Forbes2021-86

Nigeria’s Fintech Frenzy: Onwards And Upwards

Bill Gates-backed Vicarious Surgical, which is set to go public in a SPAC deal, hopes to reach $1 billion in revenue by 2027 as it takes on the Goliath of surgical robots.



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As a kid, Adam Sachs, cofounder and CEO of Vicarious Surgical, watched the 1966 science-fiction movie&nbsp;Fantastic Voyage&nbsp;and was enamored of the premise of microscopic surgeons who performed surgery inside a scientist’s brain. “Humans are the wrong size to operate on humans,” he says. “We’re not going to shrink humans down, but we can create avatars of them. We can create little miniature robotic versions.”&nbsp;



That’s just what he and his Vicarious Surgical cofounders—Sammy Khalifa, the company’s chief technology officer, and Dr. Barry Greene, its chief medical officer—have spent the past decade doing. They have developed an itty-bitty robot paired with a VR headset for abdominal surgeries that they hope to bring to market in 2023. Its two arms and camera are designed to enter the patient’s belly through an incision of less than an inch and operate in all directions once there. Shrinking a surgical robot down is exceptionally difficult, but by doing so the Vicarious trio hopes to help doctors perform abdominal surgeries, starting with hernia operations, faster, safer and with fewer complications than existing alternatives.&nbsp;



It’s not exactly the sci-fi stuff of the movie, in which doctors are injected into the patient’s bloodstream, but it’s futuristic enough that Vicarious has attracted A-list investors including Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla, Eric Schmidt and Jerry Yang. It has also received a breakthrough designation from the FDA—the first for a surgical robot—making it eligible for priority review.



“Putting the elbow down inside the body cavity and being able to reach back and work toward the abdominal wall is a pretty big deal,” says Paul Hermes, who ran Medtronic’s robotics program and is now an advisor to Vicarious. “We should expect robotic surgery to get better.”&nbsp;



The company is set to go public via a merger with a SPAC set up by Hong Kong investor Donald Tang. The $1.1 billion deal will raise $115 million and bring in medical-technology giant Becton Dickinson, which makes the surgical mesh used in hernia repairs, as an investor. It forecasts reaching $1 billion in annual revenue by 2027.&nbsp;



“We’re going after the markets where existing surgical robots have struggled,” says Sachs, 30. “There are a lot of copycats out there aiming at the incumbent. They have the same challenges. . . . Our architecture is just totally different.”&nbsp;



The behemoth in robotic surgery is $115 billion (market cap) Intuitive Surgical, which introduced the da Vinci, a large four-armed robot that holds sticklike instruments, two decades ago and has dominated the space ever since. As Intuitive’s patents expire and robotic technology advances, competitors including J&amp;J and Medtronic, both of which have acquired surgical-robot startups, are vying to make robotic surgery as common as laparoscopy. The Vicarious robot’s expected price of around $1.2 million, roughly half that of existing topline robots, could be a factor in its favor, as could the ease with which surgeons can learn how to use it. 



Sachs’ own education with machine design began in his suburban Boston home. His father, Ely Sachs, is an MIT professor of mechanical engineering who is considered the elder statesman of 3D printing; his mother is an architect. He met Khalifa, 31, during his freshman year at MIT, where both studied engineering. They became fast friends and spent their spare time in the school’s machine shop making actuators, the mechanical components that power a robot’s joints. “We’d test them, we’d find out they didn’t work and we’d do that over and over again,” Sachs says.&nbsp;



While Sachs and Khalifa were still in college, they started working with Greene, a bariatric surgeon and friend of Sachs’ family, on a medical device that became the robot. In 2014, after a brief stint at Apple, Sachs officially launched Vicarious with $400,000 in seed funding led by Michael Rothenberg (the VC later charged with fraud by the Department of Justice in an unrelated case). In 2015, Khalifa quit his job to join.&nbsp;



The hardest part over the years, Sachs says, was figuring out the actuators. Making them small enough to include nine of them, three times what’s typical for surgical robots, was tough. So too was decoupling them so each joint could move separately, helped by 28 sensors per arm.&nbsp;



Carnegie Mellon robotics professor Howie Choset compares the technical challenge to jamming too much stuff into a piece of luggage, then trying to get that stuff to do something. Worse, he says, the smaller the actuators, the weaker they get. “You want to get as much actuation in as small a package as possible, but you’re already struggling to get as much packed as possible,” he says. “It is amazing that [Sachs] made this work.” 



Hernia repair, the first market Vicarious is targeting, is a huge one, with more than 2 million procedures a year in the U.S. Ventral hernias, common along the midline of the abdominal wall, account for 500,000 procedures and are highly complex. Standard repair involves attaching mesh to the abdominal wall, but it results in recurrence about 20% of the time, often requiring a more extensive fix. An advanced technique that involves tucking the mesh up against the rectus abdominis muscle reduces recurrence, but it’s difficult and can take up to four hours with current robots.&nbsp;



When Vicarious received the FDA breakthrough designation, it could perform this surgery in a cadaver in about half the time, Sachs says, and it has since cut that to under one hour. In a video demonstration of a ventral hernia repair, the Vicarious robot’s arms push mesh into the abdominal cavity and then quickly sew it up. The shorter surgery is less risky for patients and more cost-effective for hospitals.



Vicarious’ ambitions extend to other abdominal surgeries, including gallbladder procedures, for a total potential market of 39 million surgeries (only 3% of these are done with robots). That’s why Sachs, whose stake in Vicarious is worth $112 million, figures it needs just a fraction of the market to create a large company.&nbsp;



“The field has been pretty stagnant for a long time, and there is accepted wisdom that isn’t true,” says Tang, the SPAC investor. “You need to get this in the hands of people to show that it’s possible and it’s not a pipe dream.” 



By Amy Feldman with Aayushi Pratap

Screenshot 2021-07-28 at 17.58.27

Fantastic Voyage-Inspired Miniature Surgical Robot Aims To Revolutionize Abdominal Surgery

Microsoft&#8217;s move to add the role of board chairman to CEO Satya Nadella&#8217;s duties at the technology giant bucks a growing trend of companies separating the two jobs.



The number of companies whose CEO also held the title of chairman has declined steadily over the past three years at U.S. companies of all sizes, from the megacap corporations in the S&amp;P 500 to the smaller firms in the Russell 3000 index, according to new research by the Conference Board and analytics firm ESGAUGE.



The trend seems to be more pronounced among smaller companies. Only 36% of Russell 3000 companies had the CEO also serve as chair in 2020. That&#8217;s down from 41% percent in 2016.



“The importance of having an independent board has pushed many organizations to adopt a separation model,” says Matteo Tonello from The Conference Board. “The strong leadership skill sets in CEOs of very large S&amp;P 500 companies may be the reason why these companies are more reluctant to have the role separation,” he added.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Providing better oversight of company management and avoiding the sorts of conflicts of interest that sunk companies like WorldCom and Tyco, have largely been the reasons behind the role separations.



In companies that give CEOs a chair role as a reward for proving themselves as leaders, the gap is typically closer to two years. Nadella’s predecessor, Steve Ballmer, never named chairman during his 14-year tenure as CEO of the software giant. For years, co-founder Bill Gates played that role. John Thompson became chairman when Nadella was named CEO in February 2014 and will return to his previous role of being lead independent director.&nbsp;



&nbsp;Microsoft rationalized Nadella&#8217;s promotion in a statement that suggested the board wanted a firmer focus on management priorities. “In this role, Nadella will lead the work to set the agenda for the board, leveraging his deep understanding of the business to elevate the right strategic opportunities and identify key risks and mitigation approaches for the board’s review,” said the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/microsoft-board-of-directors-announces-role-changes-and-quarterly-dividend-301314220.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement.&nbsp;</a>



&nbsp;The spotlight on the trend of CEOs serving as board chairs became more intense after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. Along with sinking many Internet startups, the stock crash made investors more skeptical about the cult of personality around many company leaders. Scandals at companies like Tyco, Enron, and WorldCom only reinforced a key question: Where was the board?&nbsp; Separating the chairman and CEO role was seen as a critical step in reinforcing board independence.



The debate continued, intensifying again after the 2008 financial crisis. In February 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued rules requiring listed companies to disclose their leadership structure and explain why it was appropriate. That exercise, along with pressure from shareholders, proxy advisory firms, and regulators, has prompted a slow but steady trend towards separating the chair and CEO roles. As Peter Crist, chairman of search firm Crist | Kolder, notes, “once those roles are decoupled, it’s rare to go back.”



The exception is when a successful CEO wants that role — or it’s treated as a promotion for a job well done. Mary Barra at General Motors, for example, followed a fairly typical pattern in being named chair of GM two years after holding the CEO slot. What’s unusual about Satya Nadella is the fact that he was CEO for seven years before being named chairman. That could indicate some frustration or perceived issues with the board’s ability to navigate through the current environment.&nbsp;



“The chair has more power to control the agenda and set the stage for conversations in the boardroom,” says Crist. “A CEO may say, ‘I need to lead and educate the board’ to get things done.”&nbsp;



That said, Crist rarely supports such a move. “I’m a strong believer in separating the chair and CEO roles … Not many board members can stand up to a strong CEO. Look at compensation trends. When is  compensation going to trend down? Never. It’s important to have as much autonomy as possible … If you’re a high-performing company and the CEO is viewed as a critical element of success, investors will basically shrug their shoulders when a CEO gets named chair of the board.”



