Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 09/23 – Are DAO’s NOT A Liability Shield?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Friday, September 23rd, 2022. I'm Brian McCullough today. If Dow's are a modern blockchain take on the corporation, I've got a big, worrying thing to tell you about them.

Starting point is 00:00:46 Apple looks to cozy up to the NFL as Amazon seems to have found immediate success with Thursday night football. Fitbit takes a page out of the Oculus Playbook, post-acquisition, and of course, the weekend long-read suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has fined blockchain protocol B0X and its team $250,000 for illegal off-exchange digital asset trading and has filed a civil action against its successor, the Uki Dow. Now, before your eyes roll back in your head because you're like, Brian, is this another crypto story that's just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, can't even follow it, whatever. let me tell you that this is actually a pretty big deal because you know how people form corporations because one of the benefits of corporations is you're shielded from personal legal liability. Well, a Dow is like a corporation on the blockchain, right?

Starting point is 00:01:48 But the CFTC has effectively said Dow's are not a way to displace or avoid legal liability. Quoting Robert Brighton on Twitter, remember when Dow folks were making very poor choices and we were all wondering if every token holder was in an unregistered partnership with joint and severe liability? Well, CFTC appears to think that is how Dow's work, too, end quote. Quoting from Coin Desk. The order penalizes the protocol and its founders Tom Bean and Kyle Kistner, $250,000 for offering illegal off-exchange trading of digital assets, registration violations, and

Starting point is 00:02:26 neglecting to adopt a customer ID program required by the Bank Security Act Compliance Program. The CFTC has simultaneously filed a civil enforcement action charging the Uki Dow, the successor to B0X with violating the same laws as B0X. It seeks restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans and injunctions against further violations. Commissioner Summer Mercinger opposed the action, however, saying she was disappointed the commission chose to act. Quote, this approach constitutes blatant regulation by enforcement by setting policy based on new definitions, and standards never before articulated by the commission or its staff nor put out for public comment. She said, we cannot arbitrarily decide who is accountable for those violations based on an unsupported legal theory amounting to regulation by enforcement while federal and state policy

Starting point is 00:03:16 is developing, Mersinger said in a statement explaining her dissent, end quote. Yeah, if I'm reading this right, the complaint actually seeks to bar all of the token holders in the Dow who voted as a part of the Dow from ever again participating in. in the commodities market. Folks in crypto are absolutely apoplectic about this, quoting Jake Chervinsky on Twitter, the CFTC's BZX enforcement action may be the most egregious example of regulation by enforcement in the history of crypto. We've complained at length about the SEC abusing this tactic, but the CFTC has put them to shame. It's deeply disappointing to see the CFTC damage its own reputation like this among those who care about the future of crypto in

Starting point is 00:03:59 the United States, especially at a critical moment when it pitches itself in Congress as the right agency to regulate digital commodity trades, end quote. Apple has signed a multi-year NFL deal to have Apple Music replace Pepsi as the main sponsor for the Super Bowl halftime show. Sources say the NFL was seeking around $50 million for such a main sponsor slot, but there's much more apparently going on behind the scenes with Apple and the NFL, quoting the New York Times. Becoming the primary sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show is a departure for Apple. The company has prided itself on marketing its brand differently than consumer goods

Starting point is 00:04:44 companies such as Coca-Cola, Budweiser, and McDonald's, which have long histories of supporting sports and cultural events. This all comes as talks between the National Football League and Apple over a package of Sunday football games have dragged, as the league and the tech giant have wrangled over pricing, but another deal has been added to the mix. this sponsorship of the Super Bowl halftime show. The NFL has been seeking as much as two and a half billion dollars for rights to NFL Sunday ticket, about $1 billion more than what it collects from its current provider direct TV. As the side squabble over a rights fee that high,

Starting point is 00:05:17 Apple has agreed to be the main sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show, the league and the company said late Thursday night. They did not disclose the terms of the deal. Last year, the league cut a string of traditional broadcast agreements with CBS, ESPN, Fox, and NBC for its highest-profile games, but it reserved two packages for tech companies that it considered to be the sports programmers of tomorrow. It struck an 11-year, $13 billion deal with Amazon to stream Thursday night games, and it announced that it would sell its Sunday ticket to a streaming service. Though the NFL has discussed Sunday ticket with Google, Amazon, and ESPN, its most extensive negotiations have been with Apple. Executives at both the league and the tech giant have told business

Starting point is 00:05:56 partners that they expect to get a deal done, according to the people familiar with the negotiations. talks have been complicated by the NFL's decision to sell several assets simultaneously, including Sunday ticket, the halftime show, and NFL media properties such as NFL Network and the Red Zone channel, end quote. So remember, this all comes as Nielsen says, Amazon's prime video first Thursday night football game got an average 13.03 million viewers. Amazon actually claims 15.3 million viewers, and that was after they had guaranteed advertisers that the broadcast would receive at least two and a half million viewers, quoting the Hollywood reporter. The September 15th contest was up by 47% over Thursday night football's opener last season,

