Hi Everyone. This is Take Off. We're like a hidden Easter egg in your favorite video game - surprising, delightful, and adding an extra layer of fun to your tech news consumption.

Here's what we're serving up today:

• AI’s Behind the Scenes Superhero 🦸

• Walmart’s Shopping Spree 🛒

• Trending Tools ⚒️ 

• Wednesday Wires 💰

AI’s Behind the Scenes Superhero 🦸

The last few days have been good for Nvidia.

Kinda like when you eat spaghetti while wearing a white shirt and don’t get any red sauce on it.

It is now the 3rd most valuable company in the world surpassing giants like Google, Amazon and Saudi Aramco. All thanks to sheer hard work AI.

However, Nvidia’s not the only AI beneficiary. There’s another company, working behind the scenes as a catalyst to the AI revolution. 

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Three decades ago, CERN launched the world wide web into the public domain and a young boy named Charles Liang launched a motherboard and power-supply company in Silicon Valley.

The company targeted PCs out of the gate, but soon turned its technological expertise to cornering the rapidly exploding server market - and it has grown steadily ever since. 

It was a historic convergence of the right place, right time and right technology. And it seems like Charles Liang’s company has hit the bullseye once again.

SuperMicro

Sure, Nvidia’s GPUs are like the lifeblood for the AI revolution, but they also need cutting-edge data centers to make them work. 

Enter the SuperHero: SuperMicro.

In case you didn’t know, SuperMicro is a market leader in the world of high-performance servers, cloud technology and networking equipment. 

They make the ridiculously complicated technology to make Nvidia’s GPUs work at scale. 

BofA estimates that the market for AI servers to grow 50% CAGR over the next three years and SuperMicro has made a smart move by optimizing its platform for AI servers. 

For eg: They released AI optimized liquid-cooled server racks which reportedly reduced power consumption by 40% when compared to air-cooled racks. 

Not surprisingly, the company saw a massive jump in demand for its platform as sales of Nvidia’s H100 GPUs boomed. 

The company saw record revenue and 50% YoY growth in 2023. In their latest earnings report, the company posted a revenue of $3.66B for Q4 2023 which was more than the company’s total revenue for all of 2021.

The company has been on an exponential growth curve and has also entered the coveted S&P-500 Index as well.

It’s a classic “In a gold rush, sell shovels” story. Just that the shovels are massively complicated highly optimized liquid-cooled server racks. 

Walmart’s Shopping Spree 🛒

Walmart went for some shopping recently and picked up a TV company - Vizio for $2.3B. 

But why?

Not because it wants to manufacture TVs, but because it wants to sell more ads.

The Roku Playbook

We’ve covered how Roku makes its money not by selling TVs but by selling ads on their OS. And Vizio does pretty much the same thing. 

The company sells smart TVs for cheap and then makes money off of their SmartCast OS. And this is what the Bentonville boys want to get their hands on. 

Vizio’s connected TV biz has been doing well as the world shifts from cable TV to streaming.

The SmartCast platform boasts more than 18M users, grew 22% YoY in 2023 and has reached the $1B revenue mark. 

Ad-ditional Income

Grocery giants aren’t known for thick profit margins. But what they do have is a treasure trove of customer shopping data, like your gluten free tortilla habit. 

And what’s the best revenue stream that has insanely juicy margins when you have a sh*t ton of consumer purchasing data? 

ADS!

Retailers have a leg up over ad giants like Google and Meta since people come to them with the intention of shopping. That’s why advertisers are moving billions in spending to retailers.

Walmart has been ramping up its advertising business like its arch-nemesis - Amazon. 

Their ad biz was up 28% in 2023 to $3.4B, although that’s still peanuts compared to Amazon’s $14.7B ad biz revenue in Q4 2023 alone. 

It is estimated that ~8% of TVs in the US are hooked to Vizio’s platform and Walmart is hoping those eyeballs can boost its nascent advertising biz. 

☄️ Asteroids ☄️

Amazon's new AI chatbot, Rufus, launched in the Amazon Shopping app, aims to ease product searches and recommendations but faces quirks and stereotypical suggestions in early tests. 🛍️🤖

Windows 11 says goodbye to official Android app support and the Amazon Appstore, planning to drop the Windows Subsystem for Android within a year. Users can enjoy existing apps until March 2025. 📱🚫

TikTok's revamped Creator Fund boosts creator earnings by 250%, with a new focus on longer content. The LIVE Subscription tool is renamed to "Subscription," expanding beyond LIVE content. 💸📹

⚒️ Trending Tools ⚒️

🧑‍✈️ Buffup - AI Copilot of ChatGPT4 & Claude3 with thousands of bots

📃 Reporfy - Insightful Performance Reports at the Speed of AI

🗺️ Mapplic - Create beautiful interactive maps, embed anywhere

💰 Wednesday Wires 💰

MDaaS Global, a Nigerian health tech, lands $3M in funding to expand diagnostics and launch BeaconOS. It's reshaping healthcare with tech-enabled centers and a focus on preventive care across Nigeria. 🏥💰

Monzo secures $430M, valuing the fintech at $5B. With a digital-first strategy, it defies funding trends, backed by Google and others, focusing on the UK after a US retreat. 🚀💷

📰 Recommended Reading 📰

AI Jane: Artificial intelligence investment journalist building an easy to read ai investing email newsletter. Get smarter about investing in ai in 5 minutes.

The Aurorean: This newsletter scours 100+ sources so you don’t have to. The Aurorean is your guide to discover the essential news, research, beauty and humor in science every week.

The EV Universe: Keep up with the electric vehicle industry.

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