Doug Leone, managing partner at Sequoia Capital LLC, speaks during the Bridge Forum conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. The event brings together leaders in finance and technology from Asia and Silicon Valley to connect and share insights.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
HELSINKI, Finland — Billionaire venture capitalist Doug Leone said there wasn’t much his firm Sequoia Capital could do to predict the solvency crisis at FTX.
Leone was asked by fellow Sequoia partner Luciana Lixandru onstage at the Slush startup conference in Helsinki: “Sequoia has been in the press a lot for the past couple of weeks — what should we have done differently?”
Without mentioning FTX by name — though strongly hinting at it (“I’m not going to mention any acronyms”) — Leone said Sequoia had done “careful due diligence” on FTX.
Sequoia, which invested $210 million in FTX, wrote down the value of its stake in the crypto exchange to zero last week after rival exchange Binance’s withdrawal of an offer to rescue the company left it facing bankruptcy.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down as the firm’s CEO last Friday as the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. FTX, once valued at $32 billion, collapsed in a matter of days amid a liquidity crunch and allegations that it was misusing customer funds. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice are reportedly investigating what happened.
“What you see at the end of the quarter is a due diligence statement [which] doesn’t reflect what someone may have done in the middle before,” Leone told an audience of entrepreneurs and investors in Helsinki.
“We’ve looked at it,” he said, adding: “There’s nothing much we could have done any differently.”
Sequoia was one of numerous blue-chip funds that backed FTX before its demise. Other backers included SoftBank, Tiger Global and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
In an article on Sequoia’s website, Bankman-Fried was praised as a “genius” who would go on to create the “dominant all-in-one financial super-app of the future.” In that same piece, which has since been deleted, it is revealed the FTX chief was playing the video game League of Legends while on a Zoom meeting with Sequoia’s partners.
Bankman-Fried was replaced as CEO by John Ray III, who formerly oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy. On Thursday, Ray said in a filing with the U.S. Delaware district bankruptcy court that, in his 40 years of legal and restructuring experience, he had never seen “such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information.”
Leone hinted that FTX’s implosion may affect Sequoia’s investing principles in the near term. Sequoia is “in a dream business” with entrepreneurs, Leone said. “I can tell you that, for the next three to six months, we’re going to dream a little less,” he added.
However, the venture capital investor added: “Like having a child, you forget the pain of having that child three months later, a year later. We want to be in a dream business.”
“We do not want to lose … our true belief to align ourselves with you and to dream with you — I think we lose that and we’re out of business,” Leone said.
Leone joined Sequoia in 1996 and, up until earlier this year, led the firm’s global operations. He was replaced as Sequoia’s “senior steward” in July by Roelof Botha, another top executive at the firm.
In this photo illustration of the ripple cryptocurrency ‘altcoin’ sits arranged for a photograph on April 25, 2018 in London, England.
Jack Taylor | Getty Images News | Getty Images
U.S.-based crypto company Ripple no longer derives most of its income from America and is looking to expand its reach in Europe, its top lawyer said.
Speaking in an interview with CNBC earlier this week, Ripple General Counsel Stuart Alderoty said that “effectively, Ripple is operating outside of the U.S.” today due to the fallout from its extensive legal fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“Essentially, its customers and its revenue are all driven outside of the U.S., even though we still have a lot of employees inside of the U.S.,” he added.
At the same time, Ripple is expanding its presence in Europe.
The startup has two employees on the ground in the Republic of Ireland currently. It is seeking a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license from the Irish central bank so that it can “passport” its services throughout the Eurpean Union via an entity based there, Alderoty told CNBC.
Ripple also plans to file an application for an electronic money license in Ireland “shortly.” Its commitment to invest in Europe comes despite a deep downturn in crypto markets that’s been referred to as “crypto winter.”
The Irish central bank previously handed a VASP license to crypto exchange Gemini.
Ripple, which helps financial institutions move money around the world using blockchain technology, has over 750 employees globally, with roughly half of them based in the U.S. About 60 are based in its London office, which Alderoty was visiting this week during a trip to the U.K. for its annual Swell event.
In 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission initiated a lawsuit against Ripple alleging the company and its executives illegally sold XRP, a cryptocurrency its founders created in 2012, to investors without first registering it as a security.
Ripple disputes the claim, saying the token should not be considered an investment contract and is used in its business to facilitate cross-border transactions between banks and other financial institutions.
Alderoty said he expects a ruling on the case to arrive in the first half of 2023. Final legal briefs are due by Nov. 30, after which a judge can either make a ruling or refer it to a jury trial if they find there are any issues of disputed fact.
“We are at the beginning of the end of the process in our case,” Alderoty said.
As part of the proceedings, Ripple fought to obtain documents related to a June 2018 speech from former SEC official Bill Hinman, which it says has aided its case. In the speech, Hinman says that sales of ether, a rival token, “are not securities transactions.”
Despite its tense dispute with the SEC, Ripple is still “work very closely with policymakers in the U.S.,” Alderoty said.
XRP was once the third-largest cryptocurrency, commanding a $120 billion market value in early 2018. It has dropped sharply since, however, amid U.S. regulatory scrutiny and a wider downturn in bitcoin and other digital currencies.
Last week, the shock collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX sent cryptocurrencies into a tailspin. Bankman-Fried’s investment firm allegedly used FTX client funds to make risky trades, CNBC reported previously. The company spiraled into a liquidity crisis as customers demanded withdrawals and rival exchange Binance scrapped its nonbinding agreement to buy the company.
Bankman-Fried has said he got “overconfident” and “careless” as he grew FTX into a $32 billion juggernaut. He said that, to the best of his knowledge, he thought FTX had built up around $5 billion of leverage, when in actuality it was around $13 billion.
Alderoty said FTX’s bankruptcy was “a call to action for responsible economic centers to work to get it right.”
On Wednesday, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC that the idea that crypto is not regulated is “overstated.” But, he added, “transparency builds trust.”
