How do you do, fellow kids?

Hi there,

Are you a young person? 

If yes, listen up.

If someone older at work says they really like a particular song, never never never say "Oh yeah — my mom & dad really like that song."

There is zero upside to saying this.

You are welcome.


Facebook bulls

Yesterday, we asked if you would buy Facebook given the recent stock decline. 



It was pretty close, as the results below highlight. 46% feel there is a lot more room to fall, but the Facebook bulls (54%) say FB stock may be a buy now or soon.



 

Blockchain: the best hype man

Some public companies are trying to ride the blockchain hype wave by pivoting away from their core products — cameras, diagnostic machinery, iced tea, etc. — to take on new blockchain strategies.

From Riot Blockchain (formerly Bioptix Inc.) to Kodak to Long Blockchain (formerly Long Island Iced Tea), we look at 9 public companies that saw significant stock price jumps after their blockchain rebranding.




Bullets, cancer, and social media?

Barron's Jack Hough has an interesting writeup on Facebook being a bargain (see The Blurb).

The comparisons to cigarette manufacturers and assault rifle makers must be making the folks at FB pretty happy.




Big breach

How does Facebook's data "leak" compare to major privacy breaches?



It's smaller, as you see. 

Several of the FB bulls have written in basically saying that the stock selloff is people pricing in what is possible but not probable.

Essentially, the idea here is that there are lots of bad things that might happen to FB (the possible), but in all likelihood, politicians and media will move on to the next drama and forget (the probable).

Thoughts?


A nice gesture

Amazon's new patent changes drones from passive delivery vehicles to more sophisticated bots that can understand — and respond to — human gestures and voice commands.

Another patent granted in 2017 reveals drones that can talk to people while in the air. We look into how these patents could eventually boost Amazon's product recommendation efforts and Alexa's presence. 




#nofilter

A big part of Facebook's growth comes from its acquisition of products like WhatsApp and Instagram. Instagram had around 80M users when it was acquired in 2012. Late last year, it had 500M+ daily active users.

It's not surprising, then, that Instagram is getting a lot more talk time than Facebook's other platforms. Check out the full analysis here.

Czech mate

At a CBI Councils event, Deutsche Telekom’s Thomas Kicker shared how his team partnered with 4-person connected car startup Mojio to generate $100M+ in revenue for T-Mobile and bring 500K+ cars online in the US alone. (That was December 2017. The numbers continue to grow.)

One key to success? Launch in the Czech Republic first. The partners solved many challenges in a manageable market before taking on the world’s biggest consumer market — the US.

Are you an SVP or higher from a company with $1B+ in revenue? Want to trade your management secrets with peers? Apply for Councils here.

The Industry Standard

CB Insights data is the most trusted by those in the industry and the media. A few recent hits.

Bloomberg. Yoolim Lee (@yoolimleenews) discusses Uber’s agreement to swap its business in Southeast Asia for a 27.5% stake in local ride-hailing competitor Grab and cites CB Insights research.
 
Reuters. Fiona Lau and Julie Zhu (@julie_zhuli) report that Meituan-Dianping, China’s largest provider of on-demand online services, has tapped three Wall Street banks for its Hong Kong listing and cites CB Insights research.
 
Nikkei Asian Review. Takayuki Kato writes about Japan’s big-name companies investing in startups and refers to CB Insights CVC research.

The Blurb