuation became overstretched.42:15 - How John works out the risk and reward payoff when assessing investment opportunities, using Johns Lyng Group Ltd (ASX: JLG) as an illustration.46:30 - What John does to take his mind off investing.48:40 - The key lessons John gained from studying the great investors.Watch the video version on the Rask Australia YouTube page.Take one of our intelligent & FREE investing courses (think ETFs, shares & valuation) on Rask Education and join our insightful FB community.Score $100 off Owen's high conviction ASX & US share research service, Rask Invest!If you want to thank us for putting this show together, please give The Australian Investors Podcast a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts - it's a 5-second task that really helps support the show (and puts a big smile on Owen's face).Full individual disclosures for each guest are available via the show notes page. Owen and The Rask Group Pty Ltd do NOT receive anything for mentioning Super funds, products, shares, bank accounts, etc.DISCLAIMER: This podcast contains general financial information only. That means the information does not take into account your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Because of that, you should consider if the information is appropriate to you and your needs, before acting on it. If you're confused about what that means or what your needs are, you should always consult a licensed and trusted financial planner. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information in this podcast, including any financial, taxation, and/or legal information. Remember, past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. The Rask Group is NOT a qualified tax accountant, financial (tax) adviser, or financial adviser.Access The Rask Group's Financial Services Guide (FSG): https://www.rask.com.au/fsgDate recorded:18th Jan 2022

2021 was an interesting year for investors. Overall, the S&P 500 composite index increased 26.89% during the year. But digging in deeper, those top-line return numbers are perhaps a bit deceiving. More than 20% of the S&P 50's market-cap weighted index is consolidated in its five largest constituents. Those would be Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), and Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA), in that respective order. Several of those stocks had an incredible year, which caused the overall performance of the overall index to similarly look incredible. But if you take out just a few of those high-flying names -- such as Alphabet's 65% gain or Tesla's 50% gain -- the total return suddenly becomes significantly less impressive. As such, the recent volatility of the broader market leaves investors in a conundrum. With the looming threats of rising interest rates or inflation, should we continue to flock to the relative safety of the market's largest companies? Or conversely, is the recent market selloff actually presenting an opportunity to buy into several smaller companies at a relative bargain? To help us answer those questions, we've brought in two of our favorite investors. Ryan Henderson and Brett Schafer together host the investing podcast Chit Chat Money and are also the general partners of Arch Capital. We thought the recent volatility presented an excellent opportunity to hear their perspectives on the status quo of the stock market. In this exclusive interview, Ryan and Brett spoke with 7investing CEO Simon Erickson and 7investing lead advisor Steve Symington about a variety of topics. They first discussed how investors should think about volatility and the process they follow for their investing methodology. They also describe three of Arch Capital's largest holdings -- Sprout's Farmers Market, Spotify, and Nelnet -- and provide a thorough recap of why they like each of these positions. And to have a little fun in the outro, Ryan, Brett, Simon, and Steve each share one stock that was on their Christmas List for 2021. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this interview include Boston Omaha, Callaway, Costco, Latch, MongoDB, Nelnet, Rocket Lab, Spotify, Sprout's Farmers Market, and Walmart. 7investing's advisors or its guests may have positions in the companies mentioned. Welcome to 7investing. We are here to empower you to invest in your future! We publish our 7 best ideas in the stock market to our subscribers for just $49 per month or $399 per year. Start your journey toward's financial independence: https://www.7investing.com/subscribe Stop by our website to level-up your investing education: https://www.7investing.com Follow us: ► https://www.facebook.com/7investing ► https://twitter.com/7investing ► https://instagram.com/7investing --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/7investing/support