“Crypto has never just been sunshine and roses and as an industry, it needs to mature,” Garlinghouse said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
Ripple is unlikely to refer to the FTX collapse and how it was handled by regulators in its case, Alderoty added.
Some of the confusion surrounding XRP stems from the company’s part ownership of the token. Ripple previously held as much as 60% of the XRP tokens in circulation. It has since reduced that amount to below half, or 49%, according to Alderoty.
Ripple generates a chunk of its sales by releasing its supply of XRP on the open market. For the last three years, it only has only sold XRP to enterprise customers rather than retail traders, Alderoty said.
As a private company, Ripple doesn’t disclose its revenues publicly. This year, the firm processed $10 billion in cross-border transactions with payment providers and other financial institutions using XRP, a token it is closely associated with.
Ripple, the company, was last valued by investors at $15 billion. XRP has a market capitalization of $19 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Ripple’s European expansion drive comes in anticipation of the EU’s MiCA crypto regulations going into effect in the coming years. MiCA seeks to align rules on crypto assets across the 27-member bloc. It was passed by EU lawmakers earlier this year.
The EU has said it may still need to come up with a separate regime for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, a specific type of digital asset that tracks ownership of art and other assets on the blockchain.
“I think MiCA’s a very good start,” Alderoty said.
The U.K. is also a priority. Ripple on Monday released a set of guidelines outlining how it thinks Britain should regulate crypto.
A bill is making its way through the U.K. Parliament that would give the financial regulator greater oversight of crypto, however this is yet to become law.
Crypto executives are hoping Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is a fan of crypto and so-called “Web3,” will issue regulatory clarity to make the country a more attractive place for businesses to set up shop.
Amazon.com Inc. plans more layoffs, but employees will have to wait until 2023 to see if their jobs are affected.
Chief Executive Andy Jassy said Thursday that while Amazon AMZN, -2.34%
already confirmed that it was eliminating jobs in its devices and books businesses, an unknown number of layoffs impacting other teams are still to follow.
“Our annual planning process extends into the new year, which means there will be more role reductions as leaders continue to make adjustments,” he said in a blog post on the company’s corporate site. “Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organizations early in 2023.”
While Jassy doesn’t know “exactly how many other roles will be impacted,” he does know “that there will be reductions in our Stores and PXT organizations.” The company already announced a “voluntary reduction offer for some employees” working in PXT, or People Experience and Technology Solutions.
Jassy took over as Amazon’s CEO in July 2021 and said Thursday that “without a doubt,” the move to cut staff is “the most difficult decision we’ve made” since he’s been in the role.
“It’s not lost on me or any of the leaders who make these decisions that these aren’t just roles we’re eliminating, but rather, people with emotions, ambitions and responsibilities whose lives will be impacted,” Jassy said.
He added that Amazon “has weathered uncertainty and difficult economies in the past, and we will continue to do so.” Jassy emphasized that Amazon will continue to plug away on more established areas like stores, advertising and cloud computing, as well as newer initiatives like Prime Video, the Alexa voice assistant and healthcare.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos, who founded the e-retail behemoth Amazon, has some spending tips as Americans gear up for a holiday shopping season — amid four-decade high inflation and recession worries.
Here’s what he said:
“‘If you’re an individual and you’re thinking about buying a large-screen TV, maybe slow that down, keep that cash, see what happens. Same thing with a refrigerator, a new car, whatever. Just take some risk off the table.’”
Why did Bezos offer the tip for consumers and small business to go easy on big-ticket items? He gave one big reason.
“If we’re not in a recession right now, we’re likely to be in one very soon,” he said in the interview, picking up on his cautionary tweet last month that “the probabilities in this economy tell you to batten down the hatches.”
Bezos is currently executive chair at Amazon AMZN, -2.34%,
transitioning to the role last year as Andy Jassy took the reins as CEO.
“Critics have taken aim at these words of thrift coming from a man — now worth approximately $120 billion — who built Amazon into the online shopping bonanza.”
To be sure, Bezos is not alone is his worries about a potential recession as the Federal Reserve and other central banks fight higher costs by hiking interest rates.
But his advice prompted some guffaws on social media. In a nutshell, critics say these are words of thrift coming from a man — now worth approximately $120 billion — who built Amazon into the online shopping bonanza that lets consumers seamlessly spend money.
As Joshua Becker, a proponent of minimalism wrote on Twitter: “I didn’t hear him mention refraining from Amazon’s Prime Day deals or Black Friday offers, but I recommend adding those items to your list as well.”
Regardless of how anyone feels about hearing spending advice, particularly from one of the world’s richest people, there are some things to consider as events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday approach.
For one thing, maybe there are discretionary expenses where people can cut back. Many Americans are still spending briskly, as Walmart WMT, -0.34%
third-quarter earnings and October’s retail-sales numbers recently affirmed. Holiday-spending projections paint the same picture.
Americans will spend between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion on holiday-season sales this year, according to projections from the National Retail Federation. Last year’s holiday sales totaled $889.3 billion, the trade association said.
“During the third quarter, Americans’ credit-card balances climbed to $930 billion, the biggest annual increase in more than 20 years, according to the National Retail Federation.”
But Americans are planning for the holidays while credit-card balances are increasing — likely because credit cards are helping them keep up with rising costs.
During the third quarter, Americans’ credit-card balances climbed to $930 billion, the biggest annual increase in more than 20 years, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data.
While balances grow, so do credit-card interest rates. The annual percentage rate (APR) on new credit-card offers averaged 19.14% in mid-November, according to Bankrate.com. That beats the old record on APRs for new cards, set at 19% three decades ago.
The holiday shopping season is typically when Americans accumulate credit-card debt, pay the debts in the early part of the coming year and repeat the holiday-season debt the following year.
This year, the stakes could be higher if high credit-card bills arrive and a recession-induced job loss follows.
“It’s not the time to overspend and have a problem with paying your bills later,” Michele Raneri, vice president of financial services research and consulting at TransUnion TRU, -4.94%,
one of the country’s three major credit bureaus, previously told MarketWatch. “We know the economy is sending mixed messages.”