By Aayushi Pratap, Forbes Staff

Microsoft Holds Annual Shareholder Meeting

Nadella’s Appointment As Microsoft Chair Bucks Governance Trend

With the social scene slowly crawling back to some semblance of normalcy, entrepreneur Bukky George-Taylor is cashing in with an app for customers keen on curated events and experiences in Nigeria.



If there is one person who knows what is hot and trendy in Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country, it is Bukky George-Taylor.



As the CEO and Founder of Robert Taylor Media Ltd., a boutique communications and events company based in Lagos, Nigeria, she is the force behind some of the biggest brand activations and campaigns in the country as well as providing representation for global brands looking to penetrate the African market. 



And her latest creation, a mobile app named CRAWL Africa, launched in Lagos in March, seems to address the need to adapt to a new social life in ‘a new normal’. She calls it Africa’s first social calendar app on a mission to revolutionize social experiences in Africa by presenting a collection of curated experiences for the discerning and upwardly-mobile African consumer.



“Finding information on where to go or contacting establishments in Nigeria and across Africa can be a chore. With no access to 411 or yellow pages in Africa, CRAWL provides you with all the accurate contact information to contact businesses and to tour your city,” says George-Taylor about the new app, which currently has over 100 businesses listed.



With a degree in African-American history from the University of Massachusetts in the United States, George-Taylor has built a firm that services the corporate, entertainment, lifestyle, fashion, beauty and health sectors. This has always ensured her access to the hottest events and happenings in Nigeria.



But why choose to launch an app when the retail and hospitality sector is still recovering from the effects of a raging pandemic?



“The app launched because our city [Lagos] started to open back up with restaurants and smaller events. One of the major reasons was because of travel restrictions; the app was birthed to promote tourism and encourage people to start exploring their own cities.



“The app also enables CRAWLers to save their favorite locations or experiences for future references with a single tap while making suggestions to users based on the preferences they select,&nbsp;such as budget, location, and more.”&nbsp;



As Nigeria’s social scene gradually reopens, the events listings will be reflected on the app. George-Taylor is now also looking at other cities in sub-Saharan Africa such as Accra, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Cape Town in which to launch CRAWL Africa.

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Want To Party In The New Normal? This Could Be How

A preview of some of the cool gadgets being rolled out by global players this year.



BY NAFISA AKABOR



IN LIGHT OF THE PANDEMIC, THE WORLD’S LARGEST consumer electronics show held annually in Las Vegas, which saw well over 171,000 attendees in 2020 – went all digital this year. At CES 2021, we saw a mix of interesting prototypes and products. Naturally, it included ways to combat Covid-19, such as body sensors from BioButton to detect flu-like symptoms; the MaskFone with built-in microphone for calls without removing a mask; and Alarm.com’s touchless video doorbell to help reduce the transmission of bacteria. 



As expected, there were plenty of robots but with UV lights to disinfect high-traffic areas such as the Coro-Bot, LG’s CLOi and the Adibot.



Gaming hardware company Razer introduced a prototype N95 mask called Project Hazel that is waterproof, scratch-resistant and transparent, which supports RGB lights that shine on the mouth. It features voice projection and can filter 95% of airborne particles.



Interestingly, the Metropolitan Museum of Art went virtual through the launch of The Met Unframed. It is a free smartphone-only experience of a digitally rendered art gallery including iconic masterpieces and the ability to play augmented reality games. It runs until mid-February.



There were also rollable phone screens showcased by LG and TLC, both with displays that expand as needed. However, the hype at CES this year was around updated television screens.



TVs unveiled at CES 2021 included brighter OLED screens, 8K support, laser TVs, mini-LED and micro-LED. The main difference between mini and micro LED is that the former can have more packed together in the same area and is backlit, whereas the latter is even smaller but self-illuminating.



HiSense unveiled a TriChroma Laser projection TV that displays “purer colors”, which is an improvement over RGB color and has brighter pixels, according to the company.



It also claims the technology offers 50% better color than cinemas, an industry that has been heavily impacted by the pandemic.



Meanwhile, Sony’s 2021 TV line-up will feature 8K support, OLEDs and 4K LED models. Bravias will be powered by its new Cognitive Processor XR that can divide the screen into various zones to detect its focal point, and analyze sound positioning to match what appears on screen.



The company says that while conventional AI can only detect and analyze picture elements like color, contrast and detail individually, the new processor can cross-analyze an array of elements at once, like our brain does. Sony is also the first manufacturer to announce support for the new Google TV platform, the successor to Android TV.



LG, on the other hand, has been busy with NanoCell TVs, 4K OLED monitors, QNED mini LED and second-generation panels called OLED Evo. It also announced a futuristic concept transparent TV that can be used in the bedroom, as a restaurant partition or on public transport to display route information.



The company will bring most of the line-up to South Africa, including the top of the range 8K Z1, the GX Gallery OLED and the 48-inch C1 model that was previously not available in the region, which is best for movies, sports and gaming.



Lance Berger, sales head for home entertainment at LG Electronics South Africa, says its 4K OLED monitors are suited for productivity, entertainment and gaming. “For those working from home, LG’s UltraFine Monitors are renowned for offering immersive viewing, but they also shine as productivity powerhouses, delivering a flexible workstation experience and easy setup.”



Berger says a USB-C port allows a 4K video display, data transfer and laptop/mobile device charging all at the same time over a single cable, which helps reduce cord clutter and increase efficiency.



Late in 2020, LG announced an exclusive partnership with Microsoft’s new Xbox Series X gaming console. This year, LG will offer a ‘game optimizer’ feature that fine-tunes the picture for consoles and PCs Berger says the feature gives gamers fast access to tweaks one would be likely to use, such as lag reduction and variable refresh rate. 



“Gamers can enable AI-based sound tuning for specific genres – it will adjust for a first-person shooter, role-playing game or even a real-time strategy title.”

Economic and financial impact during the Covid-19 health crisis deepens. Businesswoman with protective face mask checking financial trading data on smartphone by the stock exchange market display screen board in downtown financial district showing stock m

COVID-Inspired Consumer Tech?

Chika Madubuko is using technology to connect the at-home elderly to trained care-givers in Nigeria.



THE GLOBAL DIGITAL HEALTH MARKET IS growing by leaps and bounds and billions, and Chika Madubuko, the CEO and Founder of Greymate Care, is wanting to make the most of it whilst creating impact. With money not the only objective, it was the opportunity to serve those who needed quality healthcare the most that guided her.



Born in the northern region of Nigeria, Madubuko attended the Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Anambra State, where she studied microbiology, before progressing to biotechnology and bioengineering at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom (UK). 



“All I wanted to do at the time is solve problems with bio-tech, with everyday biological systems, creating drugs and industrial solutions,” says Madubuko.



After graduating, the third-born child in a family of five children, decided to take a leaf out of her entrepreneurial parents’ handbook and venture into business development and sales in the UK before relocating to Nigeria to continue as a business development manager at Novus Agro, a multisided platform that organizes smallholder farmers into accessible groups for all those who want to transact with them.



By that stage, Madubuko had already caught the entrepreneurial bug and was looking for new direction. 



“When I was about to leave the UK, I toyed with the idea of creating a homecare startup and I was a certified care-giver but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. Given my success in business development, I decided to give it a try and some people told me this was a real problem Nigerians were facing.”



The cultural norm in Nigeria is that when a loved one is sick, other members of the family take care of the person. Traditionally, this role was reserved for wives or mothers who stayed at home. However, with the significant gender shift in recent years and more women employed or entrepreneurial and no longer staying at home 24&#215;7, this has led to challenges for the elderly who need round-the-clock home care.



This is where Greymate Care comes in. Born out of the personal pain Madubuko faced when looking for a care-giver for her grandmother in the village, she based her service offering around providing trained professionals to care for vulnerable family members.



“Greymate Care is an online platform that connects the elderly to vetted care-givers right [in] the comfort of their homes… In Nigeria, there is no database where you can simply go and find a care-giver or someone who has been trained and background-checked. Greymate Care solves that problem by training people who want to become care givers and making sure they have guarantors and they are available to be deployed to your home. We reduce the turnaround time of finding a care-giver from about two months to let’s say an hour or maximum 48 hours.”



Each care-giver on the platform has to provide two references who act as guarantors for the individual and those references have to be in senior positions in credible organizations to qualify. That extra check has made Greymate Care a trusted provider in Nigeria, says Madubuko.



A recent article by Deloitte estimates that sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to become the fastest-growing region in the world in the area of e-health.



