🧺 Washed Up Tech Giants Vs. The New Wave

This is The Level Ups. Modern business news for the future business leader (in plain-Jane English).

Today:

• Meta and Google are in the 💩

• Everyone’s down

• The new wave of consumer social apps.

Let’s get into it.

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes & 10 seconds.

Why Are Tech Giants So Washed Up?

The background is important. Tech giants posted record profits during the pandemic. Everyone was stuck at home, the government gave them money, and they spent it on internet entertainment (owned by these tech giants).

Those days are done. There are other things to do now, which means less money to the tech giants. They’re either not growing like they used to or are losing money.

*Youtube lost money.* All those views and all those damn ads, and they somehow lost money? Some of their Youtubers are worth over a billion dollars tho, that’s nice.

So desperate they’re literally testing 10 unskippable ads in a row.

I told you advertising revenue is not what it used to be (go to the end of that link).

Facebook is no better off. Young people don’t like it, and trying to become the leader of the Metaverse hasn’t been working. Zuckerberg lost half his net worth this year ($76B). I think he’ll be ok, but damn.

Young people are used to fantastic game graphics and high-resolution experiences. Meta’s blocky digital world isn’t it (at least not yet).

You can’t just put a new wrapper on a company and try to win people back. The bigger you are, the harder it is for them to forget.

Want to know the best thing Facebook’s done for their brand in the last few years? Mark Zuckerberg’s Joe Rogan interview.

Everyone’s Down

Welcome to the pain of mark-to-market accounting.

Big tech is in hell.

Amazon, Uber, Alphabet and Shopify each posted billion-dollar-plus losses on equity investments in the first quarter.

Add in reports from Snap, Qualcomm, Microsoft and Oracle and total losses among tech companies’ equity holdings topped $17 billion for the first three months of the year.

I mention how bad the market is pretty often. Good news: there’s another side too.

The Next Wave:

Watch for these new apps.

Gas - an anonymous app that prompts teens to say nice things about each other. Last week, it became the No. 1 free social app in the App Store, per The Wall Street Journal. They’re at 500k+ downloads since August but only launched in 12 states. It’s simple. Sign up for your school, and anonymously say nice things about people when prompted with the question. Something like “the most beautiful person you know.” They’ll see the message, but the kicker’s the best part. Paying lets you know who said what.

NGL - Very similar, but they use super AI to ensure people can’t slip in mean comments. The focus is on positivity, even in a world of anonymous messaging. It’s a slippery slope as many apps take a lot of heat for anonymous messages that often lead to online bullying, especially since people can pay to see who said what. It was the #1 app in the summer and is still growing. 3M downloads.

Be Real - This is the most insane one. 53M downloads. It’s mostly among iOS users, and supposedly only 9% are opening the app. But it’s absolutely wild that a new app is crushing it so hard in a world previously dominated by big tech. Even if TikTok just stole their main feature.

Here’s the thing:

Big companies come to an end. You, your career, and your business must embrace the new. Whether it’s TikTok, BeReal, or whatever’s not for high schoolers, these are opportunities.

Best to take advantage of them.

Thanks for reading!

See you tomorrow,

Darwin