Good morning everyone, we hope you’re ready for a great Friday Jr!
0:05- At least the pandemic hasn’t curbed anyone’s appetite
Despite Covid crushing ride-hailing apps, Uber was actually able to post an even narrower loss (they have yet to consistently make a profit) than usual off the success of its UberEats business, and harsh cost cutting strategies. That wasn’t quite enough to turn the whole year around though — revenue was still down 14% YoY for a total of $11.3Bn, with a net loss of $454M in Q4 alone. They still managed to beat Wall Street expectations though, showing that it's easy to exceed when nobody expects anything out of you.
0:29- In Da Club(house)
Following the recent buzz generated by the audio platform Clubhouse, Facebook is reportedly looking at being the second company to shamelessly copy the concept (see: Twitter Spaces in December). This strategic choice coincidentally comes only six days after Zuckerberg created an account and participated in a discussion on Clubhouse. Oh, and in case you were wondering how popular Clubhouse is? Elon Musk is hosting a room with Kanye West later this week.
0:48- TikTok is no longer on the clock
TikTok’s tumultuous time in the US is (temporarily at least) back to normal after the sale of its US operations to Oracle and Walmart fell through early yesterday. Although there is still discussion around its data security, it appears that the Biden administration has no interest in pursuing the ban that former President Trump threatened the company with.
1:04- The hidden cost of Bitcoin
Although Bitcoin provides many benefits over fiat money, one hidden cost that most people are unaware of is the increased carbon footprint that the cryptocurrency causes. This is due to the fact that both the mining and transactions of the coin are incredibly energy intensive, which is caused by the complexity of the computational problems that must be solved to log the transactions. Although this provides security, it also means that for example, Tesla’s indirect emissions increased dramatically with their $1.5Bn purchase of the cryptocurrency, prompting critics to say that the purchase violated the mission statement of the company.
1:28- “I’m not a cat”
In a video that recently went viral, a lawyer showed up to a Zoom hearing with a filter on that made him appear to be a cat. Yes, it’s as funny as it sounds.
Have a great rest of your day, and we’ll see you tomorrow bright and early!
-The 90 Second News Team
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