š¦ Gamestop Gorillas
Cloud-busting drones, AR wristbands & a deep-dive on Stripe
So, what happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? š Facebook teases some high tech augmented reality wristbands, Stripe is now valued at $95bn and one Twitch streamer is testing the limitsā¦
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The Grapevine Newsflash š„
11Ā tech & startup stories inĀ 122Ā super duper short seconds.
š„½ Augmented Reality Wristbands? Facebook has given a sneak peek of its AR wristbands that would let users type, swipe, or play games like archery. This is seriously cool and the science behind it is fascinating. This product is quite meta, so you need to see it to understand it. Watch it in action here or read more here.
š°Amazonās Huge Advertising Business! Benedict Evans has written a brilliant article on AWSās advertising business which makes an estimated $20bn in revenue a year. Check it out here.
šŗ 1.1bn Streamers 2020 was the year of streaming services - with 1.1bn subscriptions now active around the world. The big winners? Netflix has over 200m & Disney+ (which isnāt even two years old) has more than 100m.
š§āš How Does Pixarās Animation Work? Check out this absolutely awesome video on how Pixar makes characters from Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Soul so realistic. Watch the video here.
š¹ Truman Show? Twitch streamer, Ludwig Ahgren, has been streaming 24/7 since last weekend and has no sign of stopping. This is called a āsubathonā in the Twitch world. Every new subscription adds another 10 seconds to a clock that dictates how long heāll stream forā¦and people keep subscribing. How far will he go?
šø How Does Stripe Work? Stripe has raised $600m of new funding at a $95bn valuation. Stripe is an incredibly complicated business and weāve scoured the web to find the best breakdown of how it works. Take a look at this breakdown by CBInsights that covers Stripeās products, funding, technology, and market opportunity
š Makerās Schedule, Managerās Schedule! Do you work with software engineers and programmers? If you do, you should absolutely read Paul Grahamās famous blog on how your work schedules will clash and how to resolve this. Read this here.
š¦ Chimeās IPO! Chime, the US leading challenger bank, is in talks about an IPO at a $30bn valuation. Read more here, or hear about the company's business model, history and vision from their CEO here.
š¦ Gamestop Gorillas Around 3,500 gorillas have been adopted by Redditās WallStreetBets group. This is a very different approach for a group that was, only a month ago, playing the capitalist game pumping up Gamestop stock.
āļø Cloud-busting Drones The UAE is set to test clouds that will fly into clouds and give them an electric shock. Why? In the hope thisāll make them produce rain. Take a look here.
š® Privacy-Free Future The NY Times has written a fantastic long read about the effects of facial recognition company Clearview. What happens when our faces are tracked everywhere? What does this mean for the future? Read more here.
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