Tag: Meta

Categories
AI invest crypto technology

De grote trends van 2024: AI, crypto en koolstofverwijdering

Er zijn op dit moment drie grote trends in technologie die zowel worden gedreven door technologische, als door sociologische en politieke stromingen: AI, crypto en carbon removal (koolstofverwijdering). Deze baanbrekende ontwikkelingen worden zoals elke grote innovatie met scepsis ontvangen, een patroon dat al decennia zichtbaar is.

PC: “te duur en nutteloos”

In de jaren tachtig, toen de personal computer opkwam, werden pc’s vooral gezien als te duur voor een apparaat zonder veel relevante toepassingen. Dat veranderde snel dankzij prijsdalingen en standaardisatie van software, nadat MS-DOS dankzij een uitgenast licentiemodel van Microsoft uitgroeide tot wereldstandaard. De tekstverwerker en het spreadsheet maakten de PC snel onmisbaar op kantoor.

Internet: “te moeilijk en gevaarlijk”

In de jaren negentig herhaalde dit patroon zich met internet. De pc werd gezien als een werkinstrument, niet als een potentieel massamedium. Bill Gates verklaarde zelfs dat internet gebukt ging onder gebrek aan standaarden, het was onveilig en veel te ingewikkeld, reden waarom hij in zijn boek The Road Ahead het woord internet nog geen tien keer gebruikte.

Bill repte liever over de information super highway, die hij zelf wel effe ging aanleggen met het gesloten MSN, waar we verder nooit meer iets over hebben gehoord. Toch maakten email, de web-browser en toepassingen zoals eBay, Amazon en Google internet binnen een paar jaar toegankelijk voor consumenten.

In Nederland duurde het tot eind 1996 voordat het NOS Journaal begreep dat internet een serieus massamedium ging worden, al werd de penetratie van de computer door Joop van Zijl nog wel vergeleken met die van de magnetron.

Smartphones: “alleen voor vertegenwoordigers”

Toen de iPhone in 2007 op de markt kwam heerste de Blackberry in de zakelijke markt. Hoewel het grootste deel van de bevolking in ontwikkelde landen al een mobiele telefoon had, vaak een Nokia, was de kritiek op de iPhone niet mals. “Te duur, alleen handig voor vertegenwoordigers”, zo oordeelde een vriend uit notabene de IT-wereld. Overigens dezelfde knakker die tien jaar eerder over de mobiele telefoon oordeelde als ‘alleen handig voor drugsdealers‘, een veel gehoord sentiment.

Microsoft-CEO Steve Ballmer lachte de iPhone weg in een video waarin hij, zoals hem was aangeleerd door PR-mensen, snel overstapte op het promoten van het eigen Windows Mobile waar we verder ook nooit meer iets over hebben gehoord. Het maakt de prestatie van CEO Satya Nadella om Microsoft na Ballmer compleet nieuw leven in te blazen des te knapper, maar daarover een andere keer.

AI, crypto en koolstofverwijdering aan de beurt

Op dit moment zien we exact dezelfde patronen als voorheen, maar nu over AI, crypto en koolstofverwijdering:

  • AI wordt vaak afgedaan als nuttig voor werk, maar zonder nuttige toepassingen voor consumenten.
  • Crypto wordt bekritiseerd met opmerkingen als: “Noem een toepassing.” Intussen ligt de eerste toepassing in iets elementairs als het herontwerpen van het bancaire systeem, waarbij elke gebruiker zijn eigen rekening beheert en banken overbodig maakt. Blijkbaar wordt de significantie hiervan door velen gemist. Tip: ga nooit in discussie met mensen die te lui waren om het Bitcoin whitepaper te lezen, maar wel een mening hebben.
  • Koolfstofverwijdering wordt vaak getypeerd als fraude, waarbij wordt verwezen naar bekende voorbeelden zoals inefficiënte kookovens, zonder de complexiteit en potentie te kennen of te begrijpen van projecten die wel daadwerkelijk koolstof verwijderen uit de atmosfeer, zoals ocean fertilization. Dit soort verwijdering van koolstof uit de atmosfeer is de grootste opgave die de wereld te wachten staat in de komende decennia. Tip: ga nooit in discussie over klimaatverandering met mensen die te lui waren om de samenvatting te lezen van recente IPCC-rapporten.

Toegegeven: ik heb een persoonlijke fascinatie voor de wijze waarop innovaties doorbreken of mislukken. Daarom heette zowel mijn afstudeerscriptie in 1993 als mijn boek uit 2001 allebei “Op zoek naar de Heilige Graal,” hoewel een of andere mafkees de omslag heeft gefotoshopt van mijn boek dat overigens nog steeds in grote aantallen te koop is. En niet vanwege het grote succes.

Ik leerde meer van Megamistakes dan van Megatrends. Iedereen kent de adoptiecurve van Rodgers, maar het blijft mysterieus waarom de ene innovatie wel aanslaat en de andere genadeloos flopt. Voor koolstofverwijdering, crypto en AI zijn er verschillende belangrijke succesfactoren, waarvan ik er een aantal wil belichten.

CO2-succes was niet tijdens COP29

Voor de doorbraak van koolstofverwijdering is politieke bereidheid een vereiste. Alle media waren gericht op de klimaattop COP29 in Bakoe, maar intussen werden er in Brussel en Washington successen geboekt in de strijd tegen klimaatverandering.

In Brussel keurde de Europese Raad de oprichting goed van het eerste EU-brede certificeringskader voor permanente koolstofverwijdering, koolstoflandbouw en koolstofopslag in producten. Dit vrijwillige kader is bedoeld om een certificeringssysteem te creëren waarmee koolstofverwijdering kan worden gekwantificeerd, gemonitord en geverifieerd en om greenwashing tegen te gaan; koolfstofhuichelen. De goedkeuring van de nieuwe regels door de EU markeert de laatste grote wetgevende stap om groen licht te geven voor de oprichting van het nieuwe certificeringskader voor koolstofverwijdering.

Dan nu in het Nederlands: er worden standaarden ingevoerd waardoor bedrijven en burgers daadwerkelijk hun koolstof-uitstoot kunnen compenseren en dan niet door flutbossen te planten of te behouden, maar door CO2-uitstoot meetbaar tegen te gaan of nog beter, CO2 uit de atmosfeer te verwijderen.

Democraten en Republikeinen samen voor koolstofverwijdering

In de Verenigde Staten werd een wetsvoorstel ingediend door senatoren Lisa Murkowski (Republikeins, Alaska) en Michael Bennet (Democraat, Colorado) met als doel subsidies voor koolstofverwijdering uit te breiden voor een breed scala aan technologieën die bedoeld zijn om koolstofdioxide permanent uit de lucht en zeeën te verwijderen.

De wet zal waarschijnlijk nog niet worden aangenomen door het huidige congres wegens tijdsgebrek, maar de introductie ervan wijst erop dat subsidies voor koolstofverwijdering ook onder president Trump zullen worden uitgebreid. Het feit dat de wet werd ingediend door senatoren uit beide partijen, een zeldzaamheid tegenwoordig, stemt hoopvol.

AMC’s voor CO2

Let komende jaren op de term Advanced Market Commitment (AMC), hier toegelicht door de Economist: ongeacht hoe de politieke wind waait, is de druk uit de samenleving op decarbonisering zo groot dat slimmere bedrijven zelfstandig proberen om hun eigen koolstofafdruk te verwijderen of minimaal te compenseren, door het financieren van technieken die koolstof verwijderen voor lange termijn; liefst voor altijd. Salesforce, Google, Meta en Microsoft zijn slechts de eersten uit een lange lijst bedrijven die AMCs zullen financieren.

Een ander voorbeeld: vorige week werd bekend dat Planetary Technologies 138 ton CO2 heeft verwijderd via ‘Ocean Alkalanity Enhancement (OAE)’, waarbij door het toevoegen van mineralen of stoffen de alkaliniteit, de capaciteit van de oceaan om CO2e te absorberen, wordt verhoogd met als doel CO₂ vast te leggen en  klimaatverandering tegen te gaan. Kopers van de bijbehorende carbon removal credits waren Shopify (96 ton) en Stripe (42 ton) op basis van een ‘vooraankoopovereenkomst‘. Bij Scrabble leg je hem niet snel, maar het bestaat echt en zal veel worden gebruikt.

