Talk Money Weekly - #016
Hey All,
This is issue #016 of the Talk Money Weekly. To get your mind moving on the topic of money every week, I curate and share trending conversations around money, business, current events, and pop culture from Twitter, my favorite podcasts, and other platforms.
As we get ready to launch our Season 3 soon, have you checked out the Talk Money Podcast? Here are my three recommendations to learn everything you need to know about Bitcoin!
What's the Deal With Bitcoin- A Foundation
What's the Deal with Bitcoin- Investing & Risk
Does Bitcoin Know Something We Don't?
One small favor. If you're enjoying this curated list, please forward it to your friends. I would greatly appreciate it!
📈Markets & Business:
Bitcoin Approaches All-Time Highs
Bitcoin is back in the news again. Hitting $16K, $17K, and then $18K in a matter of a week. We're approaching the 2017 highs. Why is this time different?
- Security and infrastructure are now available for institutions to start investing large amounts. That is a big change from the last bull run.
- More high profile companies and individuals are putting their cash into Bitcoin. This includes Square, Paypal, and Microstrategy. Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego announced that he has 10% of his liquid assets in Bitcoin
- Inflation risk is becoming more of a potential fear. With a devaluing dollar, historically gold was seen as a hedge. Bitcoin is seen as digital gold and we're seeing more and more people adopt it as a potential store of value (an inflation hedge).
Airbnb is a Win-Win, COVID or No COVID
Airbnb managed to survive the early days of COVID. And with more and more people looking for escapes outside cities, it continues to benefit. They filed for their IPO and will soon be available for the public to buy. I have plenty of friends who are renting Airbnb's around the country just to get out of town.
I'd guess that it's probably pretty hard to find places in rural areas right now. Everyone wants space. They want outdoors. They want an escape. Regardless, virus or not, Airbnb should benefit.
This is One Way to Get Rich
LOL. This is good for the memes. Enjoy.
DoorDash Rushes For IPO
Restaurants have been suffering all throughout COVID. Delivery companies have benefitted from us staying at home. I think this chart is interesting. DoorDash and Uber Eats both added $30B in GMV in the last 3 years. GMV refers to the number of merchandise sold through the platform. People ordered $30B worth of delivery and pick up through these apps. DoorDash and Uber Eats make a percentage of that. DoorDash focused on suburban markets where there was less competition and lost LESS money than Uber Eats.
It's hard to say if app delivery will ever be a good business. You can make billions of dollars in transactions all day, but can you turn a profit? The margins are really really tight, and restaurants are still struggling. Even though they are able to get food out to their customers at scale, the fees for delivery are high and cut into low margins. Uber Eats and DoorDash can't exactly charge more, because we're being charged enough as it is, and they can't lower the price because they're already running at a loss.
Why IPO now? Probably because they've benefitted so much from COVID in terms of scale and revenue, that this is the ideal time to try to get the highest price possible.
🏛️ Politics:
Is Cancelling Student Debt A Mistake?
Here's the reality of canceling any student debt. It doesn't solve the problem. I understand that this will change lives, but it still needs to be paid for. There are so many factors that will continue to cause this issue.
1) The insanely high cost of higher education
2) The ability to easily take on loans in the $100K's, without being able to pay for it.
3) Loans being bankruptcy protected.
4) Private loans able to increase interest rates over time.
There are so many moving pieces here and we need to address them all together. This thread is interesting, and I'm sure it will be triggering to some. We'll cover this topic in Season 3 (coming soon!).
Immigrants Bring Billions of Dollars of Revenue to the US
Arash Ferdowsi is the co-founder of Dropbox, a public company that does $1.7B in revenue a year and employs 2,300 people. Arash is also the son of Iranian immigrants, who settled in Kansas City. They love Kanas City and the United States. Arash speaks against the anti-immigrant policies coming out of the White House these last four years. According to Arash, Middle Eastern and North African immigrants pay more than $17 billion in taxes each year. He says "Kansas is home to 6,859 immigrant entrepreneurs who employ 31,102 people and bring our state $132.9 million in revenue."
That's all for this week! I hope you enjoyed the SIXTEENTH issue of Talk Money Weekly.
If you haven't already subscribed to my podcast, Talk Money, do so here. Make sure you listen to our latest episode "Black in Business". Stay tuned for our trailer for Season 3 which is going to be pretty amazing. More on that soon.
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