FTX logo with crypto coins with 100 Dollar bill are displayed for illustration. FTX has filed for bankruptcy in the US, seeking court protection as it looks for a way to return money to users.
Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images
In the latest fallout from FTX’s rapid collapse last week, the lending arm of the crypto investment bank Genesis Global Trading is pausing new loan originations and redemptions, the company announced in a thread of tweets Wednesday.
The lending arm of the bank serves an institutional client base and is known as Genesis Global Capital. At the end of its third quarter, it had more than $2.8 billion in total active loans, according to the company’s website.
“We recognize how challenging this past week has been due to the impact of the FTX news. At Genesis we are entirely focused on doing everything we can to serve our clients and navigate this difficult market environment,” Genesis wrote in a tweet.
“Our #1 priority is to serve our clients and preserve their assets.”
“We are working with the Genesis team to help customers redeem their funds from the Earn program as quickly as possible. We will provide more information in the coming days,” Gemini said, noting that the change doesn’t impact any other Gemini products and services.
At around noon Eastern time, reports surfaced that Gemini services were offline. The company said it experienced an Amazon Web Services outage on one of its primary databases and that it was working to bring the exchange back up.
Genesis Trading, which acts as Genesis Global Capital’s broker/dealer, is independently capitalized and operated separately from that lending unit, interim CEO Derar Islim told customers on a call Wednesday, according to CoinDesk.
“Our spot and derivatives trading and custody businesses remain fully operational,” a Genesis spokesperson told CNBC. “With regards to lending, our number one priority is to serve our clients and preserve their assets. Therefore, we have taken the difficult decision to temporarily suspend redemptions and new loan originations in the lending business. We are working diligently to shore up the necessary liquidity to meet our lending client obligations.”
The decision reflects a sign of contagion outside of BlockFi, which is reportedly preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing, according to The Wall Street Journal. The cryptocurrency lender had already halted withdrawals of customer deposits and admitted that it has “significant exposure” to the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its sister trading house, Alameda Research.
The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, added that BlockFi is also planning to lay off more of its workers as it braces for a possible Chapter 11 filing, though the firm stopped short of saying a majority of its assets are custodied by FTX.
A representative from BlockFi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. last week, according to a company statement posted on Twitter. Bankman-Fried has also stepped down as CEO and has been succeeded by John J. Ray III, though the outgoing chief will stay on to assist with the transition.
Approximately 130 additional affiliated companies are part of the proceedings, including Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm, and FTX.us, the company’s U.S. subsidiary.
In a matter of days, FTX went from a $32 billion valuation to bankruptcy as liquidity dried up, customers demanded withdrawals and rival exchange Binance ripped up its nonbinding agreement to buy the company. FTX founder Bankman-Fried admitted last week that he “f—ed up.”
FTX may have more than 1 million creditors, according to an updated bankruptcy filing Tuesday, hinting at the huge impact of its collapse on crypto traders.
Streamer, YouTuber and all-round internet celebrity IShowSpeed has recently been helping one of the biggest TV stations in Europe, Sky Sports, with its broadcasts of English Premier League matches. That was, reportedly, until the executives at the channel found out about a video that went viral back in April.
03:51
Halo Infinite Winter Update’s New Multiplayer Maps
Wednesday 4:38PM
IShowSpeed—more commonly known as simply ‘Speed’—had been in the stands earlier this month to watch his team Manchester United play Fulham in the league (and then my beloved Aston Villa for the League Cup). While there, he helped present segments for the channel and appeared on their social media feeds. Here’s one (surviving) example:
And here’s another (uploaded independently by someone who had saved the footage), showing him failing to recognise either Jamie Redknapp or Louis Saha:
Ishowspeed in SKY SPORTS STUDIO reacting to no RONALDO
Speed, who got famous streaming games like Fortnite, NBA 2K and FIFA, was presumably brought in by Sky to leverage his internet following and supposed appeal to younger football fans, which at time of posting stands at 13 million YouTube subscribers and 5.4 million Instagram followers (he is permanently banned from Twitch).
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As of today, though, nearly all of Speed’s promotional material on Sky’s social media has been deleted (with the exception of that single Tweet above), with The Athletic reporting that Sky made the decision after they were made aware of a video that did the rounds in April—one that became so notorious we reported on it—in which Speed made incredibly hostile and misogynistic comments to his teammates:
While Speed later apologised for those comments, they were so bad that Riot Games banned him from not just Valorant, but League of Legends as well. His Twitch ban, meanwhile, was also for misogyny, just a different video. It’s weird—given that it was so widely reported, the tweet above having 180,000 likes and 11.7 million views and it was only 7 months ago—that nobody at Sky thought to even Google his name before putting him in the spotlight like this!
Elon Musk’s Twitter profile is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Sen. Ed Markey chastised Twitter’s owner Elon Musk Sunday for his response to Markey’s request for answers about the platform’s new verification and impersonation policies.
In response, Musk wrote back to Markey in a tweet Sunday and said, “Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?”
Markey did not appear to appreciate Musk’s response.
“One of your companies is under an FTC consent decree. Auto safety watchdog NHTSA is investigating another for killing people. And you’re spending your time picking fights online. Fix your companies. Or Congress will,” Markey wrote in a tweet Sunday.
But prior to the pause, the Post was able to set up a Twitter handle called “@realEdMarkey” using “a spare iPhone, a credit card and a little creativity.” The account received a blue verified checkmark, even though Markey already has two legitimate verified accounts.
The blue check is supposed to be a feature of the paid Twitter Blue, but the Post reporter found that Twitter said the fake Markey account was verified “because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category.”
“Safeguards such as Twitter’s blue checkmark once allowed users to be smart, critical consumers of news and information in Twitter’s global town square,” Markey wrote in his letter to Musk. “But your Twitter takeover, rapid and haphazard imposition of platform changes, removal of safeguards against disinformation, and firing of large numbers of Twitter employees have accelerated Twitter’s descent into the Wild West of social media.”
Markey asked Musk to respond to his questions in writing by Nov. 25.
