🏢Continuing the Work of DEI, No Matter What Your Company Calls It🏢

So Joelle Emerson from Paradigm wrote an really interesting piece on continuing DEI work despite the backlash. Take a read here

🛒Doubling down on DEI🛒

Costco has shuts down its shareholders demand to ditch DEI hiring practices stating "‘Our Board has considered this proposal and believes that our commitment to an enterprise rooted in respect and inclusion is appropriate and necessary,’"

Well we know where we will be shopping, read more here

👀We're we right👀

So let's take a look at what we said at the beginning of 2024 to see if we were right

Economy and VC

• Interest rates will stay high (less than 1 percentage point cut) meaning a resistance in the capital markets to splurge cash and therefore levels of VC funding won't gallop back. ✅  << We were right

• VC funding will increase across the board and folks decide somewhat reluctantly they have to get on with things 😥  << VC funding didn't bounce back really

• Oh and we won't see much more (maybe just a little (<1% percentage point) proportionally go) anyone but the usual subjects ✅  << We were right sadly😥

Workplace

• Layoffs aren't over ✅  << We were right sadly

• 3 days in 2 days out will become the norm when it comes to flexible work ✅  << We were pretty on the ball

AI

A few here. 

1. Well see some major acquisitions or PE style activity as the costs of going up against the big AI companies becomes more and more apparent and difficult to fund  🤷🏽‍♀️<< maybe we were a year too early 😅

2. The big boys will double down on their own chips to capture some of that chop growth we've seen Nvidia hoover up and also to help boost their own vertical integration to reinforce more reliance if them as they're the only cash rich organisations able to do it ✅  << We were pretty on the ball with that although they still love the Nvidia ones

3. Well see more companies freeze hiring and backfilling roll as they encourage staff to explore how AI can boost their own operational productivity. The most aggressive will lay off some people not specifically because of AI but not backfill the roles because of AI ✅  << We were pretty on the ball

4. AI security companies will receive more funding as folks clock on to the risks that AI poses to infrastructure safety << 🤷🏽‍♀️ to be fair we didn't see a massive uptick on this

5. Google won't want to admit it but AI will become one of its most frequent searches ❌ <<< Not quite 

6. AI itself will fall into the trough of disillusionment as firms struggle to adopt it at pace, fears regulations start to mire some of the more rapid innovations possible and there is no great leap forward on chip capability until 2025. Apart from people using it more, we don't expect a big leap forwards in terms of enterprise adoption or use case capability for the many not the few. <<<< ❌ sort wrong of in the sense of the growth in inflows to AI focused stocks would suggest differently✅

Lawsuits

• We expect the EU will go to town over Elons positions on X. So much so we predict a temporary pause on X where it withdraws elements of user functionality in the EU. We consequently predict it's private sectors valuation to continue to decline despite record user figures as advertisers continue to shun it <<< ❌ the EU didn't massively go after Elon or X but its valuation did continue to decline right up to december where there was a small uptick

VR

• Apple's vision pro won't revolutionise the way anyone does anything or Apple's balance sheet <<< ✅ We were definitely right about that 

Individual companies

Meta will launch a range of Ai tools that are better than people know as the noise will be swallowed up but plucky upstarts or some of the folks spending far more considerable bits of attention to their own PR and marketing of their activities. As a result we suspect their share price will rocket continuing on the trend as one of the top performers this year as they avoid the gaze of much regulatory headwinds <<< ✅ We were definitely right about that 

Google We reckon the walled garden will start to crumble as it will face some choppy waters as it's defensibility around search being to strain under dual pressure of further antitrust ruling and disruption to search from competitors <<< ✅ you may think we have a crystal ball after they were found to be a monopolist

Microsoft will plod along and become one of the top stock picks as Satiya becomes MVP CEO combining enterprise cloud solutions with further aggressive pushes in AI <<< ✅ We were pretty on the ball although the top stock pick was still Nvidia 

Society

• Election interference fuelled by fake news bits and AI will be unprecedented and cause real reasons to challenge the credibility of election results <<< ✅ more so in Eastern Europe than we are aware of in the western ones

DEI,

• Women will get a small increase in the funding by deals and volumes largely stirred on by more funds and larger funds dedicated to supporting them. ❌ <<< Not quite Less money across the board pretty much

• Nonetheless for ethnic minority or global majority (depending how you look at it) will still stay statistically insignificant  <<< ✅ unsurprising perhaps 

Oh and BTF 2024 will be bigger and bolder in our 5th edition but that's a given! <<<< We always knew that though 😜

So what?

