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THE HEADLINES
Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes and 18 seconds
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE GOOGLE
It was a busy day for FAANG investors: Apple, Amazon and Alphabet all announced their earnings. And we found out that not all tech stock are created equal: Apple and Amazon’s earnings reports “exceeded expectations.” Alphabet’s? “Needs improvement.”
Bezos and Co. saw earnings of $3.75 per share vs. a predicted $1.85. “Alexa, order the Dom P.” It’s tough to find a silver lining when your competition posts a $1.9B profit, but Apple did its best to keep pace. While iPhone sales stagnated Apple sold $5.5B worth of products that don’t make calls, namely AirPods, watches and Apple TVs.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, on the other wishes this report could have gone Incognito. Alphabet announced that it missed its end of year earning’s mark by 18 cents per share, causing the stock to drop 5%. The news comes as Google names John Hennessy as its chair to replace Eric Schmidt, who left the position in December.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “Imagine making so much money that bringing in $32.2B doesn’t constitute a good year. I’m happy if I find $5 in a pair of jeans that I haven’t worn since August.”
SORRY, PAL
eBay is taking a page out of the recently-divorced-middle-aged-men’s playbook and ditching their tech-school sweetheart for a new younger, foreign partner. The online auction company is parting ways with PayPal and has set its sights on Dutch payment company, Adyen. The deal will be completed by 2021.
In the “it’s not me, it’s you,” vein, eBay said it is looking for a partner that will allow customers to transact and checkout on the same page. Adyen’s services will cost eBay less, and ultimately increase the money they make on each transaction.
In the age of consolidation, it’s a little surprising eBay didn’t just buy up the European processor. But with a current valuation of $2.3B, Adyen isn’t making it easy to put a ring on it.
Shares of PayPal dropped after hours by about 8%.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “It’s a ‘what have you done for me lately’ kind of world out there. And apparently the only thing PayPal has done for eBay is charge exorbitant fees and make paying for your recently won set of Dale Earnhardt commemorative plates more difficult.”
SUPER REASONABLE
Quick, name something more fiscally irresponsible than a 22-year old Investment Banking Analyst who just got his first bonus check. That’s right, spending $5M for a 30 second Super Bowl ad.
In recent years the cost of an ad spot has risen dramatically as fewer and fewer people choose to pay for cable. With less eyeballs consuming commercials for 364 days of the year cable provider’s only real ace in the hole is Super Bowl Sunday. So the network charges a premium, because, you know, economics.
A guaranteed audience of over 100M viewers makes for an easy sell. That’s just about a nickel per view for those keeping score at home. For comparison, 2.5M people who really like telling everyone that they adopted their “fur baby” tuned into the Puppy Bowl last year.
The most mind-boggling part of the process that made “Waaasssup” a thing is that advertisers release their ads days or weeks before the big game.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “I actually TiVo the Super Bowl and watch it the next day. That way I can fast forward past all the foul balls and ground-rule doubles and just watch my favorite ads … and JT.”
IN OTHER NEWS
- AirBnb lost it’s CFO and is planning to skip going public in 2018. They did get a COO, though. You win some you lose some.
- Chipotle’s brand perception is even lower now than it was during their 2015 norovirus outbreak. That just goes to show that serving bad queso is worse than giving customers diarrhea.
- Starbucks rolled out its own credit card. Because nothing goes better with a nice dark roast than crippling credit card debt.
- Flying taxis are one step closer to reality as Joby lands $100M in funding.
- HBO hit 5M online subscribers, although many of them aren’t using the HBO app, and what good are subscribers if they aren’t using your app?
- US indices were up Friday:
- DOW: +0.14%
- S&P 500: -0.06%
- NASDAQ: -0.35%
TALKING SHOP
Professional motivation, tips, tricks, hacks & resources carefully-curated by yours truly. Something you’d like to see featured? Shoot me an email at team@thewatercoolest.com
PROACTIVE EXCEL NINJA WITH REFERENCES UPON REQUEST
You know what they say about resumes: if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’. Lying on a resume is a tale as old as time. It’s a right of passage, really. But just because Jan in recruiting remembers the Hoover presidency fondly doesn’t mean her ability to sniff out heaping piles of CV bulls*t has gone the way of most of her friends. So next time you think you’ve come up with the perfect little-white embellishment, remember this is what HR professionals hear when you call yourself a “PowerPoint rock star.”