❓ Meta’s BuzzFeed play

Which T. Swift song are you?... Meta hopes it won’t get “Anti-Hero.” The social titan is paying BuzzFeed millions of dollars to help it attract more creators to Facebook and Instagram, the Wall Street Journal reports. Refresher: BuzzFeed is the publicly traded media company famous for viral listicles and quizzes like “what your favorite chicken-nugget shape reveals about your personality.”

• Deal: As part of a reported $10M deal reached last year, BuzzFeed is said to be helping to generate creator content for FB and Insta — and training creators to grow their presence.

• Reel: It’s part of Meta’s strategy to boost engagement as creators flock to TikTok, whose users grew 18% last year. Meanwhile, FB’s growth stalled and Insta grew less than 3%.

Your favorite condiment will reveal your biggest fear… Meta, which reports earnings next week, has been struggling with slowing growth and shrinking profits. BuzzFeed has been losing money and its stock is down over 60% since it went public in late 2021. Like Meta, it also announced job cuts last year. But both are investing more in creators.

• Human creators: Last year Meta said it would stop paying news publishers to feature their content and would reallocate the $$ to growing its creator biz. And BuzzFeed announced it would double its creator network.

• AI creators? Yesterday BuzzFeed said it would leverage ChatGPT maker OpenAI to help it churn out quizzes and other content. FYI: CNET — which was called out for publishing AI-generated articles riddled with errors and even plagiarism — said it was halting its use of AI for content generation.

Owing money all over town… FTX's "creditor matrix" list was finally unsealed this week, and it provides some insight into the $8B+ question looming over the exchange's bankruptcy: to whom, exactly, does it owe all that $$? FYI: We learned last year that the exchange owed its top 50 creditors more than $3B, but the identities remained a mystery. Now the 115-page matrix lists companies that had some connection (picture: vendor, account holder, creditor, landlord) to the exchange. Unsurprisingly, the list includes crypto cos like Coinbase. Surprisingly:

• What the tech: The matrix includes Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and for some reason — Netflix.

• Ordering out: DoorDash, Uber Eats, Caviar, Margaritaville Beach Resort, and, yes, Coachella are also listed.

• Fly away: Airlines including Southwest, Spirit, and American make an appearance.

• It’s unclear why those companies are on the list (Coachella NTFs, anyone?).

Badly scrambled… FTX's implosion flipped crypto out of the frying pan and into the fire. While a lot of the companies above seem like unexpected casualties, they’re far from the only ones caught in FTX's downfall (think: bankrupt crypto lenders). And the fallout hit more than company coffers: as of last month, 60% of Americans in a CNBC survey said they saw crypto investing as “highly risky” and just 8% had a positive view of cryptocurrencies themselves.

🤔 Sus… Genesis said bitcoin-cash evangelist Roger Ver, aka "Bitcoin Jesus," owes it $21M to settle crypto options. Ver suggested he doesn't have to pay Genesis anything as the bankrupt lender's now, well, bankrupt.

🤹‍♀️ Quirky… Porsche launched (and quickly shuttered) an NFT project after selling only 25% of supply. Nearly 2K NFTs, tied to pictures of white 911 Carreras, went for $1.4K apiece.

🌶️ Spicy… Circle, the biz behind the second-largest stablecoin, USDC, said its $9B plan to go public last year via a SPAC fizzled because the SEC dragged its approval heels. SPAC-tivity has plummeted.

• Bumpy: The Southwest fiasco landed in the airline’s earnings: the carrier reported a quarterly loss after mass cancellations in December left thousands of passengers stranded.

• Guac: Chipotle plans to hire 15K workers ahead of its busy “burrito season” (March to May) as it aims to double North America locations. Meanwhile, toymaker Hasbro announced 1K job cuts.

• Trumped: Meta said it’ll reinstate Donald Trump’s FB and Insta accounts, which have been suspended since January ’21 after the Capital riot. Twitter reinstated the former president’s account last year.

• Nightmare: Bed Bath & Beyond said it doesn’t have enough cash to pay its hefty debt and has defaulted on its credit line with JPMorgan. The retailer warned (again) that it might go bankrupt.

• Lowrise: Levi stock popped 7% after the denim icon beat Wall Street’s quarterly expectations. Its sales fell 6% as demand slowed, but it gave an upbeat forecast and said it plans to open 100 new stores.

• Earnings expected from Chevron and American Express

Authors of this Snacks own bitcoin and shares: of Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Uber

ID: 2704990