Gm. Tell us about it 🙄
Welcome to Issue 16 of The Quest Digest, where we break down Silicon Valley news for you every week, in 3 minutes.
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Metaverse moves
A lot has been happening in the metaverse lately.
Here’s a recap:
35 tech companies (e.g. Meta, Microsoft Alibaba, and Sony) are signing a pledge to create an open and interopable metaverse known as the Metaverse Standards Forum
Companies are envisioning the metaverse as a constellation of different “digital neighborhoods” with interoperable and transferable assets
Meta is launching a digital designer clothing store called the “Meta Avatars Store”
Our Take
One of the goals of the forum is to ensure that one company does not dominate the development of the metaverse which is a great aspiration for industry-wide cooperation on interoperability.
Even so, the forum has raised skepticism in acting as a “paper tiger” that fails to impose their claims. Founder of Animoca Brands, Yat Siu has also critiqued the forum because the business model of companies like Meta is “fundamentally incompatible” with the notion of a decentralised, open metaverse and pointed the notable absence of web3 and blockchain-native companies.
While the forum includes many recognisable names, it’s also missing many prominent players such as Apple, Snap, Niantic, and Roblox – which is concerning given the level of VR/AR development and contributions they have made. It is not clear why these players haven’t joined the group.
The Solana saga
Solana has announced the development of a crypto phone in partnership with Osom. The device comes with a unique features such as: support for decentralised apps (dApps) that rely on the Solana blockchain, Solana Pay, a seed vault and mobile wallet adaptor.
The phone will come with 512 GB of storage and a 6.67-inch OLED display. It is priced at $1,000 and has become available for preorder this week with a $100 deposit.
Our Take
Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX claimed that “everything is going mobile” at the event – and we believe it’s true.
Apple hasn’t made any crypto-related announcements in the past decade and we’re unsure of if and when they plans to make their move, but we’re sure many crypto invested people would appreciate web3-enabled devices with a hardware wallet for payments and a better connection to the ecosystem.
Zendesk sells for $10.2B in private equity acquisition
Zendesk was founded in 2007 and has enabled 100,000+ brands to take their customer service online.
In February, the company turned down a $17B acquisition believing it was worth more. Now the company has been acquired for $10.2B by a group of private equity firms, well below the original offer.
Prior to the market opening Zendesk stock was $57.96 per share. The arranged deal is for $77.50 a share, at 34% premium over yesterday’s price.
Our Take
Since the time of it’s original offer, many analysts called out that it was the right call given high-performing financial data. However since then the market has shifted to lower valuations, and bearish economic sentiments.
Even with Zendesk making a return to investors with the acquisition it comes as a warning to unicorns and startups of how dramatically the market has repriced the value of software revenue.
🔥 Press Worthy
Telegram ammases 700M MAUs and launches premium tier
Immutable launches $500M fund to boost web3 gaming adoption
Netflix lays off 3% of staff. Masterclass cuts 20% of staff
Twitter asks shareholders to approve Elon’s 44B takeover
Spotify is developing a ‘community’ and ‘friend activity’ feature
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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.