Hey Snackers,
Jay-Z just hit billionaire status (the $310M gold champagne company was a good move).
Tech stocks yanked down the market hard Monday on signs that serious regulation might now happen.
Everything you need to know about Apple's big annual event
Cue the PowerPoints... Apple's multi-day here's-what-we've-been-working-on Worldwide Developers Conference kicked off in San Jose. Apple's operating system got some big updates (spoiler alert: "dark mode" is coming to your iPhone), but these are our 4 highlights.
- A SciFi-ish show: The 1st original show for Apple TV+ (its paid video subscription) will be For All Mankind — An alt-history where Russia lands on the moon first (here's the trailer).
- End awkward earwax: Share the music you're listening to by holding your phone next to your buddy's (like AirDrop) instead of sharing/trading headphones.
- Hello, Siri: She's getting a more "natural" sounding voice and will work better with AirPods.
- Goodbye, iTunes: Since '01, iTunes has delivered you everything media-ish. Now it'll be split into 3 separate apps — Music, Podcasts, TV (like it already is on the iPhone).
But 1 update is (subtly) the biggest... “Sign In With Apple.” Bought a succulent online lately? You probably experienced "1-click sign-in with Google or Facebook" options (looks like this). Using your FB or Google creds logs you in faster, but you feel like you're giving up privacy/security. Apple thinks it's better than its tech rivals — Face ID tech can log you into anything more safely.
The next tech battle is privacy... and Apple is positioning itself as the savior. It hasn't suffered Facebook-style privacy leaks, CEO Tim Cook proactively calls for more regulation, and Apple keeps your data locked down on your device with encryption (it doesn't need personal data to sell ads). This conference shows it's wrapping its brand all around privacy.
The biggest private real estate transaction ever
Charming, roomy, 1-floor, multi-bathroom warehouse... for $18.7B. In the biggest private real estate deal ever, private equity firm Blackstone acquired GLP. That's the Singapore-based owner (and leaser) of a ton of American warehouses. Blackstone knows a thing or two about landlord-ing already (it owns Chicago's Willis Tower, NYC's StuyTown, and Vegas casinos). Here's how the deal was probably pitched to the CEO:
- What Blackstone gets: 180M square feet of modern, industrial US warehouses.
- Why that's valuable: The biggest tenant is Amazon — And the 1,300 warehouses are near cities (aka where all the ecommerce customers are).
- How Blackstone will make money: Rent. Lots of it. Paid by Amazon, Walmart, Target, and whoever else needs a warehouse to store and ship the stuff you need ASAP.
"Buy it, fix it, sell it."... That's the corporate slogan going on Blackstone coffee mugs. With the help of bank loans, Blackstone has made bucks flipping land:
This is really all about ecommerce... Here's how Blackstone announced the deal: "Logistics is our highest conviction global investment theme today." The reason Blackstone's dropping $19B on warehouses is that they're part of the "logistics" that powers ecommerce. Blackstone believes online shopping is the future, so it's expressing itself through real estate.
The Regu-tech-lation wars just began — And Google and Facebook fell over 6%
According to extra scoops of WSJ journalism... Two of the nation's main business regulators, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department (DOJ), are divvying up which tech companies to regulate. And they've been training: FTC and DOJ can enforce antitrust laws — the power to investigate, sue, fine, and break up monopolies.
- DOJ: It's focused on Apple and Google.
- FTC: It's taking on Facebook and Amazon.
Fun party game... Try naming a bipartisan political issue. Answer: Regulate Silicon Valley. Conservatives think tech is too liberal and censors conservative voices, liberals think it kills jobs/equality/competition. But Capitol Hill hasn't teamed up to do anything about it — Then we learned regulators game planned X's and O's, and Google fell 6% while Facebook face-planted 8% Monday.
- $130B: That's the total market value lost by tech companies in just Monday's drop.
- 10%: That's how much lower the tech-heavy Nasdaq stock index is from its high in April (that means it's technically in "correction" status).
Tech is free, but it still has a price... Regulators used to tackle monopolies only when customers were hit by high prices. Now Google and Facebook definitely could fit the definition of monopolies — they own nearly 60% of all US online ads — but they're free for us to use. So if regulators finally regulate tech, they won't be looking at prices — they’ll look purely at power (too much of it). That's a new frontier.
What else we’re Snackin’
- 20/20: Goldman Sachs' next acquisition isn't a financial firm — It's a company servicing eyeglasses-prescribing optometrists
- Meatless-Monday: Nestlé cooked up its own plant-based burger called "awesome"
- Wilting: FTD flower delivery files for bankruptcy after 108 years
- PDA: Match Group's Tinder may now have to share dating data with the Russian government
- Copied/Pasted: Snapchat's Bitmoji aren't safe — Facebook just launched "Avatars" (Bitmoji-look-alikes)
- Flushed: Carnival fined another $20M for dumping waste in the ocean (then covering it up)
Tuesday
- Earnings from Tiffany's, GameStop, and Salesforce
- The 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests — and "Tank Man"
Disclosure: An author of this Snacks owns shares of Amazon