- Will's Weekly Roundup
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- Will's Weekly Roundup
Will's Weekly Roundup is a weekly newsletter of curated tech, business, and startup news.
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Business
The business headlines you missed (or need to see again)...
Apple - Apple tripled its iPhone production in India to $7B. BBG
Delta - Delta posted a Q1 loss driven partly by a new pilot contract but forecasted better-than-expected Q2 profit and revenue growth. CNBC
OpenAI - OpenAI’s biggest competitor Anthropic raised $5B with plans to build a 10x more powerful system than ChatGPT-4. TC
Food - World food prices fell for a twelfth-straight month in March. RT
Juul - Juul will pay $462 million to settle youth vaping claims from New York, California, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Illinois, and Colorado. CNBC
US Deficit - US government posted a $378B budget deficit in March. RT
Amazon - Amazon has started charging for some UPS store returns and is also facing a record 18 shareholder proposals this year. THE INFO, RT
Exxon - Exxon CEO's pay rose 52% in 2022. RT
Shell - Russian energy firm Novatek will acquire Shell’s former 27.5% stake in Sakhalin-2 energy project for $1.16 billion. RT
Twitter - Twitter has merged with Musk's X Corp, potentially leading to a company name change as part of Elon's plan to turn Twitter into an "everything app.” ARS
Box Office - Nintendo’s The Super Marios Bros Movie smashed box office expectations over its weekend debut, raking in $377 million and $206 million in global and domestic sales, respectively. AXIOS
WhatsApp - WhatsApp rolled out its business payment tool in Brazil. RT
Harvard - Citadel founder Ken Griffin donated $300 million more to his alma mater Harvard. RT
Tech
The tech headlines you missed (or need to see again)...
Gene Sequencing - The cost of sequencing a human genome has dropped by over 99% from $95 million in 2001 to $200 in 2023 with new Illumina machines. TWITTER
Apple VR Headset - Apple still plans to announce its long-rumored AR/VR headset during its developer conference on June 5. MAC RUMORS
Space - Europe successfully launched a spacecraft toward the moons of Jupiter. ARS
Google Maps - Google Maps will now give users the ability to map out any trail at national parks, the ability to download offline maps, trail stats, and photos of park highlights. VERGE
EVs - A new poll revealed that nearly half of Americans say they’re unlikely to buy an electric vehicle as their next car due to high costs and the lack of charging options; however, EV sales rose 32% in Q1 as prices fell. CNBC, RT
Autonomous Vehicles - Dashcam footage shows how driverless cars are clogging the streets of San Francisco. WIRED
SpaceX - SpaceX’s Starship vehicle is ready to fly and is just waiting for a launch license. ARS
Watchlist
Startups and companies I’m keeping an eye on…
Whizz - Whizz allows you to rent long-range e-bikes for $158/month, which will be perfect for delivery bikers. WHIZZ
Brinc - Brinc is a startup making tactical SWAT drones to improve public safety. BRINC
Monogram Orthopedics - Monogram built a system that combines personalized knee implants with precision robotic surgical assistants, giving patients a better-fitting knee replacement with minimally invasive surgery. MONOGRAM
Kimer Med - Kimer Med is a startup that wants to create penicillin for viruses. KIMER
Argo - Argo plans to turn Moon water into fuel. ARGO
Wren - Wren allows you to easily calculate your carbon footprint and pay a monthly subscription to offset it. WREN
Carbon Robotics - Carbon Robotics has built an industrial-grade weeding robot that precisely kills weeds using lasers and AI. CARBON
Outside Interest
Interesting internet finds…
Mason Jars & Space - The Ball Company that you most generally associate with making masons jars is also one of the largest aerospace defense companies in the world. BALL
AI Drake - This AI-generated song by Drake and The Weeknd is going viral. TWITTER
Trump - Trump sued his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen for over $500M. RT
NJ Humiliated - Newark, NJ was humiliated after signing a trade deal with a Hindu nation that doesn’t exist. GUARDIA
Snapchat - A former Snapchat team leader revealed that they deliberately tried to build the app to confuse old people. TIKTOK
LIRR - Clever Commute is an app that can predict what track your train will arrive on for the LIRR, NJ Transit, Metro-North, and DeCamp. CLEVER
Ctrl + F - Locus is a browser extension that lets you do more with Ctrl + F, such as finding when something is referenced even if the searched phrase is not mentioned verbatim. LOCUS
Interesting Article - Here’s an Atlantic article explaining why we speak more weirdly at home than we do with our friends. ATLANTIC
Visuals
Three visuals worth taking a look at...
Global Defense Spending
The unicorn birth rate is at its lowest level in 6 years, with just 13 unicorns (private startups valued at over $1B) emerging in Q1'23.
Average lowest airfare by advanced purchase date.
Wisdom
Two quotes of wisdom...
"Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by opinions when you reach decisions, you will not succeed in any undertaking.” ― Napoleon Hill
"The only people who can still strike us as normal are those we don’t yet know very well." ― Alain de Botton
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