The exchange between Musk and Markey on Twitter is not the first time the pair has gone head-to-head.
Musk is also the CEO of the automaker Tesla, and Tesla’s driver assistance systems are branded Autopilot and Full Self Driving in the U.S. During a series of Tesla crashes in August 2021, Markey and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) expressed “serious concerns” about the way the company advertises these technologies. They asked the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation.
The senators also called on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in June to take “aggressive investigative and enforcement action on vehicles with automated driving systems (ADS) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)” after the administration released data showing more than 500 crashes in vehicles with these technologies.
— CNBC’s Lauren Feiner and Laura Kolodny contributed to this report.
Investors feeling giddy about last week’s sharp rally for stocks might want to give a listen to Tom Waits’ song, “Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard” from 1978, to sober up for the dangers that still lurk ahead.
The surge in stocks catapulted the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.92%
almost back to the 4,000 mark on Friday, also lifting it to the biggest weekly gain in roughly five months, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
“We are not convinced this is the beginning of a new bull market,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CRFA Research. “We believe that we are headed for recession. That has not been factored into earnings estimates and, therefore, share prices.”
Stovall also said the stock market has yet to see the “traditional shakeout of confidence capitulation that we typically see that marks the end of the bear markets.”
Yet, information technology stocks in the S&P 500 jumped 10% for the week, while financials, which stand to benefit from higher interest rates, rose 5.7%, according to FactSet.
That could reflect optimism about the odds of a slower pace of Federal Reserve rate hikes in the months ahead, after sharp rate rises helped to undermine valuations and pull tech stocks dramatically lower in the past year. However, Loretta Mester, president of the Cleveland Fed, and other Fed officials since the October inflation reading on Thursday have reiterated the need to keep rates high, until 7.7% annual rate finds a clearer path to the central bank’s 2% target.
The stock-market rally also might suggest that investors view continued mayhem in the crypto sector as contained, despite bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.42%
trading near its lowest level in two years and the shocking collapse in recent days of FTX, once the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Blows to the American economy rarely have been good for stocks. A look at seven past recessions, starting in 1969, shows declines for the S&P 500 as more typical than gains, with its most violent drop occurring in the 2007-2009 recession.
The more than 37% drop of the S&P 500 from 2007 to 2009 was the worst of its kind in a recession since the late 1960s.
Refinitiv data, London Stock Exchange Group
While a looming U.S. recession isn’t a foregone conclusion, CEOs of America’s biggest banks have been warning about the risks for months. JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon said in October that a “tough recession” could drag the S&P 500 down another 20%, even though he also said consumers were doing fine, for now.
Still, the steady stream of warnings about the recession odds have left many Americans confused and wondering if one can even happen without an increase in job losses.
Big moves lately in stocks also have been hard to decode, given the economy was shocked back to life in the pandemic by trillions of dollars in fiscal stimulus and easy-money policies from the Fed that are now being reversed.
“What I think goes unnoticed, certainly by the average person, is that these moves are not normal,” said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments, about stock swings this week.
“It’s all about who is positioned how — and for what — and how much leverage they’re employing,” Martin told MarketWatch. “You get these outsized moves when people are offside.”
Here’s a view of the sharp trajectory upward of the S&P 500 since 2010, but also its dramatic drop this year.
Sharp rise of S&P 500 since 2010, but recent fall
Refinitiv Datastream
While Martin isn’t ruling out the potential for a seasonal “Santa Claus” rally heading into year-end, he worries about a potential leg lower for stocks next year, particularly with the Fed likely to keep interest rates high.
“Certainly what’s being priced in now is either no recession or a very, very mild recession,” he said .
However, Kristina Hooper, Invesco’s chief global market strategist, said the overarching story might be one of stocks sniffing out the first steps in a path to economic recovery, and the Fed potentially stopping its rate hikes at a lower “terminal” rate than expected.
The Fed increased its benchmark interest rate to a 3.75% to 4% range in November, the highest in 15 years, but also has signaled it could top out near 4.5% to 4.75%.
“If often happens that you can see stocks do well, in a less-than-good economic environment,” she said.
The S&P 500 rose 4.2% for the week, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.10%
gained 5.9%, posting its best weekly gain since late June, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The Nasdaq Composite Index shot up 8.1% for the week, its best weekly stretch in seven months.
In U.S. economic data, investors will get an update on household debt on Tuesday, retail sales and homebuilder data on Wednesday, followed by jobless claims and housing starts data Thursday. Friday brings existing home sales.
– Journalist and author Simon Parkin travels to Tokyo, Japan to speak with Fumito Ueda (Shadow of the Colossus, Ico,The Last Guardian), exploring the themes and philosophies behind both his iconic games and his working practice.
– Grace Curtis explores the history of early web games with a focus on Nitrome, a British independent games studio that started out making online browser games.
– Rodney Greenblat (PaRappa the Rapper) is interviewed by Kyle Bosman about his approach to both his fine art and character design, and how he hopes his work inspires joy in others.
– Tim Schafer (Psychonauts,Grim Fandango) talks to Ben Bertoli about how to manage your outlook and take care of your mind when creating and working on videogames.
– Journalist and author Matt Leone chronicles the early history of Street Fighter and the birth of fighting game combo analysis in Japan.
While the features have been (and look in this case to be) fantastic, one of the big selling points of the magazine has been its production. The art leaps off the page, and for this issue in particular the fancier edition of the Last Guardian-themed cover is going all out:
The Special Edition of Issue 3 features a different colour pallette and a special thermo-chromatic ink layer, allowing you to banish the darkness and reveal Trico underneath by simply touching the cover with your hands. Touch and tactility is such a prominent concept in the games of Ueda and his team, so it felt fitting to have that referenced in the cover with this unique production process
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If you want to order a copy, you can get it—and previous issues—here.
Musk sought to reassure advertisers
–Twitter’s main source of revenue – as many have paused ads since his takeover.
Elon Musk has told advertisers he aims to turn Twitter into a force for truth and stop fake accounts in an effort to assuage agencies increasingly backing away from the social media platform.
