Shopify Q1 earnings, former OpenSea employee convicted of NFT insider trading, Fed hikes 25 bps
Shopify Q1 earnings: GMV: $49.6B (+15% y/y), revenue: $1.5B (+25% y/y), subscription revenue: $382M (+11% y/y), FCF: $86M, net income: $68M; shares are up 18% after CEO Tobi Lütke announced the company would be cutting staff by 20% - Link
Shopify has sold its logistics business to Flexport, after spending years building out its order-fulfillment business; Shopify will receive ~13% equity interest in Flexport - Link
Former OpenSea employee Nathaniel Chastain has been convicted in the first-ever NFT insider trading case, in which he made $50K+ in illegal profits - Link
The Fed approved a 25 basis point hike and signaled it may be done raising rates after bringing its benchmark federal funds rate between 5% and 5.25%, representing a 16-year high - Link
FTC Chair Lina Khan wrote a guest essay in the NYT calling for AI regulation due to large-scale risks, including monopoly consolidation, fraud, extortion, and bias - Link
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First up, Jason breaks down Uber’s huge Q1 results! (1:21) Then, Unlearn.AI CEO Charles Fisher joins to discuss the advancements his company is making in fast-tracking clinical trials (9:49), how machine learning is used in drug development (16:24), Unlearn’s business model (35:24), and more! - Link
WSJ sources: Unity, a company that develops game engine software, is cutting 600 jobs (~8% of staff), after laying off 500+ employees over two rounds of cuts in the past year - Link
The FTC proposed banning Meta from monetizing the data of children, accusing the Facebook-parent company of violating COPPA with its Messenger Kids app and more - Link
Pando, a SaaS platform for supply chain management and global logistics, raised a $30M Series B co-led by Uncorrelated Ventures and Pillar; Pando allows customers to build on top of its API and emphasizes no-code tools - Link
Coinbase is shutting down Coinbase Borrow in the US as of May 10th; the program allowed users to receive loans up to $1M against as much as 30% of their Bitcoin holdings - Link
This Week in Startups
E1734: Uber earnings + using AI to revolutionize clinical trials w/ Unlearn.AI’s Charles Fisher
E1733: BuzzFeed vs Gawker, AI’s impact on the future of media, and more with Semafor’s Ben Smith
E1732: Demoing the most innovative new ChatGPT features with Sunny Madra and Vinny Lingham
E1731: Big Tech earnings breakdown w/TechCrunch's Alex Wilhelm
E1730: Billy McFarland on Fyre Fest fraud, failure, hacking, & the long road back
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