The proliferation of these services is mainly driven by rapid adaptation of mobile technology as well as the internet.



Deloitte estimates the mobile penetration rate for the continent is close to exceeding 80% with a large number of the population utilizing mobile phones for not only communication but also integrating business services.



Greymate Care is hoping to tap into this growing trend to provide access to health information and curb the shortage of good healthcare professionals especially in remote areas.



Greymate Care is hoping to tap into this growing trend to provide access to health information and curb the shortage of good healthcare professionals especially in remote areas.



For Madubuko, a major impetus for her new healthcare company is to provide employment through working with global agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme to train youth to become care-givers, an initiative that has created over 1,000 jobs on the e-health platform thus far.

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Meet The Entrepreneur Who Is Changing the Game In Geriatrics

The fifth generation of mobile, wireless technology is about so much more than speed. What&#8217;s going against it- and in its favour?



CELLPHONE TOWERS ARE EASY TO SPOT. EVEN when not camouflaged as trees, flags or church steeples, they’re massive structures and what mobile networks use to provide high-speed, high-quality coverage. But when you find yourself in an area with terrible reception, or when your devices lose signal and switch from 4G to 3G, it’s likely the network is congested. 5G, the fifth generation of wireless technology, is about to change that forever.



“What we are doing is we’re using more of a particular natural phenomenon,” explains Brett StClair, the CEO and co-founder of Teraflow.ai, a global data, and machine learning engineering consultancy. “5G uses spectrum or waves. It uses the same waves that we’ve been using since the sixties to deliver television on. It’s very clean, it’s very high capacity&#8230; and all we’ve been using it for is to send an image through!”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-microwave-effect">The microwave effect</h4>



The idea of 5G networks connecting cities and millions of devices together sounds revolutionary but it’s also been met with trepidation. Protests have broken out around the world in a bid to stop 5G being rolled out, fearing that the next generation of mobile connectivity could have serious health ramifications and impact the environment negatively. Conspiracy theories circulating around 5G and the coronavirus pandemic saw activists in the United Kingdom burning down phone masts.



“With 5G, one of the things that come about is that we have to make the waves go further than they normally can. One of the words The fifth generation of mobile, wireless technology is about so much more than speed. What’s going against it – and in its favor? that’s used to describe that is radiation. There’s a term called non-ionizing, which means it’s not generating enough energy to be harmful to anything, let alone a human being. The photon energy is so low that it can’t harm anyone,” explains SqwidNet’s Managing Director, Phathizwe Malinga.



Research conducted by Christopher Collins, a professor of radiology at New York University, showed that unlike the electromagnetic waves used in X-rays, MRIs and ultrasounds, which are powerful enough to break chemical bonds apart (and cause serious damage), the waves used by 5G, Bluetooth and even Wi-Fi are weak.



They cannot even penetrate skin.



This also explains why 5G is very different – and possibly safer – than its predecessor. It may be the next generation of mobile connectivity but with 5G, we won’t need more fake trees.



5G towers differ both physically and functionally. They’re so small that they can be installed on light poles or even traffic lights.



But because 5G data is transmitting on an entirely different part of the radio spectrum to 4G, more of these ‘mini towers’ are needed to cover the same amount of space.



“Unfortunately to get those 5G speeds, you’ll need a lot more of these towers. I’m imagining municipalities will hold off as long as possible,” adds Malinga. “As we start moving into this space, a lot of the networks are starting to get better understanding that this is a multi- connectivity space. We need to start to create combination-use cases that will result in a better-looking city.”



Vodacom was the first operator to launch a mobile and fixed 5G service in South Africa in May 2020 after launching Africa’s first fixed 



5G commercial service in Lesotho in 2018. The mobile operator’s plan is to deploy 5G coverage throughout its African footprint over the next few years, provided it can access the necessary spectrum within each market.



“5G is also capable of supporting entirely new and advanced-use cases such as challenging enterprise applications that will improve their operational efficiency, sustainability, and/or health and safety,” explains Vodacom’s executive head of media relations, Byron Kennedy.



“Some examples of such applications include providing connectivity for remotely piloted vehicles in the mining and transportation sectors, industrial robots in the manufacturing sector, and environmental monitoring within the energy and utility sector.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-beyond-the-smartphone">Beyond the smartphone</h4>



While 5G technology can deliver higher data speeds and a massive network capacity with a greater number of connected devices, one of its biggest problems is range. “What it does from an impact point of view is it excludes



a lot of the population. If you’re not living in the city, 5G might not be a reality for you. But luckily, there is this good headway being made on the fibre side. So you can almost think of 5G and fibre being easily substitutable from a business point of view,” adds Malinga.



Because 5G has the potential to increase how data is moved, it will enable a wide range of new business applications and use cases that go far beyond the smartphone. The industrial application of 5G, especially when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT) and advancing AI, is often overlooked. By 2025, there will be 1.2 billion 5G connections worldwide according to the GSMA, a trade body of global mobile network operators.



“5G will change how we manage our compute loads,” explains StClair, “no matter where you are in the world, what 5G enables you to do is bring machine learning and AI right to the edge of the network.”



When data is stored in the cloud, it most likely means that it is sitting in a server farm thousands of kilometers away. Big cloud players like Google, Facebook and Apple all have massive data centers in Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Sweden.



“Even though you have bigger bandwidth to your device, if the service is in America, you’re still going to suffer from something called latency. Even if it’s 300 milliseconds, in today’s world, that’s a lot of time lost and even billions of transactions,” adds StClair. “We have so much data in the world. And with 5G, we’re essentially going to multiply that by a factor of 1,000. That amount of data needs to be processed but we don’t process it like we used to process data stored in a database. 



What we do now is we run machine learning models to be more predictive to certain situations. The power of 5G is the ability to deploy models closer to the end-user.”



Bringing technology closer using 5G means that we’re able to connect things that are far away from a business but act as though they are a part of a business. That’s why 5G is so much more than a simple step-up in network speeds, it’s a game-changer when it comes to connectivity.



“In farming, you can connect your cattle&#8230; you can connect boreholes that are far away and know how much water is inside. In towns, you can connect vehicles or even water meters and start detecting, in real-time, leaks and stop water from spreading,” says Malinga.



“Ultimately, we need a device or a sensor that we can attach to something that we care about. 5G and IoT are complimentary, necessary, but they don’t do the same thing. If we introduce these technologies to the people who can afford [them], they can fix and address their quality of life themselves, and then ride that exponential curve to a point where they start becoming small businesses that become large businesses that eventually become global players.”



-by Tiana Cline

5g chip ,3d render

The Next Wave Of Connectivity

TOPLINE: Shares of Airbnb have plunged 25% since their monster trading debut on Thursday, and analysts forecast the stock could slump further as recently priced initial public offerings flash warning signs in the market.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h4>



After a bearish analyst call on Monday, shares of Airbnb are falling 5% today pushing shares down to about $124 apiece, or 25% lower than their trading day high of $165.



The fortunes of the firm&#8217;s three cofounders–Nathan Blecharcyzk, Joe Gebbia and CEO Brian Chesky–have plunged nearly $5 billion combined since&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/12/10/thanks-to-ipo-pop-airbnbs-three-billionaire-cofounders-more-than-double-their-net-worths-in-a-single-day/">Thursday&#8217;s close</a>&nbsp;to about $8.5 billion for each of Blecharcyzk and Gebbia and $9.5 billion for Chesky.



In a note downgrading Airbnb&#8217;s stock on Monday, Gordon Haskett analyst Robert Mollins said Airbnb&#8217;s IPO surge &#8220;more than stretched&#8221; the firm&#8217;s share prices, which have lifted Airbnb&#8217;s valuation to roughly two-times estimated bookings in 2022.



At that rate, Airbnb&#8217;s valuation, relative to its revenue potential, is more than three times higher than the average among competing online travel agencies like Expedia and Booking.com, Mollins further noted.



He downgraded the firm to underperform from a pre-IPO buy rating, but upped his price target to $103 from $77.



