Le Studio Monthly - June

💻 News of the Month

✊ Roe vs Wade

The Supreme Court decided to overturn (remove) the constitutional right to an abortion in the US after nearly 50 years. By doing so, the US joins a very small group of countries (66) that prohibit the procedure.

Dissenting Justices, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, wrote in their opinion that the US “will become international outliers after [the decision].”

Some hope

Abortion rights are likely to remain protected in 21 states, 11 of which are actively expanding the scope of access by making appointments easier to schedule and more affordable. Several states, including California and New York, aim to become safe havens.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the Justice Department will protect the right to travel out of state for appointments and that the abortion pill mifepristone cannot be banned by states since it’s FDA-approved

Several large corporations (Starbucks, Tesla, Airbnb, Disney, JPMorgan, and Dick’s Sporting Goods) said they would cover expenses for employees who needed to travel to get abortions.

The bad

The court effectively activated laws automatically banning or severely restricting abortion access in approx. half of US states. Abortion is likely to become totally illegal or severely restricted in at least 20 states and has an uncertain future in an additional nine (the NYT).

Extremist conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote in his concurring opinion, that other rights not addressed by the framers of the Constitution, such as same-sex marriage and legal contraception, could be revisited by the court.

Read about some of the consequences of this decision.

Donation links : https://abortionfunds.org/ & https://www.plannedparenthood.org/

🔫 Gun Laws

A bipartisan group of senators reached an agreement on a narrow set of measures intended to reduce mass shootings, including expanded background checks for people under 21 attempting to buy guns, more funding for mental health programs and school security, and incentives for states implementing red flag laws (like not selling guns to proven domestic abusers). The House followed the Senate and passed the bill. President Biden signed it too, making it officially implementable.

In parallel, Canada introduced legislation that will freeze the buying, importing, selling, and transferring of handguns. Prime Minister Trudeau said that levels of gun violence are “unacceptable” and that “we need only look south of the border to know that if we do not take action, firmly and rapidly, it gets worse and worse and more difficult to counter.”

🛴 Scooters rise again

Scooters took a nosedive with the pandemic, but they are bouncing back in 2022 (Bloomberg). In April 2019, Lime and Bird were riding high, with 7.3m and 2.1m active users. In 2020, both companies saw active users drop over 70%, leading them to cut back: Bird laid off 30% of its workforce and paused service in 27+ cities, while Lime laid off 13% of its workforce and paused service in 100+ cities.

In April 2022, things are looking better: Bird had 2.6m active users and Lime had 5m active users. More urban workers are considering scooters amid rising fuel prices. On top of that, the two scooter startups have increasingly pivoted their marketing to highlight their status as sustainable alternatives to conventional transportation. Some say, the Great Resignation could be fueling the great scooter renaissance.

🤑 Crypto winter is back

The Winklevoss brothers (of Social Network fame*)* are laying off nearly 10% of the workforce at Gemini. Bitcoin prices dropped 17% to below $23k, its lowest point since 2020, amid a market-wide drop in crypto. Similarly, Coinbase laid off 1.1k employees, ~18% of its workforce.

🐯 Hedge fund loss

Tiger Global Management’s hedge fund, known for its bets on high-growth tech companies, continues to implode in May and has lost 52% through the year.

💹 Confusing economic prospects

The World Bank released a grim forecast for the global economy, hinting that “for many countries, recession will be hard to avoid.”

Disruptions from the war in Ukraine, Covid lockdowns in China, and ongoing supply shortages could lead to 1970s-style “stagflation”—and hit low- and middle-income countries the hardest.

Confusingly so, the May jobs report showed the US economy added a meaty 390,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate held steady at a super low 3.6%.

In parallel, wage growth fell to 5.2% in May from 5.5% in April. While it does not seem like good news, it’s actually a hopeful sign that the crippling labor shortage is easing up and inflation is starting to tick down across the economy.

💰 Venture Capital & Private Equity

VCs have been warning startups to buckle down as belts tighten. Y Combinator expects the downturn to last for up to 24 months.

VC deal activity dropped 23% between Q1 and Q2 2022. For reference, ****deal activity only fell 1.4% between Q4 2021 and Q1 2022.

