Bitcoin News Australia

Back in April, when Elon Musk first made a bid for Twitter, people wondered why the leader of SpaceX and Tesla would want a largely unprofitable social media website.

Vice posited a theory: Musk had “terminal main character syndrome,” a desire to be the guy everybody talked about all the time.

Two months into his ownership, he has largely succeeded. A new story about Twitter and Musk breaks into almost every news cycle.

Last week…

… started with Musk getting booed at a Dave Chappelle performance and continued Wednesday when Twitter suspended an account that tracked Musk’s private jet, citing a new policy banning the release of any person’s live location.

But that was just the warm up:

• On Thursday, Twitter suspended the accounts of several high-profile tech journalists — and then a Fox Business reporter who covered the suspensions.
• On Saturday, Twitter suspended Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz, who said she had recently asked Musk for a comment on a story.

Musk’s lust for the spotlight has cost him

In the short term:

• Tesla is slumping.
• Forbes calculated Musk was no longer the richest man in the world.
• A senior EU official tweeted that the “arbitrary suspension of journalists” could lead to sanctions under the Digital Services Act, according to Bloomberg.

But in the long-run Musk says his Twitter ownership will be good for Tesla (without providing details), and his actions have spurred growing influence for media companies outside the mainstream, per Axios, including Twitter itself.

Plus, Silicon Valley still likes Musk. Many tech execs and VCs are applauding his Twitter takeover as a leading example of “bossism,” the belief that management has ceded too much power to workers and must take it back.

That’s good for Musk, seeing as he’s looking for investors as advertisers leave Twitter.

But… he also tweeted a poll on Sunday afternoon asking if he should step down as head of Twitter, promising to abide by the results.

Congratulations to Argentina, who clinched their first World Cup in penalty kicks to end a thrilling final yesterday.

Qatar’s bill for the event has been widely cited to be $220B+. Bloomberg puts it as high as $300B. Now that it’s over, a classic post-gargantuan-scale-sporting-event question will be raised: Was it worth it?

• For context, the funding is part of Qatar’s expansive National Vision 2030 plan to become an “advanced society” and global business hub. Hotels, underground transportation, stadiums, and airport infrastructure were already on the docket with or without soccer.

The World Cup was a way to market that development, and Qatar got its name out there with record-breaking viewership. At the same time, much of the conversation highlighted Qatar’s struggles with LGBTQ+ rights, migrant workers, and alcohol. Especially alcohol.

As for a return on investment, organizers hoped the event would provide a $17B boost to their economy, though a recent study found the World Cup doesn’t have a significant effect on a host country’s GDP.

While buyer personas help you understand your target market, ICPs can help you pinpoint buyers.

Gathering key data points from your best-fit customers (like industry type, employee count, and tech stack) is the dirty work that helps you win. If you want to nail your target market, get started with this free ICP ebook and planning worksheet.

Inside the ICP blueprint:

• Find similarities between top customers.
• Analyze with an interactive planning doc.
• Craft your go-to-market strategy.
• Activate your ICP along the funnel.

Profile those prospects with ease. Presented by Clearbit and HubSpot.

1) Ray Dalio, James Cameron, and the head of a submarine company walk into a bar… Sounds like the set up for a joke but it’s not. Triton Submarines, which sells subs priced anywhere between $2.5m and $40m, is now partly owned by Dalio and Cameron.

2) Here’s a stat that may surprise you: New research found that 29% of Americans work for a parent’s employer before turning 30, which is estimated to increase one’s initial earnings by 19%.

3) You’ve heard of MIT, but you may not have heard of New York’s Baruch College, a relatively affordable public university where Masters in Financial Engineering grads see an average starting salary of ~$170k, roughly a fifth higher than those at MIT.

4) Songs sure are getting shorter. A 2018 study found that, since 2000, Billboard Hot 100 songs have trended down from ~4:10 minutes to 3:30. In 2021, the top 50 tracks on Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 averaged 3:07. Thanks, TikTok.

5) Internet traffic measurement site Similarweb found that traffic to Twitter’s desktop ad manager was down ~74% YoY in October, 85% in November, and so low in December that it has stopped measuring it.

👻 On this day: In 1843, Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, an iconic story about a wealthy miser visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve.

🎧 Podcast: Listen to this episode of The Shine Online Podcast to learn about the “Five-Layer Cake Method” of idea generation.

🎼 Cure boredom: Tap a rhythm to be matched with a Beethoven work.

💀 That’s interesting: A virtual graveyard for Twitter’s killed projects.

🐿 Aww: And now, Christmas for squirrels.