Category: Business

In what ways is Google Waymo a threat to Tesla and its Self Driving Technology?

Waymo at present has a private valuation that is twice as high as Tesla.

How can this be?

Margins! Tesla is focused on the full production of the car where Waymo is focused purely on the underlying technology with self driving cars. Thus, Waymo will have a Gross Margin that is extremely high in comparison to Tesla.

Eric Schmidt talked about this a lot. How Google and its products always wanted to be focused on providing the technology sub stack instead of the full product as it keeps margins at a high level and thus maximising value.

Rocket Science 101 with Elon Musk – Learning Some Basics

Elon Musk isn’t the best public speaker in the world and sometime he finds it very difficult to get the words from his head and out of his mouth before he his thinking about the next thing to say (which actually is exactly what I have a problem with).

However, in this video Elon explains rocket science in such a simple way that even the average person can start to understand some basics.

Rocket Science 101!

WMG – Warner Music Group Starts Selling Shares on the NASDAQ Today

Warner Music Group is going live on the NASDAQ today. Warner are offering 77 million class A shares at $25 a share. If Warner opens up at $25 per share that means they will have a $12.8 billion valuation.

It’s going to be very interesting to see if investors have an appetite for music companies again.

Underwriters for the new offering include Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs. Ticker symbol will be WMG.

Warner Music Group has an amazing catalogue, but I’m very keen to learn more about their recent investments and what other industries they think they can enter, because doing the old record label model just isn’t going to gain enough growth over the next 20 years.

UBER Now Don’t Have a COO, CTO or CPO. When will the Executives Stop Leaving?

Uber have no COO, CTO or CPO as their executive team keep leaving the company.

These changes happen quite frequently at very large companies, but it seems strange they all these positions are now empty and executives keep leaving.

I think Uber has one of the best CEO’s in the world right now and the right person to lead the company in difficult times.

But WHY??? Why so many leavers? Are they not backing the new vision of the company? Do they think there are too many large issues within the company?

Time will tell I guess.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-is-now-lacking-a-coo-a-cto-and-a-cpo-2020-4

What is the fundamental difference between Amazon and Alibaba? They seem similar, but with different business models

Here is the key difference.

Alibaba is a marketplace. They do not own the inventory of the merchandise sold. They put buyers and sellers together. Buyer and seller agree on terms online via their platform or offline.

Amazon’s main business is they own the inventory, and sell directly to the customer.

Both models have their Pros and Cons. Amazon has also turned into a very strong third party seller platform in recently years, but they still like to control a lot of the fulfilment.

Will Airbnb IPO on a Public Stock Market Any Time Soon?

Short Answer: NO – I doubt it.

Airbnb was in a good position to IPO at the end of last year, but seemed to push it back. Since then the follow has happened:

  • Coronavirus has all but stopped their business.
  • Combination of debt & equity from Silver Lake, Sixth Street Partners
  • Previously raised $4.6 billion
  • Financial Times reported new $25b valuation last week

Airbnb won’t be seeing the public markets any time soon as they really need to focus when the Coronavirus lockdowns start to exit and the world opens up for business again.

Why Did Microsoft Buy Wunderlist and Then Kill The Product?

Microsoft buying Wunderlist seemed to fit nicely with the business productivity suite that Microsoft has developed over many year.

The Wunderlist acquisition was only $150 million and it sounds like a lot, but it is only 0.1% of Microsoft’s market capitalisation.

Wunderlist fits in nicely with Outlook and running tasks from within email – plus it can go nicely with Office 365 inside a suite of much larger products – it also might have been to hire the amazing talent at Wunderlist.

Quibi Launches Today! Quibi Will Flop for Sure!

Quibi launches today.

Price point: $4.99

Reason: Immersive video content on a mobile device.

Funding: Quibi has raised over $1.8 billion in funding to date.

I think it’s very easy to see that Quibi is being made by a bunch of executives who aren’t or connected to their target audience. Quibi is built for a younger generation who don’t really want to consumer full length films on their mobile devices only. The younger generation are all about short form content and getting information as fast as possible (eg. TikTok).

p.s. their target audience also don’t have enough money for yet another subscription service at $4.99 per month.

Conclusion: Quibi will be a flop!

Im expecting that we are all sitting here in 12 months saying that they just haven’t been able to get the subscriber numbers that they wanted or needed to hit with $1.8 billion in funding.

Twitch Sees Big Viewership Growth But Needs to Expand Beyond Games to Generate $1 billion in Ad Revenue

Twitch has seen a huge wave of growth in its viewership in most part due to coronavirus. Twitch wants to generate $1 billion in ad revenue and commerce this year, according to The Information. The company reportedly delivered about $300 million in ad revenue in 2019.

The only way Twitch are going to achieve this is by expanding beyond just hardcore gamers. Brands will want to see diversity of content – Games, Music, Chat, Entertainment and more.

Twitch seems to be the first part of Amazon’s grand plan for gaming. Amazon will soon launch its very first game from its recently established gaming studio.

Wimbledon 2020 Cancelled but They Will Gain £100 million due to Infectious Disease Insurance

Wimbledon announced yesterday that they have had to cancel the 2020 All England Championships because of the coronavirus outbreak. This comes off the back of the French Open announcing that they were going to try to reschedule their Grand Slam from May to September, because it was expected to lose £230 million if they had to cancel.

Wimbledon took the strong position of cancellation, because they knew that they had insurance of £100 million if they had to cancel the Championships.

It turns out that the All England Club had the foresight to take out infectious disease insurance during the SARS outbreak, which has then help them in a good stead for the current coronavirus outbreak.

Still a huge shame though that there will be no Wimbledon 2020!

(I used to play tennis for a living, so it’s just unimaginable to not have Wimbledon this year!)

iPhone 3G only $99, it’s Possible

Some hot news for those of us that have with held buying an iPhone (all 2 of you). Word on the street is that Apple has had an excellent 4th Quarter, and with sales of iPhones surpassing previous estimations, there is some wiggle room when it comes to price.

The iPhone which currently resides in an exclusive contract with AT&T, sells for $199 with contract. Millions and millions of people jumped on board with the first iPhone came out, and the second generation was just as popular. With over 15 million iPhone sold worldwide, it has dominated the mobile market. Outstanding sales have given Apple a cushion in case the current economic downtown starts to effect sales, they can afford to drop the price of the iPhone to $99.

What would a $99 iPhone do to the market? For starters, with such a low barrier to entry, the iPhone will clearly bleed further into the consumer market, even those on the fence would be tempted to purchase, and the market dominance would only leave true niche mobile companies like Blackberry able to withstand the onslaught.

Conjecture? Possibly, but only time will tell. Get those Christmas wish lists ready and stay tuned for more info!