Hey Snackers,
We got ya covered. Here are the best/worst times to drive out to destination anywhere for Memorial Day.
Markets dropped as trade war anxiety keeps doing its thing on investors. Your Snacks team is hitting the road this weekend too, so we'll see you Tuesday morning.
Facebook had to delete 2.2 billion fake accounts. *Billion*
Honesty's the best policy... So after regretfully letting Russia influence the US presidential election, Facebook took steps to be more open about threats it faces and how Zuck's army deals with them. In its 3rd Transparency Report (they're published every 6 months) Facebook revealed it deleted 2.2B fake accounts — just in the past 3 months.
Whoever wrote that code... deserves a real-life medal. Facebook's artificial intelligence is trained by humans to automatically detect and destroy fake, porn-y, hateful, and other bad content from Facebook. Here are some disturbing but also impressive stats from the report:
- 2.2B: That's the shocking number of fake accounts that were attempted by bad people in Q1 (99.8% of those were caught by AI very quickly).
- 4M: The number of hate-posts (65% were detected by AI).
- 670K: the number of posts about gun sales (70% were taken down by AI, before any users had to complain).
- ~20K: That's how many human moderators Zuck's hired to review and obliterate the bad content that AI misses.
Verifying users' IDs would help... Beer, TSA, opening a bank account. All require proving who you are. But not Facebook (or most social media). Its number of fake account attempts quadrupled from last year — The problem is getting worse. If accounts were linked to real people's names and reputations, lameness could be held accountable.
Disney dominates theme parks — And is about to unleash The Force
Party in the castle penthouse... We get it — Disney+ is going to be a big deal and Marvel is a money-making movie machine. The stock is up 14% since Disney's big streaming announcement. But now a report on its world-leading theme parks deserves your attention:
- Disney owns the top 4 theme parks worldwide: Orlando's Disney World, California's Disneyland, and 2 in Tokyo.
- The Magic Kingdom led with 20,859,000 visitors last year.
- And 8 of the top 10 properties are Mickey's.
Magical timing... On May 31st, Disney unleashes its new “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge” park in Anaheim, CA — the biggest expansion of a Disney park ever. Drop a cool $200 on a lightsaber after you've crushed some galactic Tandorian chicken. Or go for the $99 custom drone that interacts with the Planet Batuu scenery around you. It's an aggressively immersive park.
It all goes back to a 62-year-old diagram... In 1957 (29 years after he drew Mickey), Walt Disney sketched out this biz plan, with Disney characters at the center. Connected to them were 5 "areas": Film, TV, music, merchandise licensing, and theme parks. Today's theme parks tie directly back to that diagram — A never-ending profit ecosystem.
The talent agency that inspired "Entourage" is IPO'ing
But seriously. Show me the money... Endeavor (aka William Morris Endeavor) has “represented the world’s greatest talent since 1898” (picture thousands of Jerry Maguires). Now the talent agency that entertained itself with $3.6B in revenues last year has filed to IPO.
Fun SnackFact: CEO Ari Emanuel is the brother of former Chicago mayor Rahm — And the inspiration for Ari Gold from HBO's show "Entourage".
Content is king... and Endeavor wants to Game of Thrones the whole thing. Ari made it clear in the IPO paperwork: “Wherever you are in the world and whatever way you define content, Endeavor is likely playing a role.” Here's how Endeavor's jumped beyond just repping A-listers:
- It acquired Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) for $4B in 2016.
- Also bought Professional Bull Riding, Miss Universe, the Frieze Art Fair, and a marketing agency. Plus, it's got a WWE streaming partnership.
- Endeavor boasts that its talent now infiltrates 300 TV shows, 60% of musical festival headliners, and 7 of the 10 highest-paid models on Earth.
This looks like a media company to us... If you think it's strange for a "professional services" company to IPO, you're right. Uncommon. But as Americans now spend half their day interacting with media, Endeavor's snuck itself into the scene — From cord-cutting to streaming, it's become the enabler of content critical to media.
What else we’re Snackin’
- IPO'd: Wrangler and Lee were spun-off from parent (and Vans-owner) VF Brands into their own jeans company — "Kontoor" stock rose 4% on Day #1
- Sneaky: Snap employees were reportedly spying on Snapchat users with an internal tool codenamed (wait for it) SnapLion
- Diagnosed: Chipotle drops 6% on worries African Swine Fever could mess with barbacoa supplies
- Döwn: Deutsche Bank falls to another record low because its turnaround plan is still too vague
- Hungry: DoorDash — Uber Eats' biggest competition — raises $600M to hit a $12.6B valuation
- Sorry: Farmers losing business from China because of the trade war will get a $16B check from the Trump Administration
Friday
- Earnings from Foot Locker
- Markets are closed Monday for Memorial Day