Business
138 tweets
Europeans are shifting from Stripe to Polar I already have all the code ready for Stripe that can be reused. Is it worth switching to Polar just for tax handling?
Paramount is launching a hostile takeover bid to buy Warner Bros. They are going directly to shareholders with a bid valued at $108.4 billion (Source: https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/paramount-hostile-takeover-bid-warner-bros-discovery-1236603175/…)
Founders think $100,000 MRR is freedom, and that's absolutely true! Full breakdown of @seobotai economy: OpenAI API: $18,000 Anthropic API: $17,000 Gemini: $1,500 MongoDB: $3,000 Google Cloud: $2,900 Tolt & affiliates: $9,200 Exa: $2,000 Perplexity AI: $3,400 Intercom: $600 Ahrefs: $999 DataForSEO: $1,999 Pinecone: $599 ScrapingBee: $199 ScreenshotOne: $100 Apify: $1,999 Unicorn Platform: $49 Cursor: $20 Zoho: $99 Support agents: $1,999 Accounting: $499 Stripe fees: $5,000 Design: $499 Wrapifai API: $1,999 Hetzner: $199 Cloudflare: $99 BunnyCDN: $10 AWS: $199 Firecrawl: $399 ListingBott: $5,000 Thai massage: $999 Other: $2,999 Taxes: $16,000 Total spend: $99,563 Total earned: $100,000 Profit: $437. No matter the profit, I live my life on my own terms.
New: @Microsoft is launching a shopping experience inside @Copilot, powered by @Stripe. Stripe is building the economic infrastructure for AI. We're eager to rethink every part of the existing commerce and financial stack.
linktree is a billion-dollar company????? a billion???????? dollars??????????????? for literally... links. in. a. tree.
Everyone thinks this is about Netflix getting HBO and Harry Potter. Netflix is eliminating their last remaining competitive threat. Warner Bros. Discovery is the only scaled content factory left that remains independent. They produce 30+ scripted series annually for external buyers, run the second-largest streaming service by content spend, and control DC, Harry Potter, HBO, and CNN. Paramount buying WBD creates a combined entity with Paramount+, Pluto, and HBO Max that suddenly has scale to compete with Netflix. Comcast buying WBD merges NBC Universal with Warner Bros and creates a true Disney competitor with theme parks, theatrical distribution, and streaming vertically integrated. Netflix acquiring WBD removes the last piece that could be assembled into a Netflix killer. Look at the bidding structure. Paramount offered $27/share for all of WBD. Comcast proposed an NBCU merger. Netflix offered $30/share for just the studio and streaming assets, leaving declining linear cable networks behind. They’re paying a premium to acquire only the parts that matter while avoiding $15B in legacy debt. The regulatory dynamics favor Netflix in ways nobody is pricing. DOJ blocks horizontal mergers between direct competitors. Paramount buying WBD merges two major studios. Comcast buying WBD combines two theatrical distributors. Those are clean horizontal mergers DOJ blocks automatically. Netflix is buying vertically from streaming into production. The regulatory concern centers on Netflix controlling Warner Bros content then restricting competitor access. Netflix solves this by committing to license WBD content to other platforms for 5-7 years post-merger. The concession costs nothing in year one, buys approval, then commitments expire and Netflix owns the IP outright. The second-order effect nobody is discussing: if Netflix closes this deal, Disney becomes the only other streamer with comparable owned IP. Everyone else—Paramount+, Peacock, Apple TV+—becomes subscale overnight. You either own a century of franchise IP or you’re licensing from Netflix and Disney at whatever price they set. Warner Bros Discovery carrying $40B in debt makes them un-mergeable with anyone except Netflix. Paramount already carries $14B in debt. Comcast would inherit massive liabilities. Netflix has $6B net debt on a $380B market cap. They’re the only bidder with a balance sheet strong enough to absorb WBD’s problems. The 5% stock drop reveals Wall Street pricing execution risk over regulatory risk. Investors believe Netflix can get DOJ approval. They’re questioning whether Netflix can integrate theatrical distribution and operate legacy studio infrastructure they’ve avoided for 15 years. Netflix locked themselves into either owning a debt-laden legacy studio or writing a $5B check for nothing. The only question is whether Netflix just paid $20B to prevent someone else from building a Netflix competitor, or whether they paid $5B to watch Paramount do exactly that.
Tailwind lays of 75% of their team. the reason is so ironic: > their css framework became extremely popular w AI coding agents, 75m downloads/mo > that meant nobody would visit their docs where they promoted paid offerings > resulting in 40% drop in traffic & 80% revenue loss
Naval Ravikant: “The future will be almost all startups” “I firmly believe that the efficient size of a company is shrinking very rapidly, and so the future will be almost all startups.” In the clip below from a 2012 interview, Naval speculates that information technology will reverse the centralizing force of economies of scale following the Industrial Revolution. “I think the contract work trend is going to increase, and I think the size of your average company is going to decrease. I think we’re going to see more and more billion dollar businesses built by four or five people, and it’ll stay at that.” He doesn’t think we’ll see many more companies like Facebook or Google with tens of thousands of employees: “I think any entrepreneur worth their salt could today build Facebook with a few hundred people… Facebook and Google are in the situation that large companies end up in where the founders know that 80% of the people are not really needed, they just don’t know which 80%.”
Most highly competent people could replace their salary by talking about one thing they do exceptionally well on the internet every day for 18-24 months.
Netflix reportedly considers giving Warner Bros movies a 17-day theatrical window when they acquire the studio. (Via @DEADLINE)
Today, Netflix announced our acquisition of Warner Bros. Together, we’ll define the next century of storytelling, creating an extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences everywhere. https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-to-acquire-warner-bros…
2025 was the year that "Chinese peptides" took over SF. I wrote about it in my first for the NYT: gift link here https://nytimes.com/2026/01/03/business/chinese-peptides-silicon-valley.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BlA.bSI-.5puwhP1yiF6B&smid=url-share…
"a16z works on behalf of the future." There's no higher praise for writing (in 2026) than to say it deserves appointment reading. If you're interested/work in tech, @packyM's piece on @a16z is worth clearing your calendar for -
a16z: The Power Brokers
Just published the latest @a16z Build newsletter - our weekly roundup of exciting startup opportunities and founders to build with. Featuring open roles at @Waymo, @zipline, @vercel, @cursor_ai, and @Revolut - and with founders like @bspellacy, @8ennett, @joeygrassia, @BaijuBhatt, @ml_angelopoulos, @hollympeck, @thaiscbranco_, @sarahookr, @kylemathews, @davidmytton, and others. Time to build https://a16zbuild.substack.com/p/waymo-zipline-and-the-co-founder…
Google co-founders may be leaving California
Google co-founders may be leaving California | TechCrunch