🤑 The Biggest Ever IPO
What’s happened this week in the Tech & Startup world? 🌍 The market prepares for the largest IPO of all time, Apple eyes up becoming a search platform and Twitter’s CEO gets shredded in Congress.
And…if you haven’t already, sign up below ⬇️
The Grapevine Newsflash 🔥
12 tech & startup stories in 191 short seconds.
💰 Big Bucks Acquisition Comes Under Fire! Visa shares dropped this week on the news that the US Justice Department could look to block its acquisition of FinTech startup, Plaid, due to its effect on competition. It was a big deal when the $5.3bn deal was announced and could be a very embarrassing (and costly) situation.
🤔 Should You Quit Your Job & Join A Startup? Good question! Watch this brilliant 13-minute video by Garry Tan.
🍇🍇 We’ve Launched Our Website 🍇🍇 We’ve spent the last couple of weeks coding up a brand new website from scratch. We’re super excited to hear what you think! Take a look for yourself HERE and share with some friends who aren’t subscribed yet!
📜 Trump’s AI Rules! As the use of AI-related technologies increases, governments are feeling the need to establish some guidelines for using the technology. This follows a draft of 10 principles the White House said government agencies should follow. We expect this to be just the start of an increased focus on responsible use of AI.
📈 Which Tech Startups Have Gone Public This Year? Check out the full list and analysis here
🔎 Is Search Next for Apple? There’s evidence to suggest that Apple is ramping up its efforts to develop their own internet search technology, taking on Google. They’re one of the few companies with the resources to index the web from scratch and, a few years ago they poached Google’s Head of Search. It’s bold, especially since Google is currently their de-facto search provider for the iPhone.
❗ Social CEOs get Trolled: The chief execs of Facebook, Twitter & Google faced hours of questioning from the US Senate around censorship and the spread of misinformation. In particular, some senators are arguing it should be possible to sue social media companies over what users post online, or the decisions those companies make over what to leave up and take down. Here’s a great video recap of the session.
🤑 The World’s Biggest IPO Chinese FinTech, Ant Group, is set to raise at least $34.4bn when it goes public next week. For context, that’s more than the GDP of Egypt, Chile or Finland. It’s also bigger than JP Morgan Chase, PayPal, Walt Disney and three times the size of IBM. What exactly does Ant do? Check out a great guide here.
🌲 Payments vs Plants! Stripe Climate lets businesses direct a small fraction of payment revenue into projects and technologies that are taking on climate change. Curious? See how it looks here or read more about it here.
📱 Teach by Text Image remote-schooling without video, or even photos. That’s the status-quo in areas like the Philippines due to poor-quality internet as well as a ‘digital divide’ between wealthier families and those without access to smartphones and laptops. Teachers are having to use text messages to communicate and some children have to borrow their neighbours’ data plans to send their exams to the school. Learn about it here.
💡 TikToks New Smart Lamp. ByteDance, the owners of TikTok, have started selling their first consumer gadget, a smart lamp with touch controls, a camera and an virtual assistant. In future this may integrate nicely with TikTok. Read more here.
🍻🐝Fancy reviewing your pint of Carlsberg for £5? Streetbees, a super smart UK survey app, has raised $39m in Series B funding. Behind the scenes however Streetbees is building an AI driven platform to help brands understand customer feedback. Read more about them here.
📨 This Week’s Grapevine is brought to you by… TLC Lions 🦁
TLC Lions uses the power of storytelling to transform workplaces globally 🌍 They have 25 ordinary people with extraordinary stories, known as the Lions, who share their life experiences to bring the human back into the world of work 📖 Using a mixture of powerful events & online content, they focus on topics like Inclusion, Mental Health & Talent Development.
They’ve already supported 200+ companies to-date including the likes of Amazon, Morgan Stanley & Sony - and they’re only just getting started 🚀
Gian Power, their founder and friend of The Grapevine, previously worked at PwC and has his own incredibly moving story that you can watch here ️❤️
Keen to learn more about bringing a TLC Lion into your organisation? Click here or follow their journey on LinkedIn.
Sharing The Grapevine 🔥
Please click the on the big green button below to share the Grapevine with co-workers, friends, family, or enemies.
If you share it on LinkedIn, be sure to tag us so we can say thanks!
Want to have a chat? Shoot us an email at founders@onthegrapevine.co
Don’t follow us on LinkedIn?
Over & Out,
Nick & Louis