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Been a crazy week for tech,
South Korea has issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon, the founder of Tera Luna, a crypto project that was worth 40 billion USD at its peak (not too long ago). To understand why this company ballooned so much and crashed so quickly, make sure you read the following Finance Friday.
Any other week, I would be covering that. But this week we saw the crash continue, with more lay-offs. Some big Tech companies like Meta even rescinded offers they made to new employees. People that had quit their old roles, started packing up their things and turned down other offers. Any other week, I would be writing about this, and how it was important to kill your love for companies and prepare for such worst-case scenarios.
But this week, saw another set of stories that topped this insanity. We had some major acquisitions. Even as headline raise alarms about companies like Google slowing/freezing hiring, we’ve seen them invest a lot of money into new ventures and projects. This points back to something that I always stress in my content- if you pursue mastery and focus on building valuable products, you will see a lot of success, even in downturns. There might be temporary hiccups and setbacks (those are inevitable) but you will get the Ws.
To those of you that don’t know there have been two major acquisitions over the past week. Google acquired cyber security firm Mandiant. The purchase is valued at at 5.4 Billion USD.
“The completion of this acquisition will enable us to deliver a comprehensive and best-in-class cybersecurity solution,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “We believe this acquisition creates incredible value for our customers and the security industry at large. Together, Google Cloud and Mandiant will help reinvent how organizations protect themselves, as well as detect and respond to threats.”
Along with this, Adobe acquired Figma for 20 billion Dollars. While these acquisitions are often accompanied by mass layoffs, it seems as though this one might be different. According to the official statement by the CEO-
The entire Figma team will report to me. We plan to continue to run Figma the way we have always run Figma — continuing to do what we believe is best for our community, our culture and our business.
My goal is that we look back at this acquisition as an inflection point where Figma started building even faster.
Here are some of my important takeaways from this situation-
Key Takeaways
Breathe. Drink some water. There’s no rush- Before this week, most of us had never heard of Mandiant. Figma was often pressured to IPO and list publicly (the big way how a lot of investors make money in tech, as covered by the tech crash article). Both of these companies built great products, and now the founders are walking away much richer. Neither of them rushed things to chase short-term gains.
Form is temporary, Class is Permanent- This is a common saying in sports (at least in Football). These big money acquisitions are happening during a brutal tech crash. In times like this, you would expect companies to save money and become more conservative. For example, Clientell, our startup, has had a much harder time attracting investors in the current climate. However, Google and Adobe are willing to take a risk and spend big bucks on these buys (Adobe stock price has even taken its worst hit since 2010 because of this). Because both Mandiant and Figma are valuable additions to these companies.
Keep your finger on the pulse- Anyone that knew of Mandiant before the buyout is going to be licking their lips right now. You’re going to make money (take a look at the price chart below). This is true for many companies. Being able to understand and identify valuable companies early is a great way to boost your financial results. And protect yourself from hype trains. To do you should do two things- develop expertise in the domain of your choice and find a diverse set of sources to help you stay informed on the developments in that domain. This will help you spot new players/ideas that can be game-changing before the finance bros and general media catch onto it. To those of you interested in AI, Machine Learning, and Data Science, feel free to reach out to me. All my other content/links are always at the very end of every post/email.
This will help you spot the areas where you can step in and make some valuable contributions. For an example of this, check out my story on How I got my first 100 USD/hour contract in Machine Learning when I was 21. You will see many of these lessons echoed there. Once you start building your skills and actively engaging with your domain, a whole new world of opportunities opens up to you.
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Devansh <3
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