We weren't that far off the mark to be fair. Maybe we should have taken a little flutter

🤖2025 predictions  🤖

So now it's time to see what we think for next year

Economy

• Crypto: We think Trump will do a few big things for the world of crypto. On the macro side, his appointments and general outlook for the currency will keep the balloon broadly inflated. We expect a short-term rally ahead of his inauguration, and then his occasional tweet storms, flanked by Elon, will see meme coins in particular have some very prominent spikes. As traditional currencies are linked to the performance of the world economy, we anticipate folks looking for alternative stores of value will give crypto a go. To the moon eh🚀

• MAG 7 continues to rise: We think they'll continue to defy gravity as the S&P roars to 7,000 and broadly pumps the value of the U.S. economy. It may not make sense on paper, but we feel it a little in our loins.

  • Regulators will cool down, having bitten off a lot to chew on antitrust regulation in the Biden years, as Trump plays kind to the tech bros📈
• TikTok will never be banned: We anticipate the app will never disappear from the app stores due to interventions from the president-elect📲

• VC will continue to be slow: Economic volatility from the USA means folks continue to keep the powder dry with value and volume of deals not doing more than 10% on most metrics from this year💰

Workplace and AI

• More companies will follow suit from Amazon and demand everyone returns to the office🏢

• AI: The trough of disillusionment is here as newer models don't do much to impress us or change the way anyone does anything in 2025. Some of the text-to-video tools will produce impressive moments and worry the folks at the big advertising agencies as they move into production more🤖 (We'll say it again haha)

Individual companies 

• 👩🏽‍💻Meta: Meta will quietly go about its business, trying to avoid the crosshairs of scrutiny as first signaled by its change in policy head from Nick Clegg to Republican Joel Kaplan.

• 🧑🏾‍⚖️Microsoft: Microsoft will be the key focus of regulators' eyes, with more scrutiny on its bundling of cloud, productivity, AI, and workplace solutions.

• 🔎Google: Google will spend a lot of the year fighting its Monopoly judgment while continuing to push its dominance from search into shareholder-happy earnings reports as they start to become more skeptical about its AI spend.

• 💻Nvidia: Nvidia won't see 2022 or 2023 growth, but we think it will still be one of the best-performing stocks, outpacing the market in general as spend on AI continues to grow.

• 🚙Tesla: Tesla will find it hard as Chinese competition and traffic eats into its prospects outside of the USA. It'll ship a cheaper model as the Cybertruck fails to take sales to a new meaningful level and will discount, hitting profitability. Elon will have his work cut out shaping government policy to help Tesla and not its competitors.

DEI

• We'll see some big-name CDOs depart big-name companies👋🏾
• The fuss will die down as people quietly get on with business without branding or doing things that are seen as overtly DEI🙈

So what?

Let us know if you agree with the predictions

🪦RIP to the tech we lost in 2024🪦

• NFTs: Remember them? Well, Twitter removed support for NFTs in profile pictures, which signaled to many who weren’t already convinced that the game was up. Interest waned as the broad tech bros failed to actually explain to anyone why they would pay top-tier prices for what is basically a JPG😅

• The Apple Car:🚙
  Okay, so this one never actually launched, but it was shuttered after reported billions were spent. There were some white-hot scathing write-ups about why. Apple could (and probably still could) have bought Tesla or made a series of smarter steps earlier in the journey. But for those who were hoping to see an Apple car, your best bet now is probably some Grox-inspired AI vision.

