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2022-04-15 10:01:04 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) How long would it take to brute force guess your password? Not as long as you might think.

2) Fantasy and sci-fi writer Brandon Sanderson has raised more than $20m in just 3 days to fund four secret books he intends to release next year. The campaign broke an old Kickstarter record.

3) The US economy added another 678,000 jobs in February — some great charts here from NPR on where that leaves the economy relative to pre-pandemic.

4) McDonald's is being sued by a startup that was working to fix its ice-cream machines for $900m.

5) Russia's attack and capture of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe has provoked widespread condemnation, although radiation data in the area remains normal.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-14 10:04:12 𝚂𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝙹𝚞𝚗𝚔: 𝙰 𝙶𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚖

There is a growing amount of junk floating around Earth. Thousands of pieces of debris from launches, nonfunctional spacecraft and fragmentation debris are all orbiting Earth.

Today one of those pieces, a rocket part which weighs around three-tonnes, is predicted to have smashed into the moon at around 5,500 miles per hour (8,851 kilometers per hour). The impact was expected to take place on the far side of the moon, so we don't know for sure if it's happened yet.

Kessler Syndrome is a predicted phenomenon in which the amount of junk in orbit around Earth reaches a point that creates a cascade of collisions, in which each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions.

As Earth's orbit gets increasingly crowded (there are now 6,500+ satellites in space), Kessler Syndrome gets more relevant.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-13 10:00:28 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚞𝚙 𝙰𝚌𝚌𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛 𝚈 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚘𝚛 𝙷𝚊𝚜 𝙰𝚗 𝙸𝚖𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝙿𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚘

Investing in startups is a high-risk business. First you have to get comfortable with the idea that the vast majority of new companies will go broke — then you have to do your best to bet on the ones that don't, which isn't easy.

Having written more than 3,500 checks, usually for $125k in exchange for 7% of the company (although this changed recently), Y Combinator has spread the risk of early-stage investing, hoping for a few home-runs that can cover the rest of their investments.

 A lot of that comes from big name successes like Stripe, Airbnb, Reddit and DoorDash - all of which make the top 10 YC-backed companies.
Own a slice of the $46B US Pizza Industry 

There are not many foods universally liked as much as pizza, with about 13% of the US population consuming pizza on any given day.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-12 10:57:04 𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝟷 𝙼𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚄𝚔𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚜 𝙷𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝙽𝚘𝚠 𝙵𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚄𝚔𝚛𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚎

Every day for the last week more than one hundred thousand Ukrainians have fled their home country, bringing the total number of Ukrainian refugees to more than 1.2 million since Russia's invasion began/

More than half of that total, around 650,000 people, have fled to Poland — Ukraine's neighbor to the west. Posts on social media have been overwhelmingly positive, with reports of Polish guards handing out food to those in waiting rooms and citizens offering clothes, hot drinks, transport or even a room to those Ukrainians in need. Similar stories can be found in Moldova, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary — 4 of the other countries that have seen the most refugee arrivals.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that up to 4 million Ukrainians might end up fleeing the country — which would be around 10% of the country's population.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-11 10:01:54 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) An entire NBA game was filmed with 110 data capturing cameras, tracking precisely every player's movement and rendering a very realistic, if slightly glitchy, digital recreation of the game.

2) US labor markets tightened further, with unemployment claims dropping again. America still has almost 11.3 million jobs open - a record high (chart here).

3) A mind-blowing, and oddly scary, visualization of how many humans have ever existed, and how many there might be to come.

4) Chocolate and candy sales hit a record $36.9bn last year in the US, up 11% on last year.

5) How long since a city broke a daily temperature record? Our friends at pudding.cool built this interactive map of the US.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-10 10:03:02 "𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝙸𝚗 𝙱𝚒𝚘" 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚔𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚎 𝙸𝚜 𝙽𝚘𝚠 𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚑 $𝟷.𝟹 𝙱𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚘𝚗 

This week Aussie company Linktree announced it had raised a fresh $110m of investment, valuing the company at $1.3 billion.

