Good Morning!

Happy Friday Market Byters 🌞 

Today’s article is brought to you by: 90% human and 10% AI 

Market Update

📈 Stock had a strong showing Thursday, breaking even from its sharp decline on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve announced its hiking rates 0.25%.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin us up 70% YTD? More below.

🟢 Netflix was up 9% yesterday on reports of strong early results for its ad-supported business.

🔴 Charles Schwab fell 6% as liquidity concerns for the broker have become a primary focus.

Banger Tweet of the Day

Context can be found in the “Business Bytes” section.

Netflix Is Bouncing Back

Netflix stock jumped 9% yesterday as the strategic bets the company is making are showing positive signs of success.

Ad-Business: Netflix's low-cost, ad-supported tier hit 1 million subscribers just 2 months after launch. Even better, the company commented that the new offering isn’t cannibalizing its existing subscription offerings.

Netflix also mentioned they are considering shifting away from Microsoft as their ad-provider, and would look to build the ad-infrastructure in-house.

These are big moves for the company who seemed to have nothing figured out just months before they committed to releasing the ad-tier. Maybe they were playing dumb.

Mobile Gaming: The streaming giant is also investing in mobile gaming, you know, so users can fill their time with games when they aren’t watching shitty movies.

Netflix plans to have a lineup of 95 games shipped by the end of 2023.

Password Crackdown: Netflix’s efforts to crack down on password-sharing still remain TBD. People initially flocked to social media to complain about the idea, but I imagine most of us will get over it and pay for a subscription. Probably the ad-tier.

Business Bytes

🏦 TikTok Fight Rocks U.S. China Relations (WSJ)

• TikTok’s CEO stood in front of US Lawmakers who peppered him with tough questions about the future of TikTok.

• Beijing said it would fight any U.S. attempt to force the company’s sale by its Chinese owners.

• “The TikTok battles are indicative of the end of an era … “This era where U.S.-China business relations can continue absent considerations of geopolitics is over.”

• Let’s not forget that China has had both Google and Facebook banned for a long time.

📉 Jack Dorsey’s Company Block / CashApp is down 15% after Short-seller fund Hindenburg releases short report (CNBC)

• Hindenburg is short Cash App, claiming they facilitate crime and fraud, and lack any sort of compliance

• They also dropped a minute long video of rappers mentioning they use Cash App to pay shooters. It’s pretty fire. You should watch.

🏢 OpenAI connects chatGPT to the Internet (Techcrunch)

• OpenAI launched plugins for ChatGPT, giving it access to third-party knowledge sources and databases.

• One example is OpenAI’s first-party web-browsing plugin, giving the application the ability to retrieve data from around the internet to answer questions its posed.

  • Previously the app was limited to data from before September 2021.

• Our jobs are going to be irrelevant pretty soon here aren’t they?

🤖 A 16 month old startup with no revenue is now a $1 billion Unicorn (WSJ)

• Character.AI, A 16-month-old chatbot startup is now a $1 billion unicorn after raising $150 million in a new round led by A16Z.

• Character.AI allows users to create and interact with chatbots that role-play as characters or as famous people.

• The company said it gets nearly 100 million visitors a month to its website.

✂️ Accenture Trims Forecast, Cuts 19,000 jobs as IT spending Slows (Reuters)

🚕 Ford Says It Will Lose $3 Billion on EVs This Year as It Touts Startup Mentality (WSJ)

• Tesla is so far ahead of everyone else.

• The massive losses show how tough it can be for companies to pivot their business model in a profitable manner. Tesla is EV-native, whereas legacy automakers have to rebuild their entire infrastructure to move to EV.

• Not to mention, there’s plenty of managers within the company who’s paycheck depends on internal-combustion-engines sticking around a little bit longer.

Bitcoin Is Boomin’ after Balaji Bet

Balaji Srinivasan — tech founder, bestselling author, & former Coinbase CTO —bet $2 million that Bitcoin will hit $1 million in 90 DAYS.

Why: Balaji believes the US dollar will enter a point of rapid hyperinflation, leading to a global economy that "redenominates on Bitcoin as digital gold".

Balaji has been a strong proponent of exiting the US monetary system and moving your money into crypto, but has gotten much louder since the recent banking crisis:

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is pumping HEAVY. It’s up 70% ytd and 40% since March 10th, the day SVB went bye bye.

Today’s Challenge: Tell someone you love ‘em.

Thanks for reading, go out and make today a great one! 🫡 

Much Love,

Andrew