Gm. Today's newsletter has an Adam Neumann sighting, a Sponge Bob reference, and eBay NFTs.

Should be a doozy.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.G

AR TECH

AR you ready for a new reality?

If you haven’t thought about the AR game developer Niantic since the Pokémon Go craze of 2015-16…same. But the company isn't all Snorlaxes and Charmanders. It’s been quietly building a 3D AR map of the world and finally unveiled it to developers yesterday.

Here’s what that means

Niantic announced the launch of its Lightship Visual Position System at its developer conference yesterday. A visual positioning system (VPS) uses your phone camera to analyze the environment using images rather than a satellite GPS system, for example. Niantic has been building a growing map of locations that have been scanned and AR-enabled.

• Who’s been doing the scanning? The 80 million monthly gamers who still play Pokémon GO. For about a year, Niantic has asked players of Pokémon GO to record videos of select locations that are significant within the game.

Once a location is captured by enough players, Niantic uses the videos to create a point cloud. If you’ve ever seen the behind the scenes of Avatar, points help developers map digital images onto IRL objects, like actors' faces.

Niantic’s point cloud lets developers overlay AR objects onto the real world with what the company describes as centimeter-level accuracy.

The grand vision

Niantic wants to “unlock the entire world,” when it comes to AR, Kjell Bronder, a senior director at the company, told Protocol. That means giving developers the framework to build in AR wherever they please.

Bottom line: Niantic has long been bullish on a “real world metaverse,” and finally has the framework to execute on that goal. Beyond just empowering other developers, it's also building its own consumer social app called Campfire that lets users discover new AR experiences around them. It will look kinda like Snapchat’s map that displays heat maps of where interesting AR experiences lie.

WORKLIFE

Coinbase goes radical

Employees at Coinbase will never have to wonder if they have food in their teeth during a meeting again…their coworkers will let them know right after. The crypto firm is testing a new practice that asks employees to frequently rate each other and their managers, per The Information

If that sounds familiar…

It’s because Coinbase copied it from Ray Dalio’s hedge fund, Bridgewater. Coinbase is even using the real-time evaluation app that Dalio created and sells called Dot Collector.

How it works: After any meeting or interaction, an employee is prompted to give their colleague a thumbs-up, thumbs-down, or neutral rating. Employees can then see their rating, though their coworkers’ ratings remain hidden (unlike at Bridgewater).

After making waves last year by banning political or social discussion within the company, Coinbase continues to push for an aggressive work culture. One that might lead to a reduction in headcount, a reality that Coinbase appears to be entirely okay with.

Zoom out: After 18 months of immense growth in which headcount exploded to 5,000 employees from 1,250, Coinbase now expects performance-based employee departures of up to 20%.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: Amazon has quietly canceled plans for nearly 10 million square feet of warehouse space over the past three months. It shows that even big bad Amazon thought the pandemic e-comm boom was going to last forever, and is now dealing with a costly space glut.

Story we’re watching: Adam Neumann manifested a $70 million in Series A led by a16z for his new startup, Flowcarbon. The company—a carbon marketplace with its own token called Goddess Nature Token—was cofounded by him, his wife, and three others. Needless to say, it’s a company to watch.

Rabbit hole: How two wrongs can make a right in programming (Paradigm).

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• Snap expects to miss quarterly growth targets and plans to cut hiring. The stock plummeted over 43% yesterday in reaction to the weak forecast.

• eBay launched an NFT project, signaling we may not have seen the bottom yet.

• Klarna laid off 10% of its workforce, signaling a broader slowdown of the buy now pay later market while ClickUp laid off 7% of its workforce.

• Stripe launched an app marketplace for third-party developers.

THREE LIES AND A HEADLINE

Three of these headlines are made up by The Onion, but one actually happened. Can you spot the real one amongst the fakes?

A. "Finland brewery launches NATO beer with ‘taste of security’"

B. "Tom Brady’s announcing deal includes incentives for number of verbs used"

C. "Affection for restaurant dialed back on realization it’s a chain"

D. "New diversity initiative encourages employees to lie about their race"

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

💻 A thread on building a landing page that converts

🚪 Elad Gil’s seven steps to negotiating an exit

🐥 A live course for investors that teaches you how to use Twitter better

THREE LIES ANSWER

A. The NATO beer is a real thing and it probably tastes delicious.