Goood afternoon everyone!! I hope you are all doing well.
Quote of the Week:
“As she lost consciousness of outer things … her mind kept throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names, and sayings, and memories and ideas, like a fountain spurting.”
— Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
This Week’s Thoughts:
On Innovation.
1. Metaverse
Apple’s reveal of an immersive 3D digital work proved the developments for the metaverse disappointing. Google and Microsoft’s conferences notably lacked efforts to stun. The former only showed a simple translation app which allowed subtitles to be seen when someone speak in a foreign language. All evidence points to a belief that the technology remains nascent.
There are two major questions surrounding the metaverse. The first of which concerns the manufacturing of a headset wearable for long periods of time.
Hardware development takes time. Google developed “Glass” a decade ago, 8 years ago, Facebook unveiled “Oculus”, and 7 years ago, Microsoft brought “HoloLens” to the market. Nonetheless, none of them has forged a clear path of where visual-first computing is headed.
Second, the “metaverse” itself is still an abstract concept with no clear definition on what it involves and what needs the software will serve. There have only been scattered suggestions of use for entertainment, displaying digital information over the physical world, and interaction with human-like avatars. Any other attempts at a definition have only sounded like vague pipe-dreams.
Google learned that it was vain to push developers too soon towards a half-baked vision in 2012 with Glass. They openly invited developers to begin building, and soon went down a path of wasted effort; while coming no closer to revealing a feature of augmented reality.
Meta is currently promoting full immersion in VR, but the mass market still finds a VR business meeting with avatars banal and creepy.
Microsoft is the only one that has made an attempt to focus the use of their technology. Specifically, on corporate applications for the creation of “digital twins” of office buildings or manufacturing processes —which could help businesses model the effect of change.
For the average person, these technologies still fail to articulate their value proposition and target market.
2. Crypto/Web3
Adam Newman—infamous founder of WeWork—has now decided to try and whoo investors a second time by his new venture in Web3: Flowcarbon.
With the sale of its “Goddess Nature Token,” the startup has enticed a $70 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz. GNT represents third-party verified carbon offsets and indicates an amount of carbon a company has either reduced from, or prevented from being added, to the atmosphere. These offsets can be created by—for example—growing forests or refusing to cut them down. GNTs allow these offsets to be recorded and visualised on the blockchain.
The demand for these offsets comes from corporations and governments’ efforts to curtail climate change. You know what this all reminds me of? China’s social credit system lol.
I think Chris Mims of the Wall Street Journal heard it best: “In the future, every company is a Ponzi scheme for 15 minutes.” I really need to stop reading the news. The more I do, the more bleak I get :/
Anyway, this seems like some weird combination of vanity ESG, Ponzi scheme and blockchain craze. Flowcarbon’s picked up every possible flashy 2022 label it can. Seems like a lot of people are trying to get in as well. They’ve got 5 bloody cofounders lmao.
There are many questions surrounding whether or not blockchain technology is the best fit for the problem they are trying to solve.
3. Blurb on startups
Technology is everywhere now. Software is everywhere. The fact that investors are easily seduced by any mention of “blockchain” in a business plan is evidence that everyone understands that it is. So much so, that this acknowledgement has become a substitute for true understanding of technology.
Also, I think everyone has got their thinking twisted. Like betting on optimistic technology leads to advantageous diversion if you’re the only one doing it. If everyone is, then it’s just popularised insanity. You’re not special.
Change is inevitable. But those who try to force it will only have their efforts greatly wasted.
To all this I say: https://every.to/p/the-boneyard-principle. The most successful companies are rarely the ones who came up with the flashiest ideas. They are the ones who respected the natural progression of things and built off of existing ideas and technology in a steady and realistic way.
If you look at the most optimistic founders, none of them understand the technology themselves. I think the real shame of the last century is that the default advice given to ambitious founders has been: “Get a technical co-founder,” instead of: “Become technical.” It has made everyone who is anyone think they can start a tech company, and misallocated valuable ambition into image-building instead of knowledge-building.
On Hiring.
These 4 competing forces are all contributing to companies’ efforts to readjust into a more realistic and sustainable growth model for the years to come:
1. The Great Resignation
Two-thirds of employers say that millennials have the highest churn rate among their employees. A third said Gen Z, those in their early to mid-20s were had the highest churn rate, and only 4% said Gen X—those in their 40s and 50s.
With high turnover rates internationally, companies are struggling with a problem driven partly by a post-pandemic unwillingness to spend life’s finite time suffering within an unfulfilling job.
2. Rising tech vacancies
Amid the continued uncertainty, tech firms are reacting in differing ways. Some have not made such deep cuts and maintained levels of recruitment. There is still high demand for cyber security expertise, development and operations.
