Arc’s new mobile app takes on Google to change how we search | Equity Podcast

This episode is sponsored by Morgan Stanley atwork visit morganstanley.com Assessment to get your free transaction Readiness assessment [Music] Today hello and welcome back to equity The Tech runch podcast all about the Business of startups where we unpack the Numbers and the Nuance behind the Headlines this is Alex good morning Today is January 29th 2024 welcome to equity Monday our look Back at the weekend and our look ahead At the week that is to come today's Episode is going to be super busy so Strap in we have a lot to cover on the Show this morning we have as always Stocks in crypto then it's going to be a Big earnings week next up how the Browser company is taking on search then News from reddit's IPO and then finally A few small items including cluding the Latest from Baus and open AI in Europe Let's Go all right and we are going to start With stocks as always shares today are Mostly higher in Asia where the big news Is that Chinese real estate giant evergr Is finally heading for liquidation yes This is the most interesting story in The world today but it's not really a Tech runch story so I have not fully Read up on it but oh my gosh it finally Happened elsewhere stocks are mostly

Lower in Europe and they are mixed in Pre-market trading here in the US However that's all looking backwards What we care about is the data we're Going to get this week about the Performance of different Tech sectors Yes I'm talking earnings and this week Has the business so on Monday we're Going to hear from Super Micro computer F5 and Sofi Tuesday is going to bring us Microsoft alphabet AMD GM the parent Company of cruise of course EA Juniper Match group and Lending Club Wednesday We're going to slow down and only get Numbers from Qualcomm and ADP and then Thursday we're going to hear from Apple Amazon meta atlassian corsera and Pelaton lots of numbers this week lots Of data lots of learnings I can't wait Putting aside the traditional stock Market let's talk about what's going on In crypto and this week I have some good News yes we have seen a modest price Recovery in several major tokens from Their post ETF lows what does that mean Well it means if you want to buy a whole Bitcoin this morning it will cost you a Little bit more than $42,000 that number fell below 40K as Last week ended so a nice little bump There if you hold Bitcoin elsewhere Ether the token associated with the Ethereum blockchain did lose a little Ground it's down to about 2250 per and

My favorite is crypto getting more Serious ticker Dogecoin is still worth 11.6 billion by total circulating Supply And is the 10th most valuable crypto Token period so that's great now all That's interesting but what you actually Care about is how are all those new spot Bitcoin ETFs doing well I went out and Pulled the data for you this morning and Several are approaching the $2 billion Asset under management Mark not bad of Course there is a historical asset class Called gbtc that is bleeding some money But with other Bitcoin spot ETFs in the Nine figure range of assets well I will Say that uptake is happening albeit not As fast as some may have [Music] Hoped next up my favorite part of the Show what I call big news that matters And the biggest news that mattered today According to Tech meme actually Surprised me instead of being about I Don't know apple or meta or one of the Big tech companies it's actually all About ark's new iPhone browser and Techren wrote about this and we said That ark's new iPhone browser wants to Be your search companion very Interesting so the backstory here is Pretty simple the browser company built A thing called Arc it's a web browser You can use it and the company also Launched arc's first iPhone companion

App last year essentially what that did Was let users save links for later Consumption on their desktop on their Mobile phone so okay a companion app not That special but now the firm has Released a new mobile app called Arc Search that is directly focused on just The search experience okay so browser Company Arc browser former companion app Now doing search what does the search Thingy do well its AI powered features Allow it to kind of browse for you which Builds you a web page of information About the query you just searched now This is powered by open Ai and models From other companies it goes out reads Web pages for you and then builds you a New page with different sections of Information okay pretty cool but if you Don't want that you can also just use Google or Bing or duck ducko inside of The search app itself so it has an AI Powered feature and gives you options to Try out other search engines you Probably already know better this is not The first time we've been talking about The browser company lately last week it Actually announced that users can set Perplexity doai as their default search Engine on the arc desktop client and I Tried that and it was interesting I need To try it more just like I need to try This new arc search for iPhone because It sounds very very cool so a couple of

Thoughts here first I really need to Play with this I haven't yet I'm going To it's going to be cool but what really Surprised me this morning was to see This little startup story at the top of Tech mem techren covered it The Verge Covered it everybody wrote about this And people care why I think it's because We're all waiting for someone to show up And actually challenge Google search I Really do think it's gotten a little bit Lazy and a little bit cluttered and a Little bit busy and perhaps there's more Ads than actual search results a great Time for a competitor to show up and Shake things up but why are we seeing a Startup do this and not a big company Well bigger companies have larger Revenue streams to defend Arc and the Browser company don't so they can go out There and just completely blank sheet of Paper search without having to worry About what it means for their existing Businesses I love it let's see if the Browser company can build something we All want to use more than Google and Then if they do how long they can keep It good before we need someone to show Up and disrupt them is your company Planning to go public or conduct a Shareholder liquidity program within the Next 18 to 24 months did you know that Proactively planning for your next Private company liquidity event or IPO

