el producto #356 🚀
New Macs, Microsoft's AI-add-ons, Q3 tech results, Cognitive bias traps, 2024 Product conferences, Beyond PLG at Figma and Notion, Claude > ChatGPT & more
Hey team,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto
🎰 The week in figures
$19B: X will give employees RSUs at $35/share, implying a $19B valuation. This is less than half of the amount Elon Musk paid for it a year ago
$400M: Palo Alto Networks acquired Dig Security, an Israel-based cybersecurity startup, for ~$400M
$300M: Mistral, a Paris-based startup that previously raised $113M in a pre-product Seed round, is planning on raising $300M at a $1B+ valuation to build out an open-source LLM
$250M: TikTok livestreamers received $250M+ from users in Q3 2023; the company takes a 50% cut on these tips and is on track to earn ~$500M in US tips in 2023
$200M: QI Tech, a Brazil-based startup building a banking-as-a-service platform, raised a $200M Series B and reported ~$21M in H1 2023 net revenue
$200M: Tabby, a Saudi Arabian buy-now-pay-later provider, raised $200M Series D
$200M: Bootstrapped AI-powered image generation startup Midjourney has reportedly hit $200M in annual recurring revenue (ARR). With just 100 employees, Midjourney could be valued at $10B
$124M: Atom Bank, the UK-based consumer neobank, raised £100M ($124M) at a £362M valuation (down from £435M last year)
15M: In a letter to shareholders, Netflix disclosed that its ad-supported tier has 15M+ MAUs and is accounting for ~30% of new sign-ups where it is available
$30: Microsoft is charging $30 per user per month for business accounts to access new "AI Copilot" capabilities across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and other Office programs
-50%: NFT marketplace OpenSea cut ~50% of its team and now has ~230 staff remaining as NFT trading volumes wane
💰 Q3 results
Airbnb: revenue: $3.4B (+18% y/y), net income: $4.4B (includes one-time $2.8B tax benefit), FCF: $1.3B, gross bookings: $18.3B (+17% y/y), nights and experiences booked: 113.2M (+14% y/y); shares were down 3% on muted outlook
Apple: revenue: $89.5B (-1% y/y), net income: $23B, services revenue: $22.3B; shares were down slightly
Coinbase: revenue: $674.1M (+14% y/y), net loss: -$2.3M, ~$76B in trading volume; shares were up slightly on the news
DoorDash: revenue: $2.16B (+27% y/y), net loss: -$75M, gross order volume: $16.8B (+24% y/y); shares were up 15%+ on positive guidance and narrowing losses
Pinterest: revenue: $736.2M (+11% y/y), MAUs: 482M (+8% y/y), net income: $7M, shares are up ~19% after beating on top-line and bottom-line expectations
Shopify: revenue: $1.71B, beating expectations, GMV expanded 22% to $56.2B, net income reached $718M compared to a loss of $158.4M YoY; share price spiked 22.3%
📰 What’s going on
Apple unveiled new Macs and its latest lineup of processors, the M3 series, during its product launch event on Monday. The lineup includes the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips, which are the first personal computer chips to use the advanced 3-nanometer process
New Chips:
The M3 chip boasts a 2.5x speed increase compared to Apple's M1 family, with core processing performance up to 50% faster
The three chips feature an upgraded GPU supporting ray tracing, mesh shading, and Dynamic Caching, along with a "faster and more efficient" CPU
New Macs:
Apple's new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros sport the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Pro Max chips
The laptops include a Mini LED display, 1080p camera, 22-hour battery life, and up to 128GB of memory
In addition, a new 24-inch iMac, Apple's primary desktop computer, contains the M3 chip with two times faster performance than the M1 version
Both the new iMac and MacBook Pros will be available starting Nov. 7
Apple is planning new health-related features for the 2024 Apple Watch, including a blood pressure sensor and sleep apnea detection. The company will also launch a paid health coaching service that could recommend meal plans and workouts
OpenAI is rolling out an upload feature for some ChatGPT Plus subscribers. The "Advanced Data Analysis" beta feature allows paid users to upload files such as data sheets and PDFs for analysis by ChatGPT. After processing the uploaded file, ChatGPT can do tasks like answering questions, summarizing data, and generating data visualizations
Google Calendar has launched its new feature for scheduling meetings. Appointment Schedule allows users to create a single booking page and accept unlimited appointments at no charge
