Le Studio Monthly - october

💻 News of the Month

🎩 Prime Ministers

Liz Truss resigned after 6 weeks in office and she is replaced by new Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak. Sunak, a Hindu with British Indian heritage, will be the 1st person of color to hold the position. At 42, he’ll also be the youngest appointee since 1812.

He is the former UK finance minister. Former banker with huge personal wealth, he is married to a tech heiress wife, Akshata Murty (estimated wealth: $830m). Sunak faces colossal challenges ahead, especially on rejuvenating the UK’s economy and calming chaotic markets.

🙅‍♀️ Iran protests

Demonstrations that began over the death of a woman who was detained by Iran’s morality police have now ballooned to the biggest rebuke of the clerical government in years. Students have joined the protests, chanting “death to the dictator” - referring to the current Supreme Leader. Protests are not stopping and the government reacts with violence with estimated +200 killed so far.

⚽ Brazil election

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was recently serving a 22-year sentence for corruption charges, is set to become the next president of the largest Latin American country. He is returning to the post he held from 2003–2010.

🪖 Putin claims 15% of Ukraine

Vladimir Putin announced the formal annexation of 4 Ukrainian provinces. This escalation of the war means that Russia is claiming 15% of Ukraine’s territory, or an area the size of Portugal, as its own.

📉 Recession is coming

A recent survey of US economists ****found their estimated probability for a recession in the next year to be 63%, up from 49% in July.

Additionally, a Bloomberg economic model forecast a 100% chance of a US recession within 12 months.

🦀 The curious case of the disappearing Crabs

For the first time ever, the state’s Department of Fish and Game canceled the winter snow crab season due to a dramatic (and perplexing) plunge in the snow crab population. An estimated 1 billion of the crustaceans have vanished in the past two years, amounting to a 90% drop in their numbers. The cancellation of crab season will hit the US seafood industry hard, particularly in the local communities in Alaska that depend on the harvest.

😷 Flu season is upon us Influenza is hitting the US both early and extra hard this year, according to new CDC data. There have already been ~880,000 cases so far, resulting in nearly 7,000 hospitalizations—and experts estimate this year’s season will be the worst they’ve seen since 2009, when swine flu hit. This comes as new Covid variants and a spike in RSV cases are already testing the healthcare system.

🎃 Halloween tragedy 153 people were killed in a crowd crush in Seoul’s nightlife district during Halloween weekend. The event drew an estimated 100,000 revelers, and authorities are being questioned about the safety measures they had in place.

🏄‍♀️ Go, Cali, Go!

California has been a land of economic opportunity since at least the gold rush, and now the state’s economy is about to top Germany’s to become the fourth largest in the world, according to Bloomberg. If current growth projections hold, its GDP will soon be smaller than only that of the US, China, and Japan.

🚀 Elon’s news

Elon finally bought Twitter: after months of trying to wriggle out of his original deal, Musk has finally bought Twitter and he comes with reform in mind. Internal documents revealed he plans to cut Twitter’s workforce by 75%. Musk closed the $44 billion deal, less than 24 hours before the official 5pm ET deadline. He began his reign as “Chief Twit” by unceremoniously firing at least four executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal (who was reportedly escorted out of Twitter’s SF headquarters).
He is now the richest person on the planet, the CEO of the world’s most valuable automaker, he heads up a $125 billion aerospace giant, on top of owning Twitter, one of the largest social media platform in the world. Is that too much power?
He recently launched a perfume called Burnt Hair and sold $1 million worth in just a few hours. So there’s that too.

🔢 Data of the Month

TikTok’s European revenue grew 475% between 2020 and 2021, surpassing $990m last year. Now the company in the US is eyeing fulfillment centers in LA and Seattle to “ensure fast and sustainable growth of TikTok Shop”.
BeReal has surpassed 50 million installs (SensorTower). Monthly active users are also up 2,254% from January.
United Airlines agreed to buy 200 eVTOL aircraft from Eve Air Mobility.
Saudi Arabia’s gaming group, The Savvy Gaming Group, plans to spend $37.8 billion to acquire, build, and invest in gaming companies.
Audiobooks make up just ~$9B of the $140B global book industry. By 2030, that segment is forecasted to reach $35B+.
VC funding in Q3 totaled $81B. That’s down 52% YoY and 33% quarter-over-quarter. Last quarter, global VC funding fell to $81 billion (Crunchbase), down sharply from both the previous quarter and year. Q3 VC funding was down 33% from its Q2 2022 total of ~$120 billion, and 53% year over year. However, VCs are still sitting on an enormous amount of dry powder. In the US only, VC funds have already raised $150.9 billion to invest in startups (Pitchbook), breaking last year’s record despite the year not being over yet.

🔎 Finds of the Month

The Wirecard documentary on Netflix is wild: it talks fraud, political affiliations, shell companies, spies, diplomatic moves, and COOs who flee to Russia. Highly recommend.

Another cool doc on Netflix about the recent Gamestop debacle, from the point of view of Shorters. Learn about the downfall of Robinhood in there as well. And Elon is mentioned, who’s surprised?

🕔 LONG-FORM Article

♟️ A massive cheating scandal is rocking the Chess world.

The ultimate long-form article on Crypto. Informative read.

🔉 Podcast of the Month

Time to listen to Serial season 1 again: Adnan Syed had his murder charges dropped by Baltimore prosecutors, less than a month after his conviction for the murder of Hae Min Lee was overturned. He spent 23 years in prison and could potentially seek wrongful conviction compensation, all thanks to the podcast.

💼 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 !