Old school tech vergeleken met AI en crypto

Beurswaarderingen zijn een weerspiegeling van marktverwachtingen en het enthousiasme rond AI en crypto toont aan dat investeerders vertrouwen hebben in hun potentieel op langere termijn. Ik heb vier virtuele ‘mandjes’ aangemaakt waarover ik vaker heb bericht:

  • ‘MANAAM’: de old school techbedrijven
  • Spotlight 9: de negen m.i. toonaangevende tech-beleggingen
  • AI Spotlight 9: negen bedrijven die profiteren van AI
  • Crypto Spotlight 9: de grootste negen crypto’s gemeten in marktwaarde

Old school tech MANAAM: +36%

In de bredere techsector blijven gevestigde spelers domineren. Ooit waren beleggers fan van de term FANG (voor Facebook, Apple, Netflix en Google, alsof Microsoft niets voorstelde), maar laten we het groepje ‘MANAAM’ nemen, bestaande uit Meta (voorheen Facebook), Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (voorheen Google) en Netflix. De gemiddelde stijging van de aandelen van dit inmiddels klassieke clubje bedraagt dit jaar liefst 35.9%. Dat is vanuit beleggingsperspectief fenomenaal, tot je bedenkt dat de S&P 500 dit jaar ook al 27.19% in de plus staat.

Spotlight 9: +63%

Microsoft (14%), Alphabet (22.28%) en Apple (27.84%) doen het niet eens beter dan de index. Terwijl beleggers tech-aandelen kopen voor de hogere koersstijgingen, als compensatie voor het hogere risico.

Geen koopadvies, maar indicatief: de Spotlight 9 is +63%

Wie echter de Spotlight 9 had gekocht, die bestaat uit de belangrijkste techbedrijven en de twee grootste crypto’s Bitcoin (+119%) en Ethereum (+57%), zou de beleggingsportefeuille dit jaar al 63.37% hebben zien stijgen. Vergeleken met de MANAAM ontbreekt Netflix in de Spotlight 9, terwijl Nvidia (+187%) uiteraard is toegevoegd als ’s werelds meest waardevolle technologiebedrijf.

AI Spotlight 9: +76%

De waardering van AI-gedreven bedrijven zoals Nvidia, die een sleutelrol spelen in de ontwikkeling van AI-infrastructuur, heeft recordhoogtes bereikt. Dit laat zien dat de markt de snelheid erkent waarmee deze door AI opgestuwde bedrijven hun resultaten zien stijgen.

Ondanks AMD, Gigabyte en Super Micro doet de AI Spotlight 9 liefst + 76%

Omdat Nvidia al is opgenomen in de Spotlight 9 heb ik de marktleider buiten beschouwing gelaten in mijn eveneens compleet arbitraire ‘AI Spotlight 9’, bestaande uit negen bedrijven waarvan ik het vermoeden heb dat ze door AI sneller zullen kunnen groeien dan de toonaangevende grote techbedrijven (de MANAAM-groep) en wellicht zelfs sneller dan de Spotlight 9.

Met een groei van 76.11% is dat dit jaar zeker het geval, waarbij het helemaal opvallend is dat deze stijging tot stand komt ondanks Super Micro (dat de accountant het hazenpad zag kiezen), AMD (-1%) en Gigabyte, hardware-partijen die de groei van de rest niet bijbeenden. Softwarebedrijf Palantir (+305%), waarover ik begin november schreef, maakt het verschil meer dan goed.

Crypto Spotlight 9: +191%

Sinds de goedkeuring eerder dit jaar van Bitcoin ETFs, stroomden al tientallen miljarden vanuit de traditionele beleggingswereld richting crypto. Het wachten was op het moment dat de ‘alt rotation‘ zou beginnen, het moment waarop er meer geld naar andere cryptovaluta vloeit dan naar Bitcoin, wat geldt als het onofficiële startschot van ‘altcoin season.‘ Dat moment vond gisteren plaats, toen de Ethereum Spot ETF netto instroom, die naar Bitcoin oversteeg.

Crypto Spotlight 9: +191% en hier zit geen memecoin tussen.

De echte durfal stapt daarom nu groot in de meest malle muntjes die vaak geen enkele onderliggende waarde bevatten, maar dat is even risicovol als in een casino alles op rood of zwart zetten. Een minder risicovolle strategie, voorzover dat mogelijk is in crypto, is om te spreiden in de grootste cryptovaluta en te profiteren van het algehele sentiment.

De ‘Crypto Spotlight 9’ bestaat uit de grootste cryptovaluta gemeten naar marktwaarde, waarbij stable coins, memecoins (crypto-gebbetjes) en tokens die gekoppeld zijn aan cryptobeurzen zoals BNB, buiten beschouwing worden gelaten.

Dat groepje, alfabetisch gerangschikt als Avalanche, Bitcoin, Cardano, Ethereum, Solana, Stellar, Toncoin, TRON en XRP, behaalde dit jaar tot nu toe een stijging van 191%. Is dit dan een koopadvies? Absoluut niet.

Wat ik wel iedereen aanraad die actief is op het gebied van technologie en innovatie, is om zich te verdiepen in AI, koolstofverwijderings-technologie, blockchain en cryptovaluta. Net zoals in de jaren tachtig met de pc, internet in de jaren negentig en de smartphone vijftien jaar geleden, zijn dit ontwikkelingen die wereldwijd onstuitbaar zijn.

Een praktische manier om op de hoogte te blijven is om dan een beetje te investeren in die sectoren, waarbij ik aanraad om dit alleen te doen met geld dat je niet nodig hebt voor de huur, hypotheek of andere dagelijkse beslommeringen. Ook binnen technologie en crypto loont het zeker om goed te kijken naar wat de beoogde beleggingen daadwerkelijk behelsen; wat doet Palantir eigenlijk, wordt Ethereum bedreigd door Solana en SUI; en is het niet grappig om toch een klein gokje op memecoins te wagen?

Wie er wat geld instopt, gaat zich vanzelf informeren. Het alternatief is een wekelijkse nieuwsbrief schrijven over tech en innovaties, maar dat vereist ook een enorm ego.

Hartelijke groet, dank voor de belangstelling en tot volgende week!

Categories
AI invest crypto technology

Geheimzinnig databedrijf Palantir is de winnaar van de week

Het was een opvallende week in de techwereld. Door de Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen bleven techbedrijven stil op het PR-front, terwijl de overwinning van Trump voor speculatie zorgde over wat dit betekent voor technologie- en innovatiebeleid. Eén ding is duidelijk: Elon Musk heeft een nieuwe rol als tech-souffleur van president Trump.

In deze editie deel ik de nieuwsberichten die eruit sprongen: van space cowboys en crypto tot AI en een bijzonder verhaal over zelfbehandeling tegen kanker. Maar bovenal: veel over Palantir, de absolute winnaar van de week.

Is Trump voor datacenters op kernenergie, crypto en AI?

Uit redelijk onverwachte hoek, want voor een bredere visie moeten we doorgaans niet in de conservatieve datacentersector zijn, kwam deze uitstekende analyse van Data Center Dynamics over wat de tech- en innovatie-sector kan verwachten onder Trump. Van AI tot crypto, chips en ruimtevaart; vrijwel alles komt aan bod.

Trump leidt tot 4 miljard ton extra CO2 emissies

Tel de jaarlijkse uitstoot van de EU en Japan bij elkaar op, of neem alle uitstoot van de honderdveertig minst uitstotende landen ter wereld en je hebt de extra uitstoot die de VS in 2030 zal veroorzaken door de verkiezing van Trump, zo berekende Carbon Brief al eerder dit jaar. Het is twee keer zoveel uitstoot als alle besparingen die duurzame energie wereldwijd hebben opgeleverd in de laatste vijf jaar.

Wetenschapsredacteur bij de Volkskrant Maarten Keulemans hoopt desondanks op een alternatieve klimaatkoers die niet is gebaseerd op het Parijse klimaatakkoord, bijvoorbeeld door initiatieven die niet vanuit de overheid komen. Dat is een interessante gedachte die ook wordt aangehangen door Blue City Solutions, de onafhankelijke groep vrijdenkers die ik ondersteun bij de ontwikkeling van private initiatieven tegen klimaatverandering.