Starting point is 00:06:43 8.84 million viewers on NFL network and digital platforms. Amazon's own metrics, which include more detailed information about viewers watching via Prime Video, and across all types of devices, put the audience for Thursday Night Football at 15.3 million. The game also had several alternative streams, including one on Amazon's Twitch platform. average viewer age for Thursday night football was 46 compared to 53 for the first two weeks of games on broadcasts and cable outlets. The game's 4.25 rating among adults ages 18 to 34 was the best for any NFL game in the first two weeks of the season, end quote. Also, there is some indication that basically Amazon was able to get 60 to 70 percent of the total broadcast

Starting point is 00:07:27 of a traditional NFL game full stop, at least in the year of Our Lord 2022. And as someone pointed out on Twitter, getting 60% or more of the audience of a legacy broadcast in your very first try, that's pretty eyebrow-raising good. You got to figure it's only going to go up from here. Google does, well, not Google Things this time, but maybe Meta-Things. Fitbit apparently plans to require a Google account for its new devices and features beginning next year. Fitbit account users can keep using their Fitbit accounts at least until early 2025. Quoting 9 to 5 Google. With the launch of Fitbit's latest devices, Fitbit by Google branding was

Starting point is 00:08:13 introduced. The Sense 2 and Versa 2 already have a UI modeled after WearOS 3, but the integration is getting deeper from 2023 onward when Google accounts will be required to use Fitbit. At the moment, quote, Fitbit continues to provide its products and services separately from Google, and a Fitbit account is required to use the app and devices, smartwatches, fitness trackers, and scale. However, Fitbit will, quote, enable use of Fitbit with a Google account sometime in 2023. Several benefits are being touted, with security being notable for something as sensitive as health and fitness data. Fitbit currently maintains its own login system with two-factor authentication done over SMS.

Starting point is 00:08:50 There is also already a sign-in with Google option and Fitbit removed the Facebook equivalent last year. This change encompasses more than sign-in processes and consolidation to one set of credentials, though. After the change occurs next year, quote, some uses of Fitbit will require a Google account including to sign up for Fitbit or activate newly released Fitbit devices and features, end quote. The latter is notable in the context of Fitbit working on a Premium WearOS 3 watch. New customers will have to use a Google account from next year on while gating features to the new backend is similar to the Nest app slash account to Google Home transition. Once the change is live, there will be an option to move Fitbit to your Google account, while existing users can continue

Starting point is 00:09:34 using their non-Google Fitbit accounts until at least early 2025. However, again, these users won't be able to use new devices or health features until they migrate over. Some time in 2025, a quote, Google account will be required to use Fitbit, end quote. More details are coming next year. Time for the weekend long read suggestions. First up, I didn't share with you this week's reviews of the new Apple AirPods, because I didn't think there was enough new there to warrant much talking about. But from Bloomberg, a look at how I mentioned yesterday, Apple can really take a niche market and blow it out. How does Apple's success with AirPods give us clues maybe to their strategy for the forthcoming VR headset? Quote, while everyone has been used,

Starting point is 00:10:25 yawning over the last few new phones. Apple CEO Tim Cook has quietly created arguably the tech industry's biggest success story of the past decade. AirPods. Those weird little ear dongles are both a punchline and everywhere. The latest version, a $249 model slated to hit shelves on September 23rd, made only a brief appearance at the most recent iPhone unveiling. More than anything else, Apple sells, however, they illustrate why the company has prospered so much under Cook and why it's unlikely to see real challengers anytime soon. Apple doesn't disclose sales of its headphones. its quarterly filings lump AirPods in with its watches, home speakers, and other accessories. But outside analysts say it sold 120 million or so pairs just in 2021.

Starting point is 00:11:07 IDC and Bloomberg intelligence estimates suggest that AirPods account for roughly half of sales of what Apple calls wearables, home, and accessories its fastest growing line of business. From 2016 to 2021, sales in this category rose by 245% to $38 billion. Piper Sandler, the investment bank, estimates that three and four U.S. teens own AirPods. Apple has set the standard for wireless headphones and turned a free pack-in accessory into a $200 must-buy. Of course, AirPods aren't really a standalone product. They're an extension of Cook's larger project, a mutually dependent ecosystem of hardware, software, and services that keeps customers spending more all the time, end quote. Then the Times has a big look at a lithium mine in Quebec. I've been seeing stories this week

Starting point is 00:11:57 suggesting that lithium prices have apparently exploded this year, and this article is a good deep dive into the challenges presented by the underlying materials that will make or break not only the electric car revolution, but the tech industry itself. Quote, having more mines will also help contain the price of lithium, which has soared five-fold since mid-2020. pushing the cost of electric vehicles so high that they are out of reach for many drivers. The average new electric car in the United States costs about $66,000, just a few thousand dollars short of the median household income last year. Dozens of lithium mines are in various stages of development in Canada and the United States. Canada has made it a mission to become a major source of raw materials and components for electric vehicles,

