π It's Not You, It's Me: You Probably Heard About #05 [I'm No Economist]
Dynamic duo Binance & Coinbase sued by the SEC; Sequoia breaks up in 3 different firms; Are podcasts hot or cold right now?
Welcome to You Probably Heard About by I'm No Economist π
You Probably Heard About is sent out every Friday by the end of the day and is a summary of big numbers, what's hot in finance and tech this week, and what's important to keep on the radar.
π Share I'm No Economist with your friends
I'm No Economist is a newsletter about global investment trends.
Here you'll read research digests and updates on what's going on in Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Global Macroeconomy - all subjects I'm fascinated with and have loosely held, strong opinions about.
Share I'm No Economist with your friends and stay up-to-date with the latest trends in the money world π°
π Don't admit violations via e-mail, bro
Binance and Chanpeng "CZβ Zao are being sued by the SEC for putting their investor at "significant riskβ while making billions of dollars - I always thought that was the definition of managing other people's money, but well who am I to say?
In the official complaint document filed by the SEC, the commission states that even though CZ and Binance were βacutely awareβ of the requirements of having to be registered as a securities exchange, they chose not to register as such and put investors at risk while making $11B in exchange fees.
They were βacutely awareβ indeed. And word of advice: you don't admit violations via e-mail, especially if you're the head of compliance at one of the major unregulated crypto exchanges in the country, mate.
But sure enough, Binance's CCO said to a colleague via e-mail in 2018:
βWe are operating as a f*cking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.β π€¦ββοΈπ
Binance and CZ were officially sued on June 5th. 24 hours later was Coinbase's turn to see the lights being shone on its unregulated operations.
Live view of Coinbase offices right now:
π It's not you, it's me
The chief lumberjack appeared at Sequoia and announced it is making its 3 main offices into autonomous operations by 2024.
The announcement came after a swarm of investigations about conflict of interests between portfolio companies and U.S. regulation - namely ByteDance (owner of TikTok). Here's the firm's official statement.
In 2005 Sequoia decided they needed to accelerate βworld domination", in Doug Leone's words. They then partnered with local leaders in emerging markets, starting with China and India/Southeast Asia (SEA), and later in Latam. It worked like a charm for almost a decade, until it didn't.
Sequoia wanted to apply its unconventional approach to create a decentralized model, that eventually became too big a hydra to control - which usually happens to decentralized models, by design.
What used to be everything Sequoia will now be called: HongShan (China), Peak XV Partners (India/SEA), and U.S/Europe will still be called Sequoia Capital.
Godspeed, Sequoia(s) π³πͺ .
Lumberjack cuts trees and Sequoia is a tree. Right? I'm so funny.
π§ Did you hear that?
Acast, the largest global independent podcast platform released a survey with 250 marketers about the results of podcast advertising.
In the U.S., 2/3 of advertisers see a return between $2 and $6 for every dollar spent on the medium. Podcast is the favorite medium for advertisers among online video, social media, and traditional advertising (OOH, print, TV, radio).
These data would not make me think twice before investing in the medium if it weren't for Spotify's 200 people layoff this week. Even though they say that the $500 million investment is paying off since podcast ad revenue experienced "high double-digit growthβ from 2021 to 2022, it makes me skeptic.
π§π· Brazil
Wednesday, June 14th
Monthly retail sales (Previous 0.8% // Forecast 1.0%)
Annual retail sales (Previous 3.2% // Forecast 3.4%)
Business confidence index (Previous 49.2 // Forecast 49.7%)
πΊπΈ U.S.
Tuesday, June 13th
Annual Inflation CPI (Previous 4.9% // Forecast 4.7%)
Monthly Inflation CPI (Previous 0.4% // Forecast 0.3%)
Wednesday, June 14th
Fed Rate Decision ((Previous 5.25% // Forecast 5.25%)
π If you I'm No Economist, share it with a friend
I'm No Economist is a newsletter about global investment trends π°
Here you'll read research digests and updates on what's going on in Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Global Macroeconomy - all subjects I'm fascinated with and have strong opinions about.
Talk soon,
L.