“Saddle up, space cowboys” 

De kans bestaat dat Elon Musk bij zijn grote tegenstander NASA grote reorganisaties en bezuinigingen gaat doorvoeren, in zijn rol als presidentieel adviseur. Dat zijn bedrijf Space X hierbij garen spint is uiteraard geheel toevallig.

OpenAI heeft een hardware-bazin

Caitlin Kalinowski is het voormalig hoofd van de augmented reality-brilprojecten van Meta. Maandag meldde Kalinowski, CK voor intimi, in een bericht op LinkedIn dat zij bij OpenAI leiding gaat geven aan robotica en consumentenelektronica.

Eind september liet OpenAI uitlekken dat CEO Sam Altman met Apple-legende Jony Ive zou werken aan een ‘iPhone voor AI’, wat dat ook moge zijn. Nu Kalinowski bij OpenAI begint is de vraag hoe haar werk zich zal verhouden tot het project van OpenAI met Ive. Kalinowski en Ive kennen elkaar goed, want eerder werkte ze bij Apple aan de hardware van de Macbooks in de periode dat Ive er Chief Design Officer was onder Steve Jobs. Komt OpenAI met een bril, een mobiel apparaat of iets geheel nieuws?

Palantir verslaat Nvidia

Bijna geruisloos sloop Palantir vorige maand de S&P 500 in. Het softwarebedrijf van Peter Thiel en Alex Karp, dat altijd werd omringd door een mist van geheimzinnigheid, steeg dit jaar op Wall Street liefst 252%, nog meer dan Nvidia. 

Nabeel Qureshi, voormalig ontwikkelaar bij Palantir, schreef een fascinerend verhaal over zijn tijd bij het data-analysebedrijf. Voor iedereen die werkzaam is op het gebied van innovatie is het een absolute aanrader. Het begint gelijk goed, wanneer Qureshi een interview met CEO Karp citeert over diens unieke aanpak bij sollicitatiegesprekken:

“Ik ontmoet graag kandidaten zonder enige informatie over hen: geen cv, geen voorbereidende gesprekken of functiebeschrijving, alleen de kandidaat en ik in een kamer. Ik stel een vrij willekeurige vraag, iets dat niets te maken heeft met wat ze bij Palantir zouden doen. Vervolgens kijk ik hoe ze de vraag ontleden en of ze inzien hoeveel verschillende manieren er zijn om hetzelfde te bekijken. Ik houd interviews graag kort, ongeveer tien minuten. Anders gaan mensen over op hun aangeleerde antwoorden en krijg je geen goed beeld van wie ze werkelijk zijn.”

In tien minuten zul je niet de diepte ingaan over je tijd als praeses bij het corps, je gezinsleven of je hobbies, dus dat geeft al een aardige indicatie over de sfeer en focus bij Palantir.

Geen FTE maar FDE

Opvallend is dat Palantir volgens Qureshi is georganiseerd rond twee typen ontwikkelaars:

  • ontwikkelaars die met klanten werken, ook wel bekend als FDE’s, forward deployed engineers.
  • ontwikkelaars die werken in het kernproductteam aan productontwikkeling, PD-ers, en die zelden klanten bezoeken.

FDE’s werken ‘onsite’ bij de klant, drie tot vier dagen per week, wat resulteert in een enorme hoeveelheid reizen, zeer ongebruikelijk voor software-ontwikkelaars bij een bedrijf uit Silicon Valley.

Doel van deze aanpak is diepgaande kennis op te doen van bedrijfsprocessen in complexe sectoren (zoals gezondheidszorg, inlichtingendiensten, ruimtevaart, enz.) en die kennis vervolgens te gebruiken om software te ontwerpen die daadwerkelijk het probleem oplost.

De PD-ontwikkelaars ‘productiseren’ wat de FDE’s bouwen. Ofwel: ze zetten het maatwerk van de FDE’s om in standaard-producten en ontwikkelen zo de software die de FDE’s bij volgende projecten in dezelfde sector weer helpt om hun werk beter en sneller te doen. Qureshi bracht bijna een jaar door in Frankrijk bij Airbus, zodat Palantir leerde wat voor soort producten de luchtvaart-industrie nodig heeft.

Het is een originele aanpak die het midden houdt tussen het maatwerk dat de grote IT-consultancybedrijven zeggen te leveren (kuch) en de ‘one size fits all’-aanpak van traditionele ERP-bedrijven.

‘Whatever you want Ben’

Een stukje durfkapitalisme naar de mensen toe: topinvesteerder Ben Horowitz doneerde geld aan de politie van Las Vegas, dat daar op zijn verzoek drones mee kocht van een leverancier waarin zijn bedrijf investeerde. De fabrikant maakte uiteraard goede sier met deze order, in een moderne variant van vestzak-broekzak-via-politie-borstzak.

Bedrijven willen werknemers terug op kantoor. Wat speelt er echt?

In een podcast bespreekt The Verge met twee experts wat de ware redenen zijn waarom veel bedrijven hun werknemers terug op kantoor willen. Het zijn niet alleen verkapte bezuinigingen, hopend dat mensen ontslag zullen nemen. Veel bedrijven hechten toch aan teambuilding en verwachten op kantoor hogere productiviteit.

Nvidia passeert grens van $3.6 biljoen marktwaarde

Wall Street verwacht dat Trump de beperkingen voor AI-ontwikkeling van de regering-Biden terugschroeft en daardoor haalde Nvidia via rechts Apple in als ’s werelds meest waardevolle bedrijf.

Nvidia voorbij Microsoft en Apple; voor hoe lang?

De marktwaardes van de top drie zijn nu als volgt:

  • Microsoft: $3.14 biljoen
  • Apple: $3.43 biljoen
  • Nvidia: $3.62 biljoen

Het aandeel NVDA steeg dit jaar 206%. Het is geen PLTR, maar blijft hoogst uitzonderlijk voor een bedrijf van deze omvang. De laatste vijf dagen stegen Microsoft, Apple en Nvidia respectievelijk 3.1%, 2.6% en 7.6% tegen een stijging van 41.8% voor Palantir. Daarmee steeg Palantir zelfs veel harder dan de crypto’s, waarvan zoveel werd verwacht door beleggers en speculanten.

Aanleiding waren de uitstekende kwartaalcijfers, waaruit bleek dat de omzet van Palantir vergeleken met hetzelfde kwartaal vorig jaar met 30% was toegenomen. De winst steeg zelfs met 101%. Palantir behaalt een operationele winst van bijna 20%, vergeleken met bijvoorbeeld 15% bij Salesforce, waarvan de omzet met slechts 8% groeide.

De negen grootste cryptovaluta naar marktwaarde stegen na de Amerikaanse verkiezingen

Waar verwacht werd dat de cryptovaluta door het dak zouden gaan na de overwinning van Trump, bleef de stijging voor de volatiele cryptowereld nog relatief bescheiden. Bitcoin vestigde een nieuw hoogtepunt maar stabiliseerde redelijk.

In deze grafiek valt de stijging van Cardano op, maar die is bedrieglijk: de koers van ADA steeg het laatste jaar ‘slechts’ 28% dus dit was eerder een correctie dan een doorbraak. Gemiddeld stegen de grootste crypto’s afgelopen week met 16%.

Er is gerechtigheid: memecoins deden het slechter dan een echt bedrijf als Palantir

Zat de grootste winst dan bij die malle speculatieve muntjes van honden (al dan niet met hoed), of kikkers en andere gekkigheid? Nee, want de grootste memecoins stegen afgelopen week ‘slechts’ 12%.

Wie deze zondag onverhoopt belandt op een kringverjaardag of in een voetbalkantine met blaatapen die oreren over bizarre koerswinsten op memecoins, kan zich wapenen met de wetenschap dat de grootste memecoin, Dogecoin, afgelopen jaar 198% steeg.

