Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 10/21 – PayPal To Buy Pinterest? Why?

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 TechMeme right home for Thursday, October 21st, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. PayPal wants to buy Pinterest and everybody is trying to figure out why. Devs, you can now begin testing Android apps on Windows 11. G gamers, you can now do some powerful gaming for the low, low price of $100 a month, some just spectacularly monster raises in the crypto space, and I get talked out of the Microsoft Surface Duo once again. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. sources are telling Bloomberg that PayPal has approached Pinterest about an acquisition, potentially valuing it in the $45 billion range.

Starting point is 00:01:16 Pinterest stock had dropped 16% over the course of this year, but was up 10% yesterday on the news. Notably, PayPal's stock was down, so their investors don't seem to like this news, quoting Bloomberg. A deal for Pinterest would be PayPal's biggest ever acquisition, topping its $4 billion purchase of price comparison app Honey Science Corp last year. Under Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman, the company has set its sights on becoming a one-stop shop for all things shopping and finance akin to China's AliPay or WeChat. PayPal plans to add a bevy of new services to its revamped app, including high-yield savings accounts, check-cashing services, and stock investing capabilities.

Starting point is 00:02:00 At roughly $45 billion, an announced deal would push 2021 over the line to become the business easiest every year for mergers and acquisitions topping 2007's record tally. A boom in online shopping has helped PayPal stock more than double since the start of the year, giving the company a strong currency it could use for acquisitions. The shares fell 4.9% on Wednesday valuing PayPal at about $304 billion. PayPal's interest comes at a complicated time for Pinterest. The social media company announced this month that co-founder Evan Sharp, who oversaw its design and product teams, is stepping down. It's also been dealing with a number of accusations from former employees that Pinterest discriminated against female workers. Pinterest went public in a 2019 initial public offering, valuing the company at just over $10 billion.

Starting point is 00:02:48 Its shares closed up 13% at $62.68 yesterday, giving the company a market valuation of $40 billion. The deal would be a, quote, big swing for PayPal and would represent a meaningful entry into the advertising business, Ramsey L. Assal, an analyst at Barclays wrote in a note, end quote. Yeah, about that. I was listening to the TechCrunch Equity Podcast folks trying to puzzle this out last night, and the closest they could come to is that suggestion that we just read that PayPal is going for that super app strategy, and they feel like maybe for that strategy to be a reality, they need a content component. But this can't be about getting a direct relationship with consumers, right? Because more than anybody, PayPal already has that. I've also seen people speculate about how this makes sense in a world where Apple has severed the circle of ad attribution, though.

Starting point is 00:03:42 Quoting Elliot Turner on Twitter, They can sell merchants' access to customers rather than sell customer data to merchants while closing the entire loop on conversion all in an ATT compliant way. This is about servicing merchants plain and simple, end quote. At J.K. Wade tweeted that along with the Honey component and, of course, the PayPal, Venmo component, PayPal is basically building a deconstructed marketing funnel. Quote, this framework is notable in the context of Apple's app tracking transparency, ATT, which is starting to squeeze other ad networks. With these assets all under one PayPal umbrella, everything from ads to checkout would be

Starting point is 00:04:22 all on platform, end quote. Meanwhile, in the same space, Plaid has announced it has partnered with Square, Stripe, and others to help consumers and businesses make payments funded by their bank accounts. This comes, of course, after the high-profile acquisition of Plaid by Visa failed, as you might recall, quoting the journal. Plaid won't be directly involved in moving money as part of the new endeavor. For that, the company signed up dozens of payment processors and tech companies in North America and Europe, including Square, Stripe, Silicon Valley Bank, and SOFi Technologies Galileo Unit.

Starting point is 00:05:02 Those companies would then give their customers a pay-buy. bank option alongside other payment methods such as credit or debit cards. Plaid views its new program as a complement rather than a competitor to credit and debit card networks like Visa, said Paul Williamson, Plaid's head of revenue. Through Plaid and its partners, consumers and businesses could use their bank accounts for transactions that don't typically involve credit or debit cards, such as remittances or invoice payments. What we've been hearing from all our clients is we want to have a more diversified payment capability that Plaid can be an enabler for, Mr. Williamson said, end quote. Microsoft has begun letting Windows 11 beta testers try Android apps from the Amazon App Store,

Starting point is 00:05:52 starting with 50 apps including Kindle, Apple Music, and Signal, among others. Quoting The Verge. Apps can be downloaded through the Microsoft Store, which will list a variety of apps that then point toward the Amazon App Store to load and install. Android apps can run side by side with other Windows apps, and they're also integrated into Alt Plus tab and Task View, and you can pin them to the start menu or the taskbar. 50 apps is a tiny selection of the more than 3 million apps available on the Google Play Store, and even more so on the 600,000 apps, which are on Amazon's App Store.

