Will's Weekly Roundup

Feb 12th - Feb 18th

“The only things that should change your mood are things that will change your life.”

Top stories this week:

  • Super Bowl 58 was the most-watched TV show ever.

  • Lyft stock sored after a fat finger mistake on its earnings outlook.

  • OpenAI released a mind-blowing text-to-video tool called Sora.

  • Zuckerberg finally responded to Apple Vision Pro.

Business

Headlines you missed (or need to see again)...

Nvidia is now more valuable than Amazon and Google.

Bezos is selling $2B of Amazon stock.

Spirit Airlines has some pilots dusting off their resumes. 

Google spent $2.1B to fire 12k employees and made a profit. 

Viking Cruises is considering an IPO. 

Amex revealed its largest Centurion Lounge yet in Atlanta’s airport. 

SoftBank's Vision Fund had its largest quarterly return ($4B) in almost 3 years. 

Sony will IPO its financial arm in October 2025.

Bottom quartile VCs returned -0.55%, while top quartile funds returned 23%/yr. 

Penn Entertainment’s launch of ESPN Bet led to a $334M loss for the firm. 

OpenAI’s annual run rate has hit the $2B mark.

The race to succeed Goldman’s CEO just got more complicated.

Tech

Headlines you missed (or need to see again)...

Joby Aviation will launch an air taxi service in the UAE by 2026.

TikTok launched an app for Vision Pro.

Y Combinator now wants startups in robotics, space, and defense.

Softbank’s Masayoshi So is raising $100B to build a semiconductor company.

Reddit entered a $60M licensing deal with an “unnamed large AI company.”

SpaceX launched a rocket with a craft for the moon landing. 

Gemini 1.5 Pro launched with 1M tokens/word input amount.

Zoom filed a patent for tech to detect when someone sighs.

OpenAI is generating 100B words per day. 

Watchlist

Startups and companies I’m keeping an eye on…

Score is a dating app for people with good credit scores.  

Neon is a credit card that lets you convert your points to invest in the stock market.

Lucite creates editable PowerPoint slides from a text prompt using AI (raised 500k from a single investor).

Cosmic Aerospace created the most energy efficient all-electric passenger aircraft (raised a $4.5M seed).

Sushi By Bou is a high-end sushi bar chain popping up in hotel lobbies.

Magic understands your style of code and writes code just as you do (raised a $23 million Series A).

QuilterAI automates circuit board layout designs (raised a $10M series A).

Monumental is automating on-site construction with brick-laying robots (raised $25M).

Rotime lets you add routines, checklists, and events to your schedule. 

Nicer connects you with the top travel advisors (raised a $2M pre-seed).

Superlist lets you keep and share all your to-do lists in one place. 

Wrapmate provides car wrap installations in your driveway (received $16M from JettyCove).

ClarityAI detects deep fake videos in real-time (raised a $16 seed).

HippoHarvest is using robots to reinvent sustainable lettuce farming (raised a $21M series B).

Top Picks

Specific articles and videos worth taking a look at…

Get 100 free McDonald’s meals with this ChatGPT hack. NY POST

A crowd set a Waymo self-driving vehicle on fire in SF. YOUTUBE

How Youtube and Reels could decide India’s election. WIRED

Pfizer’s first Super Bowl commercial. YOUTUBE

The must watch ads from the Super Bowl. CNBC

Visuals

Three visuals worth taking a look at...

The weekly poll is now at the end of the newsletter

Outside Interests

Interesting internet finds…

1 in 5 Americans believes Taylor Swift is part of a conspiracy to re-elect Biden.

On Valentine's Day, 34% dined at restaurants while 25% shared meals at home.

Biden decided not to take a cognitive test as part of his physical exam.

F-35 jet orders are down 18% in Biden’s 2025 budget request.

Political gender gap is growing as young women move left. 

Harvard gets congressional subpoena over antisemitism probe.

Biden attempted to defend his memory but confused the leaders of Mexico and Egypt.

Xbox Game Pass subscribers are up 36% YoY to 34M.

Hamas’s command tunnel was founded under the UN Gaza HQ. 

Senate passed a $95.3B aid package for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

Putin claims he prefers Biden over Trump. 

Meme Cleanser

Weekly Poll

Should someone at Lyft be fired for letting the fat finger mistake make it into the final public earnings outlook? Click the corresponding link to record your answer.

Last Week’s Poll Results: 100% of you think Adam Neumann will NOT be successful in buying back WeWork.

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Newsletter researched/written by Will Sullivan 

and edited by Andrew Coath.