Gm. We got some straight savages below.

Starting off with the answer to Wednesday's poll:

One reader who said they'd take the $10 million said they'd "get the money and use it start a new one." A different reader who said they'd rather take the $1 million said “As a company creator I’d prefer it to stay alive. I want to build value.”

One reader called anyone who answered $10 million "senseless". Don't forget everyone has different factors — age, family, etc. — to think about when making big financial decisions like this. Do what you gotta do and what's right for you.

Ok time for today's poll. I asked this question on my Twitter and got some very strong answers in the comments. Let's see what the polling says.

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FRESH POWDER

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

IPO

Stripe Plots An Exit

Stripe is ready to take their show public.

Brothers and Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison told employees on Thursday that they plan to take Stripe public or allow employees to sell shares privately within the next year.

Wait, what?

Come on now, don't act like you're entirely surprised. After all, Stripe has been around since 2010 and has become an absolute beast in the payment processing space. Investors everywhere are thinking "about damn time!".

But, I'll admit, the timing of the news is a bit surprising. As we are all painfully aware, these aren't the happiest days for big tech companies. Unfortunately, Stripe hasn't been able to buck this trend. Its most recent internal valuation of $63 billion is significantly lower than its most recent public valuation of $95 billion, and it laid off 14% of its workforce in November.

In addition to Stripe's own troubles, the IPO market just had its worst year since at least Bush W was president. Aaaand, shares in public Stripe competitors Ayden and PayPal are down bigly from their highs, with Ayden down 50% and PayPal down 75%.

Strange timing to go public indeed.

But, Maybe Not?

As Teddy Roosevelt said, you have to "dare to be great", and that's what Stripe is doing.

Plus, 2023 looks kinda promising for Stripe. Inflation is cooling and interest rates may soon follow, they just inked a huge deal with Amazon, and Mercury isn't going to be in retrograde again until April.

There's no better time than now, right?

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: 53%: The percentage of CNET's AI-generated stories that had errors. Writers rejoice, we might be safe for a little bit longer.

Story we're watching: A new report reveals that Amazon is warning employees about sharing confidential information with ChatGPT, but it also reveals that because ChatGPT has been such a productivity boost, Amazon is now developing its own version of ChatGPT. It's possible we see more proprietary ChatGPTs pop up in the coming months as companies seek to capitalize on the productivity upside while limiting the confidentiality breach downsides.

Rabbit hole: 12 Assumptions for Extraterrestrial Life (Kevin Kelly)

)WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• The world's first hydrogen-powered train has been built in China.

• Scientists have built a liquid metal robot, à la T100 style. This definitely won't come back to haunt us.

• The Twitter whistleblower says 'GodMode' is still a thing.

• Rocket Labs had a successful maiden US launch.

GUESSTIMATE

How many more pink slips would major Alphabet investor Chris Hohn give out at Google?

FUNDRAISING FRIDAY

Technically not "fundraising advice", but I think this is an important thread. Partiful founder Shreya Murthy drops some wisdom on building a beautiful product. If you've used Partiful, then you know it's an absolute joy to use. It didn't just happen overnight.

LAYOFFS TRACKER

https://www.trueup.io/layoffs

Notable layoffs this week:

Lam Research: 1,300 people (7%)

SAP: 3,000 people (2.5%)

IBM: 3,900 people (1.5%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

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

📈 I'm a visual learner so I love diagrams and charts. I was hype to find Chartr, a newsletter using data to tell stories about business and tech.

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GUESSTIMATE ANSWER

28,000.