Hey Snackers,
Your dreams aren’t dead until you are: a Kentucky man posted 200 TikToks of himself playing dead in hopes of being cast as a corpse in a TV show or movie. Now “CSI: Vegas” has made his undead dreams come true.
The techy Nasdaq lost 2% yesterday as investors digested uninspiring earnings from Google and Microsoft, which highlight waning demand. After the bell Meta shares also plunged on a weak report.
Mobileye soars 38% in the year’s strongest IPO as self-driving tech (slowly) advances
All eyes on Mobileye… They grow up so fast. Chip giant Intel bought Israeli self-driving-tech startup Mobileye for $15B in 2017. Yesterday, Mobileye hit public markets solo at a $17B valuation. Shares soared 38% in the best opening day for a major US IPO this year.
- All-seeing eye: Mobileye makes cameras, chips, and software for autonomous and driver-assist features. It partners with 50+ carmakers, including Volkswagen, GM, and Ford. 125M cars use Mobileye’s driver-assist tech.
- “Spin offerings” are sizzling, though 2022 is tracking to be the worst year for US IPOs in decades. Like Intel, VW and AIG both successfully spun off divisions earlier this year.
Life in the slow lane… Self-driving hype has largely hit the brakes in recent years — but hasn’t come full stop. Back in the day, Tesla, GM’s Cruise, and Google’s Waymo promised fully self-driving cars by 2020. Despite $100B in autonomous investments, most self-driving cars today can’t even make a left turn. Still, there’s been progress:
- Robotaxi revival: This month Uber signed a 10-year deal with Hyundai- and Aptiv-owned Motional to offer driverless rides, after selling its self-driving biz in 2020.
- Still trucking: TuSimple completed a 100% driverless-truck trip this year. Some analysts predict autonomous trucks will become an even bigger biz than self-driving cars.
Sometimes it pays to go slow… especially when the path to profitability is long. Mobileye’s valuation has risen in the past five years while Waymo’s has plunged 80%. One reason: unlike Waymo, Mobileye also sells semi-autonomous tech for mainstream cars like VW Passats. That consistent revenue could help Mobileye become profitable before its pure self-driving peers: last quarter, Mobileye’s losses narrowed to just $7M from $21M last year.
Venture-capital titan Andreessen Horowitz lost billions on crypto, but big fish aren’t jumping the pond
It's not just your cousin Todd… You know a downturn's serious when the VCs are hurting. Silicon Valley investing big shot Andreessen Horowitz (aka: a16z) reportedly lost billions in unrealized gains as the crypto market crashed. That's after it launched a $4.5B crypto fund in May, right as Terra's collapse kicked off crypto winter. This year alone the crypto-bullish firm took a $2.9B hit on its Coinbase investment, while its solana holdings lost 80% of their value. It's not just a16z:
- Messla: Last week Tesla reported a $170M impairment loss on bitcoin in the first nine months of the year.
- Rock: Jack Dorsey's Block said it had a second-quarter bitcoin-impairment loss of $36M (it reports Q3 earnings next week).
Down but not out… Crypto's institutional players may be bleeding cash, but they're still hoping for an infusion. On Tuesday, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried said he's looking for fresh investment dollars. The goal: use the $$ to draw more retail investors to his exchange (picture: lots of cousin Todds).
Being a true crypto believer isn’t cheap… While cousin Todd may not have the financial security to stick out crypto winter, institutional players like a16z insist they're here for the long haul — and have the billions-backed privilege to give it a shot. The firm announced nine crypto-startup deals last quarter, and its crypto king, Chris Dixon, talked up the company's "long-term horizon." But as the billions in losses show, faith in crypto's tomorrow can cost dearly today.
What else we’re Snackin’
- Zuck: All’s not well in the metaverse: Meta disappointed on earnings and guidance. Profit was down 52% from last year, while revenue dropped for a second straight quarter as ad sales continued to sag.
- Awk: A day after GM reported surprisingly strong profits, rival Ford revealed an $827M net loss. The F-150 icon got weighed down by parts shortages and high costs (think: $1B in unexpected supplier expenses).
- Spotty: Rihanna’s dropping new music and Spotify’s dropping #s: the CarPlay staple reported a better-than-expected 456M monthly listeners, but a worse-than-expected loss. Now it might raise prices on US subs.
- Basement: It may be time to move back in with Mom: surging rent prices are encouraging more Americans to live with parents or roommates, pushing apartment demand to its lowest level in 13 years.
- Unpaid: The SEC approved a rule that requires public companies who make accounting errors on financial statements to revoke their execs’ bonuses and other incentive payouts. The goal: discourage fraud.
Thursday
- Jobless claims
- Earnings expected from Apple, Amazon, Mastercard, Merck, Shell, McDonald’s, T-Mobile, Comcast, Intel, Caterpillar, AB Inbev, Altria, Keurig Dr Pepper, and Shopify
Authors of this Snacks own: bitcoin, and solana, and shares of Apple, Block, Amazon, Ford, Google, Microsoft, Shopify, Uber, and Spotify
ID: 2559926