el producto #393 đ
Case studies that landed Product jobs, Alphabet's biggest buy, Netflix growth, CrowdStrike causes global chaos (ongoing), Amazon's AI shopping assistant, Pre-booking trips on Uber & more
Hey friends,
Happy weekend and welcome to a new edition of el producto!
đ° The week in figures
$70B: Stripe will sell up to $861M in secondary shares to investor Sequoia at a valuation of $70B (up from $55B one year ago)
$23B: Alphabet is closing in on a deal to acquire cloud security startup Wiz for $23B. It would be Google's biggest acquisition ever â nearly 2x its $12.5B purchase of Motorola Mobility in 2012
$14.2B: Amazon Prime Day sales were up 11% vs last year to a total of $14.2B
$267M: Human Interest, a startup that helps small companies set up 401(k) services, raised $267M in new funding at a $1.33B valuation
$142M: Aven, a startup offering consumer credit cards backed by home equity, raised a $142M Series D
$100M: Matera, a Brazilian company that provides instant payment, QR code payment and core banking software to financial institutions, raised $100M to expand into the US
300: Salesforce cut about 300 jobs this month
200%: Spotify says use of its DJ feature has grown 200% YoY and this week it rolled out the first international version
20%: Only 20% of VR device owners use it every day compared with 96% of smartphone users who use their phones every day
19%: Fintech funding rebounded 19% in Q2 to hit $8.9B. This was led by $600M just to Stripe and AlphaSense
đ¸ Q2 results
Netflix: global paid subscribers reached 278M, up 16.5% YoY. Ad-supported subscribers grew by 34% during the same period. Quarterly revenue of $9.56B, slightly above expectations, with earnings per share at $4.88, surpassing the expected $4.74 per share. The company reported a quarterly net income of $2.15B, up from $1.49B a year ago. Starting in 2025, Netflix will focus on engagement metrics and emphasize revenue and operating margin over quarterly membership numbers
đ° Whatâs going on
Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike caused global chaos on Thursday after an update bricked Windows machines around the world. Airlines, hospitals, and other businesses are on lockdown until they can get their machines fixed. That will take time. Shares of CrowdStrike are off, but if the company wanted the world to know how much of the global economy depends on its technology, well, mission accomplished. At the time of writing this, Iâm not sure if I will be able to make it home from Hawaii, which is not necessarily a problem :)
Uber has announced a new feature which allows tourists to book trips in advance of their vacation. Riders will now be able to see insights into the average wait time and cost of a ride from all local airports and within a given city, and book rides in advance. It supports over 10,000 cities throughout the world
Amazon has released its AI shopping assistant âRufusâ for all US users. It was first unveiled back in February in beta only, but itâs now ready for showtime after testing which included tens of millions of questions. It can help with tasks like finding product, comparing different products and generating recommendations on what to buy
WhatsApp has introduced a âFavoritesâ feature which gives users quick access to the contacts and groups that matter the most
Meta won't offer future multimodal AI models in EU due to stricter regulations. Ffollows Appleâs choice to feature-lock EU, making it a trend worth tracking
YouTube Music is testing a genAI feature that will let users enter a prompt to create a custom radio station
OpenAI has released a GPT-4o mini, a smaller version of its current GPT-4o model that you have probably tested. The price matters more than the model itself, which OpenAI says is âan order of magnitude more affordable than previous frontier models and more than 60% cheaper than GPT-3.5 Turboâ
Anthropic launches Claude AI chatbot app for Android. The Claude Android app will work just like the iOS version released in May, including free access to Anthropicâs best AI model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, alongside upgraded plans through Anthropicâs Pro and Team subscriptions
Anthropicâs Claude has also released a new feature designed to help engineers (and users in general) write better prompts. It works by asking users to describe a task e.g. Triage inbound customer support requests and allowing Claude to generate a high quality prompt on their behalf
Zoom has launched a new Workflow Automation feature which allows users to create complex workflows across Zoom Workplace and third-party applications, including Jira and Google Drive, with the help of generative AI. The workflows look a lot like other workflow apps like Zapier and are designed to help boost productivity. Examples shared by Zoom include things like welcoming a new employee, generating quick answers to common questions and keeping track of approvals for specific processes
LinkedIn launches short videos in India. LinkedIn aims to tap into the burgeoning short-form video market, currently valued at $5.5B. LinkedInâs video content will focus on knowledge sharing, news, skilling, professional development, career coaching, workplace culture, interview preparation, and resume building
Apple agreed with the European Commission to open up its mobile wallet NFC payment technology to apps and developers in Europe, to avoid hefty fines, which should allow third-parties to build tap-to-pay features for iPhones
Cash App Pay integrates with Google Play to give consumers more choice at checkout. By joining forces, this partnership will allow Cash App and Android users to seamlessly pay and get access to millions of apps, games, music, movies, books, and more
đ Good reads
7 mindsets that are slowing down your career growth, by Irina Stanescu. Itâs easy to think if we just move things forward and do a great job that weâre having impact. But, getting things done matters much more at the team level that at the individual level. Career growth, particularly as a PM, is tied to how much of a multiplier effect you bring to the team. So, be careful of the solo contributor mindset, and focus on driving and championing team impact. This article will help you identify and challenge some limiting beliefs about readiness for promotion
GenAi and workflow productivity, by a16z. An interesting reflection on GenAi productization (mainly in the enhanced productivity context) sparked a clear reflection: the fact that AI could generate rather than suppress jobs may lie in where the bottleneck is. If GenAi strongly commoditizes something that, at the moment, makes it expensive to support a specific job, the actual impact may be net positive
Apple financial offerings - is Apple the biggest fintech in the world and a bank in disguise? Recent updates indicate that Apple is reconsidering its financial strategy, particularly its partnership with Goldman Sachs, and may bring more services in-house. Apple's strategy is evolving, with its financial offerings integrated into its ecosystem, promoting user retention and adoption of proprietary financial products. With over 2B active devices, Apple's network effect supports this strategy. Follow-up with this nice summary by Marcel van Oost
What new design patterns does GenAi enable? Connor Joyce shares fascinating reflections on new design patterns that GenAI makes possible. From enhancing content interaction to more informed decision-making, this article brings in a specific perspective beyond the triteness of most of the analyses we have read recently
Real case studies that landed Product leadership roles. Ed Biden shares four great examples of candidates who successfully landed senior-level positions to help you prepare for your final round. If youâve ever been there, youâll know that looking at examples of how other people have tackled their cases helps you to understand:
How to break down the case
Where to take risks and where to over-answer
How to present solutions well
The competition level
Thatâs 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