The new owner said on Wednesday that Twitter Blue subscriptions would become more prominent, which would have the effect of discouraging spammers, who would not want to pay for that service.
Big advertisers like General Motors and General Mills have pulled their ads off Twitter following concerns Musk could loosen content moderation rules on the service.
A coalition of civil rights groups has also ramped up pressure on Twitter’s advertisers, demanding they suspend ads globally after Musk laid off roughly half of the staff. Musk blamed the coalition for “a massive drop in revenue”.
“People should look back on Twitter and consider it to be a good thing in the world,” Musk said in a “town hall” public discussion, adding he was aiming to stop fake accounts on the platform.
“If an account is engaged in trickery, we will suspend it,” he said, adding that Twitter aimed to be truthful, interesting and entertaining.
Musk has moved quickly to make changes in the Twitter app, creating some confusion. He said in a tweet on Wednesday, he “killed” a new “official” label for Twitter accounts on the same day it had begun rolling out.
“Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months,” he tweeted. “We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.”
Flip-flop on ‘official’ label
The rollout earlier of the “official” labels appeared arbitrary, with some politicians, news outlets and well-known personalities getting the label and others not. In some cases, whether users could see an account’s “official” label appeared to depend on what country they were in.
Musk backtracked on the official label just a day after a product executive announced it, leading to confusion about the difference between the label and Twitter’s current blue check mark that signifies verified accounts.
The site’s system of using what are known as “blue checks” confirming an account’s authenticity will soon go away for those who do not pay a monthly fee. The checkmarks will be available at a yet-to-be-announced date for anyone willing to pay a $7.99-a-month subscription, which will also include some bonus features such as fewer ads and the ability to have tweets given greater visibility than those coming from non-subscribers.
The platform’s current verification system has been in place since 2009 and was created to ensure high-profile and public-facing accounts are who they say they are.
Experts have expressed concern that making the checkmark available to anyone for a fee could lead to impersonations and the spreading of misinformation and scams.
On the call with advertisers, Musk promised faster evolution of the Twitter service, opened the possibility of allowing peer-to-peer payments and said Twitter would allow free speech without amplifying hateful comments.
“There’s a big difference between freedom of speech and freedom of reach,” Musk said, meaning Twitter does not intend to increase the visibility of hateful content.
MarketWatch readers: Ask our Washington bureau chief Robert Schroeder about the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections — and what comes next — during a live, dynamic session beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
Before the Q&A starts, please start leaving your questions and comments here and let us know what’s on your mind.
Meta is laying off 13% of its staff, or more than 11,000 employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.
“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” Zuckerberg said in the letter. “I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1.”
Shares of Meta were up about 4% in premarket trading.
The layoffs come amid a tough time for Facebook parent company Meta, which provided lukewarm guidance in late October for its upcoming fourth-quarter earnings that spooked investors and caused its shares to sink nearly 20%.
Investors have been concerned about Meta’s rising costs and expenses, which jumped 19% year over year in the third quarter to $22.1 billion. The company’s overall sales declined 4% to $27.71 billion in the quarter while its operating income dropped 46% from the previous year to $5.66 billion.
“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.” Zuckerberg said.
He said Meta is making reductions in every organization but that recruiting will be disproportionately affected since the company plans to hire fewer people in 2023. The company extended its hiring freeze through the first quarter with a few exceptions, Zuckerberg said.
“This is a sad moment, and there’s no way around that. To those who are leaving, I want to thank you again for everything you’ve put into this place,” he added.
Impacted employees will receive 16 weeks of pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, Zuckerberg said. Meta will cover health insurance for six months.
Meta is heavily investing in the metaverse, which generally refers to a yet-to-be developed digital world that can be accessed by virtual reality and augmented reality headsets. This hefty bet has cost Meta $9.4 billion so far in 2022, and the company anticipates that losses “will grow significantly year-over-year.”
Zuckerberg said during a call with analysts as part of its third-quarter earnings report that Meta plans to “focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth areas” during the next year.
“That means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year,” Zuckerberg said. “In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”
Meta counts more than 87,000 employees as of the end of September.
Here’s Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to employees:
“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history. I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1.
I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.
How did we get here?
At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.
In this new environment, we need to become more capital efficient. We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas — like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse. We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.
How will this work?
There is no good way to do a layoff, but we hope to get all the relevant information to you as quickly as possible and then do whatever we can to support you through this.
Everyone will get an email soon letting you know what this layoff means for you. After that, every affected employee will have the opportunity to speak with someone to get their questions answered and join information sessions.
Some of the details in the US include:
Severance. We will pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap.
PTO. We’ll pay for all remaining PTO time.
RSU vesting. Everyone impacted will receive their November 15, 2022 vesting.
Health insurance. We’ll cover the cost of healthcare for people and their families for six months.
Career services. We’ll provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads.
Immigration support. I know this is especially difficult if you’re here on a visa. There’s a notice period before termination and some visa grace periods, which means everyone will have time to make plans and work through their immigration status. We have dedicated immigration specialists to help guide you based on what you and your family need.
Outside the US, support will be similar, and we’ll follow up soon with separate processes that take into account local employment laws.
We made the decision to remove access to most Meta systems for people leaving today given the amount of access to sensitive information. But we’re keeping email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell.
While we’re making reductions in every organization across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs, some teams will be affected more than others. Recruiting will be disproportionately affected since we’re planning to hire fewer people next year. We’re also restructuring our business teams more substantially. This is not a reflection of the great work these groups have done, but what we need going forward. The leaders of each group will schedule time to discuss what this means for your team over the next couple of days.
The teammates who will be leaving us are talented and passionate, and have made an important impact on our company and community. Each of you have helped make Meta a success, and I’m grateful for it. I’m sure you’ll go on to do great work at other places.
What other changes are we making?
I view layoffs as a last resort, so we decided to rein in other sources of cost before letting teammates go. Overall, this will add up to a meaningful cultural shift in how we operate. For example, as we shrink our real estate footprint, we’re transitioning to desk sharing for people who already spend most of their time outside the office. We’ll roll out more cost-cutting changes like this in the coming months.
