Haven’t you heard? Twitter was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Taken private by an eccentric billionaire who builds rockets and electric vehicles in search of a new mountain to climb: restoring the town square of the Internet via social media content moderation. He may have fought it and tried to escape the deal multiple times through various tweetstorms, upper and lower court lawsuits. But here we are. Elon Musk owns Twitter.
Ah, how blissful to take the summer off from writing. Was it a quiet summer? Oh noo no no. We moved! Out of the Bay to Boston. Took some vacation. Got Covid on vacation. Had to put my head down and do a fair amount of work too. So yeah, like many of you I’m limping back into the swing of things.
You may have noticed the temperature has risen…and I’m not talking about the weather. All across the tech ecosystem the heat is on with teams “pushing harder” amid headwinds of slumping growth, plunging valuations, and an escalating sense of impending doom.
What else did I miss?
Warren Buffet, in the most perilous of economic times, used to say “only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” Terrifying stuff, the thought of seeing Warren Buffett naked. But I think he meant to infer he was clothed. And that people didn’t really prepare for the down times. Anyway. Underneath the maelstrom and devastation of the national, international and political news cycle three stories this week from the world of tech jumped out:
For Twitter employees it was supposed to be a recharge week without meetings. You can imagine how quickly that got turned upside down when Elon entered the app. Just a couple weeks before payments startup Fast hit the wall and shut down suddenly leaving hundreds of employees looking for new jobs. In a rapidly changing macroeconomic environment, things are getting tougher out there!
1.) Ozy is Back?
2.) Facebook Goes Dark
3.) Axie Infinity & Beyond
4.) Tesla’s New HQ
1.) Live From New York It’s Elon
2.) Bitcoin Energy Crisis
3.) Colonial Crypto Ransom
4.) CDC Unmasks New Regs
1.) Tesla Titles
2.) Streaming Gold
3.) Lebron Scores
4.) Goldman Suchs
Did you know that as of 2020 90% of assets on S&P 500 corporate balance sheets are intangible assets? In 1975 it was only 17% or roughly $122 billion dollars. The 90% intangible asset figure today represents over $21 trillion dollars. Numerically it’s astounding. Basically, over time, reality has become…perception. At least from an accounting standpoint.
1.) Tesla Buys Bitcoin
2.) Social Resurgence
3.) Bumble IPO
4.) Salesforce Goes Hybrid
On the Twitter of late it feels like everyone has left SF and decamped to more bountiful lands of greater opportunity. Elon Musk has transported to Texas. Oracle too. Larry went to Hawaii though. VCs to Miami. Others have written OpEds. Still others have shown startling graphs about the effects a move has on a […]