Wall Street&#8217;s still generally bearish on Airbnb&#8217;s current price levels: three analysts covering the stock give an average one-year price target of about $96, representing nearly 25% downside to current prices.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE&nbsp;</h4>



“An overwhelming majority of investors we’ve spoken with have been unable to justify Airbnb’s valuation premium relative to [other online travel firms] and expressed interest in realizing their quick gains,” Mollins wrote in a note to clients on Monday. “Investors&#8230;&nbsp; like Airbnb’s business model and want to be long-term holders, but are now looking at selling the stock because they no longer feel comfortable owning it.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h4>



Shares of Airbnb skyrocketed as much as 120% during the home rental giant&#8217;s long-awaited first day of trading, propelling the firm&#8217;s market cap to more than five times its last private market valuation of $18 billion in April. Despite the damper the pandemic is putting on the travel industry, Airbnb shares were priced at a higher than expected $68 on Wednesday, allowing the firm to raise roughly $3.5 billion in its initial public offering. That bested the $3.4 billion DoorDash raised just one day earlier to make Airbnb&#8217;s public market debut the third-largest of 2020. DoorDash shares have tanked nearly 20% since Wednesday.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h4>



$103 billion.That&#8217;s how high Airbnb&#8217;s market capitalization got on Thursday–higher than all publicly traded U.S. hotel chains combined. It&#8217;s now at about $73 billion.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h4>



On Saturday, fintech startup Affirm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/affirm-postpones-initial-public-offering-sources-say-11607801619" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">pushed</a>&nbsp;its IPO back to January at the earliest, as people familiar with the matter cited hesitancy around the &#8220;extreme&#8221; first-day pops of Airbnb and Doordash as well as delays sparked by an influx of listing requests at the Securities and Exchange Commission. That echoed concerns from gaming company Roblox just one day earlier, when the firm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/roblox-delays-ipo-until-next-year-11607742940?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told employees</a>&nbsp;that its planned December IPO would instead happen early next year given the uncertainty around recent IPO valuations.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h4>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/12/10/thanks-to-ipo-pop-airbnbs-three-billionaire-cofounders-more-than-double-their-net-worths-in-a-single-day/">Thanks To IPO Pop, Airbnb’s Three Billionaire Cofounders More Than Double Their Net Worths In A Single Day</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/12/10/airbnb-ipo-shares-valuation-billion-more-than-marriott-hilton-hyatt/">Airbnb Skyrockets 120% In IPO, Valuation Blows Past $100 Billion–More Than Marriott, Hilton And Hyatt Combined</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/12/09/doordash-ipo-shares-first-day-of-trading/">DoorDash IPO: Shares Surge 80% At Start Of Trading, Boosting Valuation To $60 Billion In Year’s Third-Largest IPO</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://qz.com/1945769/is-there-a-bubble-in-us-tech-stocks-and-will-it-pop-in-2021/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Is a massive bubble in US tech stocks coming—or is it already here?</a> (Quartz)



&#8211;By Jonathan Ponciano, Forbes Staff

Airbnb Open LA – “Introducing Trips” Reveal

Airbnb Stock Down 25% Since IPO, Three Billionaire Cofounders Lose $5 Billion In 3 Trading Days

Much of the coverage of Salesforce’s decision to bid for Slack&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/12/01/its-official-salesforce-buying-slack-for-28-billion-taking-on-microsoft-with-benioffs-biggest-deal-yet/">in a transaction valued at $27.7 billion</a>&nbsp;has focused on the intense rivalry with Microsoft, whose Teams collaboration software offering has been outpacing Slack’s growth during the pandemic. But a significant shift is taking place in IT planning that creates an even more powerful commercial logic for the combination of the two software companies—and it’s a shift that’s likely to fuel more enterprise tech M&amp;A in the year ahead.



CIOs and other tech leaders are now looking towards a future in which many more employees are allowed to work remotely for all or part of every week than before the Covid-19 pandemic began. A recent report from research firm Forrester estimates that while less than a tenth of companies will let all employees choose if they want to work remotely once the pandemic is over, 60% will stick with a hybrid model involving a mix of office-based and remote work. This shift is going to have a significant impact on the tech stacks CIOs are building to support workers.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tired-of-tool-fatigue">Tired of tool fatigue</h3>



One of the top priorities is to reduce what Sathish Muthukrishnan, the chief information, data and digital officer of Ally Financial, a financial services company with a market cap of almost $12 billion, describes as software “tool fatigue”. He’s referring to the stress and frustration employees experience when they are forced to launch many different software applications to get their jobs done and then to toggle frequently between them.



This issue was already a concern before Covid-19, but the shift to mass remote work—and the flood of new software applications to support the move—has driven it much higher up the agenda at a time when the pandemic has generally heightened stress levels amongst employees.



Hence growing demand amongst tech leaders for everything from collaboration tools to data analytics capabilities and project management software to work seamlessly together. “In a pre-pandemic world this level of integration was not as critical as it is now, when the ability to interact is essential for the productivity of a distributed workforce,” said Nicola Morini Bianzino, global chief technology officer of professional services giant EY, in emailed comments to&nbsp;Forbes.



Edward Wagoner still sees a role for best-of-breed applications in workforce tech stacks, as do many other tech leaders. The digital CIO of JLL Technologies, a division of $7 billion real estate company JLL, nevertheless acknowledges there’s a challenge to get these standalone services to work more seamlessly together so employees aren’t frustrated as they shuttle between offices and remote locations. “All the tools are great,” said Wagoner, “but often the experience of going back and forth isn’t good.” Larger platforms with more integrated offerings such as a Salesforce-plus-Slack combo should be able to reduce this kind of friction.



Tool fatigue has big implications for security as well as productivity: The more complex the web of independent applications that IT teams have to knit together, the greater the risk security holes will be missed. CIOs also worry that people working remotely tend not to be as mentally attuned to security issues as they are in offices. More tightly integrated software platforms should in principle be easier to secure.



For Ally’s Muthukrishnan, security is “the first bucket” he thinks about as he’s building his company’s workforce tech stack, which also includes collaboration tools and software such as virtual whiteboards that can be used by workers in and out of the office for innovation projects. Muthukrishnan’s constantly on the lookout for ways to reduce friction between different applications. “The key is how well do they integrate with each other.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-front-end-for-the-future-of-work">A front-end for the future of work</h3>



Given CIOs’ shifting tech priorities for supporting hybrid work, the bid for Slack looks like a smart strategic move—even though Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff had previously&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2020/11/30/salesforce-slack-acquisition-marc-benioff/?sh=64473ce211de">tried to cool expectations around any deal activity</a>. After starting life as a provider of cloud-based applications for sales teams, Salesforce has progressively expanded into other areas such as marketing, customer success and, more recently, data analytics with its $15.7 billion purchase of Tableau Software.



Integrating Slack will add communication and collaboration capabilities to its platform, which should make it even more attractive to CIOs concerned about software tool fatigue and other issues. In a blog post commenting on the deal, Aaron Levie, CEO of enterprise cloud company Box, said the combination with Slack will give Salesforce “a new front-end for the future of work” that connects the front office, back office and customers together in a single platform.



Levie’s description will resonate with corporate tech leaders, but the deal also raises the pressure on smaller, independent software companies such as Box, Dropbox and Asana to expand via acquisitions to meet CIOs’ rising expectations for secure, fatigue-free software platforms that can effectively support hybrid office-remote work strategies. Those that don’t step up could find themselves overshadowed by the likes of Salesforce and Microsoft—or perhaps being bought by them.



-By Martin Giles, Forbes Staff

Salesforce To Buy Software Maker Slack For $27.7 Billion

Salesforce’s Mega Bid For Slack Comes As CIOs Rethink Tech Needs For The Future Of Work

When CIOs talk about platforms, they’re usually referring to digital rather than political ones. But as Americans head to the polls, corporate tech leaders should be paying close attention to what a second Trump administration, or a first Biden one, could have in store for them.



The outcome of the contest will have profound consequences for skilled immigration, data privacy regimes, the regulation of AI and other issues such as cybersecurity that all matter to CIOs. It will also shape how America deals with China as a competitor and trading partner—a fraught relationship that’s sparked concerns over high-tech supply chains and the security of 5G communications networks<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2020/10/09/huawei-rivals-nokia-ericsson-27-billion-us-sanctions/#7249ea2bde48">&nbsp;using equipment from Huawei and other Chinese firms</a>.



The election will also help determine whether America can sustain its role as a global innovation leader. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a think tank with close links to the tech industry, points out that the U.S. would need to spend at least an additional $100 billion a year, or an increase of around 80% over current spending levels, just to match what it was investing in research as a percentage of GDP back in the 1980s.



“The reality is that America is no longer the global innovation leader, at least on a per capita basis, and it risks losing out to China over the next decade or two,” the ITIF wrote in a recent study of the likely impact of the upcoming election on tech policy. “Whether or not the two major parties understand this threat and want to prioritize it is unclear.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Tackling China</h3>



What is clear is that tensions over high-tech trade with China are likely to remain high under either a second Trump administration or a first Biden one. But the tactics a Biden presidency would adopt are likely to be quite different to those of its predecessor.



Speaking at the<a href="https://www.forbes.com/connect/event/forbes-cio-next-virtual-episode1/">&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;CIO Next virtual summit</a>&nbsp;held on October 27, Darrell West, an expert on technology policy at the Brookings Institution, said that if President Trump is re-elected, he’s likely to continue his aggressive and unpredictable, go-it-alone policy towards pressuring China for trade concessions. “A company may wake up one day thinking they are a friend of the administration and the next day become a target,” said West.



A Biden presidency is likely to keep up the pressure on China, too, but will almost certainly create a clear set of processes for handling trade negotiations on high-tech and other issues. West thinks it will also want to forge a more united front with the European Union on dealing with the Chinese. While this approach may make it easier for CIOs and other executives to assess supply chain risks in dealing with Chinese manufacturers, both presidential candidates are likely to maintain U.S. efforts to keep hardware from China and other suppliers out of 5G networks in America and other countries on national security grounds.



