Self-driving to the bank (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
Self-driving to the bank (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
The UK’s new prime minister and his wife are estimated to be worth over $800M, placing them among the 250 wealthiest British households
Authors of this Snacks own: bitcoin, and solana, and shares of Apple, Block, Amazon, Ford, Google, Microsoft, Shopify, Uber, and Spotify
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