el producto #387 🚀
Reducing churn, AI teammates, Meta's AI business assistant, Netflix redesign, Navigating your Product career, Asking smarter questions, Nvidia growth & more
Hey friends,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto!
🎰 The week in figures
$3.02T: On Wednesday, Nvidia surpassed Apple to become the second-most valuable U.S. public company, reaching a market cap of $3.019T as its shares rose over 5%. Microsoft remains the top company with a market cap of $3.15T
$968M: Waystar raised $968M after pricing its IPO at $21.50/share, giving the health care payments software maker a ~$3.6B market value
$452M: Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has agreed to sell its remaining 4.5M shares in AI startup Anthropic for $452.2M to investors
$200M: Robinhood is set to acquire crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200M, marking its largest acquisition to date
$157M: Raspberry Pi plans to sell shares at £2.60 to £2.80 each in its London IPO, aiming to raise ~£157M; shareholder Arm has agreed to buy $35M more worth of shares
$19.6M: Monzo Bank has posted its first full year of profit, following a period of rapid growth and transformation. The FinTech reported pre-tax profits of £15.4M ($19.6M) for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, a dramatic turnaround from a £116.3M loss the previous year
1K: Microsoft is laying off over 1000 in its cloud and mixed reality groups
📰 What’s going on
Instagram confirms it is testing an unskippable ad format with a countdown timer that briefly prevents feed scrolling
Meta rolls out new Communities feature on Messenger to all users globally. The feature is designed to help organizations, schools and other private groups communicate in a more organized and structured way
Meta will begin testing an AI assistant for businesses for WhatsApp. WhatsApp's AI will be able to sell products through chat, answer shoppers' questions, and create targeted ads. Meta says 200M businesses could access the AI assistant in WhatsApp for customer communication, and will begin testing with businesses in India and Singapore followed by Brazil
AI search engine Perplexity launches Pages, which will research and create a customizable webpage based on prompts, aimed at educators, researchers, and others
Asana unveiled "AI teammates," a generative AI feature for automating work tasks. The AI bots can manage workflows, set priorities, suggest productivity improvements, and automate routine and complex tasks
Apple's AI overhaul for its hardware will reportedly be called "Apple Intelligence." The company will unveil the new AI features and software capabilities for iPhones, Macs, and iPads at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday
TikTok is testing Snapchat-like streaks feature with select users in limited markets. You have to DM someone for more than three days in a row. Once you do that, you will get a streak badge displayed on the chat, along with the number of streak days
Netflix is testing the biggest redesign of its TV app in 10 years. Netflix said the changes streamline navigation after seeing customers struggling to find content. The new design consolidates information about shows and movies, making titles and descriptions more prominent on the screen, and is being tested among a small group of subscribers
Spotify is launching a music only tier. The new tier, which excludes audiobooks, is being tested in the UK, and costs £1 less
Telegram launches Stars, a new in-app currency for the purchase of digital goods and services in Telegram mini apps
Robinhood launched its crypto trading API for users based in the US. The API allows developers to build custom tools for crypto trading
Humane has engaged in talks to sell to HP after its wearable AI Pin received poor reviews. Humane also received around 10,000 AI Pin orders by April, far short of its 100,000 goal for the year. Previous reports noted Humane was seeking a buyer at a sale price between $750M and $1B
📚 Good reads
Navigating your Product career. Mike Belsito reflected on advice from numerous Product leaders to put together a deep dive on navigating your product career that helps you think more deeply about your career in product. The PM career path is certainly a tricky one. And the dearth of formal Product Management education means that Product people often question whether their career decisions are right. There is a path for Product Managers – but that path to success is rarely a straight line, and the skills that got you to your current role may not be the same ones that will propel you to the next level
How Modularity and Integration are playing out in the AI space. Ben Thompson examines the impact of AI integration and modularization on the tech industry, and discusses how different tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, are approaching the opportunity
Strategies for reducing voluntary churn and retaining subscribers. Elena Verna explains some of the key metrics, tactics, and best practices in B2B and B2C
How to ask smarter questions. The late scholar and business thinker Sumantra Ghoshal once said that leadership means making happen what otherwise would not. Asking questions is an important part of this process. In this piece, HBR explain how
[Podcast] Letting your AI digital twins attend meetings for you. Zoom’s CEO says he wants a future where users can send their AI twin to attend a meeting on their behalf. This sounds ideal for the times when you really don’t feel like it’s necessary for you to attend a meeting but what happens if you do attend and you’re the only human on the call?
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