Tech Bytes – Week of May 30

📰 Recent Top Tech News

1. Amazon buys MGM (the James Bond film studio) for $8.45Bn

2. Microsoft built an AI-powered autocomplete for code with GPT-3

3. Vimeo, the video hosting company, goes public valued at $8.5Bn

The Takeaways

1. Amazon acquires Metro-Golden Mayor (MGM) for $8.45Bn. MGM, the 97-year-old company, has over 4,000 movie titles 17,000 hours of Tv programming.

🔎 Our Take

• Amazon has several strategic plays here. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos famously said, “When Amazon wins a Golden Globe, we sell more shoes”. So, more shows = more shoes.

• Exclusive content also drives customers. For example, Disney has been marvelously profiting from The Mandalorian TV series (based on Star Wars) and Falcon and the Winter Soldier show (base on Avengers universe) for their Disney+ Streaming service). We expect Amazon to start working on a spin-off strategy to maximize the return on the investment.

🧁 Your Takeaway

• Content is King, and spin-offs could be where the money is. If you have been operating your business for a while, consider shining light more on some of the lesser-known areas of your work. These could be the next big thing, leveraging the groundwork you’ve already done.

2. Microsoft announced a GPT-3 tech based autocomplete system that allows users to type in text in normal English which converts into programming code. Microsoft looks forward to integrating this into future Microsoft tools. This allows business users to write far more complex code without learning to code.

🔎 Our Take

• While we are still some way away from code that can write itself, we are seeing various products focused on ‘programming’ in some form easier, from screen recording based Robotic-Process Automation to more recent ‘Low Code’ visual programming systems. Microsoft hopes to introduce the next step in reducing friction to create complex programming, eventually getting to the level where users can talk to a computer and see different permutations of graphs and visuals.

🧁 Your Takeaway

• Generating insights from data is a hard problem to solve, but it is getting easier. Look out for dashboard tools that can help process your existing data to generate better insights to help grow your business.

3. Vimeo, a video hosting provider, went public on NASDAQ with an $8.5 market value on ~$240Mn annual revenue. Vimeo started as a side project in the entertainment company CollegeHumor, which was acquired by IAC in 2006 for $26Mn. IAC itself is a major media holding company with $3Bn revenue.

🔎 Our Take

•  Vimeo was originally created to host CollegeHumor’s own videos, and under its present CEO’s guidance, has transformed into a credible software-as-a-service for brands to host their videos in a paid, ad-free experience (compared to youtube). As video continues to grow, services like Vimeo will continue to be valuable.

🧁 Your Takeaway

• Check your side projects – the itch you have solved for yourself could be equally valuable for other businesses. If it’s a service you do, consider productising it so others can access it as well.

Jargon Buster

• FinTok – Financial TikTok – a type of TikTok (and other social media platforms) influencer or channel that focuses on financial advice.