Fidelity is planning to double their head count this year ahead of predicted rise in demand for cryptocurrency during the market volatility. Part of an effort to build digital infrastructure for crypto services, they are hiring 110 tech workers including engineers and developers with blockchain expertise.
Online job postings indicate that tech vacancies have outpaced vacancies elsewhere.
Since early 2020, postings for software developers in the US have risen 120 percent. Recruitment sites like Indeed.com and ZipRecruiter indicate that the number of vacancies in tech are still strong, with 1.6 jobs to every unemployed person in the industry.
As many companies find it difficult to attract talent, employees have been soiled with large signing bonuses and big equity packages have become the norm. 36 percent of job postings in tech also offer the option to work remotely compared to just 12 percent in 2019.
While there are companies that are becoming more selective and scaling down a bit, others are recruiting as normal. This all means that even workers who had offers rescinded were henceforth overwhelmed with new recruiters. LinkedIn has often facilitated in this process.
3. Big Tech vs. Average Tech Jobs
It is easy for engineers to find “a” job, but a good one? Not so easy.
Most software engineering jobs come from unstable and unreliable startups. In this time of crisis, enduring tech companies are finding less trouble with recruitment. Previously needing to fight against startups overflown with capital, big tech’s roles are becoming more attractive.
4. Layoffs & slowing recruitment
On the other side of the coin, companies are rolling back due to decreasing pandemic-driven demand and crashing tech stocks. Robinhood, Pelaton, Netflix and Cameo are among those responding with layoffs.
Twitter and Coinbase went as far as rescinding recent job offers. Many who were ready to leave Wall Street firms and join Coinbase were among those impacted. The company’s cost-cutting efforts has been executed indiscriminately. More than 300 individuals affected have joined the talent hub they set up to soften the blow.
And Meta, Uber, Snap, Instacart and Lyft are examples of ones that turned to slowing recruitment.
Anyway, anyone read any Charles Dickson books? Which do you recommend I start with?
Seeya soon,
Angeline
Resources:
“Absolutely useless.” The Bloomberg Open, Europe Edition, Bloomberg, June 8, 2022.
“A hefty price.” The Bloomberg Close, Europe Edition, Bloomberg, June 9, 2022.
“CPI consternation.“ The Bloomberg Open, Europe Edition, Bloomberg, June 10, 2022.
“End of an era.” The Bloomberg Close, Europe Edition, Bloomberg, June 9, 2022.
“Musk’s secretive backer.” The Bloomberg Open, Europe Edition, Bloomberg, June 9, 2022.
Bhattacharyya, Suman. “Fidelity’s Crypto-Focused Business Plans Tech Hiring Spree.” CIO Journal, The Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2022.
Chafkin, Max. “Sheryl Sandberg’s Legacy Is an Internet of Target, Automated Ads.” Technology, Businessweek, Bloomberg UK, Bloomberg, June 7, 2022.
Lee, Dave. “How bad is Big Tech’s hiring freeze?” Big tech, The Financial Times, June 10, 2022.
Levine, Matt. “Elon Will Read the Tweets.” Money Stuff, Bloomberg Opinion, Bloomberg, June 9, 2022.
Levine, Matt. “Retail Trading Is About to Change.” Money Stuff, Bloomberg Opinion, Bloomberg, June 7, 2022.
Loten, Angus. “Meta Shakes Up AI Unit Amid Drive for Growth.” CIO Journal, The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2022.
McKinnon, John D. & Tracy, Ryan & Day, Chad. “Big Tech Has Spent $36 Million on Ads to Torpedo Antitrust Bill.” Business, The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2022.
Mims, Christopher. “Adam Neumann’s ‘Goddess Nature Token’ Is the Future of Crypto —for Better of Worse.“ The Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2022.
Mims, Christopher. “The Tech Crash Could Be a Talent Bonanza for Big Tech.” The Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2022.
Murphy, Hannah & Criddle, Cristina. “Facebook owner Meta dives into NFT digital collectibles craze.” Meta Platforms, The Financial Times, January 20, 2022.
Sorkin, Andrew Ross. “Billionaires, Biden and chips.” DealBook, The New York Times, June 9, 2022.
Sorkin, Andrew Ross. “Rewriting Wall Street’s rulebook.” DealBook, The New York Times, June 8, 2022.
Thomas, Zoe & Mims, Christopher. “WeWork Founder Looks For Next Chapter in Web3.” Tech News Briefing, WSJ Podcasts, The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2022.
Waters, Richard. “Big Tech tiptoes to the metaverse.” Inside Business, The Financial Times, June 9, 2022.