The Water Coolest is a free daily business news and professional advice email newsletter created for weekday warriors that is delivered fresh daily at 7 AM EST. You can subscribe at thewatercoolest.com.
THE HEADLINES
Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes and 47 seconds
COOKING THE ‘BOOKS
Leave it to the college drop out to not check his math. Turns out Cambridge Analytica may have actually gained access to 87M user’s data vs. the 50M originally reported by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. The update is based on Facebook’s maximum exposure calculations.
MySpace’s more successful younger cousin will begin breaking the news to users that their data has been compromised, and has updated their terms of service and data use policy for the first time since 2015. Rewritten in the Queen’s English, the terms promise to be so easy to understand that a caveman could do it.
And as if Zuck’s week couldn’t get any worse, the always verbose and eloquent CEO will testify before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees on April 10th.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “Has anyone ever actually read the terms of service or privacy policy before turning over their first-born and a kidney for access to the cool new social network? Didn’t think so.”
YOU CAN TAKE ALL THE TEA IN CHINA
China wasted no time responding to the White House’s 25% tariff on Chinese imports. Beijing fired back with tariffs of their own which are similar in value.
The Chinese tariffs will affect 106 US goods, including soybeans and small airplanes, which accounted for roughly $23B worth of US exports to China last year.
The tariffs don’t stop there though. China is hitting Donny Politics where it hurts, placing restrictions on SUVs, grains, and whiskey. It appears to be no coincidence that America’s Far East foes are targeting Trump’s US political strongholds.
The retaliatory sanctions sent US markets through a roller coaster of emotions.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “I see what Donny is trying to do here, but upsetting the nation that we owe over $1T to probably isn’t the best way to go. That’s like going double or nothing with your bookie on a sport you’ve never watched. Hopefully, China doesn’t break our kneecaps.”
IT’S ALL FUND AND GAMES
GoFundMe has a fever, and the only prescription is more crowdsourced fundraising acquisitions. The social fundraising pioneer reached a deal with a similar platform, YouCaring, who gained National recognition for partnering with JJ Watt to raise $37M for Hurricane Harvey relief last year.
The pact further consolidates the already concentrated social crowdsourcing market. Prior to this deal, YouCaring acquired Generosity.com and GoFundMe acquired CrowdRise. With the crowdsourced fundraising market cornered (90% market share), it looks like GoFundMe will all but have a monopoly on puppy wheelchair fundraisers worthy of Sarah McLachlan music.
CEO Rob Solomon says that they don’t expect many more acquisitions and that he looks to focus on integration and growth. Easy to say when you’ve mercilessly laid waste to all of your competition.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “I’m a big fan of fundraising for a good cause, but I feel like Solomon may have misunderstood YouCarings corporate structure. He does know that JJ Watt doesn’t actually work for them, right?”
IN OTHER NEWS
- Content discovery platform Taboola and phone manufacturer ZTE are coming together to battle Apple News and provide personalized news feeds for Androids.
- According to ADP, US companies added 241k workers in March. Probably to shovel all the snow. Damn that Punxatawney Phil!
- Dating app Tinder is testing a 2-second loop function in Canada and Sweden so that users can “show off their favorite activities…” Like sending dick pics?
- Congruent Ventures, a clean energy fund has raised $92M to back early-stage companies working on sustainability-related technology. Hopefully, they start with the Agave shortage. Priorities.
- US indices were up Wednesday:
- DOW: +0.96%
- S&P 500: +1.16%
- NASDAQ: +1.45%
INSIDER INFORMATION
Where Tyler hangs out on the internet: Welcome to the bowels of the world wide web: the online forum. Where better to learn about developing executive presence than a crowdsourced, online community?
What Nick is reading when he’s done with The Water Coolest: They say to dress for the job you want, not the one you have. Shouldn’t you read for the job you want (read: a boss)?
Why AJ is more informed than you: Fact: you can’t curate a newsletter without knowing what’s going on in the world.
What we’re eating after we fill up on Tide Pods: Condom snorting is the next big internet trend. This is a much better team-building exercise than trust falls.