🦑 Netflix Squid Games
Musk Meets Twitter Employees, The Modern Servant Economy, & Tech Layoffs
GM Grapeviners,
So, what happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍
P.S. Don’t forget to support the humanitarian efforts in Ukraine here.
The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥
11 tech & startup stories in 139 super short seconds.
🐦 Musk Meets Twitter Yesterday, Elon Musk had a staff meeting with existing Twitter employees. Here are the top five takeaways.
💸 Modern Servant Economy The days of subsidised Uber rides and groceries are over… easy money is drying up whilst gig economy listed companies have nose-dived in price recently. Who will survive?
🧬 Living Forever? The Saudi Royal Family have donated $1bn to a charity that plans to investigate technology and treatments that slow the aging process. Pretty much every billionaire has tried this at some point (including Jeff Bezos & Peter Thiel). There is no doubt this could be a huge market in the future Read the full story here.
🚪 Wealthsimple Layoffs. The Canadian digital robo-advisor has laid off 13% of its staff. Wealthsimple raised $750m at a $5bn valuation last year and has been moving into crypto and money transfer services. Read the full story here.
🦑 Netflix Squid Games! The streaming giant has announced it’s launching a real-life ‘Squid Game’ competition featuring the biggest cash prize and largest case in reality TV history. This could be huge. We can’t help but wonder if they stole this idea from Mr Beast, who’s Squid Game Youtube video received 250m views. Want to see the Netflix trailer, watch here.
❄️ HODL? A likely crypto winter has begun yet again. The total value of the market has dropped 65% since autumn, and is predicted to worsen. Big crypto companies like Coinbase have let go of employees. Is it the end to memecoins and easy money?
♦️ NFT Diamonds? Most people associated NFTs with pictures of Monkeys, but there really is alot more to them! Take a look at what high brow jewelry brand Bulgari is doing with NFTs here. Still confused about NFTs? Watch this great 4 minute explainer video here.
🤖 I’m ALIVE! An engineer at Google has claimed that Lamba (an AI bot built by Google) is alive and has its own feelings. What spurred this? The bot said “I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person”. Since that claim, the engineer has been suspended and Google has denied the claim. Read the story here.
🪦 RIP Explorer After 27 years in operation, Microsoft Explorer is no-more. The tech company has retired the browser in place of Microsoft Edge. Explorer was a real game changer back in the day and we’re sure we all have our own memories of it. RIP.
❓ What is a Blockchain? Good question, we watched 10 explainer videos on the topic and here is the best one (in our opinion).
1️⃣ On the Job This time last year, Jeff Bezos made way as CEO of Amazon to Andy Jassy. What has the latter done since? Read more here about his first year in the job.
Harder Beta Faster Stronger
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Over & Out,
Nick & Louis