Shein files for U.S. IPO

Plus: Vitalik Buterin's techno-optimism

Author

Cash Nut
November 29, 2023

In Today’s Edition 

  • Venture-backed startups will need to raise more in 2024 

  • How much will Americans spend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday

  • Virgin Galactic announces state-of-the-art spaceship hub in Arizona

  • Demystifying Web Push Notifications

  • Vitalik Buterin's techno-optimism

  • Some thoughts on causality in biological systems

🚀Startups Nuts

57% of venture-backed startups will have to go “back to market” in 2024 to raise more capital. 38% have 12 or less months of runway left. Many might not be able to pull off that next round, leaving them with few options.

The bell weather that is “Black Friday” has come and gone, and by all estimates, it was a blowout. What recession? There will be downstream effects here around interest rate hikes (or lack thereof) and potential investment loosening up.

🏭Business Nuts 

Shein has filed to go public in the US. It could start trading on public markets as soon as 2024. It is unclear how much the company is currently worth, but it was last valued at $66 billion. Numerous lawmakers have called on the SEC to ensure that Shein isn't using forced labor in its supply chain before it's allowed to start trading in the US.

Virgin Galactic has announced a state-of-the-art spaceship manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona. The announcement was made in a recent company release that outlines Virgin Galactic's ambitious plans for its next-generation Delta class spaceships. It is expected to be fully operational by late 2023. The facility holds the promise of generating hundreds of highly skilled aerospace engineering and manufacturing jobs in the region.

📱Tech Nuts

This post walks through the pieces needed to implement web push notifications. It includes a minimal working example with a Node.js backend. The post explains how Web Push works and provides code for those looking to implement it.

Vitalik Buterin believes in a future that is vastly brighter than the present thanks to radically transformative technology. He rejects the idea that we should keep the world roughly the same as today but be less greedy with more public health care. Some technologies will reliably make the world better than other types of technology - we need active human intention to choose the directions that we want as the best outcome will not be achieved automatically.

🎁Miscellaneous

It can be difficult to establish causality in biology. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that something can be an important factor but not a cause of a disease. In biology, 'X causes Y' tends to many 'X is necessary and sufficient for Y'. We have to start thinking of systems where we can talk about causation in a more realistic way to make progress in biology.

💡What else are we reading and seeing?

😎Fun Fact

The world's first credit card was made of cardboard and introduced by Diners Club in 1950

🔥 Hot Book of the Day

For years, Gary Gulman had been the comedian’s comedian, acclaimed for his delight in language and his bracing honesty. But after two stints in a psych ward, he found himself back in his mother’s house in Boston―living in his childhood bedroom at age forty-six, as he struggled to regain his mental health.

That’s where Misfit begins. Then it goes way back.

This is no ordinary book about growing older and growing up. Gulman has an astonishing memory and takes the reader through every year of his childhood education, with obsessively detailed stories that are in turn alarming and riotously funny. We meet Gulman’s family, neighbors, teachers, heroes, and antagonists, and get to know the young comedian-in-the-making who is his own worst―and most persistent―enemy. 

From failing to impress at grade school show-and-tell to literally fumbling at his first big football game―in settings that take us all the way from the local playground to the local mall, from Hebrew School to his best (and only) friend’s rec room, young Gary becomes a stand-in for everyone who grew up wondering if they would ever truly fit in. And that’s not all: the book is also chock-full of ‘80s nostalgia (Scented Markers, indifference to sunscreen, mall culture).

Misfit is a book that only Gary Gulman could have written: a brilliant, witty, poignant, laugh-until-your-face-hurts memoir that speaks directly to the awkward child in us all.
“A tour de force of comedy and reflection about the perilous journey from kindergarten to twelfth grade and beyond - from the beloved stand-up comic.”

RIP to a Legend

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