📡 Pulse #162 — Diamonds and Valentine’s Day
and Meta’s drop in a positive light.
Hey, Pulse readers!
How’s it going? I hope you’re enjoying your weekend.
This week I launched my second newsletter, and it’s in Persian. Check it out here — and subscribe — if you speak Farsi and haven’t subscribed already.
Big thanks to Substack for eventually adding RTL language support to their text editor.
That being said, let’s jump in. Just remember:
— Behrouz
PS. Some of the links in Pulse are affiliate links. So if you click on them and buy something, I’ll earn a small percentage. It’s one way you can support Pulse.
In Today’s Issue
This Week in the News
Article: Meta’s stock drop is not that bad
Newsletter: Diamonds Aren't Forever
Bonus: Valentine’s Day Special
Tweet: Society
Tool: exnge
And a gift for you.
This Week in the News
Joe Rogan apologizes for his past use of the N-word after a compilation video of him using the slur went viral; ~70 JRE episodes have been removed from Spotify [link]
Investigation reveals the identities of two main founders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection: Greg Solano, aka “Gargamel”, and Wylie Aronow [link]
Report details Stadia's future as a white-label game streaming service called Google Stream, including talks with Capcom, Bungie, and Peloton [link]
Crypto tax and tax to crypto, GME’s NFT plans, and Snap’s after-hours jump [link]
Starlink Premium, burner phones, and ethical AI [link]
Google iMessage, Tesla, and crypto tax in India [link]
Bungie’s joins Sony, Wordle joins NYT, and Phantom promises Ethereum support [link]
One Article
Meta’s stock drop is actually a positive thing
I’m not a big fan of Meta (aka Facebook) — mainly from a privacy perspective — but that’s not news. Considering that I’ve used Facebook, I still use some of their products (like Instagram). I even wrote my MSc dissertation on their flagship product, Facebook [web] app, back in 2011 when it didn’t have over 3 billion users, and I’ve studied the company for over a decade.
Now, I don’t think Meta’s going anywhere, even after the drop after their weak Q4 earnings report that wiped over $200 billion off of the company’s market cap. Here’s why:
Meta missed on their earnings and lost some daily and monthly users in their 21Q4, and IMO everyone has been focused on the wrong part of the pivot they made: their “metaverse” bet. The company had poured billions of dollars into ‘Reality Labs’ — where they’re working on combining virtual reality and augmented reality and screens into a thing that’s still quite abstract called the ‘metaverse.’
Of course, that $10 billion spent on the metaverse in 2021 would come at a cost to the company and drag their profits down. But is it actually a bad thing? I don’t think so.
I’m not going to even try to pretend that I know the tech industry landscape as much as Mark Zuckerberg does, but this sounds pretty easy to me, and I think Gary Vaynerchuk said it best — quite a while ago:
Meta’s got a fantastic legacy business making hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and now they’re figuring out [or maybe even building] the next big thing, the metaverse so that when the time comes, they’re not left behind — and that’s a great strategic move.
Imagine being Yahoo and getting comfortable at the top and not seeing Google coming. Or imagine being Microsoft and getting comfortable with Windows dominance and not seeing cloud computing coming…
What Meta’s doing with their pivot to metaverse is exactly history repeating itself — and Meta as a company, trying to shape its fate rather than waiting around for the future to happen to them — and that’s pretty damn smart when you have the resources.
That being said, I’m not ignoring the other factors affecting Meta’s weak earnings last quarter, like competition from other apps like TikTok and privacy pushes from Apple; however, I think this is a bump their road rather than a disaster, even though $200 billion in a day does seem like a lot of money/value, if you zoom out, I’m pretty sure Meta will jump back up.
The only thing I think Meta needs to be careful about is not to let go of the legacy side of the business entirely, just in case the whole metaverse thing doesn’t pan out, which I think is unlikely.
This is NOT investment or any type of financial advice. This is just personal opinion. Do your own research ffs. I’m not responsible for anything here. Oh and by the way, sometimes, I change my mind! Just so you know.
One Newsletter
💎 Diamonds Aren't Forever: The Story of De Beers
Sahil Bloom’s newsletter is one of those I [at least try to] read every issue of. The fact that it’s powered by his curiosities makes it even more interesting to me as it’s what I’m pursuing with Pulse — so I can easily relate.
In this issue, Sahil tells the story of De Beers and the making of the modern diamond industry — and it’s fascinating.
In addition to the economic/marketing/growth sides of it that we can learn a lot from, with Valentine’s Day around the corner, it’s a good story to have in your back pocket.
One Bonus
Fall in love in 36 questions
Alright, this might not exactly be on-brand for Pulse, but don’t judge too quickly! I couldn’t have said it better, so here’s from the Hidden Brain newsletter.
In 1997, the psychologist Arthur Aron published a study: The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness. People were paired with a partner and for forty-five minutes, they asked each other a series of questions designed to foster a sense of intimacy.
In 2015, writer Mandy Len Catron wrote about this study in a Modern Love essay, “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This.” In her essay, Catron wonders whether it’s possible to fall in love with a relative stranger by asking the same 36 questions presented in Aron’s study.
“Most of us think about love as something that happens to us. We fall. We get crushed,” she writes. “But what I like about this study is how it assumes that love is an action.” The study — and the essay — are a good reminder of the work that goes into fostering intimacy. And many of Aron’s 36 questions are a good way to get to know not just a romantic partner but anyone who might be important in your life.
One Tweet
Society
you probably have seen this, but it was too true to let it go, so… and you can change that with a lot and it’d still work… like ‘free speech.’
One Tool
exnge
Ok, to be honest, I haven’t tested this enough, but it just seems like an excellent idea and implementation.
exnge helps you make your own AI to predict the market. Have a look at it — but probably with scepticism.
visit exnge.
🐐 One gift for you.
physics my ass
And that’s all for now. Stay curious, and enjoy learning. See you next week.