With Chinese companies pulling ahead in areas such as<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonytrippe/2020/08/31/china-is-gunning-to-be-the-world-leader-in-ai-chips-while-restricting-exports/#392b0c186d4e">&nbsp;chips that power artificial intelligence (AI) applications</a>, the issue of how the U.S. government can better support domestic innovation will be on the table no matter who becomes president. Neither candidate looks likely to bring government spending as a percentage of GDP back to 1980s levels, but the Biden camp has pledged to invest an additional $300 billion over four years to help close some of the gap. If he is re-elected, President Trump is likely to continue his current policy of reducing overall government support on R&amp;D while boosting investment<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/martingiles/2020/08/14/us-to-boost-ai-quantum-funding-in-2021/#291bef1521dd">&nbsp;in some key areas such as AI, quantum information science and advanced manufacturing</a>.



On cybersecurity, both candidates would likely step up efforts to protect U.S. companies and critical infrastructure such as electrical grids from cyberattacks. West thinks a Biden administration could press for a kind of Geneva convention on cyber arms control, whereas if President Trump is re-elected his administration will keep pursuing a more unilateral approach. If the Democrats win the presidency and perhaps carry the Senate too, they may also push for a mandatory regime that requires companies to report hacks to a national database. Republicans, on the other hand, are more likely to leave breach reporting requirements to individual states.&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Importing talent</h3>



Finding enough skilled workers is one of CIOs’ biggest concerns, so they will be hoping for an easing of restrictions on H1-B visas and other channels that the present Trump administration has been restricting.



Robert Atkinson, the president of the ITIF, thinks a Biden administration will expand skilled immigration whereas a second Trump one is likely to extend the current crackdown. However, he cautions that if Biden wins, companies can’t count on a swift increase in H1-Bs. “There are a lot of folks on the left [of the Democratic party] who have pushed back on H1-Bs because these are seen as undermining U.S. wages,” he says. “You could instead see an expansion of other avenues and vehicles to bring in high-skilled workers.”



Atkinson also thinks that if Biden carries the White House, CIOs could find<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marksettle/2020/10/20/the-proper-path-to-achieving--automation-at-scale/#2f8df7ef2a4a">&nbsp;robotic process automation (RPA) strategies</a>, which use software to take over tasks from workers, under intense political scrutiny because of fears these will destroy jobs and crater wages. “In a Biden administration, companies will have to be much more careful and cautious about how they portray this. Trump doesn’t mind automation; he minds offshoring.”



Companies’ automation drives could be blunted in other ways. For instance, tax reforms in 2018 made it possible for businesses to immediately deduct the entire cost of equipment purchases from taxable income; previously, they had generally only been allowed to write off a portion of the cost in a single year. This encouraged CIOs and other executives to accelerate purchases of everything from robots to servers. However, the changes will come up for review in a couple of years and a Biden administration would be less likely to push for an extension.



If Biden wins the election, CIOs will almost certainly face tougher rules on data privacy. Both candidates are in favor of a national consumer privacy regime to replace the present mix of different state ones, but the Democrats are more likely to push for<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/waynerash/2020/06/29/ccpa-enforcement-to-begin-on-wednesday-july-1-2020--steps-to-get-ready/#5650f7475f8b">&nbsp;a California-style framework</a>&nbsp;with significant compliance costs and hefty fines for rule-breakers. They are also more likely to support a national regime to regulate the use of artificial intelligence for things such as facial recognition systems.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Tech under the microscope</h3>



No matter which of the presidential candidates ends up in the White House after the election, it’s clear that the world of technology is going to face more intense scrutiny than ever before.



CIOs will want to keep an especially close watch on who ends up leading key government agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, which are responsible for oversight on antitrust policy. The Justice Department’s recent move to sue Google<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/10/20/justice-department-suing-google-for-antitrust-violations/#7e1f4243dbb8">&nbsp;for alleged antitrust violations</a>&nbsp;is likely to be followed by actions against Facebook and possibly other tech firms. It will also be important to watch who is chosen to sit on key congressional bodies such as the House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee, which issued a report earlier this month<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/10/06/long-awaited-house-report-recommends-breaking-up-big-tech/#46776205c831">&nbsp;flagging multiple potential areas of potential concern</a>, including Amazon’s significant share of the cloud computing market.



The Brookings Institution’s West neatly encapsulated where things stand in his closing remarks at the Forbes CIO Next event. “Over the last 30 years, the mantra has been ‘permissionless innovation,’” he said, referring to a relatively laissez-faire view of technology’s impact on the economy and society. “That era is coming to an end. We’re going to have more public engagement [on tech issues], more public oversight, and more public regulation.”



-By Martin Giles, Forbes Staff

Man voting online

Here’s How The U.S. Election Could Impact Automation, Cybersecurity, Data Privacy And Other Key Issues CIOs Care About

Vimal Kumar, Chief Executive for Retail and Business Banking, Digital &amp; CX, at Absa Regional Operations, on the bank’s digital transformation journey across Africa and the technology driving financial access in the continent’s communities.



&#8220;THE 30cm BETWEEN YOUR EYE AND YOUR MOBILE device…that is the small, yet powerful space we want to own,” says Vimal Kumar, setting the tone for our interview on digital banking – and the future of self-service and DX.



As Chief Executive for Retail and Business Banking, Digital &amp; CX, at Absa Regional Operations, Kumar has been part of the bank’s rebranding strategy in Africa since its separation from the British parent brand, Barclays Plc. He expands further on his “30cm” philosophy



“The young customers of today don’t have the time to look for a branch, stand in queues, and speak to banking staff. They want everything on their mobile that’s instant, fast, and agile. It’s ‘digital-first, mobile-first’,” Kumar continues.



From his upstairs study at home in Sandton, Johannesburg, he has a clear view of the African sky. The months of remote working enforced during South Africa’s Covid-19 shutdown have meant being away from these very skies. For a man relentlessly clocking air miles traveling into the rest of the continent, the pandemic has meant a period of quiet reflection and quick recalibration.



“In the last hundred days or so, I have reconciled with ‘the new normal’ but I do miss traveling into the heart of Africa. It’s a very vibrant continent, a very young continent. I learn a lot when I am with young people. This time has given me a very different perspective,” says Kumar.



Having worked for 25 years in retail banking across Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and now Africa, what Kumar sees as unique to the continent is its ease of adoption of new technology.



This is what charged him and his team into creating the bank’s digital transformation journey in Absa’s regional operations, “not entirely focused on being cool but solving customer needs”, providing “not just financial inclusion but financial access” to people in the remotest parts of the continent.



Doing so through partnerships with such entities as MTN (telco) and JUMO (fintech), the underbanked communities in Africa, who have never experienced banking in their lives, have been able to access financial services, says Kumar.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;Hyper-personalizing CX through a combination of digitalization and big data, and making it a segment of one…&#8221;</blockquote>



In the process, it also meant “hyper-personalizing” CX through a combination of digitalization and big data, and making it “a segment of one” where every customer is unique. “The experience we are trying to create on the mobile app and web platform will soon mirror the experience of one transacting at the bank’s branch. This means we have to constantly improve the functionality and user experience on these alternate channels so customers never feel the need to visit a branch.”



This aspect was one of the core pillars of the radical transformation that came shortly after Barclays announced in 2016 that it would be exiting Africa. The separation journey, as well as the digital one, took three years and involved entire teams. But Kumar notes the focus of their digital transformation philosophy has remained consistent – improving self-service to the customer. “So, technology is really driving financial access to the most underprivileged in our societies… this is important, because, as I said, we needed to come much closer to the real communities in Africa.”



The proximity with colleagues and clients during Covid-19 has been challenging and “psychologically, more difficult to accept”, however, life has to go on, says Kumar, and though it is not a preferred way to operate, the digital transformation journey must continue – for Africa’s sake.



<h4 class="has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">ACCOLADES</h4>



2019: ‘Financial Innovator Of The Year’ award by Finnovex 2020: ‘Banking CEO Of The Year – Africa’ and ‘Business Transformation CEO Of The Year – Africa’ awards by Business Worldwide

Untitled-1

THE FUTURE OF SELF-SERVICE

Many American Netflix users will need to pay $1 extra for a subscription, the company announced Thursday, as the streaming giant deals with slowing U.S. growth after an explosion in new subscribers at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h4>



A standard subscription now costs $14 a month rather than $13, and a premium plan (which allows users to stream content on more devices simultaneously) jumped from $16 to $18, though the company’s $9 basic standard-definition plan remains unchanged.



The price hikes will take effect immediately for new subscribers, and existing users will see their monthly bills increase over the next two months, with a warning 30 days ahead of time, a Netflix spokesperson told&nbsp;Forbes.



The company said it is raising prices to underwrite an expansion in original movies and shows.