There are projected rough times ahead for private companies, with strong indicators such as a war, still-high inflation, rising interest rates, poorly-performing public markets, supply chain bottlenecks, and a tricky hiring market.

To compare 2022 to the last recession, in 2008, global private equity investors today have more dry powder than back then. They are making smaller deals. which will make firms less sensitive to climbing interest rates.

“The last time stagflation hit the U.S., “startup” was a niche term, VC an obscure cottage industry, and private equity firms managed a collective $2.4 billion” (Fortune newsletter)

🚘 Elon writes emails

“Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean minimum) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla.” That’s what Elon Musk sent to Tesla and SpaceX employees, rendering remote work null for his companies.

On another note, he told Tesla execs in an email that he had a “super bad feeling” about the economy and to “pause all hiring worldwide” (Reuters). In a separate email, he announced to employees that Tesla will be laying off 10% of salaried employees.

Did you know? My mind is blown.

Finally, he threatened to terminate his $44B Twitter deal over the company not providing the information he requested on its bots problem. Funny coming from someone whose audience of Twitter followers (70%) appear to be spam, fake or inactive users. For reference, the average for other accounts with 65m-120m followers is 41%.

🟡🔵 Russia vs Ukraine

Russia has seized 20% of Ukraine’s territory, while the war reaches its 100th day.

60–100 Ukrainian soldiers are dying every day in the conflict, in addition to the tens of thousands of civilians who have been killed since Feb. 24. 6.8 million people have left Ukraine and 7.1 million have been displaced from their homes but remain in the country.

Interestingly, the russian ruble is up about 35% in 2022, and is at its strongest level vs. the US dollar since 2015. The currency was expected to collapse after the West applied sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and initially it did. Its comeback is due to continued demand for Russian energy exports, notably in Asia, and capital controls intended to prop up demand for the ruble.

Meanwhile, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, and Romania traveled to Ukraine in order to support Ukraine’s bid to join the EU. For that to happen, Ukraine needs the unanimous support of all the leaders in the 27-nation bloc, which will kick off a process that could take years. No country has joined the EU since Croatia nearly 10 years ago.

🌍 Climate Change

👑 Jubilee

*Sorry about this, but it was too funny.*

Queen Elizabeth celebrated 70 years on the throne during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in the UK this month.

✈️ The Top Gun effect

Revenue at the domestic box office is actually up over the past five weekends compared to the same period in 2019 (also called The “Miles Teller Effect”). Since its release, Top Gun: Maverick passed $1 billion in global ticket sales at the box office. It’s the 50th Hollywood movie in total to join the club. The only other film to pass $1 billion in sales during the pandemic was Spider-Man: No Way Home.

🔢 Data of the Month

In 2021, it would have taken the median worker at least 186 years to earn what their CEO did (based on pay scales at 340 of the S&P 500 companies).

Americans are profoundly influenced by celebrities when it comes to personal finance. One study found 45% of crypto owners would invest in coins with celebrity endorsements. Another found 28% of Gen Z seeks financial advice from social media.
Global VC funding fell for the 2nd month in a row in May, with VCs investing “only” $39 billion.
Covid vaccines saved nearly 20 million lives in the 1st year of the rollout, according to new research.
A pint of beer in the UK costs 70% more now than during the 2008 financial crisis, reaching £8 ($10) a pint in some pubs.
San Francisco is the only major metro area in the US where rent prices are lower now than they were before Covid hit in March 2020.
At current adoption pace, the E-vehicle transportation sector will still emit 3.5 gigatonnes of CO2 per year in 2050 (BNEF). For context, the entire transportation sector—including aviation and shipping—emitted 7.2 gigatonnes in 2020, per the IEA.

🔎 Finds of the Month

A Unicorn simulator: will you be able to reach a Unicorn status based on suggested decisions?
Free Tools for UX/UI

🕔 LONG-FORM Article

A long list of long-form articles for when you have time to read over the summer.

🔉 Podcast of the Month

Ologies, by Alie Ward: a podcast about…everything.

💼 Jobs

Some of our companies are hiring! Check out their openings:

Therma

🙌🏼 Thanks for reading! See you next month!

⭐ We'd also love to hear more of your feedback. Tell us what you think and what you want to see in the future in this digest at m.plata@tamar.capital- cheers !