In this episode, Dan and Albert break down Amazon. Amazon is a leading online retailer and one of the highest-grossing e-commerce aggregators, with $386 billion in net sales in 2020. Retail related revenue represented approximately 83% of total, followed by Amazon Web Services' cloud computing, storage, database, and other offerings (12%), and advertising services and cobranded credit cards (6%). International segments constituted 27% of Amazon's non-AWS sales in 2020, led by Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Check out our Substack Newsletter! Sent straight to your inbox, it's a great way to read our breakdowns in 5 minutes. Leave us a Review! If you enjoy listening to the podcast, we'd love for you to rate us 5-stars on iTunes / Apple Podcasts. Here's a link to leave a review right now :) In this episode we cover: An overview of Amazon (3:15) What is Amazon's Flywheel (9:23) - Link to Flywheel How Amazon's retail business operates (16:15) How has Amazon grown to be a winner (26:07) What is the future of Amazon in Australia (30:20) Take our survey and let us know how we're doing. Follow and subscribe to our content. All information contained in this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional financial, legal or tax advice. The hosts of Fresh Capital are not financial professionals and are not aware of your personal financial circumstances. Any opinions expressed herein are not recommendations or advice. Please consult a licensed financial professional before you invest. For more information visit our website at https://www.freshcapital.media/ Got feedback or suggestions? Send them to freshcapitalpodcast@gmail.com

On the heels of its recently-announced partnership with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), buy-now-pay-later company Affirm (NASDAQ: ARFM) just released some pretty impressive results. And elsewhere in the BNPL space, PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) just announced its acquisition of a leader in the Japanese market that could have global implications for the business. Plus, host Jason Moser and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, each discuss a stock they have on their watch list right now. Check out more of our content here: Podcasts Youtube Twitter Reach us by Email @ IndustryFocus@fool.com

Note: This is Part 2 of our two-part 7investing interview with Muji. If there's one thing you can count on with technology, it's that it can completely change the way we do things. Music that used to be played on vinyl records is now being listened to through Bluetooth earbuds as digital mp3. Film reels in movie theaters were replaced by VCRs, which then got replaced by Smart TV streaming. Stick-shift cars eventually became fully-autonomous, while libraries evolved into digital assistants in our living room. There's no industry that's immune to technological innovation. Even our coffee is now being made and served by robot baristas! This pace of innovation continues to accelerate further, as advancements in cloud computing and artificial intelligence are unlocking new opportunities for organizations of all sizes. Forward-thinking businesses are increasing sales by learning more about their customers, while those with complex supply chains are becoming more efficient by taking costs out of their operations. All of this innovation is excellent news for growth-style investors. By understanding the fundamental technologies that are shaping the future, we can identify the most promising companies who are capitalizing upon them. So what are those important trends that are brewing today? And what are the specific investment opportunities that are arising? To answer those questions, we've brought in a technical expert. Matthew Eash -- better known by his online moniker "Muji" -- is one of the world's most forward-thinking technologists. After spending decades as a data architect, he's now founded his hhhypergrowth newsletter to focus on the technologies powering today's most innovative companies. In this exclusive conversation, Muji speaks with 7investing CEO Simon Erickson about the important trends taking shape in the tech world. Muji discusses why the recent Confluent (Nasdaq: CFLT) IPO is so interesting to him and why several companies built upon open-source platforms often end up butting heads with the Cloud Titans. The two discuss usage-based pricing and the metrics investors should be evaluating in the new era of cloud-native software companies. They describe why Snowflake (Nasdaq: SNOW) is such a unique opportunity, as well as a variety of other topics that range from Kubernetes to edge networks. Finally, Muji takes a closer look at several important events that have taken place in the cybersecurity industry during the past year, including the SolarWinds data breach and FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE) spinning off its products division. He also describes what impact the White House's recent Executive Order will have on Zero Trust technology. Muji and Simon share several of their favorite investment ideas throughout the conversation. This is a must-listen for any investors who want to capitalize on the biggest trends taking shape in technology! Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this interview include Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Cloudera (NYSE: CLDR), Confluent (Nasdaq: CFLT), CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD), Elastic (NYSE: ESTC), Fastly (Nasdaq: FSLY), FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE), Fortinet (Nasdaq: FTNT), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), MongoDB (Nasdaq: MDB), Okta (Nasdaq: OKTA), Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), Snowflake (Nasdaq: SNOW), Splunk (Nasdaq: SPLK), Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), and ZScaler (Nasdaq: ZS). 7investing's advisors or its guests may have positions in the companies mentioned. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/7investing/support