Leuk en aardig, maar het meest waardevolle technologiebedrijf ter wereld, Nvidia, dat in tegenstelling tot memecoins daadwerkelijk unieke technologie ontwikkelt en daardoor veel minder gevoelig is voor speculatie, steeg in het laatste jaar met 214%. Sta je daar, met je roze koek of je kaasdobbelsteentjes in je hand op te scheppen over Dogecoin.

Palantir is met 252% stijging dit jaar aan een enorme opmars bezig; van $15 begin dit jaar steeg de koers naar $58 afgelopen vrijdag. Hierbij rijst uiteraard de vraag of het bedrijf met een stratosferische koers-winstverhouding van 295 deze waardering weet vast te houden.

Peter Thiel, mede-oprichter van Palantir, zou daarbij wat hulp kunnen gebruiken van zijn vrienden in het Witte Huis; want Thiel is zo uitgenast geweest om niet alleen al vroeg het spoor van Trump te kiezen, hij is ook mentor en vriend van de nieuwe vice-president JD Vance.

Wetenschapper behandelde haar kanker met virussen die ze zelf ontwikkelde

Graag sluit ik de nieuwsbrief deze week positief af, met de bijzondere prestatie van iemand die dit geheel op eigen kracht deed: virologe Beata Halassy zegt in Nature dat zelfbehandeling werkte en een positieve ervaring was — maar onderzoekers waarschuwen dat dit niet iets is dat anderen zouden moeten proberen.

Halassy, een virologe aan de Universiteit van Zagreb, behandelde met succes haar eigen borstkanker door de tumor te injecteren met in het laboratorium gekweekte virussen, waarmee ze een discussie op gang bracht over de ethiek van zelf-experimentatie.

Halassy ontdekte in 2020, op 49-jarige leeftijd, dat ze borstkanker had op de plaats van een eerdere mastectomie. Het was de tweede terugkeer op die plek sinds haar linkerborst was verwijderd en ze wilde onder geen beding een nieuwe chemokuur  ondergaan.

Na een uitgebreide literatuurstudie verkoos Halassy een onbewezen behandeling en diende zichzelf een behandeling genaamd oncolytische virotherapie (OVT) toe om haar eigen stadium 3-kanker te behandelen. Ze is nu vier jaar kankervrij.

Thanks for the interest and see you next week!

Michiel Frackers

De Engelse versie van deze nieuwsbrief verschijnt hier op LinkedIn.

Deze nieuwsbrief bevat geen beleggingsadvies maar slechts een op kennis, ervaring en zelfoverschatting gebaseerde persoonlijke mening.

Het overzicht met eerdere nieuwsbrieven staat op Frackers.com.

Volg me op LinkedIn, X, Instagram of TikTok.

Categories
AI technology

Meta's glasses hacked into Terminator glasses

Sam Altman's Messiah behavior about AI is reminiscent of the way Mark Zuckerberg propagated the blessings of social media for society, before the negative effects became apparent and he was publicly keelhauled, including before the U.S. Congress. Zuckerberg has since argued that social media is a mirror for society rather than the enabler of evil, making him increasingly confident in his presentation to the outside world.

"Inside the bro-ification of Mark Zuckerberg" is the untranslatable headline above an excellent Washington Post article about Zuckerberg reinventing himself as a muscular version of ... Julius Caesar? Zuckerberg has switched from his familiar hoodie to t-shirts with self-invented lyrics quoting the Latin emperor, but apparently forgetting how Caesar met his end.

Zuckerberg is having a banner year: strong financial performance sees Meta shares rise sharply after a disastrous 2023, Apple's VR glasses flop while the new Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses get rave reviews. But once again, Zuckerberg seems blind to the problems his company's introduced technology could cause.

'Man sees unknown woman - including residential address.'

Creepiest glasses ever

Harvard students turned Zuckerberg's Meta glasses into "Terminator glasses" that allow them to do very creepy things simply by looking at someone:

"The technology, which combines Meta's smart Ray-Ban glasses with the facial recognition service Pimeyes and some other tools, allows someone to automatically go from a face to a name, phone number and home address."

The video published by the students on Tuesday paints a terrifying picture of a world in which, for example, any creep wearing such glasses could stalk any woman. The creators have shared all the information about this "I-XRAY" here.

Categories
investing crypto technology

Token2049 Singapore proves: Web3 alive and kicking

I am sending this newsletter from Singapore, where the area around Marina Bay has been dominated for the past week by over twenty thousand visitors to Token2049, the largest Web3 event in the world. Although the conference officially ended on Thursday, some of  the more than 800(!) side events are still going on. Solana even held its own event Solana Breakpoint on Friday and Saturday, when the Formula 1 weekend was already in full swing.

'Hate the game, don't hate the players.' Some pre-war marketing tactics are still current in the Web3 world

Vitalik Buterin star of Token2049 

Amid the usual self-promotional talk and non-discussion, one speaker stood out: Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum. Buterin emphasized that Ethereum, once plagued by slow and expensive transactions that prevented mass adoption, can now perform large numbers of transactions quickly and cheaply.

Buterin then overshadowed the content of his own speech by breaking into a song. Still, it was an engaging and rare human moment at an otherwise marketing-dominated event.

It remains painful to see top athletes such as Lando Norris and Max Verstappen sit on panels with their crypto sponsors. McLaren is sponsored by crypto exchange OKX while rival exchange Bybit is a major contributor to Red Bull Racing's immense budget.

Verstappen and Norris had to answer hard hitting questions such as "is teamwork in Formula 1 as important as in business". It would be nice if for once Verstappen would answer: 'how nice that you asked, those other 900 employees of the team are just goofing around and I actually do everything myself; I put the stickers on the car myself the night before a race, pump up the tires in the morning and refuel the car neatly after the race as well'.

It remains unclear whether, apart from the ego of the proud sponsor parading next to "his" driver on the podium, anyone is any the wiser from such a kind of obligatory freestyle. Other crypto-sponsors in Formula One such as Stake (Alfa Romeo), Tezos (Red Bull), Kraken (Williams) and Fantom (Alpine) were less visible. 

Buterin's presentation made one curious about the film that has been released about him. Investor Fred Wilson said:

"This film is about the Ethereum blockchain and the developer ecosystem. But in reality, it's a chance to spend just under ninety minutes with Vitalik, where you learn more about him, how he lives, thinks and how he became who he is today.
I've been in the blockchain business for almost 15 years. I am a fan and holder of Bitcoin. I am a fan and holder of Solana. I am a fan and holder of Ethereum. I am a fan and holder of many other protocols, tokens and communities. I am fully into all of these.
But I must say that Vitalik has a special place in my mind and heart. He doesn't just talk pretty words; he lives by his beliefs and leads from those principles. He is a very special human being. And this film manages to show that in a great way."

Hopefully the film will soon be available to the general public, as at the moment it can only be seen through a complicated streaming service - which is onchain, of course.

Solana with its own phone

Token2049 covered four floors of booths and stages in the immense Marina Bay Sands convention center, but the main networking took place during the side events. For days, it was virtually impossible to eat or drink anything in the dozens of restaurants around Marina Bay, as all the hospitality venues had been rented out by companies for private events.

Although Token2049 officially ended on Thursday, Solana took over with the Solana Breakpoint conference on Friday and Saturday. Here it introduced the Seeker, a cell phone integrated with the Solana ecosystem. Linking a proprietary hardware device like a phone to a crypto ecosystem offers a new dimension to the growing diversity of Web3 applications, and in a market dominated by Apple, Samsung and Chinese phone makers, it is a very brave move. Whether it becomes successful is a question for another day.

Another theme that kept popping up during Token2049 was the increasing integration of the Web3 industry with the traditional financial sector, or TradFi. Still, the future of this arranged marriage remains unclear for now, at least until after the U.S. presidential election.

The Web3 world is openly hoping for a victory for Trump, who is more crypto-friendly than Harris. Or as one Indian-American Web3 insider said, ''I am brown and I know Trump doesn't like brown people; but he is pro-business and pro-crypto. So if he wins and helps our business grow, I'll make sure I help myself. Then we won't need Kamala." This rather cynical sentiment was quite prevalent this week.

Spotlight 9: Nvidia remains in the lead

Following the interest rate cut announced by the Fed, the stock market closed at record highs and the U.S. jobs market also did extremely well. It is interesting to end the third quarter by looking back at the performance of tech stocks in this calendar year so far.