Can help you maintain greater control Over timelines and outcomes Morgan Stanley at work believes that when you Have the right technology and systems in Place working in harmony leading up to a Transaction you can prepare and execute With more accuracy and ease visit Morganstanley.com Assessment to connect with their issuer Strategy and Excellence team for a free Assessment to find out if your company Is transaction ready again that's Morganstanley.com Assessment to get your free assessment [Music] Today IPO season ladies and gentlemen Finally at last I think it may be coming The lest on the IPO front is that According to Bloomberg Reddit could Target a valuation of at least $5 Billion when it goes public later this Year now for you and I $5 billion that's A lot of money is it a lot for Reddit Well we do know a couple of things about Its financial performance the Information reported that Reddit Generated $800 million worth of AD Revenue last year and that that was up 20% year onye so 2023 compared to 2022 Too out of $5 billion valuation along With the fact that Reddit is mostly Reported to still be unprofitable 800 Million in Revenue it all kind of makes Sense sure 5 billion 5 billion plus is

Not the $10 billion that the company Raised at back in 2021 but really who's Worth their 2021 price today $5 billion For Reddit given what we know does seem To be very reasonable for the company it Has lots of brand recognition and also Underwent a lot of massive and painful Changes to its business model that Caused a lot of drama last year do you Recall the API price Wars over on Reddit That probably set it up well to go Public this year no matter where you Stand on this and where you think it's Going to be valued what we want is an S1 And Reporting like Bloomberg's today Indicates that Reddit is making real Progress there even better Reddit is Only one of several companies we expect To be in the first IPO cohort of the Year including shien so I'm excited You're excited let the S1 firings Drop now I don't think I've ever Actually said the phrase odd bedfellows On equity in all these years and after Hundreds and hundreds of apps but odd Bedfellows meta and apple here's what's Going on Apple's upcoming Vision Pro Face computer is making meta think of Dollar signs now the Wall Street Journal Reports that and I quote meta platforms Is hoping Apple's launch of the Pro can Reinvigorate its $50 billion metaverse Effort which consumers have yet to Widely Embrace end quote that's a little

Bit more British understatement than I'm Comfortable with which consumers have Yet to widely Embrace sure that's true They also haven't widely embraced Arsonic if you want to think about it That way anyways the idea that meta has Here I can kind of see it but I'm a Little bit skeptical and here's why Consumers are not going to buy tons and Tons of the new new Apple device because It's very expensive now I do suppose That Apple could make the metaverse cool By association but even then the offer Devices between the two different Companies are different so I think if One does well it's not really a slam Dunk for the other still if anyone can Make something cool apple is probably Still that company more so than meta at Least so perhaps all the money that Zuckerberg has spent on VR headsets and Their resulting business will look a bit Better in the coming quarter Investors would love that including Apple stockholders and if you want to Know more about the competitive dynamics Of launching an expensive piece of Hardware into an already busy and not That strong Market well we have an Interview coming out later this week With a founder and investor who has a Couple of thoughts about how to innovate And how to compete so look for that this [Music]

Thursday I have to condense a little bit To make this all fit inside of our time Limit so small items first up YC President Gary tan interpolated some Famous hip-hop lyrics to mock a number Of local SF politicians over the weekend In a tweet that ended with and I quote Die slow clearly the Tweet didn't Go over that well and Gary tan has since Apologized there are a couple of Learnings here for us first of all never Tweet second of all never allegedly Drink in tweet at the same time I I've Met Gary we've had Gary on the show I he Seems to be a very nice guy and here we Ended up I just think that social media May have not been our best choice and I'm going to put that on Twitter right After I finish recording and keeping up With the small items Tech reports that By juice the Indian edtech giant is now Worth effectively nothing as it tries to Raise emergency cash to stay afloat this Next round if the company can raise it Will write its worth down to whatever it Can raise plus just a tiny bit more how Mighty the Fallen the question then Becomes is this an edte issue or a Buu Issue well maybe a little bit of both But we're putting the onus more on Buu Here than at sector the company has been A mess on stilts and is a good reminder That simply getting big quickly doesn't

Mean that you are going to make it now If you're tired of hearing about Baus Good news looks like we won't hear much From them for a while but if you do want More on the edtech company we have Talked about it quite a lot on the show Recently so go back through the archives We have bys for Days and our last story for the morning I caught this just as I was putting Together my notes for this for you today It's that open AI has been told it's Suspected of violating European Union Privacy following a multi-month Investigation of its chatbot chat gbt You may have heard of it by Italy's data Protection authority now details of the Italian Authority's draft findings have Not been disclosed but the guarante said Today that open AI has been given no Notification and 30 days to respond with A defense against the allegations this Is not the first time Italy has Tangled With open AI so we'll have to see how The company actually responds the big Question here is how much of the Internet can AI companies consume to Make their models and where the privacy And IP lines should be drawn this is Going to be one of the most important Stories of the entire year not just the Italy bit but the whole overall like What can these companies do so stay Close to it search crawling is of course

A related issue on this matter but we Can't really use that as a Panacea for What AI companies need in this context Because the value exchange is different So open AI Italy again but really we're Talking about AI versus [Music] Everybody and that is our show for this Ever so fine Monday morning don't forget Of course if you want even more from the Equity crew we are Equity pod over on X And thread and if you want more from me Well I'm Alex over on X this show has Two sister shows Chain Reaction all About the world of crypto and found Talking to Founders about how they built What they did we'll talk to you soon we Have many shows coming out this week so Make sure Equity is subscribed in your Favorite podcasting app we'll talk to You then Bye Equity is hosted by myself Editorinchief of Tech runch Plus Alex Wilhelm and Tech runch senior reporter Mary an as of We are produced by Teresa loans solo With editing by Kell Bryce Durban is our Illustrator and a big thank you to the Audience development team and Henry Pette who manages Tech rench audio Products thank you so much for listening And we'll talk to you next Time