Starting point is 00:12:41 but most of these projects are years away from production. Even if they are able to raise the billions of dollars needed to get going, there is no guarantee they will yield enough lithium to meet the continent's needs, end quote. And our friends at rest of world have a piece looking at how the cheap clothing revolution known as Sheehan is leading to an explosion of unauthorized boutiques around the world. All over Mexico, particularly in working class areas, entrepreneurs are capitalizing on Sheean's cult-like following in the country, despite the company not having any official permanent physical stores. They have built a network of shops. dedicated to bulk buying, warehousing, and selling Shian products. By gaming a competitive fast-fashioned e-commerce industry that has put traditional retailers out of business worldwide,

Starting point is 00:13:27 Mexico's Shian boutiques are capitalizing on the lack of trust in digital businesses and low connectivity rates in large parts of the country. Four Shian boutique in-store customers in the states of Puebla and Oksaca told rest of world why they prefer the in-store experience, even with the hassle of adding an extra step to an already streamlined delivery service. When in doubt about a particular item, or when having to deal with issues with a purchase, they all preferred to deal with a human rather than a faceless app, end quote. From Bloomberg, since Figma has been all over the news of late, how about a profile of Figma founder Dylan Field, who did you know this? Quote, Dylan Field dropped out of an Ivy League school in 2012 to take a grant from the billionaire Peter Thiel and start a software company called Figma. A decade later, Field's stake in the company is now. worth over $2 billion. This week's sale of Figma to Adobe for $20 billion makes Field, age 30,

Starting point is 00:14:23 by far the wealthiest person to go through the Teal Fellowship. The controversial program was designed by the PayPal co-founder to undermine the value of traditional education by encouraging young adults to leave college and start companies with $100,000 grants. Field is a rare example of when a gamble like that pays off, end quote. And finally, from the Wall Street Journal, It's not just me and my 40-year-old ears. It's apparently everyone, even the kids. Quote, more viewers, especially younger ones, are using tools that transcribe dialogue in the content they're watching online from Netflix movies to TikTok videos. This isn't just about watching Squid Game in Korean with English subtitles. Close captions, which display text in the same language as the

Starting point is 00:15:07 original audio, have been crucial for a long time for many people with hearing loss. They're now a must-have for plenty of people without hearing loss too, helping them better understand the audio or allowing them to multitask. Recent surveys suggest that younger generations are viewing content with captions on more than older generations, despite reporting fewer hearing problems. In a May survey of about 1,200 Americans, 70% of adult Gen Z respondents, ages 18 to 25, and 53% of millennial respondents, up to the age of 41, said they watch content with text most of the time. That's compared with slightly more than a third of older respondents, according to the report commissioned by language teaching app preply.

Starting point is 00:15:50 I can't think of a time in the past couple of months or years that I haven't had subtitles or captions on, says 23-year-old I am Kepaknan, who creates his own comedy videos. While he doesn't have any hearing issues, he says it helps him focus on what's happening on screen, even with the sound on, end quote. Okay, so if it's not just me in my old ears, hey Hollywood, maybe you really are the problem here. Can we, I don't know, bring dialogue more to the front in basically everything? Okay, the weekend bonus episode this week is another portfolio profile episode. Longtime listeners to this show will know that it's been a bit of a bugaboo of mine. Why hasn't AR taken off yet

Starting point is 00:16:41 at things like construction sites and manufacturing sites, factories and the like? Seems to be such obvious use case for this tech. Well, I found a company doing exactly what I always imagined should be happening, especially on construction sites, and they're doing it right now today. Extremely interesting company. I'm interested in the space, of course, because as you know, my wife is an architect. Thanks to the kind words from all of you yesterday about our 10-year wedding anniversary, she surprised me with Hamilton tickets. So I was traipsing through Times Square yesterday for the first time in about five years. She actually works in Times Square because she works primarily on Broadway theaters, but you might know that if you're on TikTok, because a few weeks

Starting point is 00:17:23 ago, when she was walking to work, she almost tripped and fell stepping up onto a curb. A stranger had to catch her to keep her from falling over, and guess what? It turns out some tourists was there capturing the whole thing on video, and they later uploaded it to TikTok. That video has been viewed 7.1 million times, has gotten 700,000 likes, 1930 comments, and 18,000 bookmarks. So if you've seen that video, yeah, that's her. It's been weird to watch something go viral, especially because, you know, she hasn't been thrilled that it went viral, that so many people have seen this slightly embarrassing moment in her life, but there's nothing she can do about it. And that's the thing that I never really internalized before.

Starting point is 00:18:08 The lack of control when things go viral, feeling like this thing is out there in the world about you and there's nothing you can do about it. Funny, I've been trying to make things go viral on purpose for years, but I never thought to just trip on a curb in Times Square. Talk to you on Monday.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Fri. 09/23 – Are DAO’s NOT A Liability Shield?

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