At three quarters of 2024, the bottom line: Nvidia is not a one-day wonder

The clear winner this year is without a doubt Nvidia, up over 140%. If we look back a little further at what buying Nvidia shares would have yielded exactly one year ago, the chipmaker's success is even more eclatant. A $4,351 investment in 100 shares of Nvidia a year ago would be worth $11,338.71 today, which is an incredible gain of $6,987.71.

Again, I repeat it almost every week, I don't give financial advice, but I also don't want to shy away from what I think is an inescapable conclusion: Nvidia can hardly go wrong in the coming years because the demand for its products will remain high as long as the AI hype among the big players like Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon and Oracle continues.

Only when the world's biggest tech companies begin to doubt the return on their investments in AI, will Nvidia have a harder time growing in revenue and profits. Until then, it is an industry leader with no direct competitor.

Meta's more than 60% increase this year should not go unmentioned. Although that is partly explained by the sharp correction last year, the ad-driven network's margins remain as high as ever.

TON fastest riser in crypto

Despite the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, Telegram-affiliated TON has been a phenomenon this year, with 144% increase

Bitcoin (BTC) has outperformed stocks following the Federal Reserve's decision to cut interest rates by 50 basis points on Wednesday, but the real winners in the crypto world are the altcoins.

Total3, an index that tracks the market capitalization of the top 125 cryptocurrencies, excluding Bitcoin and ether (ETH), was up 5.68% since the announcement of the rate cut. In contrast, Bitcoin's market capitalization rose only 4.4%.

The success of TON, which today stands for The Open Network but evolved from Telegram Open Network, continues to be linked to the growth of Telegram. A whole ecosystem of "Telegram Mini Apps"(TMA) is now emerging around Telegram that enable all sorts of applications, from gaming to fund raising, from which the TONcoin benefits.

Today the exciting week in Singapore concluded with the always spectacular Formula One Grand Prix at the Marina Bay circuit. As an opening act for Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, 30 Seconds to Mars (with multi-talented Jared Leto) and Kylie Minogue performed, while after the race Lenny Kravitz demonstrated how to stay cool in leather pants in 90 degrees and almost 90% humidity. All in all, it was a fantastic week.

Thanks for the interest and see you next week!

Categories
invest technology

Silicon Valley divided over choice between founders or managers

Because I was traveling this weekend, I don't have a good overview of the most important tech news. Therefore, I devote this newsletter to the only topic of conversation last week in tech circles: founders or managers - who are better?

The Uber driver's gold-rimmed sunglasses are a symbol of where I am this week. The answer is in the last photo, at the bottom.

In Silicon Valley last week most conversations were dominated by the discussions about "Founder Mode", following a blog post by Paul Graham, founder of the world's most successful startup incubator Y Combinator. Graham argues that startup founders shouldn't listen to investors who often insist on appointing experienced CEOs and managers, which Graham says often has disastrous consequences.

Founders or managers?

Operating in "founder mode," according to Graham, means adhering to a founder's mindset and management style. It's about bypassing rigid organizational structures and fostering close collaboration between departments. In contrast, startups in "manager mode" attract competent, experienced managers to lead teams with minimal interference from the CEO.

"The way managers are taught to run companies seems to be like modular design in the sense that you treat subtrees of the org chart as black boxes. You tell your direct reports what to do, and it's up to them to figure out how. But you don't get involved in the details of what they do. That would be micromanaging them, which is bad.
" Graham wrote.

Airbnb almost successfully managed into the ground

He was inspired to write his blog post by a recent speech by Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky at Y Combinator. In it, Chesky highlighted the pitfalls of conventional wisdom when scaling businesses, often advising to hire good people and give them autonomy. When he followed this advice at Airbnb, it led to disappointing results.

In his own words, inspired by Steve Jobs, Chesky developed a new approach, which now seems to be working, given Airbnb's strong financial performance - although residents of the inner cities of Barcelona and Amsterdam will think otherwise, awash in a wave of rolling suitcases and higher rents due to Airbn's "success".

Many founders in the audience shared similar experiences as Chesky and realized that the usual advice harmed rather than helped them. Chesky pointed out that founders are also often advised to run their companies as professional managers upon strong growth, which often proves ineffective.

Apple and Microsoft successful in manager mode

According to Chesky and Paul Graham, founders possess unique skills that managers without entrepreneurial backgrounds often lack. By suppressing these instincts, founders can actually harm their companies.

Risa Mish, management professor at Cornell University, contrasted that in Observer that it was precisely Steve Jobs who was succeeded with great success by the experienced manager Tim Cook. Microsoft has also performed many times better under Satya Nadella than anyone ever expected.

"But it could be as simple as the difference between a team trying to create new things and a company focused on growing existing products and revenue streams," Mish said.

Examples abound in both camps

Mish has apparently forgotten that Steve Jobs was fired from Apple in the 1980s by CEO John Sculley, who came from Pepsi Cola and ironically was recruited by Jobs himself.

The only innovation Sculley introduced at Apple was the legendary flop Newton, because he was unable to match the undeniably huge market potential of the mobile device (later proven correct by the iPhone) with the right timing, the most important skill for an innovative CEO. The technology was far from ready for a device like the Newton; high-speed mobile Internet was lacking and the small processors were still too weak.

Before I digress further: contrasted with the success of executives Tim Cook at Apple and Satya Nadella at Microsoft is a literally and figuratively (numerically and symbolically) equally great success in the person of Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, who has been CEO of the chipmaker he himself founded for more than three decades.

Nor will Salesforce shareholders shed any tears that founder Marc Benioff has been in charge there for more than a quarter century and, according to The Information, is even working on a comeback, as if that was necessary since Benioff was never out of it. In short: whether it's successful founders or successful managers, there are plenty of examples in both camps. Time for a quantitative comparison!

The data shows: founders perform better

Fortunately, the dilemma has since been studied quantitatively and it turns out that Paul Graham's thesis is correct: founder mode is often superior when it comes to value creation, according to an analysis of PitchBook data.

Pitchbook is clear: founders are better than managers.

Pitchbook concludes:

"In each of the past five years, VC-backed founder-led companies grew in value significantly faster than non-founder-led companies. This year, the relative rate of value creation for founder-CEOs was 22.4%, compared to 4.7% for non-founder-CEOs.
In the chosen methodology, the relative rate figure reflects the percentage of value increase between funding rounds, expressed on an annual basis. Among companies that raised funding this year, median value growth was $3.6 million higher among founder-CEOs.
According to Graham, founder-CEOs of high-growth companies are especially "more agile" than professional CEOs. That detail-oriented approach can lead to higher growth through product improvement, or by better motivating front-line employees."

Vulnerable businesses need entrepreneurs

Vulnerable companies need entrepreneurs. In my opinion, which is based on experience and observation but not supported by quantitative research, companies that regardless of their age rely primarily on one product or one revenue source should preferably have a founder at the helm.

Take Google, which is currently under pressure due to the rise of OpenAI with ChatGPT, while their revenue comes largely from ads, especially through the search engine.

As soon as the search engine generates less traffic, revenue will drop, and things will get very tough for Google. CEO Sundar Pichai is clearly a competent manager, but the next few years will show how good an entrepreneur he is.

We need only think back to the temporary successes of Nokia and Blackberry to see what happens when companies that lean on innovation are led by executives unable to adapt their products when they are attacked head-on.

Zuckerberg's flexibility

An excellent example of a relatively young founder who has mastered the craft is Mark Zuckerberg. When Instagram appeared to be a threat to Facebook, he quickly bought it for a billion dollars. An amount many frowned upon, but insiders knew it was a bargain. WhatsApp was about 20 times as expensive, but still a good deal.

When Snapchat posed a major threat to Instagram with Stories, Zuckerberg simply had Instagram copy Snapchat's full functionality, without ego. This saved Instagram. He is currently trying something similar in response to TikTok.

I am convinced that a classical manager would never have bought Instagram and Whatsapp or let Instagram respond so quickly to competition from Snapchat and TikTok. That Zuckerberg has now spent tens of billions on obscure Metaverse adventures is, by comparison, a rounding error.