Netflix last hiked its U.S. prices in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/netflix-raising-cost-to-13-a-month-its-biggest-hike-ever-2019-01-15" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">January of 2019</a>, boosting the cost of a standard plan from $11 to $13 per month.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h4>



73.08 million. That’s the total number of U.S. Netflix subscriptions as of last month, according to the company’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.netflixinvestor.com/financials/quarterly-earnings/default.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">third quarter</a>&nbsp;earnings report. Fewer than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2020/10/20/netflix-subscriber-growth-slows-after-surging-during-pandemic/?sh=690475e7244e">half</a>&nbsp;of all Netflix subscribers live in the United States, the result of rapid international growth.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h4>



Netflix saw&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52376022" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">surging demand</a>&nbsp;earlier this year, after the coronavirus closed most movie theaters and sent bored, homebound customers in search for entertainment. Almost 26 million new people worldwide subscribed to Netflix in the first half of 2020, the largest growth spurt in Netflix’s history, and the company rushed to add new shows at a rapid clip. This expansion&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2020/10/20/netflix-subscriber-growth-slows-after-surging-during-pandemic/?sh=690475e7244e">stalled</a>&nbsp;between July and September, when the company added just 2.2 million new subscribers, and Netflix expects growth to remain more modest for the next few months.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h4>



Netflix faces stiff competition from smaller streaming services, including longstanding rivals like Disney’s Hulu and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2019/11/new-streaming-services-2019-2020.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">newer services</a>&nbsp;like Disney+ and NBCUniversal’s Peacock. Most of these services&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/best-streaming-services-cost-15166523" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">charge</a>&nbsp;less than $10 per month, making Netflix a pricey option in a crowded market. Still,&nbsp;<a href="https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/2020/q3/Netflix,-Inc.,-Q3-2020-Earnings-Call,-Oct-20,-2020.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Netflix executives believe</a>&nbsp;price increases will not slow their growth as long as the company continues adding enough new shows to justify the cost of a subscription.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h4>



“We understand people have more entertainment choices than ever and we’re committed to delivering an even better experience for our members,” Netflix spokesperson Katy Dormer told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;in an email. “We’re updating our prices so that we can continue to offer more variety of TV shows and films.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h4>



<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/29/21540346/netflix-price-increase-united-states-standard-premium-content-product-features" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Netflix is raising the price of its most popular plan to $14 today, premium tier increasing to $18 (The Verge)</a>



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2020/10/20/netflix-subscriber-growth-slows-after-surging-during-pandemic/?sh=690475e7244e">Netflix Subscriber Growth Slows After Surging During Pandemic (Forbes)</a>



-By Joe Walsh, Forbes Staff

Stay at home and watch TV

Netflix Just Raised The Price Of A Monthly Subscription

E-waste is hazardous, but often not properly tracked or recycled. What’s needed? A more formalized re-use economy and future-thinking brands.&nbsp;



It seems like everything and anything these days is connected to the internet. From robotic vacuum cleaners to toothbrushes, smart refrigerators, electronic toys and even running shoes, computerized devices embedded with sensors and controllers have become everyday purchases. But as we pursue smarter and sleeker gadgets, we also have to ask how these devices will be discarded.&nbsp;



Thirty-eight tonnes of e-waste is generated every single minute and by 2021, it’s expected that 57 million tonnes of electronic waste will be produced globally (says the Global E-waste Monitor 2020 report). Compared to the overall amount of rubbish generated – 2,000 million tonnes – this number seems relatively small but when you take into account that e-waste has health and environmental implications, and that it’s often not properly tracked or recycled, it becomes a bigger issue.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Even a USB is technically e-waste.” – Giulio Airaga, a digital marketing specialist at Desco Electronic Recyclers</blockquote>



“Anything that runs on electricity or anything that generates electricity is electronic waste,” explains Giulio Airaga, a digital marketing specialist at Desco Electronic Recyclers. “Even a USB is technically e-waste. Why? Because inside there’s a circuit board and on it, a concentration of metals… sometimes a little bit of gold, a little bit of silver – it’s traces, so finite, but it&#8217;s something.”&nbsp;



Many African countries do not have formal e-waste solutions in place but because of the Basel Convention (which dictates that hazardous waste cannot be moved between nations), e-waste recycling companies are also not allowed to import discarded electronics. They can, however, accept pre-processed, stripped down e-waste, something Desco Electronic Recyclers does with Namibia, Swaziland, Gabon, Botswana and Mozambique.&nbsp;



“The reason for the Basel Convention is that overseas countries are using Africa as a dumping ground. There are some products, like printers, that we get that there is no solution for and we have to send it to a hazardous landfill at our own cost. Most European countries have recycling centers, and they have e-waste companies, but they want to receive ‘good’ e-waste – the recyclables you can get an income from that don’t fill up the landfills,” says Airaga. “Dumping e-waste is illegal but many people don’t realize that. The highest recovery item is a circuit board and a lot of informal recyclers (and sometimes formalized recyclers) without standards in place, cherry-pick the valuables and dump the rest. A smartphone registered in your name with a serial number on can be traced back to you. This could lead to a fine or even jail time. Recyclers need to take the responsibility on themselves to recycle e-waste properly.”



The unregulated disposal of e-waste is a massive problem globally. At least 9.3-million tonnes of e-waste moves between countries and businesses looking for a cheap and easy way to dispose unusable electronics often turn to countries like Ghana, the Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast. Dell was one of the first technology companies to ban exporting e-waste to developing countries, setting up a recycling hub and collection network in Kenya as well as an industry-wide takeback program in Ghana: “When your name is on the company, you have to take responsibility for the way you impact society. The founder of Dell’s pet hate was that he could potentially walk past a landfill and see his name on the items inside…” explains Chris Buchanan, Dell’s director of end user computing for Africa. “One of the challenges when you build product is the full cycle of the components and making sure that they all can potentially be recycled again.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“One of the challenges when you build product is the full cycle of the components and making sure that they all can potentially be recycled again.” – Chris Buchanan, Dell’s director of end user computing for Africa</blockquote>



Samsung’s e-waste strategy shifted dramatically in 2017 when the South Korean technology giant decided to make e-waste a part of a R25 million ($) enterprise development program: “As part of the president’s Good Green Deeds campaign, we found two entities – alongside the DTI – with the goal of building up their businesses until they own a beneficiation plant… the full value chain of e-waste,” explains Hlubi Shivanda, Samsung South Africa’s director: business innovation group and corporate affairs.&nbsp;



Located in Benoni, Johannesburg, iLanga E-Waste Management is one of the small businesses Samsung is working with: “The company was registered in 2016 and we started operating in 2018 through the help of the funds we received,” explains Maria Rakgalakane, iLanga E-Waste Management’s director. “We managed to pay a warehouse rental deposit, we acquired two trucks, office equipment and then we also acquired the operating licence – it was so expensive. I’ve found that people don’t value recycling. We have to teach them that e-waste can be hazardous. If they want to plant a crop, it won’t grow. It damages the soil.”



Over and above ramping up these small businesses, Samsung’s role is to ensure enough e-waste gets to these companies to recycle. Working closely with the government means access to old devices sitting in state warehouses across the country. “Municipalities and government departments also need to dispose of their waste responsibly. This is an opportunity for these entities to act as a conduit to dispose of this waste. From a government perspective, we’ll be able to unlock the volume,” adds Shivanda.



What’s interesting is that older electronics can be more lucrative as the concentration of precious metals found is often dependent on the age of the device which is why tapping into discarded government electronics could be a goldmine for these upcoming e-waste entrepreneurs. As the life cycle of electronic devices shortens and our requirements for newer, smarter and better gadgets grows, so does the need for e-waste recycling. A more formalized re-use economy is emerging and future-thinking technology brands like Dell are now designing with sustainability in mind.&nbsp;



“We move a lot of devices around the planet on a daily basis. The real challenge in this whole circular economy is actually on our supply chain. Our traditional suppliers are having to change a lot of their manufacturing capabilities… to make sure that we can honor our commitment to the circular economy,” says Buchanan.&nbsp;



<h2 class="has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">‘There is more gold in a tonne of PC motherboards’</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48668" width="424" height="318" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 424px) 100vw, 424px" /></figure></div>



Gold is the most valuable component of e-waste. According to the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal, a circuit board can contain around 60 different chemical elements from nickel to palladium and copper: “There is more gold in a tonne of PC motherboards than there is in the digital gold or that they&#8217;re taking out of the ground,” explains Buchanan.&nbsp;



But where do recycled metals and minerals go? For Ashley Heather, a jeweler in Cape Town, sustainable, single-sourced gold and silver recovered from e-waste made perfect sense. “We started off creating jewelry in silver reclaimed from used photographic chemicals but as dark room photography is a bit of a dying art, sourcing these became increasingly difficult,” explains Heather. “We buy end of life electronics from e-waste aggregators but also take donations of people&#8217;s broken personal electronics. This is all manually dismantled, the non-electrical components are sent their separate ways for recycling and the electrical components are shredded. This shredded material heads to the refinery where the precious metals are extracted and purified before heading to the studio to be crafted into jewelry.”