Starting point is 00:06:28 It's not clear how many Android apps will be available. Once this feature is broadly launched for Windows 11, Microsoft has built a subsystem in Windows 11, enable Android app support. It includes the Linux kernel and an Android OS based on Android Open Source Project version 11. The subsystem runs in a Hyper V virtual machine like the Windows system for Linux, says Microsoft's Android apps on Windows 11 team. It understands how to map the runtime and APIs of apps in the AOSP environment to the Windows graphics layer, the memory buffers, the input modes, the physical and virtual devices, and the sensors, end quote. This subsystem supports AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm chips, and Microsoft has partnered with Intel to enable

Starting point is 00:07:11 ARM-only apps to run on AMD and Intel devices, end quote. By the way, Tom Warren also got an early look at Android app support on Windows 11, and he says the apps are nicely integrated, they run well, and installing them is simple, only requiring Amazon's App Store app. Link to his assessment is also in the show notes. Invidia's G-Force Now, cloud gaming service has added a $100 a month tier. For that money, you will get access to an RTX 3080 GPU hosted inside a bespoke SuperPod server, offering 1440P games at 120 frames per second, quoting Gizmodo. While most people are familiar with the RTX 3080 as being a powerful and often sold out,

Starting point is 00:08:03 GPU used to play PC games, Nvidia is now using one of its most powerful consumer GPUs to provide the company's game streaming servers with abundant performance for GForce Now users. In fact, Nvidia actually created an entirely new class of server to support G4S Now's upgraded capabilities. It's called the SuperPod, and it crams huge stacks of RTX3080 graphics cards

Starting point is 00:08:25 into a single unit. This configuration allows each GForses Now customer with an RTS 3080 membership to get access to a dedicated 3080 3080 GPU in the cloud, which provides a significant performance boost over existing GForce Now subscription tiers. Compared to a single RTX 3080 GPU, which features 8,704 kuda cores, NVIDIA says each superpod boasts a whopping 11,477,760 cores, which, when combined, delivers so much power, Nvidia says its SuperPod is, quote, the most powerful gaming supercomputer ever built, end quote.

Starting point is 00:09:04 Previously, Gforce Now's top-tier priority subscription offered performance that tops out at 1080p and 60 frames per second. But now, Nvidia's RTX-30 membership allows for game streaming at up to 1440p at 120 frames per second on Macs and PCs, or 4K HDR at 60 frames per second with 7.1 sound on Nvidia's Shield TV devices. You can also stream games via G4Now at 120 frames per second on mobile devices, assuming your phone or tablet has a high refresh rate display. On top of that, Nvidia says the added performance from its super pods is able to bring the total latency of G4Snow game streaming down to just 60 milliseconds, which Nvidia claims is similar to the kind of latency you'd get from a typical home console. And when compared to a home PC's, Nvidia says its RTX-30-M membership offers seven times better

Starting point is 00:09:55 performance than the most popular desktop configuration listed on Steam's hardware survey and 13 times better performance than an M1 MacBook Air, end quote. I'm going to do sort of a grab bag of three different crypto stories here. The first two are just like humongous raises. Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX raised a $420.69 million series B1 round at a $25 billion. billion dollar valuation from 69 investors, including BlackRock and Tiger Global. So get it, 420, 69. Insert Beavis and Butthead laugh here. It's a bit childish. But quoting Bloomberg, the latest capital raise for the company, which operates the FTX.com platform, comes just three months after an earlier round of financing valued it at $18 billion.

Starting point is 00:10:53 FTX was launched just two years ago, and it's grown to become a top five Bitcoin futures exchange by volume, according to skew.com, and is the second biggest crypto derivatives exchanged by 24-hour open interest, according to coin gecko.com. Its U.S. affiliate, FtX.U.S., has also posted strong growth metrics and is frequently found at top lists of the largest crypto exchanges in the country. FDX has been spending to make its name known in the sports world. It sponsors Major League Baseball, bought naming rights to the arena where the Miami Heat basketball team plays, and entered a long-term partnership with celebrity couple Tom Brady and Giselle Bunchin. That's raised the profile of the company as well as its founder, end quote.

Starting point is 00:11:37 Next for a big raise, sports NFT service Candy Digital, which is owned by SportsE Commerce Company Fanatics, has raised a $100 million Series A at a $1.5 billion valuation from Vision Fund 2 and others. So yeah, just another company that is a unicorn by its Series A, quoting, CNBC. Candy Digital launched last June in the middle of the sports NFT boom. Candy Digital will run its NFT products on the Ethereum blockchain and compete with Dapper Labs in the sports NFT space. In 2018, the Canada-based company leveraged digital collectibles by creating the National Basketball Association's product. Sales around NBA Top Shot skyrocketed last February, and earlier this month, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Dapper renewed licensing rights with the league. Dapper also lured the National

Starting point is 00:12:26 Football League. writes last September, and this after multiple raises led to dapper's valuation increasing to more than $7 billion. Meanwhile, Candy Digital is betting its exclusive Major League Baseball agreement will produce similar results. MLB gave Candy Digital its entire digital catalog. That means Candy Digital could leverage rare collectible NFTs of legends like Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson in the future. The company wants to build an NFT marketplace where users can buy, sell, trade, and store NFTs. Candy Digital would make money from transaction fees, end quote. And finally, not a big raise, but Pleaser Dow is a group of digital asset collectors, and they say that they