Conclusion from thirty years as an entrepreneur and investor

Interestingly, many successful entrepreneurs say they have been mentored for years by a small group of experienced advisors who enjoy their trust. For example, ex-Intuit CEO Bill Campbell, about whom the excellent book Trillion Dollar Coach was written, was a famous advisor to Steve Jobs and the founders of Google, among others.

In Silicon Valley, investors and former entrepreneurs Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen are frequently mentioned names as examples of valued advisors. It is precisely in the combination of entrepreneurial experience and investment experience that they prove to be of unique value.

This topic is close to my heart because, after almost ten years as an employee during my school and college days, I have been an entrepreneur for 15 years and an investor and advisor for 15 years since.

Coachable crazies

My conclusion is that coachable entrepreneurs have the greatest chance of success.

One of the advantages of having been an employee first is that I learned mostly how I didn't want to deal with people once I became an employer. During my time as a young entrepreneur at Planet Internet, however, I have been immensely supported by valuable advice, both from entrepreneurs and managers.

In retrospect, I only realized how lucky I was that entrepreneurs like Eckart Wintzen (BSO) and Maarten van den Biggelaar (Quote Media) took the time for me, as did members of the Board of Directors of the Telegraaf and Ben Verwaayen of KPN.

It didn't escape me that Quote, Telegraph and KPN were shareholders, and that perspective obviously always came into play. But that doesn't diminish the quality of their opinions.

Later, as an advisor at the same Quote Media and at dance company ID&T, I saw how talents such as Jort Kelder and Duncan Stutterheim might appear to the outside world to be stubborn, but in practice, at crucial moments, they listened very carefully to advice - and then, as they should, made their own decisions.

It became more difficult in constellations where, on the contrary, many different winds were blowing, as I experienced with the OV Chipkaart: a consortium of public transport companies that competed among themselves, which tendered to a consortium of companies that in turn competed among themselves. 

At the Silicon Valley startup Jaunt, I experienced something similar. This virtual reality pioneer had a mix of tech and media people within both the team and the investors, a true fusion of Silicon Valley and Hollywood.

Making VR cameras as well as VR productions, having offices in Palo Alto and Santa Monica and owned by shareholders that ranged from the traditional profit-hungry Silicon Valley vc funds, to Disney and Sky; on top of that also a mix of American, European and Chinese investors. You end up with a sort of mash-up of fried rice and sauerkraut, or a pizza with ginger and kale. Separately excellent, but the combination doesn't work. It lacks focus and a unified mindset, which a good founder as CEO does have.

That's a long run-up to my conclusion: the best CEOs are founders who are maniacal in their vision, but coachable in their execution; call it coachable geeks. And then preferably coachable by both experienced founders *and* managers.

The sunglasses of the Uber driver already gave it away: this week I am in Dubai. 

Thanks for your interest and see you next week!

Categories
AI invest technology

Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia invest in OpenAI despite $158 loss: per second

Summer is over so starting next weekend, this newsletter will again be weekly instead of monthly. With apologies for the late mailing, herewith the most notable recent topics covered in this newsletter:

  • OpenAI loses $158 per second yet is worth $100 billion
  • Nvidia breaks revenue records but is very silent on customer success
  • Shares of AI-driven companies rose sharply in August
  • Energy consumption of AI threatens climate goals of Big Tech companies, appear to try to change the rules of the game 
  • Telegram and other social media are obviously being targeted by governments
  • podcast of Taylor Swift's boyfriend, and his brother, to Amazon for $100 million
  • Midjourney will make hardware

OpenAI loses $158 per second but is worth $100 billion

According to The Information, OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, is fast heading for a $5 billion loss this year, or: $158 per second. This is a negligible run-up loss in the eyes of CEO Sam Altman and his supporters, as he appears to be successfully raising new funding at a valuation of $100 billion. That compares to the value Facebook had at the time of its IPO in 2012, but Zuckerberg did make $1 billion in profit!

Interestingly, the three most valuable companies in the world, Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia, apparently consider participating in this investment round. Thrive Capital as lead investor is doing $1 billion and Nvidia $100 million. That's a hefty sum, but how far does that take OpenAI?

How well is Nvidia doing?

At an annualized loss of $5 billion, OpenAI can go on for a scant week with that $100 million from Nvidia, which itself posted second-quarter revenue of $30 billion with a net profit of $16.6 billion. So it only takes the chipmaker thirteen hours (!) to earn the $100 million it invested in OpenAI. A nice tip for keeping a big customer happy.

Is Nvidia doing well or badly? Opinions vary.

Nvidia's performance is being interpreted in different ways. People from outside the tech industry, such as financial analysts, do not seem to understand that the manufacturing problems Nvidia is experiencing in producing the new Blackwell chip are temporary.

A company's performance is determined by a combination of revenue, growth and profit. Nvidia's sales will be fine for the next few years, due to a lack of competition and the huge demand from the Big Tech companies that develop AI applications or provide platforms for AI developers: Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle and Salesforce are just a few of the customers who cannot drive their AI efforts without Nvidia. So aside from revenue, Nvidia's profit margin is in good shape for now.

A bigger problem for Nvidia is the growing doubt that all those customers can make healthy profit margins on their AI investments. So far, those hoped-for profits are failing to materialize, and that does represent a long-term concern at Nvidia. Top executive Jensen Huang is very quiet when asked about his customers' return on their AI spending at Nvidia. The question becomes how long for Huang silence is golden.

August was a fine month for AI companies.

AI Spotlight 9 rose sharply in August

While NVDA shares rose over 11% last month, it was also a fine month for many other companies benefiting from the rise of AI. Super Micro took a huge hit after it failed to produce its annual results on time.

My totally subjective AI Spotlight 9 has been updated and I have added Arm (chips), Arista (networking) and Marvell (chips). After all, Nvidia, Google and Microsoft are already in the "regular" Spotlight 9 of leading tech investments.

The S&P 500 closed very close to its all time high on Friday August 30th. Shares rose in the last 10 minutes of trading on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 up 1% and all major sectors on the rise. But the outlook for September is less bright.

Since 1950, the S&P 500 has generated an average loss of 0.7% in September and finished higher only 43% of the time, making September the worst month for stocks based on average return and positivity percentage. The past four September months have also been remarkably weak, with respective declines of 4.9%, 9.3%, 4.8% and 3.9% for the index. It will be interesting to see how tech stocks and especially AI companies do in the coming weeks.

AI versus climate

Due to the huge growth in data center energy consumption in pumping AI applications like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, tech giants risk missing their climate goals, usually ambitiously defined as "net zero," or carbon-free operations. There is great concern that smart techbros like Bezos are indirectly manipulating the definition of zero emissions

The Financial Times is particularly concerned about the influence of Amazon and Jeff Bezos's $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund on the carbon credits market, especially through its funding of the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). The SBTi sets standards for corporate climate goals, but experts worry about potential conflicts of interest as large technology companies, including Amazon, want more flexibility in using carbon credits to achieve net zero targets.

This influence could change the way climate standards are set, potentially favoring cheaper carbon credits over actual emission reductions. Compare it to a penalty taker in soccer who often misses, upon which he decides to make the opponent's goal thirty feet wider and higher. And as a goalkeeper a garden gnome.

Telegram and X crackdown

Once upon a time, the credo of telecom operators was "we have zero responsibility about our customers' messages". For Internet service providers, I unfortunately know from experience, this was not such a simple matter. I wrote about that earlier. For social media, it is even clearer that they should intervene whenever possible if their networks are being used for criminal activity. The Washington Post explains it clearly:

"Global Internet regulators are no longer playing around. Two days after France sued Telegram CEO Pavel Durov on several charges, Brazil on Friday ordered the suspension of Elon Musk's X after it ignored an order to appoint a legal representative in the country. While the details differ in important ways, both cases involve democratic governments losing patience with cyberlibertarian tech magnates who perhaps turned their noses up at authorities a little too often.

The crackdown, which comes months after the passage of a law in the United States that could lead to the banning of TikTok, heralds the end of an era. Not the era of social media, which is still going strong. But the era when tech giants had free rein to shape the online world - and enjoyed a presumption of immunity from real-world consequences.

