John Sculley, Former Apple CEO and Co-Founder of Zeta Global, joins Cheddar to discuss a new funding round done by Zeta Global. The company is now estimated to be worth $1.3 billion, after raising $140 billion in August.
Sculley talks about what Zeta Global is looking for when it comes to acquisitions. Since 2007, the firm has bought almost a dozen companies, and now potential targets are coming to the company directly. Sculley says Zeta's growth rate is almost 40% each year, and it's very profitable. He believes smaller companies want to be advised by the cloud marketing company.
Zeta Global serves about 70% of the Fortune 500 companies.
The company's goal is to get bigger at a fast pace and continue growing. Sculley talks about the marketing duopoly of Google and Facebook, and why the two tech companies have had such success in the marketing world.
Netlify, a platform that builds, deploys and hosts websites and apps, raised $105 million dollars in a Series D round, now valuing the company at $2 billion. Along with the funding, Netlify is also announcing the acquisition of the company OneGraph. Netlify says OneGraph's technology will drive a new wave of innovation on its platform, by making it easier to compose apps with the best developer tools available. Netlify co-founder and CEO Matt Biilmann joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Chip Paucek, CEO and co-founder of 2U, an educational tech company, joined Cheddar's "Closing Bell" to talk about the company's $800 million acquisition of online course provider edX featuring curriculum from Harvard and MIT. He noted that added services will provide 2U users with high quality, free options. "Us coming together with edX should allow us to really continue to drive affordability for people to unlock their own potential in a variety of different kinds of programs," he said.
Beginning Christmas Day, the home of the Los Angeles Lakers, Clippers, Kings, and Sparks, the Staples Center, will go by the name Crypto.com Arena after a massive $700 million deal with AEG. Steven Kalifowitz, the chief marketing officer at Crypto.com, and Todd Goldstein, the chief revenue officer at AEG, joined Cheddar to talk about the historic changeover in naming rights and what other changes that fans entering the arena might expect.
Earlier this week, Qualcomm announced an extension of its partnership with BMW as it moves to help build the technology for automated driving. Nakul Duggal, general manager at Qualcomm, joined Cheddar to provide some background on the collaboration and how the company has been able to navigate the global chip shortage amid the pandemic. "We have invested in advance, in very specific packaging capacity and technology, with our suppliers so that we actually have the capacity available to be able to service that demand," Duggal said.
Some of the most popular social media and streaming platforms like Snapchat, Spotify, and Discord were offline for several hours on Tuesday after Google Cloud experienced a technical issue. The problem was resolved as of that afternoon.
President Joe Biden is expected to visit GM's 'Factory Zero' plant in Detroit, where mass production of its electric vehicle fleet will get underway. Biden is likely to tout his recently passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan, which allocates $7.5 billion toward EV infrastructure.
No one is ever fully "ready" for the future. However, the past two years have clearly shown us that some businesses can be better prepared for the future than others. Shelly Kramer, Founding Partner & Lead Analyst of Futurum Research, joins Cheddar News to discuss how businesses of all sizes can stay agile enough to adapt to whatever the future may bring.
Jill is joined by “Friend of the Pod” Mosheh Oinounou to talk booster shots, and whether “fully vaccinated” will eventually mean three shots, not two. Plus, the latest on the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. And the research is in: we know now the perfect way to hug. Also, Jill and Mosheh debate whether Airpods are passé.
