Mark Zuckerberg loves GIFs 😍
Lasting pandemic, Modi's win, and the death of ride hailing
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Stock market summary: 😴
US - S&P 500 up 0.39% 🔼
India - Sensex down 0.089% 🔽
Zuckerberg pays up $400 Million for GIFs 😱
Turns out, we are not the only ones fond of gifs here. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg loves them just as much and believes that the 3 billion people who use Facebook’s products everyday are craving for them too.
Facebook yesterday announced its intention to acquire a famous gif platform called Giphy for an astounding $400 Million. The company plans on integrating Giphy into Instagram so that users are easy able to express themselves is much less words (in case you Insta-holics didn’t know, Facebook owns Instagram).
Giphy is a library of gifs that integrates with several other social platforms and messaging apps including Twitter, Slack and even Whatsapp through an Application Programming Interface (API), which is a fancy word describing one of the ways to connect two pieces of software over the internet.
We also hear that Facebook had first planned on buying Giphy in 2015, but the deal had never materialized.
Zuckerberg is often lauded by many as one of the finest acquirers of our times. His history of buying companies early on and turning them into global behemoths is unparalleled. Look at WhatsApp and Instagram alone, each bought for $19 Billion and $1 Billion respectively and now an integral part of the Facebook family of products. Countless other products have now become simple features on Facebook’s platform.
Or may be, it’s not about the GIF’s altogether. Never underestimate Zuck 👇
What if this never ends bruh!? 🤔
The World Health Organization came out on Wednesday and warned that people around the world might have to coexist with the virus, and that it may never really go away. The virus has so far affected nearly 4.5 Million people and claimed nearly 300,000 lives worldwide since its emergence in Wuhan, China last year.
Given that there is no vaccine for it yet, it is very hard to predict when we will succeed in putting it past us and it might end up becoming just another endemic virus in the community that is here to stay.
Just like for example how mankind learnt to deal with HIV, we may have to come to terms with the Coronavirus too. But what makes things uniquely hard is that unlike the HIV, COVID-19 is contagious.
More than half of humanity was placed under a lock-down since the crisis began. While nations across the world have been considering jump starting the economy, the risk of a second wave of infections is holding them back. Michael Ryan - the director of emergencies at WHO, in yesterday’s address emphasized that there is a long long way to go on the path to returning to normal and insisted that countries stay the course.
Some super optimistic economists and experts are claiming that this is a uniquely massive opportunity for nations to come together in support of humanity and tackle the common enemy. Most of that may be wishful thinking, as the world remains more divided than ever on how to deal with the pandemic.
Meanwhile everyday people are going to have to forget the outdoors for a while till the situation comes under control. Read more…
Mission India Atma-nirbhar 💪
PM Modi’s long term strategic plan of making India “ATMA NIRBHAR” or self-reliant for its economic needs received a lot of appreciation from The World Bank on Thursday. As a vote of confidence, The World Bank promptly approved a $1 Billion social protection package for the revival of India’s disrupted economy.
This comes on top of the nearly $300 Billion comprehensive package that was announced by the Modi government in seeing us through these tough times.
Junaid Ahmed, WBI Director announced the aid for uplifting the poor and vulnerable households by accelerating initiatives around social assistance. The program will specifically focus on solving the woes of migrants and unorganized workers, as they brave these unfortunate times. Most emphasis of the partnership will be given in 3 outlined areas of Social Protection, Health, and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises(MSME).
This latest billion dollar package for social protection comes on top of the previous $1 Billion that the WBI had allocated to India for COVID-19 emergency and health systems.
Hopeless Hydroxy-chloroquine 💊
US President Donald Trump had touted the anti-inflammatory drug, Hydroxy-chloroquine, as a potential game changer against the COVID-19 virus after initial tests had shown some light at the end of the tunnel.
But sadly, after conducting subsequent tests studies are now showing that HCQ does not benefit coronavirus patients but only aggravates health problems, with cases where it even leads to incremental heart diseases.
In the past, HCQ has most commonly been used to treat malaria, as well as autoimmune disorders such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. The European Medicines Agency doused all hopes of treatment of coronavirus using HCQ, warning that there was no indication that HCQ was an approved drug to treat COVID-19. Read more here…
No more Carpool Karaoke 🎤🚘
Even a fool before the pandemic would have been able to tell you that platforms like Uber, Lyft and Ola Cabs are the future of personal transportation.