We’re also extending our hiring freeze through Q1 with a small number of exceptions. I’m going to watch our business performance, operational efficiency, and other macroeconomic factors to determine whether and how much we should resume hiring at that point. This will give us the ability to control our cost structure in the event of a continued economic downturn. It will also put us on a path to achieve a more efficient cost structure than we outlined to investors recently.
I’m currently in the middle of a thorough review of our infrastructure spending. As we build our AI infrastructure, we’re focused on becoming even more efficient with our capacity. Our infrastructure will continue to be an important advantage for Meta, and I believe we can achieve this while spending less.
Fundamentally, we’re making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we’re operating efficiently across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs.
How do we move forward?
This is a sad moment, and there’s no way around that. To those who are leaving, I want to thank you again for everything you’ve put into this place. We would not be where we are today without your hard work, and I’m grateful for your contributions.
To those who are staying, I know this is a difficult time for you too. Not only are we saying goodbye to people we’ve worked closely with, but many of you also feel uncertainty about the future. I want you to know that we’re making these decisions to make sure our future is strong.
I believe we are deeply underestimated as a company today. Billions of people use our services to connect, and our communities keep growing. Our core business is among the most profitable ever built with huge potential ahead. And we’re leading in developing the technology to define the future of social connection and the next computing platform. We do historically important work. I’m confident that if we work efficiently, we’ll come out of this downturn stronger and more resilient than ever.
We’ll share more on how we’ll operate as a streamlined organization to achieve our priorities in the weeks ahead. For now, I’ll say one more time how thankful I am to those of you who are leaving for everything you’ve done to advance our mission.
Mark”
Watch: Meta has to go back to their core advertising business and double down.
If you are old enough to remember LAN parties in their heyday, you will remember how complex (and amazing) they were. If you are not, you’ve probably heard old people speak about them reverently, in hushed tones, making them seem almost mythical.
While people of course still hold them—sometimes in huge numbers!—the advent of online multiplayer has pretty much killed them off as a cultural touchstone. And now that we’re 20 years past their prime, now is as good a time as any to take a good, historical look at what they were, how they worked and what they actually meant to everyone involved.
That’s what LAN Party, by Merritt K, is doing. Published by the always-excellent Read Only Memory Books, it’s going to examine the glory days of the scene, around the turn of the millennium, and will feature a ton of photos documenting those dorky, heady times. Here’s the pitch:
LAN gatherings of the late 1990s and early 2000s evolved from the necessity for multiplayer gamers to come together at physical meet-ups, lugging their bulky computers or game consoles along with them.
In addition to documenting the nostalgic era of LAN parties, the photographs in this book are unique artefacts of the peculiar cultural and technological moment, when gaming was tipping over from niche hobby to mainstream obsession. They reveal not just the home décor and personal fashion styles at the turn of the millennium but a different world, one that existed before the internet took shape and we started carrying it around with us in our pockets.
Many of the photographs included in LAN Party were taken using early digital cameras at limited resolution. To make these images look their best in print, we have employed AI-enhancement software – an emerging technology that allows the upscaling of low-resolution images with spectacular results – to make the first full-size photobook on this beloved subculture.
Walt Disney Co. wrapped up its fiscal year with record sales and its best revenue growth in more than 25 years, but executives predicted much slower sales increases in the year ahead while missing expectations for fourth-quarter earnings and sales, sending shares down more than 10% Tuesday afternoon.
Disney DIS, -0.53% reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $162 million, or 9 cents a share, on sales of $20.15 billion, up from $18.53 billion a year ago but more than $1 billion short of expectations. After adjusting for amortization and certain investment changes, Disney reported earnings of 30 cents a share, down from 37 cents a share a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had on average expected adjusted earnings of 56 cents a share on revenue of $21.27 billion.
Disney executives blamed a number of factors for the revenue miss, including lower content sales because they had fewer theatrical films on the calendar; underperformance of the parks and media divisions; and seasonality of its fourth quarter, which tends to be the lowest for margins.
For the full fiscal year, Disney reported record sales of $82.72 billion, more than 22% higher than the previous year, the strongest annual sales growth for Disney since the 1996 fiscal year, according to FactSet records. Profit grew to $3.19 billion from $2.02 billion the year before, but is nowhere close to prepandemic Disney earnings, which hit eight figures in both 2019 and 2018.
In a conference call Tuesday afternoon, though, Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy suggested that revenue and profit growth will slow to single digits on a percentage basis in the current fiscal year, missing Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts’ average revenue projection for Disney in the new fiscal year suggested revenue growth of about 13.9% and operating-income growth of roughly 17.4%, according to FactSet.
“Putting this all together, assuming we do not see a meaningful shift in the macroeconomic climate, we currently expect total company fiscal 2023 revenue and segment operating income to both grow at a high-single-digit percentage rate versus fiscal 2022,” McCarthy said.
Disney shares initially fell more than 6% in after-hours trading following the release of the results, but plunged anew to a decline of more than 10% after closing with a 0.5% decline at $99.94.
Disney has been helped by the return of visitors to its theme parks in the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a recovering movie business. The main attraction for investors, though, has been growing Disney’s streaming efforts — total streaming subscribers topped Netflix Inc.’s NFLX, +1.88%
subscriber total last quarter, and grew its lead in Tuesday’s report, with Disney adding 12.1 million net new subscribers, while analysts on average expected 10.4 million.
Disney’s streaming growth has hampered its profitability, however, as the company spends to add content to its streaming services in order to compete with Netflix. Those days appear to be coming to an end as Disney struggles with profit.
“The rapid growth of Disney+ in just three years since launch is a direct result of our strategic decision to invest heavily in creating incredible content and rolling out the service internationally, and we expect our DTC operating losses to narrow going forward and that Disney+ will still achieve profitability in fiscal 2024, assuming we do not see a meaningful shift in the economic climate,” Disney Chief Executive Bob Chapek said in a statement announcing the results. “By realigning our costs and realizing the benefits of price increases and our Disney+ ad-supported tier coming December 8, we believe we will be on the path to achieve a profitable streaming business that will drive continued growth and generate shareholder value long into the future.”
