Gm. Starting with the answers to Friday's poll.

The Other category included: happy, sleepy, dopey, bashful, grumpy, and sneezy

Nah, but seriously not bad! Can't make everyone happy. Thanks for voting and giving your thoughts, it really means a lot that people are enjoying the work we're putting out.

“Love the vibe you guys have, it's the only newsletter I actually read!” ❤️ 🥲

Ok enough with the sentimental stuff. Time for some money talk.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three startups that recently topped up their coffers. Congrats!

TECH

Meta's Banner Thursday

Sound the alarms! Get the champagne! Meta's stock is up 25%!

Yes, it's true. Investors in the world's most beleaguered tech stock are finally seeing some green. Thank goodness for those poor souls.

The cause of this sudden spike?

An interesting earnings report.

The Good

On the one hand, there was some positives in Meta's Q4 report:

• $32.17 billion in revenue vs $31.53 billion expected.

• $10.86 in average revenue per user vs $10.63 expected.

• $31.25 billion in advertising revenue vs $30.86 billion expected.

• $40 billion in stock buybacks.

The Bad

But, there was also quite a bit of not so good numbers:

• $1.76 in adjusted earnings per share vs $2.26 expected.

• $4.28 billion in Reality Labs (Metaverse) losses vs $3.99 billion expected.

• 4% revenue decline from a year earlier, the third straight quarter of declining sales.

So, Why The Stock Spike?

Good question, especially considering that these numbers don't look "moon 25% in one day" pretty.

The reason for the sudden pop is that Zuckerberg back to prioritizing efficiency over innovation. Move fast and umm don't break things?

Zuck is determined to cut costs through layoffs and productivity boosts, and Wall Street loves it. And I'm sure those of you holding META at the moment aren't too upset, either.

ECOMMERCE

It's Whale Season

Typically in tech, when you hear people talk about whales, they're talking about crypto whales: big spenders. Not this time.

We're talking about Triple Whale, an e-commerce data analytics platform. This week was The Whalies e-commerce conference in Austin... and they just announced a $25 million Series B round led by NFX and Elephant.

VC stuff is fun. Their conference sounded even more fun. There were samurai swords.

Samurais at a Whale Convention???

Ok read all of these brands. Normal stuff. Not the last one.

• Francis Nguyen — Head of eCommerce, 100 Thieves

• Gina Perrelli — Co-founder, Retextion

• Stefany Nieto — Founder, Gwella

• Kyle Hency — Co-founder, Chubbies

• Nik Sharma — CEO, Sharma Brands

• Isaac Mederios — Founder, Mini Katana

Yes, that says Mini Katana. Katanas are long, single-edged swords used by Japanese samurai. While I have never for one second thought about the market for samurai swords, Isaac and his business have actually been blowing up.

He's been sharing a lot of wisdom on Twitter around brand building. High-signal follow. He shares how they got over 1b views on YouTube, their first TikTok video that led to a sale, and a thread of short-form content hacks.

Also I can't stop thinking about this tweet.

Ok tbh I never heard of Triple Whale before this year BUT if they have samurai sword makers at their conference, I'm so in. Triple Whale? More like Killer Whale.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: $70 million: The amount that tech companies spent on lobbying in 2022, a new record. Lol how much of that do you think was SBF and FTX?

Story we're watching: Damus, one of the fastest growing Twitter alternatives, was banned in China. Damus runs on Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized social networking tool Nostr. Remember when we all went to Mastodon. Good times, good times.

Rabbit hole: A 3D Printer Isn't Cool. You Know What's Cool? A 3D-Printing Factory (Bloomberg).

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• OpenAI officially released ChatGPT Plus.

• Snap is working on AR glasses powered by AI.

• Internal messages from prolific AI-generated article producer CNET were leaked.

• Microsoft plans to upgrade Bing with ChatGPT within the next few weeks.

GUESSTIMATE

How much money did AI email platform Lavender raise in their Series A?

LAYOFFS TRACKER

https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

Notable layoffs this week

Pinterest: 150 people (3.8%)

Match Group: 200 people (8%)

Rivian: 840 people (6%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

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

💻 I hate the news. I literally never watch it. But I do read The Daily Upside.

🎆 All the cool kids are posting LinkedIn carousels. Here's a free carousel generator.

🔥 Awesome product, but no distribution? Sign up for Stacked Marketer to learn how to be a smarter marketer.

GUESSTIMATE ANSWER

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