Heather considers herself an advocate for sustainability first and a goldsmith second. She believes ethical sourcing – fairtrade, recycling or repurposing – is the future of jewelry.&nbsp;



“I think global crises also serve as catalysts for re-imagining the way we do many things. Covid-19 has shone the light on the fragility of the fast fashion model.”



&#8211;By Tiana Cline

Lydia Harper Photography

Where Digital Products Do Not End Up In A Wasteland But Find New Life

Stay-at-home consumers and stimulus checks have been a boon for online installment financing, digital banks and day trading.



In 2015, Nick Molnar was living with his parents in Sydney, Australia, and selling jewelry from a desktop computer in his childhood bedroom. Hocking everything from $250 Seiko watches to $10,000 engagement rings, the 25-year-old had gotten so good at online marketing that he had become Australia’s top seller of jewelry on eBay, shipping thousands of packages a day.



That same year, he teamed up with Anthony Eisen, a former investment banker who was 19 years his senior and lived across the street. They cofounded Afterpay, an online service that allows shoppers from the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada to pay for small-ticket items like shoes and shirts in four interest-free payments over six weeks. “I was a Millennial who grew up in the 2008 crisis, and I saw this big shift away from credit to debit,” the now 30-year-old Molnar says today. Either lacking credit cards or fearful of racking up high-interest-rate debt on their credit cards, Molnar’s generation was quick to embrace this new way to buy and get merchandise now, while paying a little later.



Five years later, Molnar and Eisen, who each own roughly 7% of the company, have become billionaires—during a pandemic. After initially tanking at the start of lockdowns, shares of Afterpay—which went public in 2016—are up nearly tenfold, thanks to a surge in business tied to ecommerce sales. In the second quarter, it handled $3.8 billion of transactions, an increase of 127% versus the same period a year earlier.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h3 class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">Buy Now, Pay Later</h3>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">After a steep drop in Afterpay’s stock in March, the eCommerce boom and credit card-weary Millennials have propelled the installment payment company’s stock to record highs, nearly doubling its value in six months.</blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



They are not the only ones whose fortunes have taken off in the last few months. According to Forbes’ analysis, at least five fintech entrepreneurs including the two Aussies have been vaulted into the billionaire rankings by the pandemic. Others include Chris Britt, founder of digital bank Chime, and Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt, the co-CEOs of “free” stock trading app Robinhood. Several other founders from such companies as Klarna and Marqeta have also gotten boosts and are suddenly approaching billionaire status.&nbsp;



As in other sectors, the Covid recession has created both fintech winners and losers. For example, LendingClub, which offers personal loans to higher-risk consumers, laid off&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2020/04/21/lending-club-is-laying-off-460-employees-or-30-of-staff/#4ddcb1bc3c7e">30% of staff</a>; small business lender On Deck was sold in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2020/05/11/fintechs-for-sale-post-covid-its-partner-or-perish-for-many-startups-heres-a-buy-list/#2747c79f6b3b">fire sale</a>.



But for a sizable crop of consumer-facing and payments-related fintechs, the virus has delivered a gust of growth, just as it has for e-commerce behemoth Amazon and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/09/14/zoom-docusign-okta-work-from-home-stocks-poised-for-further-gains/#76e7336611b2">work-from-home players</a>&nbsp;Zoom, Slack and DocuSign.&nbsp;



“Consumer fintech adoption was already strong pre-pandemic, especially among the 20s to early 40s age group,” says Victoria Treyger, a general partner who leads fintech investing at Felicis Ventures. “The pandemic has become a growth rocket, fueling the rapid acceleration of adoption across all age groups, including 40- to 60-year-olds.”



Several Covid-driven developments are helping specific types of fintech players. For example, consumers’ shift to more online spending and delivery services is a boon to certain companies powering payments. Marqeta, a specialized payments processor whose clients include Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates, has been in talks to go public at an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2020/07/17/pandemic-power-payments-company-marqeta-could-fetch-8-billion-in-ipo-doubling-value/#3a7e25491c9e">$8 billion valuation</a>, four times&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2019/03/26/it-took-three-tries-but-this-entrepreneur-transformed-his-struggling-startup-into-a-2b-unicorn/#4cdfdd23706d">what it was valued at in March of 2019</a>. That would give CEO Jason Gardner, who owns an estimated 10% of Marqeta, a stake worth $800 million.



Meanwhile, the $2 trillion-plus CARES Act Congress passed in March, with its $1,200 per adult stimulus checks, student loan payment holiday and (now expired) $600 a week unemployment supplements, helped many Americans keep financially above water—and some digital banks like Chime to prosper. 



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<h3 class="has-text-align-center has-vivid-red-color has-text-color wp-block-heading">Debit It!</h3>



<h4 class="has-text-align-center has-white-color has-black-background-color has-text-color has-background wp-block-heading">Spending on the travel and luxury items U.S. consumers typically put on credit cards has fallen with the pandemic, while spending on debit card necessities is up.</h4>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



In the second quarter of 2020, amid Covid lockdowns and fears, consumers slashed spending on travel, restaurants and luxury items they usually put on their credit cards, but continued to spend on necessities and smaller items—the sort of things they’re more likely to pay for with debit cards. During that quarter, Visa credit card transaction volumes were down 24% from the year before, while debit card transactions were up 10%, according to research firm MoffettNathanson. And debit cards (rather than checks or credit cards) are the spending vehicle most frequently offered by fintech neobanks like SoFi, Dave and MoneyLion.



San Francisco-based digital bank Chime, in particular, has used the stimulus payments to its advantage. In mid-April, about a week before the $1,200 government-stimulus checks started hitting Americans’ accounts, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2020/04/09/digital-bank-chime-now-offering-stimulus-check-advance-to-100000-users/#40758dfb1c10">advanced customers that money</a>, eventually extending over $1.5 billion. “Following the stimulus advance, we had the largest day for new enrollments in the history of the company,” CEO Britt reports.



The pandemic has depressed total consumer spending, and the unemployment rate remains at a high 8.4%—two factors that affect Chime’s middle-income customer base. Yet on a per-user basis, “average spend per customer is up over last year,” Britt says. “Part of the reason for that is the government programs around stimulus payments and unemployment.”&nbsp;



Today, Chime’s annualized revenue is running at a $600 million rate, according to a person familiar with the private company’s numbers. At its eye-popping new valuation of $14.5 billion announced along with a $485 million fundraise in mid-September, venture capitalists are valuing the company at 24 times its revenue. Some investors are asking if Chime should get such a lofty value when Green Dot, a publicly traded fintech that offers checking accounts and prepaid debit cards for low-income customers, trades at two times revenue. “We really look more like a payments-processing business,” answers Britt. That’s because virtually all of Chime’s revenue comes from interchange—the fees merchants pay when Chime’s users swipe their debit cards. The company doesn’t make money on interest through its new secured credit card (that’s a starter card where the holder puts up money to cover his or her credit limit), although Britt says he doesn’t rule out lending in the future.&nbsp;



Now Britt himself has sailed into the “three comma club.” Forbes estimates his Chime stake is at least 10%, meaning his holdings are worth $1.3 billion-plus (Forbes applies a 10% discount to all private company holdings). And he’s planning an IPO. “Over the next 12 months, we have a number of initiatives to get done to make us even more IPO-ready,” he says.&nbsp;



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-812x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47930" width="286" height="360" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-812x1024.jpg 812w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-scaled-300x379.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-scaled-600x757.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-238x300.jpg 238w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-768x969.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-1218x1536.jpg 1218w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-1624x2048.jpg 1624w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1027918206-scaled.jpg 2029w" sizes="(max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px" /><figcaption>Robinhood Co-Founder and Co-CEO Baiju Bhatt. (Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch)</figcaption></figure></div>



Then there’s the Robinhood phenomenon. The boredom of being stuck at home, wild stock market swings, and government stimulus checks have turned some Millennials and Generation Zers into day traders and options players. Robinhood’s most recent fundraising round in September gave it an $11.7 billion valuation and its cofounders a paper net worth of $1 billion each. But considering Morgan Stanley’s $13 billion February acquisition of E-Trade and Schwab’s earlier purchase of TD Ameritrade for $26 billion, some think Robinhood could garner a $20 billion valuation if it went public or were acquired. 



If there’s one fintech segment that has been an unalloyed pandemic winner, it’s the business Afterpay is in: online point-of-sale installment financing. It’s benefitting from both consumers&#8217; shift to online buying and their reluctance, in these uncertain economic times, to take on new credit card debt.



While Afterpay’s Nick Molnar and Anthony Eisen hit billionaire status in July, their competitors aren’t far behind. Take Klarna, which was founded in Stockholm in 2005 and entered the U.S. market in 2016. Two of the three founders, Sebastian Siemiatkowski and Niklas Adalberth, met while flipping patties at a Burger King in Sweden. They pioneered the buy-now, pay-later model in fintech, calling it “try before you buy” and letting people own products for 30 days before making their first payment. (That’s a lot more attractive than old-fashioned layaway, the store system once popular for Christmas gifts and large appliance purchases, in which buyers had to make all their installment payments before getting an item.)



