In Focus: Company Splits, YouTube Dislikes and Nykaa IPO
Only the important things that happened this week
Hey folks,
Happy Monday! I hope you have a terrific week ahead! This week, Tech Breakdowns saw the single largest increase in subscriptions since I started writing. If you’re new here, welcome to this community of smart and cool people, and I am so excited that you’re here. On the other hand, if you’ve been here a while, you’ll notice that the format for this week is a little different. Based on the feedback I have received, many of you believe that the newsletter could benefit from more detailed news. This week, you will receive two newsletters, this one - with analysis of the week’s tech news, and one on Thursday – where the normal case-study based structure would return.
In this week’s edition:
YouTube is hiding the count of dislikes on a video
Major legacy companies are splitting
Discord abandons plans for crypto integration
Nykaa goes public
YouTube is removing dislike counts from the public
To prevent creators from harassment, YouTube announced that it will be removing the count of dislikes a video has received from the viewers. The dislike button will stay as it is, and the count of dislikes will be available to the uploader. This decision comes after YouTube ran experiments for “multiple months” and conducted an “in-depth analysis of the impact” but refuses to share specific details. The word “Dislike” would replace count under the dislike button. Link.
Three major legacy companies announced that they are splitting their businesses
First - Once the world’s most valuable company and now a fledgling business, General Electric is splitting into three companies focussing on healthcare, aviation and energy. Second – World’s largest pharmaceutical company, Johnson and Johnson is shaking up the healthcare sector by splitting into two companies, one for its consumer products and another for its pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Third – Toshiba, after years of scandal and attacks by activist shareholders, is splitting into three companies; first would focus on energy and infrastructure, second would focus on the company’s semiconductor and hard drive business; third would manage Toshiba’s stake in flash-memory chip company Kioxia Holdings and other assets. GE. J&J. Toshiba.
Discord amidst user backlash is pausing crypto and NFT integrations
Discord founder and CEO, Jason Ciron tweeted a mock-up of the Discord desktop app featuring the functionality to link your digital wallets (See below). Soon, Discord and Ciron quickly found themselves facing backlash from users threatening to cancel their Nitro subscriptions, Discord’s premium service. Users were quick to point out the environmental harms caused by mining cryptocurrencies. Users also argued that this would only worsen the already huge problem of crypto scams on the platform. Soon, Citron and Discord explained that the screenshot was from the company hackathon and not something that they intend to ship anytime soon. Link.
Nykaa is now a public company
Nykaa is the latest Indian tech company to go public. This marked India’s first women-led unicorn to get listed. During the IPO process, the company’s offer price per share was INR 1,125 (on the upper side), the stock, however, opened at INR 2,018 and even went as high as INR 2,129. Nykaa raised $721 million and plans to utilise the funds to expand its brand portfolio and set up new physical stores. The company now has a market cap of $13 billion. Link.
In other news
1. WeWork’s co-founder and former CEO, Adam Neumann is back and this time he has undergone some media training. Two years after his spectacular and public ousting from the company he founded, Neumann his first interview to give his side of the story. Link.
2. Rockstar Games launched remastered versions of three of its classic games – GTA Vice City, GTA III and GTA San Andreas. On the day of the release, Rockstar Games also made the game unavailable to play because the initial version of the games contained some files that the game studio didn’t want public. Link.
3. An engineering student modified an iPhone X to have s USB-C port instead of the usual lightining connector. The phone was auctioned off on eBay with the starting bid of $1. The phone ultimately sold for $86,001. Link.
I will leave this edition of the newsletter here. Now, I want to hear from you – what did you think about this new format? Did you like it? Should I revert to the format with a case study and a paragraph dedicated to news? Please feel free to reply to this mail with your thoughts.
See you next week!
Shobhit Jethani
Love it!
This is a nice format Shobhit… very informative newsletter!