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The World
Russia warned the U.S. to stop arming Ukraine: The formal diplomatic note from Moscow, a copy of which was reviewed by The Washington Post, came as President Biden approved a dramatic expansion in the scope of weapons being provided to the government in Kyiv. (Washington Post)
Russia also warned of nuclear expansion in Baltics if Finland and Sweden join NATO: Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president, said on Thursday that it would be impossible for the Baltic region to remain “non-nuclear” if Sweden and Finland joined the Nato alliance. “If Sweden and Finland join Nato, the length of the alliance’s land borders with Russia will more than double,” Medvedev, now deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, wrote on his personal channel on the Telegram messaging app. “Naturally, these borders will have to be strengthened.” “If this is done, no non-nuclear status of the Baltic will be possible,” Medvedev said. (Financial Times)
70% of Americans now consider Russia an enemy of the U.S., up from 41% in January. And on this topic, Democrats and Republicans largely agree, with 72% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans describing Russia as an enemy. A new Pew Research Center survey, conducted March 21-27, finds that just 7% of U.S. adults have an overall favorable opinion of Russia. Only 6% express confidence in its leader, President Vladimir Putin. In contrast, 72% have confidence in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (Pew Research Center)
China has intensified propaganda efforts to drum up support for its “dynamic zero-Covid” policy just as experts and companies warn of the heavy economic blow from extended lockdowns. China’s official Xinhua news agency published an article warning that the country’s medical system risked “breaking down” in the event of a mass Covid outbreak. It echoed President Xi Jinping’s comments a day earlier, calling for citizens to “overcome complacency” in “response to the virus’s mutation”. “The global pandemic is still severe, so we cannot relax the controls now,” Xi said during a visit to the southern province of Hainan. (Financial Times)
Shanghai’s forgotten elderly rely on help from kind, younger neighbors. It’s a ‘tragedy’ they have to Shanghai’s hundreds of thousands of isolated elderly people have been hit hard by the city’s sudden lockdown and food and medicine shortages. Methods of survival used by others like buying groups are not always available due to technological barriers such as not being able to use smartphones. (South China Morning Post)
Rejecting a “herd-like conformity” with the Biden administration, Marine Le Pen, the French far-right candidate for the presidency, said Wednesday that France would quit NATO’s integrated military command if she were elected and would seek for the alliance “a strategic rapprochement” with Russia. (New York Times)
Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions fell nearly 9% in 2020, as Canadians along with the rest of the world were forced to change their lifestyles and restrict movement to curb the spread of COVID-19. A report Canada submitted to the U.N. showed that greenhouse gas emissions dropped by 66 megatonnes annually in 2020, Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in a statement, describing the drop as being equivalent to taking 20 million cars off the road. (Reuters)
Columbia, Howard and New York University presidents to step down: Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said that next academic year will be his last, making him the third Ivy League president this year to step down or announce plans to leave amid a wave of high-profile departures. University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann left her post in February to become the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, and Dartmouth College President Philip Hanlon announced in January he would step down in 2023. In February MIT President L. Rafael Reif announced that he will retire at the end of 2022, after more than 10 years in the role. (Wall Street Journal)
Pennsylvania swing voters in an Axios Engagious/Schlesinger focus group strongly favored ramping up domestic oil drilling in response to rising gas prices. (Axios)
Women under-represented in economics: A survey has found that women occupy less than a third of all economics positions in research institutions. Female representation starts declining early on: women make up 40% of economists with PhDs but occupy only 27% of senior positions. (Nature)
Economy
Wall Street’s deal-making boom starts to sputter out: Goldman, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup all reported double-digit declines in first-quarter profit. (Wall Street Journal)
Mortgage rates hit 5% for the first time since 2011: The monthly cost of buying a typical home has surged by more than a third over the past year by one estimate, yet demand remains robust. (Wall Street Journal)
U.S. retail sales rose in March for the third straight month as consumers confronted the highest inflation in four decades and absorbed record-high gasoline prices. Retail and restaurant spending rose by 0.5% in March compared with the previous month, the Commerce Department said Thursday, down from the revised monthly increase of 0.8% in February. Gasoline sales jumped 8.9% in March over the previous month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered higher oil and gasoline prices. Excluding gasoline sales, retail sales fell by 0.3%. (Wall Street Journal)
