Nvidia beats Q2 expectations

Good morning! We filter the noise, so you don't have to - Techonomy Barista, your digital caffeine fix.

Okay, on to today’s menu:

1. Nvidia’s beanstalk growth, investors still unhappy. 😳

2. The AI puppet master pulling strings in Silicon Valley.

3. The $1 trillion boomer that crashed Silicon Valley's party. 💰🎉

4. OpenSea served Wells notice from SEC.

5. 'Puffin' project: AR glasses on steroids or VR's skinny cousin? 👓🔮

6. From crypto exchange to startup incubator.

7. Asia's dirty little secret.

1. Nvidia grows by 122% from last year, yet investors not happy 😳 

• 💰NVIDIA just hit the jackpot with $30 billion in Q2 revenue—a 122% jump from last year. Talk about printing money!

• Shareholders are living the dream, with $15.4 billion returned in buybacks and dividends, and another $50 billion locked and loaded for the future.

• Demand for their AI tech is off the charts, with everyone drooling over their next-gen chips, aka Blackwell 🤖.

• Despite the Blackwell hype, Nvidia’s current chip, Hopper, is still in high demand and will keep flying off the shelves in the next two quarters.💨 

• Nvidia is cranking up production for both chips, but don't expect Blackwell to be easy to snag just yet. 🏭

  Looking at the future:

• Nvidia’s $32.5 billion Q3 forecast left some investors underwhelmed, because some of them were daydreaming about $37.9 billion. 😵‍💫 

• This prompted a stock drop in late trading as production snags with the hyped Blackwell chip added to the Q3 jitters.

• The big question: Is Nvidia’s growth finally slowing down, or just catching its breath? 🤔 

2. Daniel Gross: The AI puppet master pulling strings in Silicon Valley's hottest startup. 🕹️🤖

• Daniel Gross is the tech world's Forrest Gump, popping up in every major AI story. 📽️

• He's co-founded Safe Superintelligence with OpenAI's ex-chief scientist, like a tech soap opera plot twist. 🍿

• Gross and his buddy Nat Friedman are sitting on a $2 billion war chest, making them the Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne of AI investing.

• They've got a secret GPU stash called the Andromeda Cluster, basically a cheat code for AI startups.

• Gross is known for his brutal honesty, telling founders they're either going to be Elon Musk or crash and burn. 🔥

• He's gone from Y Combinator wunderkind to potential AI kingmaker, all before hitting midlife crisis age.

3. Buffett's Berkshire: The $1 trillion boomer that crashed Silicon Valley's party 👴💰🎉

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway just hit the $1 trillion club. It's like watching your grandpa win the lottery.

• First non-tech company to join the trillion-dollar cool kids. Old school just schooled new school. 📚

• Berkshire's up 28% this year, making the S&P 500 look like it's moving in slow-mo. 🐢📈

• Buffett's empire includes railways, ice cream, and insurance. Who knew boring could be so profitable?

• The Oracle of Omaha turns 94 soon. Talk about a birthday present! 🎂🎁

• Berkshire's sitting on a $277 billion cash pile. That's a lot of avocado toast, millennials. 🥑

4. OpenSea served Wells notice from SEC that NFTs are securities 🤨 

• 🚨OpenSea just got a “love letter” from the SEC, hinting at a lawsuit because they think NFTs are basically securities.

• The SEC’s move could mess with thousands of artists and creators, who might end up too broke to fight back. 🎨

• OpenSea’s pledging $5M to help creators cover legal fees and keep the creative vibes alive.

• NFTs aren't Wall Street junk, they're digital art—let's not confuse Picasso with penny stocks. 🖼️

• 🤞Here’s hoping the SEC gets a reality check before they kill the NFT party.

5. Meta's secret 'Puffin' project: AR glasses on steroids or VR's skinny cousin? 👓🔮

• Meta's cooking up a new gadget called Puffin. It's like they're trying to make VR headsets go on a diet 🥽🏋️‍♂️

• Picture this: VR glasses that don't make you look like a cyborg from a B-movie. Revolutionary, right? 👀

• They're aiming for 2027. That's like, what, 84 years in tech time? 🕰️

• No controllers? It's all about them Jedi hand waves and eye rolls now. 👋👀

• There's a catch: You gotta carry a second device. It's giving "I'm not a purse, it's a satchel" vibes. 👜

• Zuckerberg's dreaming of everyone rocking these glasses. Dude's living in 3023 while we're still trying to find our AirPods. 🎧

• Apple's Vision Pro? More like Vision No-Go. Seems like nobody wants to drop rent money on a face computer. 💸

6. Coinbase: From crypto exchange to startup incubator and blockchain innovator.

• Coinbase is pivoting from just crypto trading to becoming a financial system backbone with its Base blockchain 🏦🔗

• The crypto giant's secret weapon? A massive alumni network spawning startups like tech rabbits 🐰💼

• Coinbase Ventures is playing sugar daddy, throwing $1-5 million checks at ex-employee startups 💸

• These Coinbase-backed startups are like puzzle pieces, fitting into the company's grand ecosystem plan 🧩

• Former employees cite the itch to build cutting-edge crypto tech as their reason for bouncing 🚀

• Base blockchain is Coinbase's new golden child, already raking in $108.6 million in the first half of 2023 💰

7. Asia's dirty little secret: The youth unemployment crisis 🚫😓.

• Asia's booming economies are hiding a nasty surprise: skyrocketing youth unemployment 📈😱

• Bangladesh, China, and India all have 16% youth unemployment. That's worse than rich countries like the U.S. and Japan 🌏💔

• These countries account for nearly half of the world's 65 million jobless youth. It's like a whole country of unemployed young people! 🌍👥

• The development ladder seems broken: Countries are struggling to level up from low-skill to high-skill jobs 🪜🛠️

• There's a huge mismatch: More college grads, but not enough white-collar jobs to go around 🎓➡️🏢❌

• Political unrest is brewing: Youth unemployment was a key factor in Bangladesh's recent upheaval 🔥🗳️

Other news worth knowing:

AI

OpenAI to be valued more than $100bn in fresh funding talks.

GameNGen by Google simulates Doom without a game engine.

The call center industry in The Philippines is concerned about AI.

JP Morgan and Walmart are now allowing GenAI usage for their employees.

Google DeepMind released three new experimental Gemini 1.5 models.

Technology

Midjourney to launch hardware team, open to applications in their SF office.

EyeOS: Zuck's revenge or Apple's next iThing? 👓🤖

AMD kicks Intel's chips: David Outsmarts goliath in Silicon Valley showdown. 🤼‍♂️💻

OpenAI's valuation goes brrrr: $100 billion or bust! 🚀💰

Finance

Libya's central bank drama: Uncle Sam and the UN step in. 🏦🇺🇸🇺🇳

Bitcoin's bungee jump to the Moon: New all-time high coming? 🚀💰

Mortgage rates go down: First-time homebuyers might finally catch a break. 🏠💃

Business

Toyota’s global production falls for the 6th straight month.

SpaceX delays its first private space walk mission.

Google sued by Yelp on grounds of monopoly that promote its own reviews.

CrowdStrike reduces forecasts due to Windows outage issue from July.

Brazil’s apex court could suspend X by Thursday night (29 Aug).

World

Japan braces for typhoon Shanshan's tantrum: Mother nature's unwelcome house guest. 🌪️🏠

Germany's Business Vibes? Mehr Schlecht als Recht! 🇩🇪📉

Hong Kong's press freedom on trial: Stand news verdict looms. 📰🇭🇰

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