• Getir: Remember those purple boxes on the backs of mopeds? Well, Turkiye's startup success wasn’t able to crack the international market and has withdrawn back into domestic operations.🏍

• Facebook at Work: Using Facebook at work was never something encouraged, and it turns out Meta realized that too. They made the decision to shut down their Workplace product, which was essentially an enterprise version of Facebook for work.😅

• The Twitter-like tab: ❤️Yep. Back in the day, we used to see the activity of the folks we followed on Instagram, and likewise, what people on Twitter liked. Well, that virtual ability to stalk has taken a hit as we can’t see what people are liking anymore on X. Some will say, "Great, I can now like that naughty stuff I shouldn’t in peace," while some politicians will breathe a sigh of relief. Quietly smiling will also be the bot farms, who can artificially pump up likes on certain posts with less scrutiny.

So what?

What do you think will die next year? 

📈 The tools behind the tech📉

📦Product📦

• Things we learned about LLMs

📏Design📏 

• A free figma library
• Draw something generative 

👩🏿‍💻Code👩🏿‍💻

• Teaching AI to write better code

• Teaching AI to read code like a developer

🏢The business behind the tech🏢

• Encouraging folks to speak up

• Dropbox Engineer Career framework

• An Engineering Leader’s Job Search Algorithm

🙌🏾Dojo🙌🏾

New Event all about Professional Growth with Dojo

On Jan 21st, Dojo is teaming up with Colorintech to host an exclusive event focused on professional growth, where you get to hear from extraordinary people about how to progress and grow when you’re later in your career!

Firstly, we’ll have a fireside chat with Dojo's CRO, Rohan Pradhan, on 'Stepping into Leadership' where he’ll share his lessons learned as: 

Deliveroo's COO (Chief Operating Officer) / CSO (Chief Sales Officer);

A founding team member of Amazon's Prime Now's 1 hour delivery service for third party merchants; 

As a founder of Chefstro.

Then we’ll have an insightful panel on 'Progression and Growth into Senior Career Positions' with:

 Faith McKenzie - Customer Service Team Manager at Dojo 

 Matt Dennis - Software Engineer at Dojo

 External Guest: Zeella Labram - Senior Product Manager at Microsoft

Lastly, we'll also have DELICIOUS food and drinks catering courtesy of Dojo! 

This event is a great opportunity for those who have a few years of experience in their careers and are looking to progress into senior roles.

Please see the key details below:

Date: 21st January 2025
Time: 18:00 - 21:30 BST
Location: London, W2

Would you like to make professional growth your new year's resolution? If so, then be sure to register your interest for a space using the link below:

https://lu.ma/d7k9uu0m

🙌🏾ARM jobs🙌🏾

Check out the latest roles at arm as there is something for everyone from Software to Social Media and Hardware to ... well Accounts

Senior Revenue Analyst
Senior Financial Accountant
Social Media Specialist
Staff Firmware Engineer
Hardware Application Engineer

🙌🏾Entrepreneur In Residence📽

For our final day, we're having a greater focus on post Series A insights and support, where you'll be hearing from:  

 Husayn Kassai

-> Former CEO and Co-Founder of Onfido ($650m+ Exit)
-> Current CEO and Founder of Quench.AI

 Louise Hill

-> Founder and CEO of GoHenry (Valued $200m+)

 Amman Ahmed

-> Founder and Former CEO of Music for Pets ($50M Exit entirely Bootstrapped)

This opportunity is ideal for founders who have:

Raised a seed round or equivalent of £500k+/ or have an ARR of over £100k 

You can commit to attending in person in London on the 22nd Jan;

Based in the UK.

If you're interested,

Date: 22nd January 2025
Time: 8:00 - 15:00 
Location: London.

Application Link: https://form.typeform.com/to/C7QTAONU

🙌🏾Women in AI🙌🏾

Meta are hosting a Women in AI event in their Kings Cross office on 20th January from 5pm– 8:30pm. The aim of the event is to bring together women from across the AI ecosystem - researchers, policymakers, developers, founders, and investors – for an evening of talks and networking.

There will be three talk tracks – Research, Build, Invest – followed by time for networking. We’ve got some excellent speakers lined up, and we’re now opening the invite for sign ups – see here. 

😃What we are consuming😃 

1. 🥰 The power of small acts of inclusion

2.💡 Sam Altman's reflections

3. 📈Fidelity ups its valuation of it's X holdings

4.👶🏾Generation Beta is born

5. 🇫🇮How finland made people happy