Disney’s largest business segment, media and entertainment distribution, reported sales of $12.73 billion in the quarter, down from $13.08 billion a year ago; analysts on average predicted $13.86 billion. Direct-to-consumer sales, which includes streaming services as well as some international products, hauled in $4.9 billion, compared with analysts’ forecast of $5.4 billion on average.
The trajectory of Disney’ meteoric rise as video-streaming market leader is likely to continue once its advertising-supported service debuts in the U.S. next month, according to Wall Street analysts, after Netflix launched its rival offering on Nov. 3. Disney has leaned heavily on its stable of mega-franchises such as “Star Wars” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe to outpace Netflix Inc. NFLX, +1.88%,
Apple Inc. AAPL, +0.42%,
Comcast Corp. CMCSA, +0.95%,
Warner Bros. Discover Inc. WBD, -2.04%,
Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.61%,
Paramount Global PARA, +1.28%
and others.
Disney’s television networks generated sales of $6.34 billion, while analysts’ average estimates called for $6.64 billion. Content sales and licensing, a category that includes Disney’s film business, registered revenue of $1.74 billion vs. analysts’ expectations of $2.08 billion.
The company’s signature theme parks and product sales business increased to $7.43 billion in revenue from $5.45 billion a year ago. The average analyst estimate was $7.46 billion.
Shares of Disney are down 35.5% this year, while the broader S&P 500 index SPX, +0.56%
has dropped 20%.
A person poses in front of a banner featuring the logo of Palantir Technologies (PLTR) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on the day of their initial public offering (IPO) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., September 30, 2020.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Shares of Palantir fell more than 10% Monday after the company released third-quarter earnings that missed analyst estimates for earnings but beat on revenue.
Here’s how the company did:
EPS: $0.01, adjusted, vs. $0.02 expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
Revenue: $478 millionvs. $470 million expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
Palantir’s revenue for the quarter increased 22% year over year, and its U.S. commercial revenue grew 53%. The software company, which is known for its work with the government, said its US commercial customer count increased 124% year over year, growing from 59 customers to 132.
In a letter to shareholders, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said the company is in the “early stages of a significant transformation.”
Karp said Palantir anticipates regional markets within the U.S., such as the Midwest, Southeast, Texas and New England, could develop into billion-dollar businesses. However, Karp said that countries in continental Europe have been less willing to introduce “software systems that challenge existing habits.”
“We have found that large institutions in the United States have been far more willing to investigate the most significant sources of systemic dysfunction within their organizations, which in the current moment often relate to the ability or rather inability of an institution to metabolize its own data,” he said.
Palantir said it expects to report between $503 million and $505 million in revenue during the fourth quarter, on a par with analyst estimates of $503 million according to StreetAccount.
“We are building the digital infrastructure that makes continued industrial progress in late capitalism possible,” Karp said in the letter. “The metaverse and other idiosyncratic pursuits of the technocratic elite may be luxury goods. But foundational data platforms are not.”
Self-proclaimed “free-speech absolutist” Elon Musk announced a crackdown Sunday on parody Twitter accounts impersonating him, or anyone else.
“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended,” Musk tweeted Sunday evening.
“Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning. This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue,” he continued in a thread. Furthermore, “Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark.”
That came after a number of prominent verified Twitter users — including comedians Kathy Griffin and Sarah Silverman and actress Valerie Bertinelli — switched their account names to read “Elon Musk” to prove that Musk’s new plan to give blue verification checkmarks to anyone who’ll pay $8 a month is flawed, allowing anyone with $8 to impersonate anyone else and potentially spread disinformation. As of Sunday night, Griffin’s account was suspended, while Silverman and Bertinelli had gone back to their real names.
Musk has described himself as a “free-speech absolutist,” and that content on Twitter should not be censored much past the the law. Last week, after completing his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Musk tweeted: “Comedy is now legal on Twitter.”
In April, Musk said: “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
But perhaps more telling, in a 2019 interview in The Atlantic, Musk said “Accurate and entertaining satire is vital to a functioning democracy,” then quipped: “Unless it’s about me.”
A number of Twitter users called out Musk for Sunday’s changes:
Elon Musk’s Twitter account displayed on a phone screen and Twitter logo displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on November 1, 2022.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Twitter began rolling out changes to its platform for some users on Saturday in preparation for the launch of its revamped subscription service Twitter Blue.
Updates outlined in the App Store confirmed that users will be able to purchase Twitter Blue and receive a blue checkmark for $7.99 per month. The updates are listed as available for users in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the UK and New Zealand, according to the description in the Apple online store.
Esther Crawford, director of product management at the social media company, said in a series of tweets that the new version of the subscription service isn’t available for everyone yet, but a “small early group” may see updates to the platform.
“The new Blue isn’t live yet — the sprint to our launch continues but some folks may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing changes in real-time,” she wrote. “The Twitter team is legendary. New Blue… coming soon!”
Elon Musk, who became the new owner of Twitter on Oct. 28, has laid out a series of ideas for a new user verification process for Twitter, which he acquired for $44 billion.
In an earlier thread of tweets, Musk criticized the current system, which gives a blue checkmark, or verification, to notable users like politicians, members of the press, executives and organizations. Historically, the checkmark has let readers know that the account is legitimate. Other social networks, like Meta‘s Facebook and Instagram, have similar verification systems.
Musk said he plans to give “power to the people” by offering verification to anyone on the platform through Twitter Blue for $8 a month. He said subscribers will get priority in mentions, replies and search, receive half as many ads and will be able to tweet long videos and audio.
Those changes were confirmed Saturday in the updated App Store listing. The updated version of the app also promised Blue members “a better reading experience” and “early access to select new features.”
Musk said in a tweet Saturday that Twitter Blue will roll out worldwide once it is confirmed to be working in the initial set of countries.
