Gm. What are your weekend plans?...
Welcome to Issue 14 of The Quest Digest, where we break down Silicon Valley news for you every week, in 3 minutes.
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Apple takes on Affirm, Klarna and After Pay
Every year Apple kicks off its Worldwide Developer Conference with back-to-back announcements covering everything from iOS updates, new phones, and tech.
Here are the highlights from WWDC22:
Lock screens are getting a makeover, with more customisation and widgets
Apple Pay Later allows you to split Apple Pay purchases with zero interest
New M2 chips, with the CPU being 18% faster and GPU being 35% faster than the M1
CarPlay overhaul and a sneak peak of the UI
MacOS Ventura with changes to Spotlight, updates to the Mail app, “passkeys” in Safari, and continuity camera allowing you to use your iPhone camera in video calls
Live Text can translate and replace text detected in photos
Apple’s new Maps overhaul is coming to 12+ more countries
Edit and unsend recent messages in iMessage when you “accidentally” text your ex at 3am
Our Take
This could be a massive blow to existing players in the market. Apple Pay adoption is snowballing with customers and retailer numbers increasing rapidly.
Even so, Affirm and Klarna are no longer small startups, with lucrative partnerships with retail giants like Walmart and Amazon.
Klarna’s CEO has commented on the move being a great win for consumers worldwide and plagiarism as the highest form of flattery. Time will tell who will win the BNPL wars.
Yuga Labs Hacked 200 ETH worth of NFTs
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) Discord server was hacked on Saturday, with the hacker stealing 200 ETH (~$360,000) worth of NFTs according to Yuga Labs.
The hack took place after community manager, Boris Vagner had his Discord account compromised, resulting in the attacker using phishing links in the official BAYC and metaverse Otherside’s Discord channels.
Our Take
This is the second time in less than 2 months someone has stolen Yuga Labs NFTs. It’s clear that NFT theft and web3 scams have been a concerning trend and there’s opportunity for better security in the space.
Salesforce launches NFT Cloud
Salesforce launched a pilot of NFT cloud – a new platform for buying and selling crypto assets with the goal of making NFT selling more accessible by abstracting the tech and introducing no-code.
Rumors of the NFT Cloud first began in early 2022 but were met with protests from Salesforce employees and 400 workers signing an open letter opposing plans.
Despite the protests, the company held a listening session with employees to hear concerns, and co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor insist the platform is building built in accordance with Salesforce values.
Our Take
Salesforce might have done an okay job at quelling the protests by opting for proof of stake technology and addressing environmental concerns.
Given Salesforce is a trusted business brand, there’s an opportunity for them to capture an audience fearful of security concerns, undoxxed founders, and shady rug pulls. It’ll be interesting seeing how Salesforce uses NFT Cloud in alignment with its core business or plans to branch an arm into new web3 terrain.
Bonus: Leaked memo revealing Coinbase employees voting out COO and CPO
In Mirror memos that have been aggressively taken down, Coinbase employees have expressed a lack of confidence in the company’s COO, CPO, and Chief People Officer.
As a recap:
$COIN is down 80% since IPO
Coinbase’s NFT platform has struggled since launch
Despite rapidly hiring the company has failed to increase quantity or quality of product output
Offers have been rescinded despite promising they would not be 2 weeks earlier
Employees have struggled with lowered morale and toxic workplace culture
This will be a story to watch… 🍿
🔥 Press Worthy
Enterprise learning platform Go1 raises $100M at $2B valuation
Meta rolls out new Reels features and expands to 90 seconds
Solana launches $100M investment for South Korean web3 startups
Github sunsets Atom
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The Quest Digest is written by Hannah Ahn and edited by Brent Liang, two dropouts who hate long tech newsletters. You can sign up to our next issue below.