Hence, "link in bio" refers to a common tactic on social media, in which influencers or brands put links in the bio section of their profile, to drive traffic to their other websites, stores or social media accounts. 

Linktree's founders noticed this behavior, and put together an unbelievably simple product - a super simple landing page that could host a bunch of URLs and links. The result was that celebrities, influencers and brands could just put one link in their bio, which itself would then have multiple links to whatever they wanted. That simple product, which admittedly has evolved, is now worth $1.3 billion.

Sometimes the really simple ideas are the best.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-09 10:01:49 𝚂𝚌𝚑𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚣 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚠 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚋𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚜 𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘 𝙰 𝙲𝚘𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚎 𝙴𝚖𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎 , 𝙽𝚘𝚠 𝙷𝚎'𝚜 𝙱𝚊𝚌𝚔 (𝙰𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗)

35 years ago Howard Schultz took the top job at Starbucks, a small chain serving coffee in 11 locations. Over the next 3 decades, across two different stints as CEO, Schultz would reshape Starbucks into a US, and then a global, coffee empire — with more than 25,000 locations by the time he stepped down in 2017.

Now, he's back. Schultz is once again stepping up to the top job, this time as interim CEO, as Starbucks looks for its next leader.

Investors seemed to like the "return of the king", with the company's share price rising almost 5% on Wednesday.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-08 10:01:48 𝚁𝚞𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚜 𝙰𝚛𝚎 𝙳𝚘𝚠𝚗𝚕𝚘𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙰𝚙𝚙𝚜 𝚃𝚘 𝙷𝚎𝚕𝚙 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝚄𝚜𝚎 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚝 𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚂𝚎𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚢

Russia's population is increasingly cut off from the rest of the world, and we're not talking about just physically. With complete bans on major social media platforms like Facebook, and many more tech companies voluntarily withdrawing services, Russia is at risk of creating a "splinternet" according to writers at MIT.

To get by the increasing number of internet restrictions, many Russians have turned to virtual private networks (VPNs), which offer an encrypted connection over the internet. By re-routing traffic through other servers, your physical location, and other data about your browsing habits, can stay hidden.

5 or 6 years ago you might have tried to trick Netflix into thinking you were in a different country by using a VPN to access the different movies and shows in that country.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-07 13:14:07 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) Not all maps are created equal; great thread on how the New York Times has changed its approach to mapping the Ukraine invasion.

2) Never mind smartphones, "dumbphones" are making a comeback, with searches for phones with limited functionality up 89% over the last 3 years (thanks Katie S. for this).

3) Manufacturing issues are a thing of the past for Nike, as the company reported a solid set of results, sending shares up 6%.

4) The iPhone killer? Or just tech marketing hype? The "nothing phone" is set for release this summer.

5) MacKenzie Scott has donated $436m to Habitat for Humanity, taking her total charitable donations since 2019 to more than $8 billion.

6) Interesting blog post from Netflix about the origins of the “Skip Intro” button, which is pressed around 136 million times per day.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-05 10:03:31 𝙱𝚞𝚣𝚣𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝙷𝚊𝚜 𝚂𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚐𝚐𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚂𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝙶𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙿𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚌 𝙸𝚗 𝙳𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛

After its merger late last year with a shell company, BuzzFeed, once a digital media darling, has had a rough start to life as a public company, with its stock down more than 40%.

As we wrote last year, BuzzFeed isn't just doing outrageous clickbait or articles these days. They've also invested millions in BuzzFeed News - by far its most serious journalism project - and achieved impressive results, including winning the coveted Pulitzer Prize.

Unfortunately, BuzzFeed News is burning through about $10 million a year, leading some investors, understandably more concerned about the bottom line, to call for the entire division to be shut down. So far, CEO Jonah Peretti refuses to go that far, but on Tuesday the company announced it was cutting the division, including the departure of its editor-in-chief. 

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment