11/9/17: Tencent invests in Snap, cryptocurrency disappears & Call of Duty delivers
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THE MINUTES
- Tencent takes 12% stake in Snapchat after shares plunged yesterday
- Almost $300M worth of ether is inaccessible after code was deleted
- Call of Duty: WWII made $500M in its first 3 days on shelves
- AT&T’s proposed takeover of Time Warner has hit a regulatory road block
- FedEx Express has placed an order for up to 50 ATR aircraft
- Investors are suing Outcome Health for alleged fraud
- Dior Chief Executive Sidney Toledano is stepping aside
Don’t have 3 minutes and 43 seconds to read this? Click here to listen to The Water Coolest.
THE HEADLINES
Snap investment
Just my ten cents
A picture is worth a thousand words. And apparently a Snapchat is worth $2B. Tencent announced an investment in Snap this week, which equates to roughly a 10% stake in the company. Tencent already owns Chinese messaging app WeChat, so it’s expected that some of the features will be making an appearance on Snapchat, and vice versa.
Snapchat recently announced a plan to fully redesign the app to make it easier to use. Evan Spiegel’s brainchild will also be building a never-ending video suggestion feed that will be powered by an algorithm a la Instagram. Sounds like Zuckerberg is going to be getting a taste of his own feature “borrowing” medicine.
News of the redesign comes just 8 months after Snap’s IPO. After reporting lackluster earnings, Snap saw a 20% drop in its stock price Tuesday, with shares still down 15% on Wednesday. How does something like that happen? According to Ross Gerber, CEO of investment firm Gerber Kawasaki: “Management is garbage.” Gerber does not mince words.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “Just let me know when my grandma joins Snapchat so I can delete it.”
There is a ton of cryptocurrency MIA
No money, mo problems
Over $280M of the cryptocurrency ether has evaporated into thin air. Well, technically it still exists, it just can’t ever be retrieved. What in the actual f*ck?
The freeze is tied back to a company, Parity Technologies, which runs one of the wallets used to store and exchange the currency. Somehow a glitch allowed the contents of a wallet to be wiped, meaning the funds could be jacked, frozen, or just straight disappear like they went into the Upside Down.
The breach impacts all people who created one of these wallets after July 20th, 2017, including any company who released an Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). ICOs have been all the rage as companies look to raise real money without giving anything of actual value in return. Saul Goodman may have created the original concept. One company, Polkadot, raised over $140M and at least 60% of that may be compromised.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “My cousin used to sell penny stocks, but now he’s graduated to crypto.”
Call of Duty sales hit $500M
Killing it
Activision Blizzard is taking head-shots only as it leaves a trail of destruction with its latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise. COD put up Michael Bay type opening weekend numbers with $500M in sales over the first 3 days of availability. The game set a day 1 record for full-game downloads on PlayStation 4.
The franchise returned to WW2-era Europe to much fanfare. So much so that the record breaking release made up 20 percent of the $2.5 billion in total revenue that analysts expected from Activision for this quarter.
Last year’s “Infinite Warfare” release pales in comparison, having sold less than half the amount of copies of the current title. N00b. Riding the success of Destiny 2 and your dad’s Candy Crush addiction, Activision Blizzard is setting new high scores. Shares of the video game manufacturer closed up almost 6% yesterday.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “Makes sense … anti-Nazi sentiment is at an all time high.”
IN OTHER NEWS
- The Justice Department just threw a major regulatory wrench in the spokes of AT&T’s proposed takeover of Time Warner. The regulators are strongly suggesting that AT&T either sell CNN or DirecTV as part of the $85.4B agreement. Does anyone still actually use DirecTV?
- Outcome Health got itself in deep. The healthcare focused advertising unicorn valued at roughly $5.5B is being sued for allegedly misleading investors about its number of ad placements.
- FedEx Express places an order for up to 50 ATR 72–600 F aircraft
- Dior Chief Executive Sidney Toledano is stepping aside.
ACTION ITEMS
Today’s read
Disengaged and tired workers do ‘scary’ things, Randstad study says
“Employers who dismiss workers’ complaints of feeling undervalued, over-worked or underpaid risk increasing their own costs over time.” — Valerie Bolden-Barrett via HR Dive [side note: we couldn’t agree more]
This is the kind of article worth printing and disseminating to the other peasants to stir up some dissent … or at least get a meeting with HR. Finallythere is some justification for all of that self-destructive behavior. And if you haven’t yet, you should probably start playing workplace pranks, raiding the company coffers and drinking excessively.
Return-on-Investment (ROI): 91.7%
Today’s watch
E-sports and the Rise of the Digital Athlete
“They’ve got the additional coaches and nutritionists,” — Jared Kennedy via WSJ referring to the best e-sports teams in the world
It’s not all Mountain Dew Code Red and Bagel Bites in the land of e-sports. Gamers are the new rockstars. And e-sports are the sexy new investment. It’s hard to ignore the fast-growing $500M industry that can sell out MSG quicker than the Knicks. You should probably know what those kids have been doing in their moms basement for all those year because it’s about to be HUGE.
Return-on-Investment (ROI): 94.7%
Today’s must-listen
Getting Unstuck
“And the wrong question is, how do I figure out that one best solution to my life? There is one exclusive, unique, optimal version of me. And I’m supposed to already know it. And I’m probably already late. And how do I figure it out? And how would I know if I knew? How can I be sure?” — via Hidden Brain
If everyone grew up to be what they dreamed of becoming, the world would be full of firefighters, astronauts and Pretty, Pretty Princesses. But royalty needs their toilets cleaned and their bunions attended to. There’s no easy way to break this to you but despite what Monster.com says, there’s no simple answer to figuring out what you want to do. Listening to your parents is probably a bad place to start and so is second guessing every single decision you make like your significant other trying to order Seamless.
Return-on-Investment (ROI): 97.4%
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