Whether it was dragging your drunk ass home after a night on the town or going to work early on a Monday or picking up Mom from the airport, ride hailing services were increasingly becoming indispensable to people’s lives.
But not anymore.
Due to the mandatory lock-downs, people have been working from home. Bars, gyms and other areas which are likely to draw crowds, are shut. People stay indoors and commute is very restricted. As a result, Uber and Lyft have reported nearly 85% drop in ride bookings on their platforms in key markets across the globe. We’re sure Ola Cabs is seeing a similar drop in demand here in India.
Naturally, a company that doesn’t make money has to run to cut costs and employees always end up facing the worst brunt of the situation. Uber furloughed 3,700 employees which is roughly about 14% of its global workforce. Lyft furloughed about 17% of its entire staff, or about 1,000 people - mostly based in the US. These numbers are outside of the millions of drivers who drive for these platforms across the world, who are obviously now out of jobs as ridership wanes.
What’s worse? While the full-time workers like engineers are sometimes allowed to keep their perks like health insurance, family coverage etc., the drivers and other part-time workers (the lowest wage earners) are left to hang in the wind. Drivers are mostly hired on contract basis and as a result the employers are not under any obligations to provide basic necessities like healthcare insurance to them. The plight of millions of such workers is falling on deaf ears of city administrations and local governments, who once embraced Uber and Lyft as the only solution to unemployment problems.
For Uber, its a saving grace that its food delivery services are still functional. The company also made a splash this week by announcing that it will acquire GrubHub, a top restaurant food delivery platform in the US.
Nonetheless, given that people are going to be paranoid about hailing cab rides and carpooling services, we wonder whether these platforms will ever see demands back at pre-corona levels! Even if they do, will drivers go back to work for them after rampant exploitation?
What else are we Snackin’
💰 Jeff Bezos is now speculated to be the first Trillionaire we have seen in the modern times, and he will possibly get there within this decade
🌀Odisha is bracing for a possible cyclone in the middle of the pandemic
🔐The state of Mizoram has extended its lockdown untill May 31
✈️Air India Special flights to operate in different cities starting from May 19
Tweet of the day -
On May 15 of 1997, Jeff Bezos had taken Amazon public. Since its founding in 1994, the ecommerce giant has revolutionized global digital commerce and catalyzed a generational shift in how billions of consumers across the world shop.
Many believe of Bezos to be the smartest and the most audacious investors and entrepreneurs of our generation. A timely bet to diversify away from ecommerce to the cloud business, a surgical focus on investing to build a global distribution network, and with countless investments and bets in key futuristic technologies like AI, Healthcare, Robotics, and even Finance, we find little basis to argue otherwise.
Fun fact, if you had invested Rs. 10,000 in Amazon’s stock at its IPO back in 1997, you would have had Rs. 1.2 Crores from that investment today, without lifting so much as a finger. That is a 120,000% growth on your invested capital.
Weekend’s here baby 💃
Alright fam, we almost made it through the week.
It has been a pleasure writing for you and we couldn’t have been happier to have you on board with us. Thank you! 🤗
We’re dead focused on making Filter Coffee ☕ the best part about your morning routine and towards that end, would love to hear what you have to say about this piece. If you have any feedback, ideas, thoughts you’d want to share with us, feel free to reply to the email. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Finally, on a parting note, allow us to share a movie recommendation for the weekend.
We’ve written about how the lock-down could be a great time for you to embark on a new project or start learning a new skill. If you are seeking more motivation, we suggest you watch The Founder - a movie based on the life of Ray Kroc, the founder of the famous fast food chain McDonald’s. 🍔
A McDonald’s restaurant was nothing short of cutting edge innovation back in the day in the food business, and it was Kroc’s genius that saw it through. Mr. Kroc is a plain hardass, as strong and smart as they come in American business. 👊 Despite repeated failures in his life, he braved every single setback to build an empire worth hundreds of billions and in the process created a brand that is known in all corners of the world.
The legendary Micheal Keaton does a great job in the movie of portraying Ray Kroc’s character and we really believe you will be left inspired at the end of it. Give it a shot.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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