Friday Sep.10, 2021

👓 Facebook's smart Ray-Bans

_Major shade [Whitney Tuttle/Moment via GettyImages]_

Hey Snackers,

20 years ago tomorrow: nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in the September 11th attacks on New York, DC, and in Pennsylvania. It's a day that changed the world forever. It's also a day of Service and Remembrance, when Americans are called on to volunteer, support each other, and find strength in unity.

All three major US stock indexes dipped yesterday on concerns about slowing economic growth and rising Covid cases.

Shade

Facebook unveils its first smart glasses, designed by Ray-Ban: why un-branding is key

Throwing major shade... First, Facebook copied (aka: #Zucked) Snap's stories on Insta. Then, FB announced plans to launch a smartglass rival to Snap Spectacles. Yesterday, FB unveiled those smartglasses — and they're called "Stories." FB teamed up with Italian glasses giant Luxottica to launch Ray-Ban branded glasses. FB's first smart glasses are about everything the selfie stick isn't: first-person perspective.

Capture: Say "Hey Facebook" or press a button to shoot photos and videos (up to 30 secs). Tiny lights let others know when you're recording. Not included: AR features.
Post: Share content to social apps like Insta and TikTok through the FB View App, or save to your camera roll. FB is envisioning Latte Art tutorials.
Hear: Listen to music or take phone calls from open-ear speakers.
Pay: Stories start at $299 — in the same range as luxury "dumb" glasses. They'll be available in 20 style combos online and in stores like LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut.

Lab goggle vibes... Smart glasses are Big Tech's holy grail, but all efforts have flopped so far: "Google Glass" was an epic fail. Snap lost $40M on 300K unsold AR Spectacles. But FB's smart glasses have one key advantage: they don't look like smart glasses.

Italian style: Luxottica’s chief wearable officer Rocco Basilico, who cold emailed Zuck about the glasses collab, says Stories aren't just a tech gadget, "but something sexy.” Peep this snazzy video, starring Basilico and Zuck.
American dreams: FB hopes to expand Stories into AR, overlaying graphics onto IRL vision. One day, FB hopes AR glasses will be as widely used as smartphones.

FB’s big opportunity = unbranding itself... Stories look like Ray-Bans, not FB-branded gadgets — unlike FB's other hardware, Oculus and Portal. While FB supplies the tech, Ray-Ban handles the design and sales — a key difference from other tech-designed smart glasses. FB has admitted it has a public "trust deficit." By partnering with a well-loved brand, FB is giving Stories a higher chance of success.

Score

The NFL’s Verizon collab shows the power of DTR’ing partnerships

Beautiful (cell) reception... Verizon is celebrating in the endzone. Yesterday, the NFL and Verizon announced a 10-year 5G partnership. By installing faster 5G connectivity in NFL stadiums, Verizon wants to foster new in-person experiences for football fans.

Better than a jumbotron: Fans in stadiums can now see seven different live angles and AR overlays of Next Gen Stats on 5G-enabled phones.
Game tickets > couch tickets: The NFL hopes to get fans off the couch and buying $300 tickets by offering a live experience plus at-home stats and insights.
Gameday exclusives: Verizon gets a chance to show off its fresh 5G capabilities, and potentially poach fans from AT&T and T-Mobile with exclusive gameday coverage.

Brands go long on NFL partnerships... because they want the NFL's huge — and hugely engaged — audience. Last year, 71 of TV’s 100 most-viewed events were NFL games. Meanwhile: Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile spend billions competing for the 5G market — which is expected to hit $148B by 2028 — but have still struggled to win customers. If football fans need 5G to get the most premium access at Cowboys games, they may migrate to Verizon.

Defining the relationship is key... and brands want to make it official. Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, Nike, and Verizon pay as much as $100M+ per season to be official NFL partners. Thanks to corporate partnerships, NFL revenue increased 10% last season — despite empty stadiums. Similarly, the Tokyo Olympics had the worst TV viewership in 33 years, but the International Olympics Committed (IOC) still raked in a record $2B+ in global sponsorships — because Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Airbnb paid big bucks to be “official” Olympic partners.