If there's one thing you can count on with technology, it's that it can completely change the way we do things. Music that used to be played on vinyl records is now being listened to through Bluetooth earbuds as digital mp3. Film reels in movie theaters were replaced by VCRs, which then got replaced by Smart TV streaming. Stick-shift cars eventually became fully-autonomous, while libraries evolved into digital assistants in our living room. There's no industry that's immune to technological innovation. Even our coffee is now being made and served by robot baristas! This pace of innovation continues to accelerate further, as advancements in cloud computing and artificial intelligence are unlocking new opportunities for organizations of all sizes. Forward-thinking businesses are increasing sales by learning more about their customers, while those with complex supply chains are becoming more efficient by taking costs out of their operations. All of this innovation is excellent news for growth-style investors. By understanding the fundamental technologies that are shaping the future, we can identify the most promising companies who are capitalizing upon them. So what are those important trends that are brewing today? And what are the specific investment opportunities that are arising? To answer those questions, we've brought in a technical expert. Matthew Eash -- better known by his online moniker "Muji" -- is one of the world's most forward-thinking technologists. After spending decades as a data architect, he's now founded his hhhypergrowth newsletter to focus on the technologies powering today's most innovative companies. In this exclusive conversation, Muji speaks with 7investing CEO Simon Erickson about the important trends taking shape in the tech world. Muji discusses why the recent Confluent (Nasdaq: CFLT) IPO is so interesting to him and why several companies built upon open-source platforms often end up butting heads with the Cloud Titans. The two discuss usage-based pricing and the metrics investors should be evaluating in the new era of cloud-native software companies. They describe why Snowflake (Nasdaq: SNOW) is such a unique opportunity, as well as a variety of other topics that range from Kubernetes to edge networks. Finally, Muji takes a closer look at several important events that have taken place in the cybersecurity industry during the past year, including the SolarWinds data breach and FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE) spinning off its products division. He also describes what impact the White House's recent Executive Order will have on Zero Trust technology. Muji and Simon share several of their favorite investment ideas throughout the conversation. This is a must-listen for any investors who want to capitalize on the biggest trends taking shape in technology! Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this interview include Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Cloudera (NYSE: CLDR), Confluent (Nasdaq: CFLT), CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD), Elastic (NYSE: ESTC), Fastly (Nasdaq: FSLY), FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE), Fortinet (Nasdaq: FTNT), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), MongoDB (Nasdaq: MDB), Okta (Nasdaq: OKTA), Palo Alto Networks (NYSE: PANW), Snowflake (Nasdaq: SNOW), Splunk (Nasdaq: SPLK), Twilio (NYSE: TWLO), and ZScaler (Nasdaq: ZS). 7investing's advisors or its guests may have positions in the companies mentioned. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/7investing/support