The yen could sink as low as 130 to the dollar by year-end as high resource prices take a toll on Japan's current-account surplus, according to currency analysts surveyed. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Private companies globally are pulling back sharply on raising new funds, as pressure on public markets begins to weigh on the lofty valuations sought by fast-growing startups. Venture capital transactions raised $148 billion globally in the first quarter, down nearly 25% from the last three months of 2021, according to data provided by analytics firm PitchBook. (Bloomberg)
More startups bought other startups in Q1 than in any other first quarter in the past decade, Crunchbase data of disclosed deals shows. At the same time, public companies appear to be pulling back on their acquisitions of startups as the equity markets remain volatile, though that could pick up again if macroeconomic conditions improve. (Crunchbase)
The Marketplace 100, a16z’s annual list of the top private consumer marketplaces: Unprecedented turnover shows that early stage marketplaces are as relevant as ever. Nineteen companies “graduated” (versus 10 last year), due to five IPOs, three SPACs, and 11 acquisitions. There were also 37 “freshmen,” 48% more than last year. #1 Instacart’s ascendency in a “winner takes most” category may be hard for the next generation of marketplace giants to replicate — opening up more room at the top! Live shopping app Whatnot had the biggest YoY list jump ever, moving up 73 spots into #26, and contributing to the Collectibles category’s break-out year. Ticketing, Food & Beverage, and Education saw the most new entrants, as a result of a “covid bounceback” where consumers adjusted to a new normal. Vaccine rollouts were particularly closely correlated to recovery in categories like Childcare and Ticketing. For some categories, though, quarantine created lasting habits. In particular, the Games and Shopping/Collectibles categories saw sustained growth, moving beyond previous pre-covid baselines. (a16z)
Technology
Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, saying the social media company needs to be transformed privately, a little over a week after revealing a 9.1% stake in the company. Musk’s offer values Twitter at about $43 billion. “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk wrote in a letter sent to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor and disclosed in a securities filing. Twitter shares closed down 1.68% on Thursday. Tesla’s stock dipped more than 3.6% on the news. (CNBC)
The people determining Twitter’s fate: Now that Elon Musk has put Twitter into play, the company’s fate is likely to be determined by a small circle of people, including a Saudi prince and a Silicon Valley CEO. The group—with shareholders such as Elliott Management’s Jesse Cohn, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and Silver Lake chief Egon Durban—has a long history with both Musk and Twitter. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and a board member, could also play a pivotal role given his relationship with Musk as well as the Twitter board and management. (The Information)
Twitter's board is considering a poison pill after Elon Musk's bid; a source says another plan under consideration is saying that the offer is too low. (Bloomberg)
Vanguard Group disclosed on April 8 that it increased its Twitter stake to 10.3%, or 82.4M shares, making it Twitter's largest shareholder, ahead of Elon Musk. (Wall Street Journal)
Musk’s saga reveals how core Twitter is to U.S. politics. (Axios)
Companies are using AI to monitor your mood during sales calls. Zoom might be next. Software-makers claim that AI can help sellers not only communicate better, but detect the “emotional state” of a deal — and the people they’re selling to. (Protocol)
Amazon’s Andy Jassy published his first shareholder letter as the company’s CEO. The most interesting revelation in the letter is that Prime membership growth seems to have stalled. In the letter, Jassy referred to the company’s “over 200 million Prime customers”—the people who pay a $139 annual membership fee to the company for faster shipping, video streaming and other benefits. That was roughly the same figure Bezos shared in his final shareholder letter as CEO in April last year. It’s worth noting, however, that Amazon’s revenue from subscription services, which includes Prime membership fees along with other services, was up 26% last year to $31.77 billion. (The Information)
Worldwide semiconductor revenue hit $595B in 2021, up 26.3% YoY; Samsung led with $73.2B revenue and 12.3% market share, followed by Intel with $72.5B and 12.2% . (Gartner)
Smart Links
Large LPs start to publicly support SEC’s proposed PE rules. (Private Equity International)
Peloton to cut price of bikes, raise subscription fees. (Wall Street Journal)
Russian tech industry faces ‘brain drain’ as workers flee. (New York Times)
Singapore Finance Minister Lawrence Wong picked as PM heir apparent. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Dr. Google will see you now. (Statista)