In today’s newsletter we discuss Hugging Face is the coolest AI startup name and they’re growing faster following OpenAI’s last few fubar weeks, SpaceX bought a bankrupt parachute company, We’re only 10 days away from Taylor Swift’s Bday and the release of her Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry might buy a new home in LA, and Cristiano Ronaldo in the hot seat over his NFT collection.

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Business

With all the drama surrounding Sam Altma’s firing, then rehiring, by OpenAI, it’s easy to forget they aren’t the only horse in the AI race. Another hot AI company, with probably my favorite startup name of all time, is Hugging Face who lets users create interactive, in-browser demos of machine learning models that let users showcase and test models more easily.

In an interview with reporters Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue said:

“I think a lot of companies, organizations now are kind of wondering about the risk about outsourcing their AI to just one AI provider. It creates, obviously a single point of failure for them — a little bit for the field too — so they’re investigating different solutions.”

While Hugging Face wouldn’t reveal how much new business they have picked up in the wake of the OpenAI drama, they have shared they have more than 50,000 organizations on the platform, and 10,000 paying customers which must be bringing in a nice chunk of change. Hugging Face now hosts more than 500,000 AI models, 250,000 datasets, and hosts over 1 million repositories. The company now has a head count of 170 employees as of August.

Hugging Face operates in the MLOps category of tools for streamlining the process of taking AI models to production and then maintaining and monitoring them. The MLOps market is projected to reach $16.61 billion by 2030.

According to an article on Hugging Face in TechCrunch they said “Hugging Face recently worked with Nvidia to expand access to cloud compute via Nvidia’s DGX computing platform. It has a partnership with Amazon to extend its products to AWS customers and leverage Amazon’s custom Trainium chips to train the next generation of Bloom. And Hugging Face collaborated with Microsoft on Hugging Face Endpoints on Azure, a way to turn Hugging Face-developed AI models into scalable production solutions hosted through Azure.”

Hugging Face is based in New York, and has raised a total of $395 million over 6 funding rounds, including their latest Series D funding round where they raised $235 million from heavy-weights including Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Salesforce, AMD, Intel, IBM and Qualcomm. Hugging Face has a valuation of $4.5 billion, which is reportedly more than 100 times their annualized revenue.

OpenAI rival Hugging Face says it's seeing more client interest after Sam Altman fiasco

Tech

For a company with only one other acquisition under their belt, news came out recently that SpaceX has made their second acquisition; this time acquiring the assets of a parachute company out of bankruptcy. So what does SpaceX want with a parachute company?

Well, it turns out making space-rated parachutes is very hard. SpaceX is known for making everything they use, but when it comes to parachutes they’ve always purchased from a small Florida company Pioneer Aerospace. So when that company’s parent company Aviation Safety Resources (ASR).

And the price tag paid by SpaceX, which was recently valued at a sky high valuation of $150 billion, was a paltry sum of just $2.2 million (yes, you read that correctly - I said million). I mean, that’s just about a rounding error for a company of SpaceX’s size, but because they bought the assets out of bankruptcy they apparently got a pretty good price when apparently no one else was interested.

SpaceX acquires parachute company for $2.2M, because it turns out space-rated parachutes are very hard

Crypto

Those quick NFT cash-grabs are coming back to haunt some celebrities. This time it is Cristiano Ronaldo in the hot seat, and buyers of his Binance NFTs.

The lawsuit “alleges that Ronaldo's promotion of Binance was "deceptive and unlawful." Binance's partnership with high-profile figures like Ronaldo, the plaintiffs claim, led them into costly and unsafe investments.” according to an article on ESPN.

I remember when these launched. It was the height of the NFT bubble, and demand for any celebrity attached NFTs was through the roof.

Cristiano Ronaldo launched his NFT "CR7" collection with Binance in November 2022just before the 2022 World Cup. The NFTs had a starting price between $77 to $10,000, and  featured seven animated statues depicting Cristiano Ronaldo including iconic moments in his life, from bicycle-kick goals to his childhood in Portugal.

