Top of Mind. Happy Sunday from Turkey!
I’m writing this newsletter issue from the beautiful city of Istanbul. This week’s stories reflect prominent trends in tech’s future – powerful acquisitions, cryptocurrency adoption, and Elon Musk’s entertaining antics.
Let’s dig in.
3 big things:
- Elon Musk conducts an election
- Flutterwave’s big acquisition
- Twitter bets on crypto
Elon Musk gives Twitter users the ultimate power
The short: Elon Musk sold roughly 3.5 million shares worth over $3.88 billion this week following results from a Twitter poll.
Say what now? The CEO conducted a poll asking his 63.6 million Twitter followers to vote on retaining or selling off 10% of his Tesla stocks. The majority voted in favour of selling the stocks.
What it means: The sale ranks among the biggest liquidity event by a tech CEO in recent years, but it is not as altruistic as it sounds – he knew he needed to sell the shares this week to fulfil tax obligations from purchasing shares at a reduced rate in 2012.
The taxman cometh: Elon would need to pay taxes on the difference between the 2012 and 2021 stock prices, giving him a looming tax bill of $15 billion. Elon needs to raise cash. Selling stocks is the way to go.
Big Picture: Tesla shares declined 15.4% this week, marking the company’s worst performance in 20 months. Tesla’s shareholders are not immune to Elon’s antics driving down stock prices, but it’s Tesla. Moreover, the stocks decline is temporary – give Elon a couple of days.
Final thoughts: Elon Musk is the only tech CEO that uses Twitter to its full potential. His infamous tirades are a masterclass in marketing his companies and routinely driving share prices out of control.
Flutterwave’s big acquisition
The Short: Flutterwave announced this week it had acquired Disha– a no-code platform built for creators and businesses to showcase their work and get paid.
How it started: In February, Disha broke the hearts of super users in its community following an announcement it was shutting down. No official reason was given for closing shop, but insiders say the platform wasn’t making money despite a reported 100% monthly growth rate.
Sad news: Some Twitter users were upset by the shutdown and bellowed to the gods to perform an acquisition miracle.
Prayers answered: A well known African unicorn was paying attention and made an announcement nine months later that solidified the unicorn’s foray into the $100 billion creator economy and a new opportunity for the 2-year-old company to take another stab at success.
Big picture: In addition to the acquisition, Flutterwave is integrating payments into Disha to allow users to seamlessly make transactions in over 150 currencies across 34 countries – resolving a pain point for creators and access to global payments.
The scoop: A trip to China in 2018 to meet Jack Ma & the Ali Baba team was all Flutterwave’s CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola needed to explore integrating payments into different clusters of user experiences…
He shared his ambition with us…
On the inspiration for acquiring Disha…
GB: We’ve seen the growth of the freelance sector on our platform, but all we provide is payments without the end to end experience. We are humble enough to understand that we might not be the best at building that experience but rather work with partners to embed Flutterwave into that experience.
On the acquisition conversation…
GB: I ran into Disha by accident when they were about to shut down and started mulling the idea. Dikachim Nwankwo, Flutterwave’s Head of Product Marketing, validated the acquisition idea by highlighting the opportunity to harness Flutterwave’s embedded payment experience. I spoke to Blessing Abeng, Evans Akanno and Rufus Oyemade from Disha, and they had the same goal to keep Disha alive.
On Disha’s future…
GB: We brought in the Disha team to Flutterwave, and we started rebuilding the experience. The original Disha team are the ones building the product, and the goal is to embed every use case of the creator economy into Disha – from NFTs to making it easy for freelancers to create an account and get paid.
Big bets…
GB: We are not on an acquisition spree but a growth spree. Disha is a partnership via acquisition to help provide an amazing experience for creators worldwide and to use Flutterwave’s resources to create more value for Disha. It’s a big bet, and we are bullish about this acquisition.
Final thoughts: It’s a beautiful thing to see Africa’s tech ecosystem come through for each other in a major way. Nothing is more validating of this fact than this acquisition. As a product wonk, I’ll be looking out for Disha’s product roadmap and what new tools are in store for creators.
Twitter bets big on crypto
The short: Twitter hired seasoned crypto expert Tess Rinearson to lead a new team related to decentralized technologies – signalling its intent to make big plays in that space.
What it means: Twitter is transcending the idea of a typical social media platform with this new hire. The company is doubling down on building products focused on crypto, blockchains and NFTs.
Big Picture: Crypto is fast becoming a prominent feature on Twitter. The product team launched the ability to send and receive bitcoin through its Tip Jar feature, letting users add bitcoin wallets directly into their profile. Plus, NFT owners can now use their collections as profile pictures, which serves as industry validation to the budding crypto community.Final thoughts: There’s no better validation for the future of cryptocurrency than Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey, aka King of Bitcoin, consistently making big moves in this space. Twitter has a strong community of crypto enthusiasts on the platform, so hiring a crypto expert would drive the adoption of crypto on social media.
The short: Twitter hired seasoned crypto expert Tess Rinearson to lead a new team related to decentralized technologies – signalling its intent to make big plays in that space.
What it means: Twitter is transcending the idea of a typical social media platform with this new hire. The company is doubling down on building products focused on crypto, blockchains and NFTs.
Big Picture: Crypto is fast becoming a prominent feature on Twitter. The product team launched the ability to send and receive bitcoin through its Tip Jar feature, letting users add bitcoin wallets directly into their profile. Plus, NFT owners can now use their collections as profile pictures, which serves as industry validation to the budding crypto community.Final thoughts: There’s no better validation for the future of cryptocurrency than Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey, aka King of Bitcoin, consistently making big moves in this space. Twitter has a strong community of crypto enthusiasts on the platform, so hiring a crypto expert would drive the adoption of crypto on social media.
The short: Twitter hired seasoned crypto expert Tess Rinearson to lead a new team related to decentralized technologies – signalling its intent to make big plays in that space.
What it means: Twitter is transcending the idea of a typical social media platform with this new hire. The company is doubling down on building products focused on crypto, blockchains and NFTs.
Big Picture: Crypto is fast becoming a prominent feature on Twitter. The product team launched the ability to send and receive bitcoin through its Tip Jar feature, letting users add bitcoin wallets directly into their profile. Plus, NFT owners can now use their collections as profile pictures, which serves as industry validation to the budding crypto community.
Final thoughts: There’s no better validation for the future of cryptocurrency than Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey, aka King of Bitcoin, consistently making big moves in this space. Twitter has a strong community of crypto enthusiasts on the platform, so hiring a crypto expert would drive the adoption of crypto on social media.
New feature spotlight!
New Feature Alert: Blue app Facebook is doubling down on its e-commerce ambition by rolling out new shopping features – Shops in Groups, product recommendations, and Live Shopping for Creators test.
How this Works: Shops in Groups allows admins of Facebook groups to set up an online store on their Facebook Page. However, where proceeds from sales go is dependent on the admin’s decision.
Product recommendations allow users to see recommendations from groups within their news feeds – to drive shopping activity.
Verdict: Facebook’s push into e-commerce is paying off. It currently has over a billion users on its Marketplace product. This new launch would drive up peer to peer commercial activity on the platform. It’s a win for users looking for better shopping experiences – and for the company solidifying its place as a force in e-commerce.
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That’s it for the week. See you next Sunday!
Please do us a solid by sharing the newsletter with your network of tech enthusiasts. Invite them to join the party 🙂