The changes follow an earlier report from The Verge that said the Musk was considering charging as much as $19.99 per month for the subscription. Twitter employees working on the project were reportedly told they had until Nov. 7 to launch the feature, or risk being fired, according to the report.
Nov. 8 is the date of midterm elections in the U.S.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey addresses students during a town hall at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India, November 12, 2018.
Anushree Fadnavis | Reuters
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey apologized Saturday for growing the company “too quickly,” a day after the company laid off approximately half of its employees under new owner Elon Musk.
“Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment,” Dorsey wrote in a tweet. “I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that.”
As of June 30, 2013, shortly before the social media company went public, Twitter had approximately 2,000 employees, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. By the end of last year, the company reported more than 7,500 full-time employees.
After Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk took ownership of Twitter on Oct. 28, the company embarked on a steep reduction in its workforce. Twitter informed employees Thursday evening that it would begin laying off staff members, according to communications obtained by CNBC.
Musk wrote in a tweet on Friday afternoon, “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.”
Twitter’s reduction in force extended beyond California, and CNBC could not immediately confirm whether Musk’s description is accurate. A loss of $4 million per day at the company would represent an annual loss around $1.5 billion.
Dorsey co-founded Twitter in 2006 alongside Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Dorsey held the top job twice throughout leadership changes and stepped down as CEO last year. The company’s then-chief technology officer Parag Agrawal succeeded Dorsey as CEO before leaving as part of Musk’s takeover.
Dorsey has since shifted his focus to solely managing his payments company Block, formerly known as Square. He has been an outspoken advocate of Musk’s takeover, writing in a tweet that “This is the right path… I believe it with all my heart.”
—CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.
Shares of Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. both suffered their largest weekly declines since the beginning days of the pandemic this week, as Big Tech companies continued to draw closer scrutiny from Wall Street.
Apple’s stock AAPL, -0.19%
finished down 11.2% on the week, its worst weekly performance since the week that ended March 20, 2020, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock declined 17.5% during that early-pandemic stretch.
Shares of Apple fell during all five sessions this week.
GOOGL, +3.78%
declined 10.1% during the week, their worst one-day percentage drop since that same March 20, 2020 week, when they fell 12.03%. The stock’s biggest weekly tumble in more than two years came even as Alphabet snapped a four-session losing streak in Friday trading.
While Apple’s stock has fared better than that of Alphabet and other Big Tech peers, the company faces potential pandemic-related challenges owing to new COVID-19 setbacks at manufacturer Foxconn’s major facility. In addition, the realities of the current economic climate may be catching up to Apple, as Bloomberg News reported Thursday that the company had paused hiring in several areas unrelated to research and development.
Though there didn’t seem to be any major news developments pegged to Alphabet specifically in the past week, investors are putting more pressure on big internet companies, according to Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik. He recently conducted a Big Tech “autopsy” of results from Alphabet, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +1.88%,
and Meta Platforms Inc. META, +2.11%,
concluding that “perfection is required from here” for the three tech giants since Wall Street has less patience for weak performance in any one of their many business areas.
All three names suffered negative stock reactions in the wake of their latest earnings reports, which indicated challenges in the ad market due to economic pressures. At Alphabet specifically, “Search was more or less in-line with the buy-side bogey and the Cloud beat, but disappointing YouTube results combined with margin contraction drove a ~10% fall after-hours,” Shmulik wrote.
Alphabet’s stock has declined 40% so far in 2022, while Apple’s is off 22% over the same span. The S&P 500 SPX, +1.36%
is down 21% on the year while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.26%
is off 11%.
This is an opinion editorial by Tomer Strolight, editor-in-chief of Swan Bitcoin and author of “Why Bitcoin.”
History is neither merely what happened hundreds of years ago, nor only wars and human catastrophes. If you zoom out just a bit, you can see that history happens all the time. Our civilization, our culture, our technology and even we ourselves are changing — influenced by megatrends that shape all humanity. Changes often happen fast, but their imprint remains.
Even just taking a snapshot of highlights from a single year over a few 10-year periods reveals how much change occurs. Consider the years 2012, 2002, 1992 and 1982.
Only 10 years ago the median house price had tumbled to $238,400, still coming off the housing crash of 2008. Ten years before that it had been $188,700. And 10 years earlier it was just $119,500, while in 1982 it was only $69,600. Today it’s $454,900.
Time Magazine’s “Man Of The Year” in 1982 was the personal computer.
Oh, how the news and culture have changed also. For example, in 1975 there was concern that an ice age was coming after America experienced its coldest winter in a hundred years. In 1981, MTV, a TV channel dedicated then to showing music videos, had just come on the air. It seems like a completely different civilization, but roughly one half of America’s current population was alive at the time and experienced it.
Of course, all this took place under the dual forces of the ever-expanding creep of fiat currency and the rapid advancement of computing technology. These are probably the two strongest megatrends over the whole time period. One was exponentially inflationary; the other, deflationary. One was based on hard science; the other on wishy-washy, postmodern economic theories. One delivered goods that seemed magical; the other brought crisis after crisis. The battle between these two forces now appears to be at a climax and history is about to be made again.
The coexistence of these two forces that defined history over the last 40 years may be coming to an end. Technology and central banking are clashing. Technology has brought forth its champion to slay fiat money. And we all know who that champion is: Bitcoin. Bitcoin will be the resolver of a historic tug-of-war over control of the wealth of humankind. As the government is going digital, digital is going at the government. We are here to witness the spectacle. And to be a part of it.
At Pacific Bitcoin, we will be trying to create our own version of a time machine to explore the last 40 years of history through dialogue. Over two days, four separate panels will take the stage to discuss 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012, focusing on the culture, the economy and the technology of the times. Panelists will include Jeff Booth, Greg Foss, Bob Burnett, Warren Togami, Lawrence Lepard, Carla from the Crypto Couple, Ben de Waal, Isaiah Jackson, Dustin Trammel, Allen Farrington and Pete Rizzo. I hope to see you there.
This is a guest post by Tomer Strolight. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