Although unfettered Internet companies have long clashed with authoritarian regimes - Google in China, Facebook in Russia or pre-Musk Twitter in Turkey - Western governments did not, until recently, consider social media and the vision of free speech they promoted to be fundamentally at odds with democracy. Politicians and regulators recognized that there were bad things on the Internet, condemned it and sought ways to limit it. But banning entire social networks or arresting their executives was simply something liberal democracies did not do. Now, for better or worse, they do."

The arrest of Durov in France is akin to firing a gun at a gnat. But until the full charges are revealed and it is clear what crimes Durov is accused of, it also remains difficult to vouch for his innocence. If Telegram is actually being used for pernicious activities and could well have intervened, appropriate punishment is warranted.

Friend of Taylow Swift and his brother podcast for $100 million 

The Kelce brothers make a nice podcast, and the fact that the youngest brother is Taylor Swift's bearded arm candy also won't have deterred them from striking a $100 million deal with Amazon, which is trying to bring in more ad revenue. Actors Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes struck a similar deal with satellite radio station SiriusXM early this year for their podcast, also for $100 million.

But Alexandra Cooper's podcast is the clear winner with the very well chosen name for her podcast Call Her Daddy, Cooper is reportedly getting $125 million from SiriusXM over three years.

According to Midjourney, I am more handsome than my reflection and I was typing this newsletter laughing on a beach. Then it must be true.

Battle over AI photos enters new era

While Elon Musk's picture maker Grok seems to know no limitations, spitting out everything from famous singers in lingerie to Kamala Harris with a firearm, the launch of the web version of Midjourney has been much less in the news.

That's a shame, because Midjourney is a fantastic tool that was previously only available via the cumbersome Discord. Fascinatingly, Midjourney also plans to get into hardware. Since hardware head (his real title) Ahmad Abbas previously worked on the Apple Vision Pro, some think it will be "smart glasses" but Midjourney CEO David Holz is far too smart for that. Everyone knows that if you want to make money in the smart glasses business, you might as well get in the shower, light up a cigar and burn thousand-dollar bills with it.

The question is, and all suggestions are welcome: what hardware is Midjourney going to make?

Thanks for the interest and see you next weekend, then hopefully just again on Sunday!

Categories
investing crypto technology

Short news: MG Siegler loses Instagram account, what are RWAs and even in China you can go too far against staff

Losing your account on Instagram and Facebook for completely unclear reasons. It didn't just happen to anyone, but former journalist and current venture capitalist at Google Ventures MG Siegler. Only because he knows many people at the "highest level" at Meta did he get his accounts back. But what if you don't have Mark Zuckerberg's mobile number?

The rise of RWAs

RWA stands for Real World Asset. Whereas much attention was paid to virtual products and services in the Metaverse, there is now, on the contrary, great interest in "tokenizing," the tokenizing, of valuable elements from the real world.

You can also go too far with staff in China

The PR manager of one of China's largest tech companies prided herself on working so hard that she didn't know what class her youngest son was in and forgot her oldest son's birthday. It led to her resignation.

Let's not adopt the Chinese norm of 996 (working days from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week). So my call today is this: sign up for Tracer's webinar, Justice For Joost and above all, have a very happy Mother's Day!

Categories
technology

Zuckerberg richly rewarded and Apple severely punished

Marques Brownlee tested the Apple Vision Pro and has a nuanced conclusion

Innovation is rarely valued by investors, many of whom live with a 24 hour horizon. Apple introduced a revolutionary new form of computing this week with the Apple Vision Pro and lost $70 billion in stock market value. Amazon sold a lot of stuff in the fourth quarter (gosh) and Meta attracted a lot of advertisers and announced dividends; little innovative, but together they gained $270 billion in market cap. Maybe nice for investors, but totally uninteresting for fans of innovation.

Whirlwind tech week on Wall Street

It was another tumultuous week for Tesla, as growth stalls and hassles surround Elon Musk's compensation. It even led Tesla's lawyer to burst into tears, so unfair did the darling think it was that the court intended to force a $56 billion bonus through Musk's nose.

The funny thing is that, according to the judge, the teardown showed precisely that Musk is not surrounded by independents at Tesla who also have the best interests of the company and other shareholders at heart. It is not known whether Musk himself shed a tear over missing out on his $56 billion thirteenth month.

Furthermore, it was another special week on Wall Street for tech companies. Shares of Amazon and Meta jumped, while Apple, on the other hand, paid a hefty price for continued uncertainty over access to the Chinese market.

Google sold fewer ads than hoped and investors were shocked by Google's investments in AI, as servers for AI applications are screamingly expensive to buy and use. On the other hand, Google's AI assistant, Bard, is now making great strides against rival OpenAI's ChatGPT. But that apparently did not interest investors, who are focused on the short term.

Apologies from Zuckerberg to parents who lost their children on Wednesday and 20% rise in Meta shares on Thursday

Memorable week for Zuckerberg

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg experienced a bizarre week. On Wednesday, he testified with CEOs of other social media companies in the U.S. Congress and apologized for the horrific things that happened to children on his social media networks. Parents of children who committed suicide after the misery happened to them were not impressed.

Zuckerberg has a long history of apologizing for all the out-of-control incidents on his networks. I hold out hope that one day a bell will ring with him that a company can have more goals than just linking addictive algorithms to click-hungry advertisers.

Does such an embarrassing display in Congress matter to investors? No, because the next day Meta announced a 25% increase in profits, with a promise to pay dividends from now on, and so Meta could add $196 billion to its stock market value. Zuckerberg himself, who owns about $350 million in shares in Meta, will receive an additional $175 million in dividends and will be able to earn an additional $700 million annually.

In tech stocks, choosing based on size (in market value) is often not the best investment

SMCI stock is super, though, not micro

While Meta and Amazon attracted most of the attention, it almost went unnoticed that the engine behind all AI developments, chipmaker Nvidia, has nearly overtaken Amazon and Alphabet in market value. Almost silently, Nvidia has already risen as much this year as Meta, so beloved by investors this week: 37%. But Nvidia did so without putting minor customers over the top.

There's another fascinating stock from a much lesser-known chipmaker: Super Micro (SMCI). Do yourself a big favor today and click on that link: surely it's enjoyment from such a website, seemingly created by the CEO's nephew during a grade 6 homework assignment?

In the chart above, Super Micro is almost invisible among the tech giants with a market value of "only" $32 billion, but the company is rapidly emerging as a mini-Nvidia.

                           Super Micro (SMCI) Nvidia (NVDA)

last 5 years: 3.664% 1.686%

1 year: 587% 214%

year to date: 103% 37%

Super Micro is the cheaper alternative to Nvidia and doubled sales, driven by the global hunger for chips that can handle AI applications, combined with a 71% increase in profits. As a result, SMCI shares have already risen as much as 103% this year. On the stock market, Super Micro has been winning over Nvidia for five years. 

Categories
technology

Notable tech news in January 2024

World's most valuable company seriously hacked

Russians hack companies, including Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. Microsoft shrouds itself in mists about what happened: "The threat actor then used the legacy test OAuth application to grant them the Office 365 Exchange Online full_access_as_app role, which allows access to mailboxes."

That's something like describing the 9/11 WTC attacks as, "some grumpy passengers paid uninvited visits to the cockpits and then rudely parked the planes in a well-known commercial real estate property near a landmark statue."

For what Microsoft admits here, according to experts, is that the hackers had gained the same access as a system administrator and then could do anything they wanted, including reading Microsoft management's email messages. It's embarrassing for Microsoft, which was just so proud to have passed Apple as the world's most valuable company with a stock market value of as much as $3 trillion ($3,000 billion).

Microsoft's hack at this level also shows that companies and organizations should make a special effort to store as little relevant information centrally as possible, because 100% security is a myth.

Boys play shooter games, girls are on social media

Founder of famed startup incubator Y Combinator Paul Graham shared a remarkable message: research shows that boys are becoming more conservative and girls more progressive.

Graham thinks he knows the reason: "This trend has a blandly obvious explanation. Boys and girls used to get along more. The girls made the boys more liberal, and the boys made the girls more conservative. But now the boys are sitting at home playing shooter games, and the girls are sitting at home posting on Instagram.'