Meta plans to offer paid ad-free subscriptions for Facebook and Instagram in Europe starting this month. EU privacy regulators have pushed Meta to seek explicit user consent for targeted ads. In response, the company said it would charge users who opt out, which will help it offset losses
Elon Musk's AI startup, xAI, debuted its first AI model to a "select group" of users on Saturday November 4th
ByteDance has integrated TikTok into its Pico 4 VR headset, offering a 2D app experience within the virtual environment. The integration is basic, allowing screen recording uploads and feed browsing, reflecting ByteDance's strategic move after acquiring Pico in 2021
Intuit is closing personal-finance app Mint, shifts users to Credit Karma. Mint will no longer be available at the start of 2024, the company said. Users urged to continue tracking personal finances on Credit Karma
Joe Biden signed an EO on generative AI: requires devs of major AI systems to share safety tests, protect against AI biological material risks, protect privacy, and more
WeWork plans to file for Ch 11 bankruptcy as early as next week; the co-working company raised $20B+ and was valued at a peak of ~$47B; as of June, WeWork operated 777 locations across 39 countries
📚 Good reads
2024 Product (and UX) Conference List. by Teresa Torres
Overchoice and how to avoid it, by Gurwinder. Research shows we spend about 3 hours per day making trivial and mundane decisions; that amounts to a full 40 days each year of just dithering. And that’s just the petty and easy decision. It doesn’t count actual consequential ones, like your job, choice of spouse, etc. The paradox explored in this article highlights the important point we often forget: the choices we make don’t need to be the best—they just have to be worth more than the time spent making them. In Gurwinder’s post, he shares what he calls 5 “philosophical razors” that can help us made decisions in a world of endless choice
Hire better managers. You’re not looking for a mediocre manager to lead a team — you’re looking for someone exceptional. So ditch the rudimentary questions and dig deeper with these 35 key questions for assessing leadership style and team management skills, by First Round Review
Why Claude is better than ChatGPT. Nick Babich tests the powerful AI chatbot on multiple popular scenarios, such as summarizing text, data analysis and writing code
The perpetual optimization machine failure - when we start to hallucinate success together in business, by Leah Tharin. Many businesses spend too much time planning and not enough time checking reality. We have to accept that as humans we are fundamentally bad at seeing reality but extremely good at assuming we do. It wouldn’t be so bad if the latter wasn’t the case
How Uber design products (and why). A brief but insightful article going behind Uber's design for 130 million riders worldwide, by Ethan Eismann and Felix Lee
Figma and Notion - beyond the conventional bounds of Product-Led Growth. Phani Vuyyuru looks at why product-led growth might not always be the silver bullet for scaling and explores some alternative strategies using Notion and Figma as case studies. PLG has proven to be a vital strategy for scaling products, with Notion and Figma exemplifying its strengths. However, as these case studies illustrate, PLG alone might not be enough. Diversifying growth strategies, investing in customer engagement, building a strong ecosystem, and staying competitive are equally crucial. By adopting a multifaceted approach, product managers can navigate the complexities of scaling and lead their products to sustained success
A to Z of Webhooks for Product Managers. Few days ago we shared an intro to APIs for PMs. This week, we continue with some useful material for non-technical PMs by looking at Webhooks, or as Rohit Verma describes them, the “automated messages sent from one application to another when a specific event occurs”
The cognitive bias traps for Product Managers. If you have been following el producto for while, you may have noticed how much we like and share about cognitive biases. This is because while cognitive biases help humans find mental shortcuts to assist in the navigation of daily life, they may often cause irrational interpretations and judgments that have an impact on the Products and teams we manage. This week we found another great summary of common biases by Will Scott
That’s all for this week! Let me know what you think by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Angel