Substack announced its new iOS app that looks a lot like... every other news app. I thought this was a tool for writers to sell email newsletter subscriptions?

There are a lot of great business lessons embedded in their strategy, which is perhaps the hardest kind there is: B2B2C.

Also, I briefly touch on Apple's new product releases and the Biden administration's latest executive order on crypto.

– PC

Links

Introducing the Substack app

Apple unveils all-new Mac Studio and Studio Display

Biden Takes Step Toward Regulating Cryptocurrencies

Donate to Ukraine

A step-by-step guide for a new crypto user to donate to Ukraine

Flags of Freedom– My first NFT project, 100% of proceeds to Ukraine

Flags of Freedom on OpenSea

Disclaimers and Disclosures

This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

The war in Ukraine is an atrocity, and it has been a long time since there was a military invasion in Europe. There are a lot of interesting ways that internet technology is playing an outsized role in this modern age. Live images and video on social media, propaganda campaigns, and as we will discuss in this episode– the benefits of decentralized tech are being put into practice in this conflict.

Ukraine is soliciting donations in cryptocurrency, SpaceX is delivering internet connectivity via a distributed satellite network. And it has only been a week.

I have also launched an NFT project to raise money for Ukraine and a guide for donating crypto. Please consider giving. Links below.

– PC

Links

A step-by-step guide for a new crypto user to donate to Ukraine

Flags of Freedom– My first NFT project, 100% of proceeds to Ukraine

Flags of Freedom on OpenSea

@Ukraine on Twitter

@elonmusk on Twitter

Mykhalio Fedorov

Starlink

Helium – Introducing The People's Network

Disclaimers and Disclosures

This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

Super Bowl LVI was chock-full of ads for cryptocurrency exchanges, reaching over 100 million people who were all wondering the same thing: "Should I be buying crypto? And also, what is crypto?"

I thought this would be a good excuse to do a cryptocurrency 101 episode. What is a blockchain? What are cryptocurrencies? What is Bitcoin? What is Ethereum? Spoiler– I spend a lot of time on Ethereum. First, because it's awesome. But also, because it's a good example of how cryptocurrencies are often associated with a rich underlying project or business. (Bitcoin isn't, which actually seems to be the exception, not the rule.)

I recorded even more but ended up cutting out a bunch. It's just too much info for one ep! I am positive this will not be the last crypto/web3 related episode of this season, so hopefully this will give you enough of a baseline to have some deeper conversations as we go.

– PC

Links

YouTube: Coinbase Super Bowl Commercial

YouTube: Don't Miss Out on Crypto: Larry David FTX Commercial

YouTube: The Moment of Truth | Crypto.com

YouTube: eToro’s Big Game Ad: Flying Your Way

Disclaimers and Disclosures

I hold $BTC, $ETH, and other cryptocurrencies. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

To kick off Season 3 we did our first ever live recording, in front of the classroom of my Intro to Product Management class at Columbia Business School. We just set up a mic and went for it! Now everybody can have a taste of the classroom experience. 

I have to say, it was way more fun to record with a live audience of 80 students, in a big beautiful room at our new Manhattanville campus, instead of by myself, in a small office. 

We talked about Meta's record stock drop, Amazon's record gain, Apple's intense defending of its fully integrated stack, and how all three companies are trying to achieve verticalization, at scale.

Thank you to the students who helped to make this a successful experiment. Season 3 is off with a bang!

– PC

Links

Meta’s market value plunges by $230 billion in one day

Amazon surges with record $190 billion gain in value

Amazon has a $31 billion a year advertising business

Facebook Feels $10 Billion Sting From Apple’s Privacy Push

Our new classroom

Disclaimer

I hold $AAPL and $AMZN. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

We review these last 12 insane months, drawing out a central theme: community. Again and again, we saw examples of collaboration via digital tools to accomplish things in the physical world.

A lot to think about as we head into 2022...

And also, thanks for listening to the first year of Tech News for MBAs!

– PC

Disclaimer

This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

Netflix, Venmo, and Roomba were all down for hours on Tuesday. Why? Because they all use Amazon Web Services. We are incredibly reliant on just a small handful of solutions to power our entire society. Is that a smart idea? What if the web3/decentralized crowd have a point... 

+ Some thoughts on Instagram's Senate hearing.

– PC

Links

Lawmakers urge the head of Instagram to better protect children.

An Amazon server outage caused problems for Alexa, Ring, Disney Plus, and deliveries

Disclaimer

I hold $AMZN. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

We are going deep down the web3 rabbithole this week with a bizarre tale of anonymous strangers raising almost $50 million to buy a physical copy of the US Constitution, only to be outbid by an internet villain, and then in the end lots of people make a lot of money, completely accidentally.

I'll tell you the whole story through my own experience, where in the last few weeks I made a 50x return in crypto without even knowing I was investing in the first place. 🤔💸

– PC

Subscribe to my free newsletter Hypothetically Great

Links

@jack on Twitter

Square, Inc. Changes Name to Block

ConstitutionDAO

NY Times: They Love Crypto. They’re Trying to Buy the Constitution.

Hypothetically Great: How I made $10,000 out of thin air a.k.a. incentives in web3

Disclaimers

I hold $TWTR, $SQ, and $PEOPLE. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

How the times have changed! It used to be you couldn't raise a seed round without some traction– now you can go public. Rivian, the company creating "electric adventure vehicles", just had one of the biggest public offerings in history. We will dive into how a company that doesn't even have a business yet could be valued at over $100 billion, electric vehicles generally, and the macro trends around speculative trading.

– PC

Links

Rivian announces pricing of upsized initial public offering

Disclaimers

I hold $TSLA and $LCID. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

This is a Hypothetically Great podcast.

Oh Twitter, my beloved Twitter. User growth has almost stalled, but revenue growth is still going strong– and now, for the first time, a major social network has a SaaS subscription product available to its users. Twitter Blue is $2.99/mo and represents not only a new revenue channel for Twitter, but perhaps a new model for social products altogether.

Also, we'll kick things off with a bunch of metaverse-related announcements from this week.

– PC

Links

Introducing Twitter Blue - Twitter’s first-ever subscription offering

Microsoft Teams enters the metaverse race with 3D avatars and immersive meetings

Niantic Opens Lightship Platform Globally, Empowering Developers to Build Their Visions for the Real-World Metaverse

As Nvidia pushes for leadership in metaverse, here’s everything it announced at GTC 2021

Qualcomm launches new AR dev kit, acquires Clay AIR

Disclaimers

I hold $TWTR and $NVDA. This content is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not financial advice.

This is a Hypothetically Great podcast.

My favorite shoe brand IPOed this week to much fanfare, and its success says a lot about the state of enabling technology platforms like Shopify, which Allbirds is built upon.

We also breeze through a couple of other headlines about the new laser eyed major of NYC and Airbnb's blowout quarter. And, I couldn't help myself, so I had a couple more things to say about Meta.

– PC 

Links:

Eric Adams on Twitter

Airbnb Announces Third Quarter 2021 Results

Yahoo Finance: Allbirds surges 90% on IPO day