Starting point is 00:13:09 have created an NFT that will stand as an ownership deed for that Wu-Tang Clan, one-of-a-kind physical album that's been changing hands over the years, quoting the New York Times. Seven years ago, the Wu-Tang Clan's one-of-a-kind album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, was created as a protest against the devaluation of music in the digital era. Before long, it got caught up in a tale of capitalist villainy when it was purchased by Martin Shukrelli, the price-gouging young pharmaceutical speculator, who was later convicted of securities fraud. Now the album has found yet another life on the frontier of digital art and cryptocurrency, having been sold for $4 million to Pleaser Dow, a collective that has existed for less than a year

Starting point is 00:13:53 but has already built a reputation for acquiring high-profile digital works. In a complex deal with multiple parties, one of whom remains unidentified, pleaser Dow acquired once upon a time after its sale in July by the federal government, which had seized the album to satisfy the balance of a $7.4 million forfeiture money, judgment against Mr. Shukrelli that was part of his sentencing in 2018. Mr. Shukreli is still serving out a seven-year prison sentence. To tie once upon a time to the digital realm, an NFT was created to stand as the ownership deed for the physical album, said Peter Schoolage, a lawyer who specializes in cryptocurrency and NFT deals and was involved in the transaction. The 74 members of Pleaser Dow, the abbreviation in its name identifies it as a decentralized

Starting point is 00:14:37 autonomous organization, share collective ownership of the NFT deed and thus own the album. As the owners, they can listen to the... the 31 tracks on its two CDs, can ogle its engraved nickel-silver box, and leaf through the leather-bound parchment book that are part of the item's overall package. But for now at least, Pleaser Dow's members are still bound by the original restrictions that Riza and other members of the Wu-Tang clan imposed on Mr. Shukreli, including that it cannot be released to the general public in any form until the year 2103, 88 years from its initial sale in 2015. Pleaser Dow has, grand but loosely articulated ambitions to make the album more available to the public, perhaps

Starting point is 00:15:21 through listening parties or gallery-style exhibitions, or even to expand ownership of the album to fans, although how that would work remains up in the air. We believe that we can do something with the piece, Mr. Johnson said, to enable it to be shared and ideally owned, in part, by fans and anyone in the world, end quote. Wu Tang's opinion of the deal is not entirely clear, end quote. Let's end today with a gadget review. The Microsoft Surface Duo is a gadget that always tickles my fancy a bit, and I idly consider giving one a try. But then, people tend to talk me out of it. Well, the Surface Duo 2 is proving to be no different than the original Surface Duo. According to Dan Seaford's review in The Verge, the Surface Duo 2 has got that great futuristic design, excellent for multitasking, and you, useful pen support, but even with the second iteration of the Surface Duo, it remains buggy,

Starting point is 00:16:25 has a lousy camera, is expensive, and frankly, hasn't yet made a compelling case for its form factor. Quoting his conclusion, it's easy to see the potential in the Surface Duo line. You can dream up all kinds of different ways you'd put two screens to use, get more work done, and live in the future. But it doesn't take long for those dreams to come crashing down to reality. Between the bugs and inherent awkwardness of the form factor, the Duo 2 is just a difficult device to live with day-to-day, much like its predecessor. Despite Microsoft addressing many of the omissions of the first generation, a proper camera, NFC, dual speakers, 5G, current processor, the Duo 2 still feels like a secondary device, something you carry alongside your primary phone for taking pictures, paying for things,

Starting point is 00:17:10 and general phone stuff. If you do want a futuristic device that straddles the line between phone and tablet and has pen input, you'll be better off with the Samsung Galaxy Fold 3, which has a better multimedia experience. Can be used easier in one hand and just far fewer bugs. Or maybe you should just wait. After all, this segment is still very much in its infancy. At $1,500 plus everything about the Surface Duo 2 is a tall ask. You could accomplish much of the same with an iPad Mini alongside your phone for a third of the price.

Starting point is 00:17:42 If the first Surface Duo felt like it was 50% complete, the duo too is perhaps maybe 75% of the way there. I can see the potential, but it still does not live up to it, unfortunately, end quote. It is straight up a festivus miracle. I'm not saying Chris Messina visiting Did the Trick, but as recently as Monday, when I was trying to stream the Arsenal game on my phone, I was still locked out of all of the video apps on my phone. And then yesterday at my kitchen table when Chris was like, is it still broken? Just try it one more time.

Starting point is 00:18:26 And somehow magically it just worked. I didn't change any settings. I didn't do anything. I just suddenly, once again, have access to video across all the apps that feature video. So I don't know what kind of sorcery Chris Messina is capable of. I'm just saying before he visited, it didn't work. After he visited, it did. So clearly, correlation, causation.

Starting point is 00:18:49 all of that. Pretty much an open and shut case if you ask me, if you have a borked gadget or device, just let Chris lay hands on it and miracles can happen. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 10/21 – PayPal To Buy Pinterest? Why?

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