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- Netflix and Game 🎮
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:
Netflix and Game 🎮
AI revives SF 📈
Asteroids ☄️
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Netflix and Game 🎮
I recently went on a first date with a girl. We were having a great time. Towards the end of the date, I whipped out the big guns and asked her if she would come back to my place to Netflix and Chill.
To my surprise, she said Yes. We came back to my place. What happened next really puzzled me.
As usual, I fired up Netflix on my phone. Downloaded GTA: San Andreas and asked her if she would instead prefer to play GTA: Vice City.
She immediately got up, shouted “Are you serious!” and banged the door as she left.
@thefrazmaz Since when did @Netflix get games, AND free with yoir subscription?? CRAZY
The Attention Economy
Almost all of us view Netflix as a media streaming platform for movies and TV series.
However, Netflix has always seen themselves as being in the business of capturing attention.
In a 2017 earnings call, CEO Reed Hastings said: “You know, think about it, when you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up at night. We’re competing with sleep, on the margin.”
In a 2019 shareholder letter, Netflix stated: “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO.”
Building the Netflix of Gaming
Netflix officially entered the gaming business in 2021 and has been stealthily and slowly growing it since then.
It has a collection of more than 80 games, 2.2M subscribers playing its games and has racked up more than 80M downloads since its inception.
Its gaming content strategy includes designing games off of their original IP such as “Stranger Things” and “Too Hot To Handle” as well as licensing popular games such as “Grand Theft Auto”.
This is paving the path for greater ambitions: Cloud Gaming.
The company is building an AAA (aka big budget) gaming studio from scratch in hopes to climb a notoriously tough mountain where we’ve already seen a high profile victim - Google Stadia.
All major players are trying to build the “Netflix of Gaming” and fairly so, Netflix itself has also entered the competition.
Netflix is hoping to make games its next big content venture, a venture that could help with consumer retention, attract more subscribers and ultimately print a lot more dollar bills after the company squeezes the juice out of password sharing and showcasing ads.
In partnership with
Only a couple days left to invest in this smart home startup.
The ball-park isn’t the only place to look for home runs. Best Buy has a proven record of placing early bets on home-tech products that go on to dominate the market.
Ring - acquired by Amazon for $1.2B
Nest - acquired by Google for $3.2B
Early investors in these companies are sitting on some serious returns - but for the rest of us, there's still a chance to get in on the action with RYSE.
History tends to repeat itself, and RYSE's launch in +100 Best Buys points towards their company being the next home run.
Their Smart Shade tech is poised to dominate an industry growing at 50% annually, and there's still time to invest in their $1.50/share public offering.
AI revives SF 📈
Ah, remember the old saying “Once a king, always a king”. Well, that’s San Francisco for you!
The pandemic’s pause
Once the epicenter of innovation, San Francisco found itself in a dire plot twist as the pandemic unfolded.
With its cocktail of limited housing, spiraling homelessness, and climbing crime rates, the remote work era seemed like the final nail in the coffin for SF's status as a tech haven.
Many believed the city's days as the world's tech capital were numbered.
In comes AI
But just when the credits seemed ready to roll on San Francisco's tech dominance, a plot twist emerged from the fog: AI.
SF became a magnet for AI innovation, drawing in $63.4B in startup funding last year alone—a mere 12% dip compared to the previous year, and a striking contrast to the 40% drop in total US venture funding.
This resilience showed San Francisco still has a lot of fight left in them.
SF and Venture Capital: A Love Story
The Bay Area's share of US venture funding soared to over 41%, marking a multi-year high.
This was a significant jump from 36% between 2019 and 2021, showing they’re not just trying to stay in the game, they’re trying to rule it.
Contrasting to would-be tech hubs like Austin, LA, and Miami who saw their funding volumes plummet.
The prodigal sons return
The city's tech mecca status was further bolstered by giants like Uber, Microsoft, and Google, who, enticed by new city tax credits and reforms, urged their employees to return to the office.
Despite a 23% increase in office occupancy in 2023, the city still faced a record 35.9% vacancy rate, revealing the comeback ain’t gonna be easy!
SF’s revival is lined with hurdles. Traffic levels languish at just 67% of pre-pandemic heights, with the city scrambling to find ways to get employees back to work to rejuvenate their economy.
Yeah sure, they’re getting back to the old times slowly, but the story’s still being written.
☄️ Asteroids ☄️
President Biden vetoed a resolution to overturn the SEC's crypto guidelines, emphasizing investor protection and open to further crypto regulation talks. 🚫💼
AI training data is crucial but costly, favoring wealthy tech giants. Independent efforts exist, but they struggle to compete with Big Tech's resources. 🌐💸
Nvidia and AMD are launching gaming laptops with AI Copilot Plus features. Nvidia’s new RTX AI laptops will support GeForce RTX 4070 GPUs and AMD Strix CPUs, with AI capabilities arriving through updates. 🖥️🎮
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Ride the wave of 23% compounded annual growth
That’s the forecasted growth rate of the smart shades between 2023-2033. And RYSE’s automated window shade tech is positioned to dominate the market. They’ve generated over 20X growth in share price for early shareholders, with significant upside remaining as they launch in over 100 Best Buy stores. Invest in the rapidly growing smart shades market →
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