Improving health care by making it more convenient The journey a patient makes in the health care system can be a long one - from getting an appointment, to waiting to see the physician, to finally getting a prescription for treatment. Any roadblock on that journey, often something simple such as picking up a prescription, can have devastating consequences. Value-based care is all about focusing on the patient - providing them the best quality care for the least amount of cost. It is also about treating the patient more as a consumer and giving them the delightful experience that they get from their other service and retail providers. Oftentimes, what the patient consumer is looking for is convenience. Convenient is certainly not a word one typically associates with health care. But that's changing. Telehealth has finally gained acceptance, a silver lining from the pandemic, wearables are connecting to doctors' offices, and increasingly medical networks have a usable patient app. It may not be perfect yet, but it's heading in the right direction. In today's podcast, 7investing Lead Advisor Dana Abramovitz discusses how companies are making health care more convenient to patients with Amanda Epp, Co-founder and CEO of ScriptDrop. ScriptDrop focuses on the last leg of the patient journey, getting their prescription. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this podcast include: Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD), Albertson's (NYSE: ACI), CVS (NSYE: CVS), Walgreens (NASDAQ: WBA), and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN). 7investing's advisors may have positions in the companies mentioned. Welcome to 7investing. We are here to empower you to invest in your future! We publish our 7 best ideas in the stock market to our subscribers for just $17 per month. Start your journey toward's financial independence: https://www.7investing.com/subscribe Stop by our website to level-up your investing education: https://www.7investing.com Follow us on Social Media ► https://www.facebook.com/7investing/ ► https://twitter.com/7investing ► https://instagram.com/7investingofficial --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/7investing/support

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) recently announced its intention to establish its own third-party cookie tracker. Since 2019 Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOG) decided to modify the way user data may be gathered through its Chrome web browser, and phased out third-party cookies. The move affected lots of advertising companies like Amazon and Trading Desk (Nasdaq:TTD) Amazon's future identification technology will be confined to the company's advertising environment, so it won't be able to replace Chrome's range of tracking abilities. It's unclear when Amazon's advertising identifier will be available.

Amazon (NASDAQ : AMZN), le géant du commerce en ligne, a annoncé mercredi qu'elle acquerrait MGM Studios pour 8.45 milliards de dollars, marquant sa décision la plus audacieuse à ce jour dans l'industrie du divertissement et renforçant ses ambitions de devenir un joueur majeur dans l'industrie de la diffusion en continu. 

With the onset of the digital universe over the last decades, music has been steadily devalued with a race to the bottom pricing to give subscribers access to massive databases of music. Pandemic social shutdowns were another blow to musicians, who now couldn't even generate revenue from live performances. In recent months, the emergence of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are breathing life into the industry as musicians are getting creative with ways to generate revenue and better connect with fans. An NFT is, in essence, a collectible digital asset, which holds value as a form of cryptocurrency and as a form of art or culture, and offers artists the ability to monetize their art or music. Music DeFi pioneer BAND Royalty (Profile) is taking NFTs to the next level by structuring them with the opportunity to access royalties from its constantly growing library of soundtracks. Just as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) shook up the music industry with their subscription services and exclusive content, NFTs are being hailed as the next great disruptor, which would likely benefit Riot Blockchain Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT), Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN) and others already deep in the cryptocurrency and blockchain markets.

With the onset of the digital universe over the last decades, music has been steadily devalued with a race to the bottom pricing to give subscribers access to massive databases of music. Pandemic social shutdowns were another blow to musicians, who now couldn't even generate revenue from live performances. In recent months, the emergence of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are breathing life into the industry as musicians are getting creative with ways to generate revenue and better connect with fans. An NFT is, in essence, a collectible digital asset, which holds value as a form of cryptocurrency and as a form of art or culture, and offers artists the ability to monetize their art or music. Music DeFi pioneer BAND Royalty (Profile) is taking NFTs to the next level by structuring them with the opportunity to access royalties from its constantly growing library of soundtracks. Just as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) shook up the music industry with their subscription services and exclusive content, NFTs are being hailed as the next great disruptor, which would likely benefit Riot Blockchain Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT), Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN) and others already deep in the cryptocurrency and blockchain markets.

