Down Round

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Snap: We're bringing the dog ears filter back Aug 29, 2023

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Snapchat was one of the major social media platforms of the 2010s, and still remains pretty popular with the kids. It helped create much of the modern social media landscape, but hasn't been able to turn that into lasting wins -- in no small part because every innovation it comes up with is pretty quickly cloned by its biggest rival, Instagram.

Now it finds itself in a precarious position, with parent company Snap Inc reporting a decline in revenue and the company trying just about every pivot Down Round loves to see, from AI to augmented reality.

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Should Apple buy Disney? (PREVIEW) Aug 24, 2023

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This is a preview of a premium episode. Sign up for Down Round Premium here.

One of the most enduring rumours in tech markets and investing subreddits is that Apple is on the cusp of buying Disney and integrating its IP and content into Apple's tech and distribution network. It's like a sick fantasy for guys with no lives and ZERO swag.

It seems pretty unlikely. But with news that returned CEO Bob Iger could be planning to break up the empire and sell off assets like ESPN, the rumour mill is kicking back into gear. We ask the question: should Apple buy at least PART of Disney?

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QR Code Menus: Parma Button Activated Aug 22, 2023

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QR code menus became popular during the pandemic, when everyone collectively decided it was much safer to have your beers delivered to the table at the pub instead of walking up yourself.

Now there are a million different providers of QR code menus. But but how does it all work, and is it actually a good business? We dig in.

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WeWork: A pre-post-postmortem Aug 15, 2023

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Big news, WeWork fans! The company has announced that it is hurtling towards bankruptcy, with serious doubts about its capacity to continue as a “going concern”. For those who haven’t been paying attention for the past couple of years and assumed it was bankrupt and out of business anyway, this will be a shock.

In today’s ep, we take a tour through the WeWork story — particularly what it has been up to since its famous IPO collapse in 2019.

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Press Button, Receive Pharmaceuticals (feat. Tim Doyle) Aug 08, 2023

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Recent years have seen a surge in telehealth and online health delivery — from essential prescriptions to more discretionary health spending. Everyone from smaller boutique startups to Amazon want a slice of the pie. There’s a big debate in the medical community about so-called ‘asynchronous care’ — where a patient and doctor communicate through non-live online services. Pharmacists, already rattled by the retail revolution led by Chemist Warehouse, are also mad about this stuff. But many patients do like to do medicine on the computer.

Today we’re joined by Tim Doyle, founder of online healthcare company Eucalyptus, who gives a window into how this stuff works in Australia. And maybe beyond. (No promises.)

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Elon Musk, X and the promise of the 'everything app' Aug 02, 2023

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Twitter is no more. From the ashes rises X, Elon Musk’s cringely-named attempt to actualise one of his long term goals: building an everything app. Musk wants X to be the central place where you post, shop, send money, access financial services and do whatever else it is you do as part of being alive on the planet.

In this episode we dive into the idea of the everything app, and why tech companies have been chasing that dream for at least a decade.

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Down Round Q&A: Zero tolerance for stupid questions Jul 26, 2023

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It’s been a while since we’ve done a Q&A episode, and we know your pressing questions have been accumulating for months. We’re sorry we let it get so desperate.

Thank you to our subscribers on Substack and Twitter (X???) who sent in questions. If we didn’t make it to you, there’s a good chance we’ve got a whole ep planned in future.

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The Hollywood Strikes: Please help me budget, my streaming industry is dying Jul 18, 2023

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Hollywood actors and writers are both on strike for the first time since 1960. Two of the primary reasons they’re hitting the picket line are core Down Round areas: the economics of streaming, and the future of AI content.

Working actors are mad that they’re not being compensated properly for appearances in streaming content, where audience figures are much more opaque, and they’re staring down the barrel of having their likenesses reused with AI.

Ah well. Guess it’s up to us to figure it out then…

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Drones: A threatening buzzing sound from 50 metres up Jul 13, 2023

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. Want to join? Sign up for Down Round Premium!

The rise of the consumer-available drone over the past decade has been a huge win for real estate agents and YouTube fail compilations. But what about the rest of us chumps?!

In this episode, we talk about the drone — from the dominance of Chinese companies in their production, to the (possible) promises of drone delivery.

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Threads: Glory to Meta! Glory to Meta! Jul 11, 2023

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At the end of last week, Mark Zuckerberg decided to take advantage of the chaos over in Twitterland by surprise dropping Meta’s own text-based social media platform, Threads. Because it leverages the Instagram social graph, it quickly exploded to over 100 million users.

In today’s ep, we dig into Threads and make a series of wild predictions which are sure to never be vindicated.

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