Now that the NFT market has crashed, those buyers have some crypto-related buyer’s remorse it would seem. I’m of the opinion that everyone should do their homework, and if they decide to buy something then they are responsible for their own actions. Imagine if these NFTs had instead gone up to the price levels of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs that regularly sell for between 6 and 7-figures. I’ll bet those same buyers would have been pretty happy, and bragging about how smart they are. So when do people cry when the price crashes and they lose their money? You can’t have it both ways. In the speculative art world there are always going to be winners and buyers, but just as in any market do your own research, or DYOR in crypto speak.

Cristiano Ronaldo faces $1B class-action suit over Binance NFTs

Entertainment

We’re only 10 days away from Taylor Swift’s Bday, and what better way for Swifty Nation to celebrate than to watch her new Eras Tour streaming on her birthday! That’s right, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert film will debut on streaming services everywhere and be available to rent or buy starting on her birthday December 13.

In a post on social media Taylor Swift said:

“I was thinking a fun way to celebrate the year we’ve had together would be to make The Eras Tour Concert Film available for you to watch at home! Very happy to be able to tell you that the extended version of the film including ‘Wildest Dreams,’ ‘The Archer’ and ‘Long Live’ will be available to rent on demand in the US, Canada & additional countries to be announced soon starting on … you guessed it, December 13.”

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour opened in theaters on Oct. 13 through a distribution agreement directly with AMC Theaters, in place of a deal with a conventional major film studio. Since then, it has raked in more than $248.9 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing concert film at the U.S. box office.

The Eras Tour wrapped up its first U.S. leg this Summer, and included 56 shows so far. So far the Eras Tour has grossed $780 million, with tickets selling for an average of $253, and more than 3 million fans have attended her concerts.

By the end of the worldwide Eras Tour, it is estimated it could make a total of $5.7 billion, which would be a massive boost to the entertainment industry and the economies of the countries along the tour’s path.

Taylor Swift will celebrate her birthday by sending her ‘Eras Tour’ to streaming

Real Estate

It sounds like Meghan Markle and Prince Harry might be in the market for a new home. Meghan’s again focusing on her Hollywood career, with more of an emphasis on behind the scenes producing for now). Their current home in Montecito, CA is about 2 hours away without traffic, which in LA you just know there’s gonna be traffic on the 101. To be closer to work, and still have a good work-life-balance they’re looking for a new place in Los Angeles.

To save them some time, I checked out some listings on ZIllow and found the perfect house for their family (the Selling agent can just cut me a commission check when they close, that’ll be fine). This 6 bedroom, 9 bath home sits on just under 1 acre, and has city-to-ocean views.

If Meghan and Harry do end up buying a new estate in Los Angeles they should really consider paying cash. During the first week of December 2023 the current interest rate for real estate in Los Angeles national average 30-year fixed rate mortgage APR is 7.50%.

If they buy a $20 million dollar estate, and put down the typical 20% which would come out to $2 million dollars, then they’d be taking out a $18 million dollar loan which would come along with a hefty monthly payment of $145,691. Assuming they don’t pay off the mortgage early (which they probably would, especially if she lands another role in a hit TV show), they would end up paying $52.5 million dollars after taxes and interest on an $18 million dollar loan. That’s $34.5 million dollars more than the $18 million dollar loan you originally took out. Interest costs are a killer!

The average real estate agent commission in California is 5.5%. If Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are buying a new home typically the Sellers pay the commission when the same is completed, but the exiled royal couple might be looking at a realtor’s commission of around $770,000 when they sell their current $14 million dollar Montecito mansion. Ouch, even for royalty that bill is gonna hurt!

So my suggestions are they find a buyer for their current Montecito home and avoid paying the 5.5% realtor fees, then put in an all cash offer on the LA house, skip the high mortgage rates, and schedule a quick closing. Then this royal couple will be ready to conquer Hollywood.  

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle ‘plan to sell’ $14M Montecito mansion, eyeing LA move

Zillow

So much news, so little time. Until tomorrow we’re signing out.

— Chris