What else we’re Snackin’

Vax: President Biden outlined a broad plan to mandate Covid vaccines for millions of people who work or with the federal government.
Cap: Amazon is offering to pay college tuition for 750K+ US employees, as the battle of the benefits continues.
Descend: United, American, Delta, and other airlines downgraded their financial forecasts as Covid cases continue to surge.
Cloudy: Cloud software startup Databricks raised another $1.6B at a $38B valuation, making it the fourth biggest venture-backed, private company.
BNPL: Shares of Affirm soared 20% yesterday after the "buy now, pay later" platform reported a huge sales increase just a month after announcing an Amazon partnership.
Vacay: Bill Gates became the majority owner of Four Seasons hotels after his investment firm spent $2.2B to buy shares from Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed.

Friday

Earnings expected from Kroger

Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Snap

ID: 1832226

Clarification to September 8th Theranos story: The charges Holmes and Balwani face are from a criminal indictment first filed in June 2018 by a federal grand jury, separate from the SEC fraud charges, which Theranos and Holmes agreed to settle in 2018.

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Pop Quiz!

Sales of what are up 136% since 2019?

Don't be a sucka

$70B

Alphabet shares are soaring in the after-market session, with a initial jump of more than 10% implying a gain of upwards of about $200B in market value when the stock opens tomorrow morning.

Google’s parent company crushed earnings expectations, initiated a cash dividend for the first time, and authorized a fresh $70B in share repurchases for good measure. The market likes it very much.

What’s up doc?

HOP TO IT

Joshua Topolsky

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Acrobatic Accounting

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No, Apple hasn’t cut its Vision Pro production estimates in half

Quite a few news outlets are reporting that Apple thinks it’s only going to sell 400,000 to 450,000 Vision Pros in 2024, compared a “market consensus” of 700,000 to 800,000. They’re all citing a note from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Obviously there’s no question that Apple’s $3,500 face computer will have a limited audience and could be a huge flop, but this also doesn’t seem like accurate news.

The issue is that 1) this 400,000 number isn’t new. Back in July of 2023, the Financial Times reported that Apple planned to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024, reducing its initial projections of 1M units, citing two people close to Apple and, the Chinese contract manufacturer assembling the device. 2) It's unclear who was estimating 700,000-800,000 Vision Pros in the first place, but it appears that it was Ming-Chi Kuo himself?

Apple reportedly cuts Vision Pro production due to low demand

Seriously, relax

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Gonna have to rename the company... again

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Chipotle continues to go on a tear, hitting a sales record

Hey it might not be the kind of AI stock investors are all hot and bothered over, but don’t sleep on the burrito business.

Chipotle posted much better-than-expected results on Wednesday, with sales rising 14% to a record $2.70B in the first quarter, which is like a billion additions of guac.

Profits jumped 23% to $359M.

Chipotle has quietly cruised higher over the last year. It’s up 63%, compared to the 24.5% gain for the S&P 500 over the 12 months through Wednesday’s close. Not bad for a rice-and-beans based business model.

Rani Molla

4/24/24

Facebook had great earnings, the market hates it

Facebook reported impressive earnings. Record first-quarter revenue thanks to AI! Profit up 117% compared to a year earlier! But at the same time, its capital expenditures are going up and it’s expecting second quarter revenue potentially lower than analyst estimates. So in other words, the future doesn’t look as bright as the present.

All in all the stock is down more than 10%. (Basically the opposite of what happened with Tesla yesterday).

Net net

4/24/24

Earnings can’t stop, won’t stop

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Why Tesla investors are holding on to hope for a cheap car

Despite terrible earnings numbers last night — declining vehicle sales, disappointing revenue and profit, enormous spending — Tesla stock is up more than 10% as of midday. That’s a welcome move for the car company, that’s been among the worst performers this year in the S&P 500.

Why the about face?

While Reuters reported earlier this month that Tesla is no longer making its long-awaited $25,000 mass-market car — news sent the stock, already suffering from headwinds across the EV industry, down even further— Tesla reported during its earnings that it’s going to make cheaper cars than it currently has.

Before the second half of next year, Tesla said it will release “more affordable models” that “will utilize aspects of the next generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms, and will be able to be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle line-up.”

So rather than release the $25,000 Model 2, Tesla is incorporating some of that technology into its existing models. UBS called it the Franken-3Y2.