To my knowledge I am childless so not an expert, but this sounds like a plausible explanation. Except that young people are mostly on TikTok and those over 25 are on Instagram. Facebook is for grandparents.

Fake nude turns out to be worse than real death

In the United States, alarm bells have been ringing since fake nude photos of celebrities such as Taylor Swift, probably created with AI, flooded social media. Of course, you wouldn't wish anyone to be put through the wringer as vulgar as TayTay, but as a European, it remains miraculous to note that while Americans are taking action against fake nudity, the most gruesome images of child corpses in war zones spread through social media hardly caused a stir.

AI and crypto mining fast-growing energy guzzlers

The growth of the Internet, the AI explosion and the resurgence of crypto and associated mining are causing data center energy consumption to double in the next two years, the International Energy Agency reports in a new report. It is expected that in Ireland, for example, which is eager to reel in large data centers, as much as a third of all energy will be consumed by data centers as early as 2026.

Meta propels NVIDIA stock price upward

Mark Zuckerberg is doing his part to help global warming, he reported on Instagram that his company Meta has purchased as many as 350,000 H100 systems from NVIDIA and has stocked a total of 600,000 H100-like systems.

It will be interesting to see how Meta will link its huge reach with AI to develop new applications. It will also be interesting to see if Zuckerberg uses a make-up artist again in his next video to make him look like the reincarnation of an embalmed Lenin.

Categories
AI crypto technology

My Christmas request is: help invest in a sustainable solution

We are just before Christmas 2023 and this might be the time for a flashy annual review or an exciting look ahead to 2024. But there is something we can't ignore that urgently needs our attention. Last week, the UN climate conference COP28 concluded with a hollow declaration of compromise. The Guardian wrote this balanced summary about it.

The US position as the world's largest oil and gas producer remains unaffected. China will continue to expand coal production and India's industry need not fear either. Saudi Arabia tried to remove any reference to fossil fuels, Russia worked behind the scenes to thwart progress and will try again next year when the climate summit is held in Azerbaijan.

Even as an optimist, the lack of specific CO2 reduction targets stops me from cheering over the agreement reached to move away from fossil fuels. Many countries, especially large CO2 emitters, have not agreed to concrete emission reduction targets. That makes the agreement as empty as children's promises in the weeks before Christmas to be less naughty next year.

It is now up to all of us

In December 2015, my colleague Hans Tobé and I attended COP21 in Paris, where the expectation was that for the first time ever serious plans would be forged to combat climate change and, in short, save the world as we know it.

With colleague Hans Tobé on the doorstep of COP21 in Paris, December 2015

At the time, Hans and I had just started Blue City Solutions with a group of like-minded people in the US and France, which aims to support projects that promote CO2 reduction. For various reasons, one of which was the Covid pandemic, this has been more difficult than we had hoped.

Our thinking at the time was that it was important for government and business to act together. In practice, through unwillingness or incompetence, or an unfortunate combination thereof, politicians around the world are proving unable to come up with a coherent policy to combat global warming.

Meanwhile, promising technological innovations have been developed, such as CSS technology that removes CO2 from the atmosphere and dissolves it in water but there have also been breakthroughs in ocean fertilization. Major breakthroughs are being made in the field of energy efficiency, which has convinced me that the fastest way to save this planet is through innovations from within society, with governments only facilitating and not guiding.

iXora, from The Netherlands

Everyone reading this newsletter, including through LinkedIn, Medium or Marketing Report, uses modern technology in their daily lives. Whether it is cloud services like Dropbox, Google Cloud or Microsoft OneDrive, AI applications like ChatGPT or streaming services like Netflix; modern life is made possible by services delivered from data centers, a market that is currently growing nearly 20% per year!

Those very fast-growing data centers are eating up power, especially to cool the modern, latest generation servers. Thus, together we are part of the problem. In my opinion, the solution is not to trade in our smartphones for old Nokias, but rather to take a leap forward and cool data centers in a better way.

That is what iXora does based on 'immersion cooling', cooling by means of liquid instead of air cooling, a patented technology that allows data centers to save over 30% on their energy consumption and also generates residual heat that can be used by houses and offices, for example. In short, iXora's technology leads to significant cost savings and structural reduction of CO2 emissions.

Netherlands most interesting startup

I have previously explained in detail why I am not neutral when it comes to iXora and why I think iXora is Holland's most interesting startup.

Watch the short introductory video of iXora here

In a nutshell: first of all, the data center industry is a global billion-dollar market that is forced to reduce energy consumption, and thus CO2 emissions, as soon as possible. If only because of energy costs!

Second, the unique technology that iXora employs to cool servers in the worldwide standard 19-inch enclosure is well patented, providing a competitive advantage. And third, I have come to know the founders as knowledgeable, energetic and reliable.

Those three factors together are rare to see in a Dutch startup. iXora offers an investment in accordance with the planet-people-profit principle, where technological advances enable a sustainable world in a profitable way. That approach appeals to me.

I also expect a lot from the R&D project announced this week by iXora to apply iXora's cooling technology to the equipment of NVIDIA, the undisputed leader in servers for AI applications. As a participant in the NVIDIA Inception Program, iXora will have access to NVIDIA engineers in making iXora technology suitable for NVIDIA's CPUs and GPUs.

And admittedly, in the context of full transparency: I also think, as a thrifty Dutchman, that the valuation of iXora, the price per share, for a company in such a global market that already delivers its products to paying customers, is modest. If iXora were based not in the Netherlands but in Palo Alto, the company would be worth at least fivefold. It's as simple as that.

The Christmas spirit in 2023: invest in sustainability

With any innovation, what matters most is what the customer thinks of it. This is precisely why the opinion of Ludo Baauw, CEO of Intermax, is so important. As a Rotterdam native, he makes no bones about it. Watch here his clear presentation on the first installation of iXora at Intermax, in the data center of NorthC. (I hope your version of YouTube has subtitles in your preferred language.)

Because you, as reader of this newsletter, are also strongly interested in innovations that can improve our lives, I am therefore asking you to support iXora. That's my request to you this Christmas.

Participating is possible from as little as €5,000 and all information is available here. There are people who invest in their children's names so that any profits will go to the next generation. A nice thought, but I would carefully consider how savvy your offspring is because it potentially involves serious pocket money.

Be careful anyway, of course: despite my enthusiasm, I want to emphasize that investing in startups is high-risk. Do this only with money you can spare and also assume you will lose it; but if you do start to see a return, it will probably be much more than you put in.

Spotlight 9: technology had a banner year in 2023

Speaking of investing and risk, it remains striking to see that despite the war in Ukraine, the misery in Israel and Gaza, and the uncertainty surrounding China's economy, with the U.S. presidential election looming, tech stocks achieved phenomenal returns in 2023.

NVIDIA, Meta and Bitcoin were the winners of 2023. Looking over the last five years, it was different.

In addition to looking at 2023, I also looked back at the best-performing stocks in the last five years. That leads to a different picture and different conclusions. What stands out the most in 2023 is not that NVIDIA, up 242%, was by far the best investment of the Spotlight 9, because with the explosion of the AI market, that was no surprise.

But I don't know anyone who expected Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp) shares to rise 168% this year after the disastrous 2022. The comeback of Bitcoin and Tesla was also remarkable. Investing, especially in technology, remains a strange combination of analytical thinking and belief in magic.

Therefore, it also makes sense not to lose sight of the S&P 500: in this chart it is the slowest kid in class, but in 2023 this index rose 23% and over the last five years the increase was as much as 93%. For the prudent investor, still a return many times better than a savings account.

Looking at the last five years, Ethereum, NVIDIA and Tesla have been the top three investments with staggering increases:

  • Ethereum: 1,841%
  • NVIDIA: 1,409%
  • Tesla: 1,089%

I certainly expected Bitcoin to be on the podium, but this shows once again that when it comes to investing, I'm better off focusing on analysis than predictions. Because I still can't give a single meaningful answer to the most frequently asked question, "what will be the next Ethereum, NVIDIA and Tesla in the next five years?

I want to thank everyone for their interest, tips and feedback and wish all readers and their loved ones a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and all the happiness, love and health in 2024. Until next year!