There's a lot of technology buzzwords flying around in the financial media these days. "Digital transformation", "cloud computing", "edge computing", and "artificial intelligence" are making their way into plenty of headlines and also into the conversations of more and more cocktail parties. The world is gaining a better understanding of what several cutting-edge trends actually mean. But even more important than understanding them is following how these disruptive new technologies are actually being implemented. Businesses of all sizes are moving their workflows to the cloud service providers like Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) Web Services and Google (Nasdaq: GOOGL) Cloud Platform. They're hiring data scientists to set up machine learning environments, and they're assembling teams of hundreds or thousands of engineers to undertake massive new projects. There are a lot of dollars at stake as the digital transformation more firmly takes root within the enterprise. What will all of this mean for investors? Are there ways to capitalize on the biggest trends taking shape in the tech world? To help us answer these questions, we've brought in an expert who is at the forefront of innovation. Ben Book is the co-founder and CEO of GigaOm, who is helping IT decision makers tackle their most complex technical challenges. GigaOm is bringing the executives of progressive companies up-to-speed about emerging technologies and then helping to implement them across their organizations. In this exclusive interview with 7investing, Ben digs deep into what's really going on in today's biggest trends. He explains what the digital transformation is really all about and why we're still just "in the second or third inning." He describes how cloud computing is allowing companies to simplify their IT operations and how machine learning is now being used for more customized applications. Previously a healthcare consultant, Ben also sheds some insight on where tech companies have the greatest chances of succeeding in health care. Finally, Simon asks Ben to share several other trends he's excited about right now. Publicly-traded companies mentioned in this interview include Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL), Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Datadog (Nasdaq: DDOG), Disney (NYSE: DIS), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), and Snowflake (Nasdaq: SNOW), and Zoom Video Communications (Nasdaq: ZM). 7investing's advisors or its guests may have positions in the companies mentioned. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/7investing/message

Join Motley Fool Analysts Asit Sharma and Emily Flippen as they dig into the business of “aggregating Amazon”, and the small private and public companies creating a $200 billion industry from the ground up.  Stocks: Mohawk Group Holdings (NASDAQ: MWK), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Walmart (NYSE: WMT) Check out more of our content here: Podcasts Youtube Twitter Reach us by Email @ IndustryFocus@fool.com

For those on the connected side of the digital divide, the internet has created a borderless society where everything is within reach of a mouse click. For the approximately 44 million American homes still without broadband, President Joe Biden has tasked Congress with approving a budget that helps bridge that divide. From a business standpoint, that's an opportunity for a bevy of companies, including streaming services, advertisers, e-commerce brands and more to reach large pockets of the country currently unattended. That means more opportunity for Friendable Inc. (OTC: FDBL) (Profile) and its Fan Pass live-streaming mobile and web-based platform to further accelerate its growth trajectory by providing unprecedented access to artists ranging from up-and-comers to some of the world's biggest music artists and celebrity talent. Those connected can hardly fathom a non-streaming world anymore where, with just a tap on a device, live concerts, podcasts, movies and music are instantly available from an array of providers, including Spotify Technology S.A (NYSE: SPOT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Disney (NYSE: DIS), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and more.

For those on the connected side of the digital divide, the internet has created a borderless society where everything is within reach of a mouse click. For the approximately 44 million American homes still without broadband, President Joe Biden has tasked Congress with approving a budget that helps bridge that divide. From a business standpoint, that's an opportunity for a bevy of companies, including streaming services, advertisers, e-commerce brands and more to reach large pockets of the country currently unattended. That means more opportunity for Friendable Inc. (OTC: FDBL) (Profile) and its Fan Pass live-streaming mobile and web-based platform to further accelerate its growth trajectory by providing unprecedented access to artists ranging from up-and-comers to some of the world's biggest music artists and celebrity talent. Those connected can hardly fathom a non-streaming world anymore where, with just a tap on a device, live concerts, podcasts, movies and music are instantly available from an array of providers, including Spotify Technology S.A (NYSE: SPOT), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Disney (NYSE: DIS), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and more.

The #AI Eye: Amazon (Nasdaq: $AMZN) Announces Availability of Alexa Echo in Brazil, Intel (Nasdaq: $INTC) Works with Brown University on AI-Powered Spinal Solution

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