el producto #309 🚀
Apple delays self-driving car, Microsoft Teams communities, ChatGPT adoption, Amazon video-shopping, The psychology of TikTok, AI for human amplification, Uber robotaxis & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend & welcome to a new edition of el producto!
This week, I asked ChatGPT to write a brief intro for the newsletter. Here’s the result:
"Welcome to this week's edition of our product management newsletter. In this issue, we bring you the latest funding news, including $2.1B in VC investment in generative AI startups and $700M raised by sports merchandise company Fanatics. We also cover major announcements, such as Apple's scaled back plans for a self-driving car and the launch of Disney's ad-supported streaming tier. Stay up-to-date with the most important news and trends in product management with our weekly newsletter."
Nothing crazy, right? However, when you start engaging further, you also begin to realize how mindblowing ChatGPT can be:
Not convinced yet?
Humble machine…
🎰 The week in figures
$2.1B: VC investment in generative AI startups has reached $2.1B this year, up 425% since 2020; Generative AI refers to the broad category of machine learning algorithms that can create new text, images, code, and other forms of content; overall investments in AI are prospering even though VC funding remains down
$1.2B: Instant delivery startup Getir, based in Istanbul, has closed its acquisition of Germany-based Gorillas for $1.2B, a deal that values the new entity at ~$10B; this represents a valuation cut for both companies: Getir was last valued at ~$11.8B in March 2022, and Gorillas was valued at ~$3B in September 2021
$700M: Sports merchandise company Fanatics has raised $700M at a $31B valuation; the company plans to use the new funds to grow its various units, including a soon-to-launch sports betting and gaming business
$400M: Trip Actions has raised a $400M credit funding round to expand its expense management platform; the company started offering the service as its travel business was shut down during the lockdown
$250M: Sunbit has raised a $250M debt funding round to offer a no-fee credit card and quick loan approvals; Sunbit claims it has a 90% approval rate for those who fulfill the application criteria
$250M: Avant has raised a $250M debt funding round to provide algorithmic-based loans and credit cards to the underserved community; the company has processed over $8B in loans since being founded
$151M: Norway's grocery delivery service Oda has raised $151M at a lowered valuation of $353M; Oda previously raised $265M from SoftBank at a $900M valuation
$135M: Indian D2C nutrition marketplace business Healthkart secured $135M in Series H funding at a $350M valuation
$122M: Allica Bank has raised a $122M Series C; Allica Bank is a digital bank that aims to help SMEs when they need access to capital; the company processes over $1B in monthly loans
1M: Telegram's paid product, Telegram Premium, has passed 1M subscribers less than 6 months after launching; it costs $5/month and includes file sharing of up to 4 GB and faster downloads; Telegram's free product has >700M MAUs
1M: OpenAI's ChatGPT has surpassed 1M users after launching last week’s Wednesday; Stack Overflow has temporarily banned responses generated by OpenAI's ChatGPT AI program, citing "a high rate" of incorrect answers
30%: The declining performance of Meta ads pushed direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands to Amazon; during Q4 2022, DTC brands moved 30% of their ads from Meta to Amazon
-20%: Fintech startup Plaid let go of 20% (260 employees) of its workforce; CEO Zach Perret said Plaid's revenue growth has been slower than what the company initially anticipated due to the "economic slowdown;" he added that Plaid's cost growth is faster than its revenue growth but didn't share specific numbers
📰 What’s going on
Apple is scaling back its plans for a level 5 self-driving car; Apple also postponed its release date for its electric vehicle, now expecting to launch a more traditional EV with a steering wheel and pedals in 2026; Apple had initially planned to launch the new product category in 2025
Apple has reinstated total advertising on Twitter and Amazon is expected to return to the platform soon; pending some "security tweaks," Amazon reportedly plans to spend about $100M a year on Twitter ads
Google introduced an add-on for non-technical users to apply machine learning to their data in Google Sheets; the "Simple ML" tool, now in beta, is free to download as of Wednesday
In an effort to streamline operations, Google will combine its teams working on Google Maps and Waze; the merger, which started this week, will see Waze's 500 employees join Google’s Geo unit overseeing Maps, Earth, and Street View
Disney launched its ad-supported Disney+ tier on Thursday as the company aims to make its streaming business profitable; Disney said over 100 brands have already signed up to display ads on its platform
Uber and Hyundai-Aptiv's Motional began offering a robotaxi service in Las Vegas featuring autonomous vehicles; it’s the first time that self-driving cars have been made available to the public on the Uber app
Microsoft recently considered building a super app, inspired by China-based WeChat, that would have combined messaging, web search, shopping, news feeds, and more services
