This was a wild year for the tech sector, but how did social media companies specifically do? Daniel Ives, Chief Strategy Officer & Head of Technology Research at GBH Insights, and Jason Moser, Analyst at The Motley Fool, join The Long and The Short to discuss Snap, Twitter, and Facebook.
Snap went public just 9 months ago and the company has already given investors with three straight disappointing earnings reports. Moser and Ives talk about how the camera company misjudged the demand for Spectacles.
Plus, how Facebook will fare after a year of "fake news" accusations. The platform recently put out new rules against hate groups. Investors are a little nervous after Zuckerberg announced that 2018 would be the year of spending. Expenses are projected to rise 45% to 60% from this year.
SpaceX launched its first all commercial-crew mission to the International Space Station on Friday. Cheddar News speaks with Jim Cantrell, CEO and President of Phantom Space Corporation why this launch is a big leap for space tourism.
Nautilus Labs closed $34 million in funding from investors including the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund. The company plans to use its funding to improve shipping industry efficiency with its software. Nautilus CEO Matt Heider joined Cheddar News to talk about how it tackles the carbon emissions in the global supply chain. "We've seen on 10-day voyages saving $60,000 worth of fuel just by managing speed with greater confidence around the future. The environmental impact of that is also huge," he said. "Saving that amount of fuel is a kind of taking over 1000 cars off the road this year."
A Glassdoor study reports that internship programs at companies like Roblox, Uber, and Salesforce offered the highest compensation levels in 2020 — nearly $10,000 a month. Daniel Zhao, a senior economist at Glassdoor, joined Cheddar News to talk about why big tech companies are paying top dollar for their interns. "I think what we're seeing is that companies are pushing more aggressively to engage with these candidates before they’ve even graduated, really because of the level of competition that they are facing, especially for these very high-value STEM graduates," he said.
Dubbed the "Ethereum Killer," Solana is known for its super-fast, low-cost transactions, which has proven attractive to defi companies looking to scale up quickly.