el producto #380 🚀
Lessons building Zapier, Product podcasts, Netflix growth, Klarna credit cards, TikTok Notes, Meta's AI chatbot, Interview techniques, The self-motivation toolkit & more
Hey friends,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$80B: Stripe insiders sold almost $700M in shares at a $65B valuation (up 30%) and is trading above $80B in some secondary markets
$1.5B: Microsoft has committed to investing $1.5B in Abu Dhabi’s AI company G42. As part of the deal, G42 will utilize Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform for AI services
$870M: HR-tech startup Rippling in talks to raise $870M at a $13B valuation (up 20%)
$577M: Walmart-backed digital marketing software company Ibotta raised ~$577.3M in its IPO, selling shares for $88 each, giving the company a market value of $2.67B
$534M: French AI startup Mistral AI, touted as Europe's answer to OpenAI, seeks to raise €500M ($534M) in a round that would boost its valuation to $5.3B or more
$150M: Fintech Ramp raises another $150M at a $7.65B valuation to invest in AI for spend management
💸 Q1 results
Netflix: Q1 revenue up 15% YoY to $9.37B, vs. $9.28B est., paid users up 16% YoY to 269.6M, vs. 264.2M est., and net income $2.3B, up from $1.3B YoY
📰 What’s going on
Following orders from the Chinese government, Apple removed Meta's WhatsApp and Threads from its app store in China. Apple said it complied with the order because it's “obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree.” China, which restricts foreign content online through its Great Firewall, has still allowed some platforms like WhatsApp and Threads via Apple’s App Store
Meta's AI chatbot will now appear in the search bars of Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The company is rolling out its Meta AI assistant to millions of people worldwide. The English-only bot can answer questions and provide web search results in real-time using Google and Bing
Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview
To speed up AI development, Google will merge its DeepMind and Research teams working on AI models. The company is also moving its Responsible AI teams from research to DeepMind, giving more control to the latter's CEO, Demis Hassabis
OpenAI opens a Tokyo office, releases a Japanese language GPT-4 model, and taps former President of AWS Japan Tadao Nagasaki to woo enterprises in the country
Adobe releases Acrobat AI Assistant to summarize documents and answer questions about them for $4.99/month, an “early access” rate, and a mobile version in beta. Adobe also says it is in the early stages of developing a way to let Premiere Pro users tap AI models from OpenAI, Runway, and Pika Labs to generate and use video
Klarna is launching its credit card in the US, which lets users pay in installments and get up to 10% cashback from some merchants
Amazon Music follows Spotify with an AI playlist generator of its own, Maestro
Amazon brings its “Amazon Live” shoppable video to Prime Video and Freevee. Amazon Live’s FAST channel will feature 24/7 programming from popular creators and celebrities
Brazilian neobank Nubank announced plans to go beyond providing banking services by launching its own mobile phone operator company. The company has an advantage in telecommunications, with it being among the largest channels for selling recharges in Brazil
TikTok has launched its new photo-sharing app for limited testing in Australia and Canada. The app, TikTok Notes, competes against Instagram
TikTok signs a deal with ticketing provider AXS to let users buy tickets to live events in the US, UK, and more; TikTok has had a Ticketmaster deal since 2022
Twitch plans to roll out its TikTok-style discovery feed later in April, letting users scroll clips and livestreams, after testing the feature for a year
📚 Good reads
8 lessons from building Zapier. Wade Foster, founder and CEO of Zapier, shares his contrarian takes on building a billion-dollar company — from fundraising advice, go-to-market strategy, and hiring mistakes. “Building startups is not a particularly glamorous thing in spite of how the media makes it look. A lot of it is just doing sales or doing customer support hundreds of thousands of times over and over again and being really committed to becoming exceptional at it”
10 interview techniques from the world’s best interviewers, by Polina Pompliano. Interviewing people is one of the most important parts of the customer discovery stack, and the folks who know how to go deeper and find richer insights are the ones who ultimately end up building better quality products. This comprehensive and practical guide on interviewing techniques from the world's very best conversationalists will help you get there
Frameworks on new markets, startup ideas and emerging technologies. Emerging markets lead to new customer needs which in turn inspire the creation of new software products, which in turn encourage builders to innovate and deliver value. Zoe Chew shares her process to capture signals, understand customer needs, find profitable markets and competitors, and identify opportunities
Lessons from Thinking Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman (who passed away last month) and Amos Tversky's work has profoundly impacted our understanding of decision-making and behavior. Devansh shares how their masterpiece helped him study and understand his biases, step back, question our automatic responses, and make better choices. If you haven’t read the book (go get it!), this article will give you a quick overview. If you have read it, this piece is a valuable refresher. Complement with this new article by Scott Galloway in which he explains how Khaneman’s work help him navigate the strait between instinct and decision
How people are really using generative AI at work. Are people really using these tools? Have they found ways for generative AI to help them lighten their workloads, increase their productivity, think through problems in new ways? In this piece, HBR investigates the real world ways companies are using genAI at work
The self-motivation toolkit. A brief guide on 3 strategies to stay curious and committed by Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Product Management podcasts to follow, by Zeda.io
That’s all for this week. As usual, feel free to reach out and share your thoughts by replying back to this email or commenting on Substack
Thanks for your support!
Angel