Microsoft launched a new communities features in Teams for iOS and Android; the Discord-like product is free to use and allows groups to use the calendar, meeting, and chat features of Teams
In November, Meta employees held a virtual brainstorming session to discuss how to build the next Twitter; one of the ideas was a more extensive version of Instagram Notes
Amazon launched a TikTok-inspired shopping experience on its app; it is called Inspire and is a short-form video and photo feed that allows customers to explore products and shop
Amazon has begun to rescind job offers to new recruits "in light of the challenging economic conditions," a statement from the company said; new hires set to start in January were offered one month's pay after their job offers were taken away
Twitter Blue will revamp its pricing; web signups will pay $7, while users who sign up via iOS will pay $11; the price difference reflects revenue lost from Apple's 30% App Store's commission
Graphic design app Canva has introduced an AI-enabled copywriter tool built on OpenAI's GPT-3 model; the Magic Write text generator produces copy for blog posts, cover letters, marketing briefs, meeting agendas, and other projects
Robinhood has opened a waitlist for its retirement account product, which will offer a 1% match on every eligible dollar contributed to its IRAs, and will have zero commissions or account minimums
Warner Bros. Discovery's new streaming service, set to debut in Spring 2023, is rumored to be called 'Max' pending legal review; the streaming service will feature hubs of content for HBO, DC Comics, Discovery, and others
Epic Games has launched its Reality Scan app for 3D object creation; users upload several images of real-life objects to transform them into 3D assets; the app is free to download on iOS
📚 Good reads
Airtable’s lessons to Product/Market-Fit. Another great piece by First Round Review. About early days:“This work in the alpha phase would have been really hard to parallelize. You can't hire a bunch of engineers to make that go faster. It actually would've been counterproductive to try to scale it up a lot more because we needed to nail that foundation of the database. Hiring a bunch of people would have made it harder to be nimble and change the direction of that foundation,”
Customer interviews 101: how to recruit, what to ask, and how to synthesize what you learn, by Teresa Torres
The era of decentralization is coming. In his essay, Packy McCormick argues that “we’re nearing the local maximum for this current era of centralization, and that we’re headed towards an era of decentralization at an even higher level of quality and complexity than the system we inhabit today. ” An extensive and thought-provoking piece with tons of references for further diving into the covered topics
Optimizing for long-term value, sequencing business models, and prioritizing network effects, by Casey Winters. “What I teach my teams is that their missions all need to have a semi-colon in them. The first part of the sentence is the value you're creating for the customer. The second part of the sentence is the value that creates for the business“
The psychology of Tiktok feed. Another great visual case study by Growth.Desing
Payment cards deep dive. Eduardo Lopez for Fintech Explainers put together a great deep-dive covering the different types of payment cards, how they’re deployed by users, how they’re issued by financial institutions, key terms, and breaking down the stages of a transaction
Amplitude’s Product Report 2022. In this year’s edition of the Product Report, Amplitude dataset shows how the product landscape evolved from 2021 to 2022, including the product growth observed across 12 industries and eight countries. They also highlight what their data suggests will be the 30 Next Hottest Products across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific
🚀 Emerging trends
During Tuesday's Fortune Brainstorm AI summit, LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman touted the benefits of what he called "human amplification" technologies over the next five years.Hoffman envisions the use of AI to amplify but not replace human productivity and creativity across industries.
Hoffman discussed Inflection AI, a machine learning startup he cofounded with DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, and former DeepMind researcher Karén Simonyan
Inflection is developing AI software to help people better communicate with computers
E.g. it's working to enable AI systems to understand natural language commands from humans, which can amplify productivity and creativity
Hoffman said he sees Inflection as a "co-pilot" but not a replacement for human professionals
Human implication "doesn't put graphic designers out of business," he said. Rather, it will be an "essential tool by which we do everything"
Hoffman and Suleyman are both investors at the VC firm Greylock, which is now focusing heavily on companies leveraging AI. Inflection is the first company that either has co-founded since Hoffman sold LinkedIn to Microsoft for $26.2B in 2016 and Suleyman sold DeepMind to Google for ~$600M in 2014
That’s all for today! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Angel
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