Will's Weekly Roundup

July 17th - July 23rd

Will Sullivan
July 24, 2023

Will's Weekly Roundup is a curated list of tech, business, and startup headlines from last week to kickstart your Mondays.

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Business

The business headlines you missed (or need to see again)...

Chipotle - Chipotle signed its first-ever franchise partner to open locations in the Middle East. LINK

Kahoot - The gamified e-learning platform Kahoot got acquired in a $1.7B deal led by Goldman Sachs and Lego. LINK

Netflix - Netflix's crackdown on password-sharing looks to be a success as its new subscriber count jumped 236% since May. Netflix has also removed its cheapest ad-free plan ($9.99/month) after launching a new ad-supported tier ($6.99/month). LINK, LINK

Cybertruck - Tesla has finally begun producing Cybertrucks, after two years of delays and four years after unveiling the concept. Tesla currently has 1.9 million orders for the truck, according to Musk. LINK

SpaceX - SpaceX’s revenue is expected to double to $8 billion in 2023. LINK

Salaries - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's payout has reached $1 billion due to the surging AI boom. LINK

Iraq - The US has banned 14 Iraqi banks from conducting dollar transactions. LINK

Rice - India, the world’s largest grain exporter, has banned exports of non-basmati white rice to curb domestic inflation, raising fears of further increases in global food prices. LINK

Autonomous Driving - Tesla is in early discussions to license its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology to another major automaker that hasn’t been named. LINK

Twitter - Elon Musk confirmed that Twitter is still cash flow negative and has had a 50% drop in advertising revenue. LINK

Threads - User engagement on Threads has dropped off, with data showing a 20% drop in daily active users and a 50% drop in time spent on the platform. LINK

AT&T - AT&T shares fell to their lowest closing price in 30 years following a WSJ investigation. LINK

Apple x India - Morgan Stanley says India will account for 20% of Apple’s user growth over the next five years. LINK

Crypto - $742 million has flowed into crypto funds over the past month, the highest level since 2021. LINK

Gaming - Microsoft and PlayStation signed a deal to keep the multi-billion dollar gaming franchise Call of Duty on PlayStation. LINK

Nasdaq - Seven companies listed in the Nasdaq-100 accounted for roughly 51% of the index as of June 3, and the Nasdaq is looking to fix that problem with a special rebalancing plan. LINK

Retirement - An HSA (health savings account) is at least 17% more valuable than a 401K. LINK

Tech

The tech headlines you missed (or need to see again)...

Pay With Your Hand - Every Whole Foods location will be able to take your palm as payment via Amazon One by the end of the year. LINK

iPhone - The "holy grail" among iPhone collectors - a 4GB, unopened first edition - just sold for $190,000 at an auction, more than 300x the amount it was bought for back in 2007. LINK

ChatGPT - ChatGPT usage has dropped roughly 10%, potentially because kids are out of school and don’t need it to help with coursework. LINK

AI Startups - More than one-third of the famed startup accelerator Y Combinator’s latest batch of companies are focused specifically on AI. LINK

Snap - Snapchat is redesigning its Bitmojis to become fully 3D-animated avatars, which will help with AR compatibility. LINK

Wix - Wix announced a new AI site generator feature that enables users to create a complete website just by typing a description and answering a few follow-up questions. LINK

Israel - The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have begun using AI to select targets for airstrikes and manage wartime logistics. LINK

Ajax - Apple soon will release its own ChatGPT AI tool, Ajax, solely for internal use at the company. LINK

Anti-hallucination AI - AI21 Labs debuted an anti-hallucination feature for GPT chatbots to prevent the AI from making up information and believing it is true. LINK

Watchlist

Startups and companies I’m keeping an eye on…

Rocsys manufactures an electric vehicle charger equipped with a robotic arm that automatically plugs into cars and buses. LINK

Koloma is a hydrogen drilling startup that is burrowing underground to tap carbon-free hydrogen that continuously replenishes itself. Tech giants like Bill Gates are pouring investments into the company. LINK

Top Picks

Specific articles and videos worth taking a look at…

Why Oppenheimer deserves his own movie (Youtube Video). LINK

The tech behind how Shazam IDs over 23,000 songs each minute (Youtube Video). LINK

Does Gen-X have no style? (WSJ Article). LINK

Outside Interests

Interesting internet finds…

Taco Tuesday - Taco Bell won the 'Taco Tuesday' trademark dispute with a rival chain. LINK

Powerball - A Californian was the sole winner of the $1.08 billion Powerball, the 7th largest lottery prize ever. LINK

AC - Amazon has seen sales for ACs increase 248% for the 30 days ending July 14. LINK

Fundraising - Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is now offering supporters a 10% cut of the campaign money they raise for him, calling his new plan a "revolution" over traditional political fundraising. LINK

Musk’s House - Musk reportedly used millions of dollars in Tesla funds to secretly build himself a literal glass house after famously saying he "will own no house." LINK

NYPD - The NYPD is testing a public announcement system carried out by drones during weather-related emergencies. LINK

Hollywood - The ongoing strike in Hollywood is threatening to seriously impact 2024’s release calendar. LINK

Knots - Here’s how to tie an anchor hitch knot. LINK

Twitter Ad-Revenue Sharing - Twitter’s ad-revenue sharing program went live last week, likely to keep creators from switching to Threads. Some controversial influencers like Andrew Tate were among those who received the payments. LINK

McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines - If you’re mad about McDonald’s ice cream machines always being broken, blame the protections of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — when the Taylor-made machines go down, franchises have to call a Taylor technician because the machines are password-protected. There’s a website (mcbroken.com) that tracks which locations’ machines are working and which ones are not. ARTICLE, MCBROKEN