All the crap you never needed

Sep 30 2022 Haircut talk Big tech cuts Meta cutting people Apple stopping iPhone production Google also reducing head count potentially Companies are acknowledging that growth is tapering Have to run companies efficiently Apple, Google, MSFT, Facebook are US market equivalent of US treasuries Best 4 businesses - so if they are doing this, its a warning to everyone else 2001-2003 was super deflationary in Silicon Valley Starting in 2004, people called it Web 2.0 after that - more rational story of growth, around that time Google started offering crazy benefits, free gym, free food, everyone copied it, and lot of money So to compete everyone else had to do the same Now we are seeing recession hit, leading indicators of what is in the valley - compensation, benefits, value share End of an era and a new world for tech and silicon valley Nobody is safe - startups and big tech are not immune from layoffs - there will be a hard landing in 2023 - predic...

  September 22 2022 Friedberg likes Daniel Plainview SPAC updates Chamath is winding down SPACs 10 SPACs from Chamath 6 in tech - 4 in tech, 2 in biotech Getting harder to find good deals Chamath thinks its better to give people their money back instead of letting it sink in the market Chamath clip from E55 in November 2021 that you should sell was prescient Going public seems like a fantasy right now - IPO is frozen for 2 years at least - that’s what people are thinking right now Smart strategy is to use war chest to grow into your valuation and cut burn Fed raised interest rate another 75 bps - expect to raise another 1.5% - they said earlier it would be 75 + 50, now they are saying 75 + 150 Fed is revising their trajectory - they are throwing in the towel, not saying there will be a soft landing - will be hard landing This week was hard for stock market Byju’s is losing crazy money - lost $600M this year from $33M last year Sequoia, Tiger, UBS, Blackrock, Cha...

September 16 2022 Sacks calls off MAGA brigade for JCal 🙂 Adobe acquires Figma for $20B Largest private company acquisition in history It was valued at $10.1B last year So doubled valuation in a year from crazy market previous year Market hated the deal - Adobe lost entire purchase price in their lost stock price Adobe is paying 50 times instead of 8-10 times normal SaaS company But Figma is growing like crazy Founded 2011-2012 - very long wilderness period - private beta 2015, public launch 2016 - monetization turned on 2017 - so first 5 years no money for a 10 year old company - turned on enterprise in 2019 - these are scuttlebutt numbers This ARR ramp is phenomenal Triple Triple Double Double Double - first 5 years Figma is doing amazing - so not sure that its a bad deal for Adobe - they understand this market - they’re in the same market Adobe paid 12% dilution of their company to acquire a potential competitor $10B cash, $10B stock at the po...

  September 10 2022 Intro Chamath Birthday party recap Besties are influencers Kevin Hart did great Code conference - Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher - 20 years now Steve Jobs at the first one Hit pieces on All In Information reached out (Eric Newcomer) New Republic trying to do a hit piece on Sacks Kevin Roose, NY Times JCal is getting a lot of interest - 1200 people reached out for webinar Queen Elizabeth 2 death 17 prime ministers witness to history of modern world 70 years of service, stoic, diligent Winter is coming Europe’s energy crisis Western alliance fracturing potentially Russia turning off Nordstream 1 - claiming faulty turbine Russian gas import has fallen 89 percent France’s 56 nuclear plants are running at 50% strength because of rusting issues 40% of Europe’s energy consumption comes from Russian natural gas Heating and cooling is directly tied to above and below 65 F When power goes away Cut base load Cut industrial production Cut...

September 1 2022 Early pod so JCal can go to Burning Man Sacks has gone previously Chamath and Friedberg haven’t gone What is Burning Man really about Sacks has gone with people who go glamping NY Times article about people ruining BM was due to parties like Sacks’ NFT market crash OpenSea volume has dropped 99% since peaks Bored Ape has dropped 53% OpenSea raised $300M at $13.3B valuation in Dec 2021 by Coatue and Paradigm 9 months ago now What a boondoggle Is this a category ending crash (and therefore different from stocks, real estate crash)? This is about narratives and collective belief and that drives change - money, government, art all is from narrative and collective belief A lot of these things are the same and when a few people approach it early (Burning Man, Coachella etc) - they are too insecure admit its the same We keep repeating things over and over - we have certain choices and other people repeat to you that your choices are good and you’re convinc...