Tech, Business, Finance and Everything Else
Very interesting question to Warren Buffett – in which he then provides a very interesting (yet simplistic) answer.
Shareholders need to act like owners – and in nearly all cases in America – this is forgotten. People forget that when they buy a stock in a business that they are becoming an owner in that business.
Today Australia has cancelled the visa of Novak Djokovic again.
“Today I exercised my power… to cancel the visa held by Mr Novak Djokovic on health and good order grounds, on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so,” Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said in a statement.
Novak now has the right to appeal, but it isn’t clear if he will do so and if he will be able to play the Australian Open in the meantime.
Deportation means that Novak won’t be able to return to Australia for 3 years (thus missing even more Grand Slams for a while to come).
My Thoughts:
I must admit that at Grand Slams its always good to have the best players in the world there. However, he has lied on entering the country on several occasions and then thrown his own agent under the bus and blamed it on him. He must leave!
It will be interesting to see if he faces any repercussions in Serbia – as he admitted to breaking isolation laws.
Take-Two Interactive have announced that they are planning to acquire Zynga for $12.7 billion.
This deal will bring the two worlds of Mobile Gaming and Console and PC Games together to make a powerhouse!
“We are thrilled to announce our transformative transaction with Zynga, which significantly diversifies our business and establishes our leadership position in mobile, the fastest growing segment of the interactive entertainment industry,” said Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two, in a statement. “This strategic combination brings together our best-in-class console and PC franchises, with a market-leading, diversified mobile publishing platform that has a rich history of innovation and creativity. Zynga also has a highly talented and deeply experienced team, and we look forward to welcoming them into the Take-Two family in the coming months. As we combine our complementary businesses and operate at a much larger scale, we believe that we will deliver significant value to both sets of stockholders, including $100 million of annual cost synergies within the first two years post-closing and at least $500 million of annual Net Bookings opportunities over time.”
“Combining Zynga’s expertise in mobile and next-generation platforms with Take-Two’s best-in-class capabilities and intellectual property will enable us to further advance our mission to connect the world through games while achieving significant growth and synergies together,” added Frank Gibeau, CEO of Zynga. “I am proud of our team’s hard work to deliver a strong finish to 2021, with one of the best performances in Zynga’s history. We are incredibly excited to have found a partner in Take-Two that shares our commitment to investing in our players, amplifying our creative culture, and generating more value for stockholders. With this transformative transaction, we begin a new journey which will allow us to create even better games, reach larger audiences and achieve significant growth as a leader in the next era of gaming.”
Novak Djokovic has won his appeal with the Australian Government over his visa refusal.
I think this whole situation stinks!
If any other tennis player in the world asked for this exemption then they wouldn’t have received it!
Masayoshi Son is one of the best investors in the world and he is known for his very bold bets. Masayoshi Son has done so much and he always seems so humble as he is trying to also make the world a better place.
Short Answer = No
All music distributors (RouteNote, CDBaby, Tunecore, etc) take the same amount of time from the moment a track leaves the distributors server and is packaged to be delivered to a DSP (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, etc). On average the DSPs will take between 24-48 hour to ingest the content once it is uploaded to their servers.
The ONLY way a music distributor can speed up the process is by pushing tracks through its internal moderation process faster.
Great little video about why Warren Buffett started a partnership and not a mutual fund. Its all about the terminology.
This is a great interview with Adam Neumann – who is the former CEO and founder of WeWork. This is his first interview since he tried to take the company public and the valuation of the company halved overnight. He talks about the situations around that previously failed IPO attempted and what is happening now with WeWork.
Rippling has one of the best HR based platforms in the world. Its built from the ground up to help companies look after their employees at all stages.
However, it’s only available in the USA!
I run a company in the UK – and I really wish Rippling was available here. I understand there are a lot of complexities around compliance when you are talking about Payroll and HR globally, but it seems like no one has been able to sort that out on a global basis for all employees as of yet.
Alex Bouaziz the co-founder and CEO of Deel has just announced some of their recent numbers on Twitter.
In 2021 –
That is one of the craziest years I have ever heard.
Tencent is a giant in the world of Chinese technology and beyond. Today they have announced that they will be selling most of its stake in JD.com.
Tencent will reduce is staking from 17% to 2.3%.
The proceeds will help Tencent provide shareholders with a $16.4 billion dividend.
After long being JD’s largest stakeholder, Tencent will give the title to Walmart.
This seems to be a Tencent strategy that has paid off in the long term. Instead of Tencent looking to acquire many companies in adjacent industries – they have decided to acquire minority stakes in a huge number of technology companies globally.
Why?
Its far easy to own more when you own a minority. If Tencent were to acquire more companies – they would have issues with Government and regulator approval.
There has been a lot of talk recently about Stablecoins – how they are being managed and backed against real world assets.
Today the CEO of Circle – that controls the stablecoin USDC – testifies before the House Financial Services Committee
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire confirmed that Circle’s USDC stablecoin is “100%” backed by cash and US debt. Circle shifted the composition of the reserves backing its USDC in September.
Over the past month Elon Musk has unloaded $10 billion worth of Tesla shares.
Currently Elon still ranks No. 1 on the global Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a net worth of $284 billion.
Chinese ride-hail giant DiDi said it will delist from the New York Stock Exchange, following a Chinese government crackdown on foreign listings. (via Axios)
Didi is the Uber of China (and beyond) and it seems as though their progress might be hindered with growing geopolitical tensions between the US and China.
The delisting will occur soon and Didi will move trading across to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has been know to have lower general multiple than its US counterparts.
A lot of people ask me about crypto currencies and how you can make passive income from crypto. Here is a quick video that outlines the easiest ways to get started for all crypto noobs.
Rivian has confirmed that their new R1T pickup will have 314 miles (approximately 505 kilometers) on a single charge, while the R1S can go 316 miles on a full battery.
This comes off a very busy few weeks for Rivian in which they announced that they would be going public.
Amazing first round match between Fabio Fognini vs Vasek Pospisil
Even though there has been a huge crackdown in the Chinese Tech companies – it seems like there are still many Venture Capital firms that are bullish on the future of the Chinese Tech sector.
One venture firm that is looking for more opportunities is Telstra Ventures. Telstra Ventures is the venture capital arm of Telstra – Australia’s largest telecoms company.
Telstra has been investing in China for the past six years. It now counts three Chinese unicorns in its portfolio.
Keep an eye on Telstra Ventures investments as it seems like their research is finding some of the best opportunities in the Chinese Tech sector.
Apple has announced that they have acquired Primephonic, the classical music streaming service.
Apple Music now plans to launch a dedicated classical music app new year combining Primephonic’s classical user interface with more added features. It will be interesting to see if Apple are able to take Primephonic to a more mainstream audience – and how will this dedicated app be differentiated from the standard Apple Music app, which obviously includes the classical music found in Primephonic and far more.
Primephonic is no longer available for new subscribers and will be taken offline beginning September 7.
Apple says that, when it launches, its new dedicated Apple Music Classical experience will offer “the best features of Primephonic, including better browsing and search capabilities by composer and by repertoire, detailed displays of classical music metadata, plus new features and benefits”.
In the meantime, current Primephonic subscribers will receive six months of Apple Music for free, including its library of Lossless and high-resolution audio, as well as hundreds of classical albums in Apple Music’s Spatial Audio.
Quick video that shows you the easiest way to backup your WordPress site on Google Cloud.
The WordPress site already needs to be running on Google Cloud to easily create a snapshot.