Nuggies: Your Snapchat Memories Could Be Worth Millions
Thursday, January 21st, 2020
Welcome to the thirty-third edition of Nuggies, an email newsletter that aggregates articles and commentary on business, economics, startups, and more, in bite-sized nuggets sent right to your email weekly. Created by and for college students.
Our quote of the week comes from PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, “The biggest secret in venture capital is that the best investment in a successful fund equals or outperforms the entire rest of the fund combined.”
This Week’s Articles:
The Unauthorized Story of Andreessen Horowitz, Newcomer
Top-tier venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz (often stylized as a16z) is known for disrupting the venture capital industry by aggressively outbidding competitors and offering more value-add services for entrepreneurs. This piece reframes a16z’s strategy around how the firm crafts a dominant media presence.
About 10% of the firm’s 200 employees work in marketing. So far, they have produced many successful podcasts are a dominating many conversations on Clubhouse, an audio startup in which they invested. This week, recent news broke that a16z will launch their own opinion publication in an effort to double down on their media strategy.
Read it here
What does Plaid do?, Technically
This week, Visa’s impending $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid, a financial data startup, was called off due to anti-trust concerns. Despite this, Plaid’s future remains bright.
This article explains how Plaid works and the complicated problems it solves as well as why it may be more successful as an independent company. If you’re someone who enjoys clear explanations of technical concepts, it’s a great read.
Read it here
Snapchat Wants You to Post. It’s Willing to Pay Millions., The New York Times
TikTok opened the door to creators monetizing directly from their platform. Snapchat, in an effort to boost its TikTok competitor, Spotlight might just be starting a bidding war. Some creators, who are still in high school, have made millions.
Read it here
This Week’s Tweets:
This Week’s Wildcard (an extra, interesting nugget):
Here is a list of the stocks with the most short interest since 7/31/2020 (most interest from people betting agains the stock) with their returns on the right. Notice, despite the huge amount of people betting against the stocks, they have, in most cases, wildly outperformed.
This Week’s Question:
Many invested in Apple before they released the iPhone, one of the best selling products ever. What are some companies today that you could invest in today who have the potential to release the next iPhone?
What are we listening to this week?:
This week we’re switching it up a bit with Slow Train Coming, the 1979 Bob Dylan classic. There’s an easy, laid back groove that flows through the album which is still filled with Dylan’s trademark poetic, timeless commentary on the world around us.
Thank you for reading! Nuggies is created by Thomas Pero and Spencer Koehl, two undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame.
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