Thursday, February 20, 2025

Russian search and ad giant Yandex reports 2024 revenue up 37% YoY to a record ~$12.3B and expects 2025 revenue up 30%+, after splitting from Nebius Group (Reuters)

Reuters:
Russian search and ad giant Yandex reports 2024 revenue up 37% YoY to a record ~$12.3B and expects 2025 revenue up 30%+, after splitting from Nebius Group  —  Russian internet firm Yandex reported annual revenues above 1 trillion roubles ($11.22 billion) for the first time on Thursday …



Australia eSafety Commissioner study: social media platforms likely have ~1.3M under-13 Australian users, suggesting a lack of preparation for the under-16 ban (Angus Whitley/Bloomberg)

Angus Whitley / Bloomberg:
Australia eSafety Commissioner study: social media platforms likely have ~1.3M under-13 Australian users, suggesting a lack of preparation for the under-16 ban  —  - Study indicates over 1 million underage social media users  — Findings show lack of preparation for Australia's under-16 ban



An interview with Accel's Harry Nelis, who led early investments in Zepz and Kayak, on how the European startup industry has changed, the AI boom, and more (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times)

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
An interview with Accel's Harry Nelis, who led early investments in Zepz and Kayak, on how the European startup industry has changed, the AI boom, and more  —  The venture capital group's long-serving partner reflects on how the continent's start-up industry has evolved and discusses the AI boom



Tuesday, February 18, 2025

A look at Apple's quiet pivot to India, where Foxconn now makes the iPhone 16 Pro; sources say China views Apple's growing business in India with suspicion (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
A look at Apple's quiet pivot to India, where Foxconn now makes the iPhone 16 Pro; sources say China views Apple's growing business in India with suspicion  —  As Donald Trump was preparing to take office for the first time in 2017, Priyank Kharge was busy making calls to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino …



X raises its Premium+ subscription to $40 per month, or $395 per year, after raising it to $22 per month in December 2024, following Grok3's launch (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X raises its Premium+ subscription to $40 per month, or $395 per year, after raising it to $22 per month in December 2024, following Grok3's launch  —  Hours after Elon Musk's AI company, xAI released the latest version of its AI model, Grok 3, X has significantly hiked the price …



Baidu reports Q4 revenue down 2% YoY to ~$4.7B, above $4.6B est., and a ~$717M net income, above ~$540M est., as its search and AI businesses face competition (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Baidu reports Q4 revenue down 2% YoY to ~$4.7B, above $4.6B est., and a ~$717M net income, above ~$540M est., as its search and AI businesses face competition  —  Revenue for the three months ended December shrank 2% to 34.1 billion yuan ($4.7 billion), versus an average estimate of 33.4 billion yuan.



Monday, February 17, 2025

An analysis of credit and debit card data shows TikTok Shop passed Shein and Temu in US sales in January 2025, growing 153% to Shein's 26% and Temu's 28% (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
An analysis of credit and debit card data shows TikTok Shop passed Shein and Temu in US sales in January 2025, growing 153% to Shein's 26% and Temu's 28%  —  The popular video app, which brought in-app shopping to its millions of American users in 2023, continued to surpass Shein …



Sources: Wall Street banks led by Morgan Stanley have offloaded almost all of Elon Musk's $12.5B in loans used to buy Twitter, and now hold $1B+ in X debt (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Sources: Wall Street banks led by Morgan Stanley have offloaded almost all of Elon Musk's $12.5B in loans used to buy Twitter, and now hold $1B+ in X debt  —  Investor perception of debt has changed since Donald Trump's election victory  —  Wall Street banks have rid themselves of almost …



New junior developers are reliant on Copilot, Claude, and other AI tools, meaning foundational coding knowledge is now missing, creating problems down the road (Namanyay Goel/N's Blog)

Namanyay Goel / N's Blog:
New junior developers are reliant on Copilot, Claude, and other AI tools, meaning foundational coding knowledge is now missing, creating problems down the road  —  100k+ views 70+ votes 50+ votes  —  Something's been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it.



Chinese President Xi meets with Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, and more, signaling Beijing's support for the long-marginalized sector (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Chinese President Xi meets with Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, and more, signaling Beijing's support for the long-marginalized sector  —  - Meeting signals a more supportive stance toward private firms  — Xi's presence marks a potentially powerful endorsement



YouTube launches a Premium paywall for song lyrics on YouTube Music, after testing it in recent months; users get five free lyrics before they have to subscribe (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google : YouTube launches a Premium paywall for song lyrics on YouTube Music, after testing it in recent months; users get...