Klarna charges retailers 3% to 4% of each transaction—slightly lower than the 4-5% Afterpay charges—to offer its service. One key difference that separates the two companies: Klarna is becoming a full-fledged financial services business. It became a licensed bank in Sweden in 2017 and offers longer-term financing of up to 24 months, with interest charged, for high-ticket items like laptops sold through a small number of retailers. Siemiatkowski has already turned Klarna into a digital bank in Europe with a debit card for spending on everyday purchases. He’ll likely do the same in the U.S. soon.



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1193300011-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47928" width="350" height="233" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1193300011-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1193300011-scaled-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1193300011-scaled-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1193300011-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1193300011-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1193300011-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" /><figcaption> Co-founder and CEO of Klarna Sebastian Siemiatkowski . (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch)</figcaption></figure></div>



The pandemic has catapulted Klarna’s business onto a steep trajectory. By the end of 2020’s first half, its U.S. customer base hit nine million, up&nbsp;<a href="https://www.klarna.com/assets/sites/15/2020/08/27060125/Press-release-Klarna-interim-report-January-June-2020.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">550%</a>&nbsp;from the same period the year before. Globally, 55,000 consumers are downloading the Klarna app every day, more than two times last year’s pace. Klarna is now available in 19 countries, has 90 million users and expects to bring in more than $1 billion in revenue this year. When it raised a new round of funding last week, its valuation nearly doubled from a year ago, hitting&nbsp;<a href="https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna-announces-650m-funding-round-to-further-accelerate-global-growth" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$10.7 billion</a>.



Cofounder Victor Jacobsson has a 10% stake, while Siemiatkowski’s has 8% in the still-private company. (Niklas Adalberth retains just 0.4% after selling some shares to fund his philanthropic organization and investing in startups. Neither he nor Jacobsson are still involved in Klarna.)



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;Affirm has also enjoyed a special Covid kicker from pricey home fitness gear. Since 2015, it has powered financing for Peloton, and it now finances purchases of Mirror </blockquote>



Not surprisingly, as the installment purchasing fintechs gain more customers and attention, they’re also facing additional scrutiny from regulators. In March, Afterpay agreed to fork over&nbsp;<a href="https://dbo.ca.gov/2020/03/16/point-of-sale-lender-afterpay-agrees-to-cease-illegal-loans-pay-refunds-in-settlement-with-the-department-of-business-oversight/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$1 million</a>, including $905,000 in consumer refunds, after California’s Department of Business Oversight (DBO) concluded the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.afterpay.com/en-AU/terms-of-service#:~:text=Late%20Fee%3A%20%2410%20Late%20Fee,the%20payment%20is%20still%20unpaid." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">late fees</a>&nbsp;Afterpay charges meant it was running an unlicensed lending business. “Afterpay rejects the view that the Company operated illegally,” the Australian company said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.afterpaytouch.com/images/17032020-US-Regulatory-Settlement.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">statement</a>. “While Afterpay does not believe such an arrangement required a licence from the DBO, Afterpay has agreed to conduct its operations under the DBO licence as a part of this settlement.” A spokesperson adds that Afterpay “has been applying for, and has been granted licenses [in other states] where needed.” In 2017, Klarna was fined $15,000 in New Hampshire for operating without a lending license. Today Klarna has such licenses in every U.S. state.&nbsp;



Another fintech winner in the installment-payment business is Silicon Valley-based Affirm, the creation of serial entrepreneur Max Levchin, a founder of PayPal, which itself<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2020/08/31/paypal-enters-installment-loan-business-targeting-fintechs-affirm-and-afterpay/#1b1568291478"> jumped into the installment business</a> just last month. Between <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/4VcgC4xW0MfEm41WiO1FBR?domain=affirm.com" target="_blank">November 2019</a> and <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/f0yMC5yAGNi3xkGKtO8dp_?domain=affirm.com" target="_blank">July 2020</a>, Affirm nearly doubled its U.S. users to 5.6 million. It raised $500 million last week at a valuation of more than $5 billion, up from $2.9 billion last year. While Levchin’s exact stake is undisclosed, it’s likely worth hundreds of millions. 



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-style-default"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1155293772-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-47929" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1155293772-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1155293772-scaled-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1155293772-scaled-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1155293772-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1155293772-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GettyImages-1155293772-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption> PayPal Co-Founder &amp; Affirm CEO Max Levchin. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>



Affirm has also enjoyed a special Covid kicker from pricey home fitness gear. Since 2015, it has powered financing for Peloton, whose sales have surged as affluent young consumers, missing the motivation of group exercise classes, have flocked to buy the $2,000-plus stationary bikes with their streaming workout classes. Affirm also now finances purchases of Mirror, the hot $1,495 in-home fitness coaching device acquired by Lululemon this summer.&nbsp;



Of course, the fintech companies’ current lofty valuations depend on consumer spending staying strong and consumers retaining some of the online shopping habits they’ve developed over the past six months. With a pre-election agreement between Congress and the White House on a new stimulus package looking unlikely and the future course of Covid-19 unknown, there are no guarantees. But for now, these fintechs are riding high.



By Jeff Kauflin, Forbes Staff &amp; Eliza Haverstock ,Forbes Staff



With additional reporting by Max Jedeur-Palmgren.

TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 – Day 2

The Pandemic Plutocrats: How Covid Is Creating New Fintech Billionaires

As millions of people continue to rely on video-conferencing amid the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom is benefiting—shares of the e-video company surged by over 40% on Tuesday morning, a day after it reported blowout second quarter earnings that easily topped analyst estimates.



KEY FACTS



The tech company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/08/31/2086444/0/en/Zoom-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results-for-Fiscal-Year-2021.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">posted revenue</a>&nbsp;of $663.5 million last quarter, compared to the $500.5 million forecast by analysts, and profits of 92 cents per share (versus 45 cents per share expected).



Revenue more than quadrupled from last year, growing 355% on an annualized basis.



Zoom added nearly 105,000 new customers in the second quarter, with new customers’ subscriptions delivering&nbsp;<a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/08/31/2086444/0/en/Zoom-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results-for-Fiscal-Year-2021.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">81% of revenue growth</a>.&nbsp;



Zoom is one of the best performing stocks so far in 2020, largely weathering the pandemic-induced sell-off in March and rising by more than 370% year to date.



The company now expects revenue between $685 million and $690 million in the third quarter, and also raised its financial guidance for the full fiscal year to almost $2.4 billion as it takes into account growing “demand for remote work solutions for businesses.”



“Zoom crushed its second-quarter results and once again substantially raised full year revenue guidance,” says Morningstar analyst Dan Romanoff, adding, “While it was virtually impossible to top last quarter’s once-in-a-generation results, Zoom delivered a tremendous encore.”



CRUCIAL QUOTE



“Organizations are shifting from addressing their immediate business continuity needs to supporting a future of working anywhere, learning anywhere, and connecting anywhere on Zoom&#8217;s video-first platform,” said Eric Yuan, Zoom’s founder and CEO, in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/08/31/2086444/0/en/Zoom-Reports-Second-Quarter-Results-for-Fiscal-Year-2021.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">press release</a>.



SURPRISING FACT



At the beginning of the year, Zoom had a market cap of $19 billion. Today, that number has risen to more than $125 billion.



CHIEF CRITIC



While Zoom is a “recognized market leader in meeting software,” Morningstar still sees the stock as overvalued. Although the firm significantly raised its estimates, assigning a fair value of $153 per share—from $116 per share, that is still far below the more than $450 per share that the stock is trading at today. “We still cannot support the current share price within our discounted cash flow model,” Romanoff wrote in a note on Tuesday.



KEY BACKGROUND



Zoom reported revenues of $328 million in the previous quarter, a yearly increase of 169%. Its stock has been on a tear for much of 2020, rising steadily as demand for remote working solutions like video-conferencing skyrocketed amid the pandemic. More and more people have become dependent on Zoom for business, education and personal usage as government officials directed people to stay at home around the world.



FURTHER READING



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/08/31/stocks-just-had-the-best-august-since-1984-but-history-shows-trouble-is-on-the-way/">Stocks Just Had The Best August Since 1984, But History Shows Trouble Is On The Way</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/08/31/billionaire-leon-cooperman-warns-investors-of-stock-market-euphoria-and-shares-three-big-risks-to-an-economic-recovery/">Billionaire Leon Cooperman Warns Investors Of Stock Market ‘Euphoria’ And Shares Three Big Risks To An Economic Recovery</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/08/28/us-tech-stocks-are-now-worth-more-than-9-trillion-eclipsing-the-entire-european-stock-market/">U.S. Tech Stocks Are Now Worth More Than $9 Trillion, Eclipsing The Entire European Stock Market</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/08/28/heres-why-a-tiktok-deal-makes-sense-for-walmart/">Here’s Why A TikTok Deal Makes Sense For Walmart</a> (Forbes)



-Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes Staff

Tag: Technology

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