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| Presented By Facebook |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Nov 28, 2020 |
| 🛍️ It's Small Business Saturday, a worthy time to support your neighbors' shops. It's often not a lot of trouble for you, and means a lot to them. - Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,092 words ... 4 minutes.
⚡ Situational awareness: L.A. County announced a three-week stay-at-home order (not as severe as the one in the spring), starting Monday: - "All public and private gatherings with individuals not in your household are prohibited, except for faith based services and protests, which are constitutionally protected rights." Go deeper.
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| 1 big thing: The unicorn stampede is coming |
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| Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios |
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| Airbnb and DoorDash plan to go public in the next few weeks, capping off a very busy year for IPOs. You ain't seen nothing yet, Dan Primack writes: - "The real story of 2020 is that it's just the preview for 2021, especially if there's a vaccine and the economy roars back," a tech IPO banker tells Axios.
- Another banker, based in San Francisco, adds that he regularly participates in multiple "bake-offs" on the same day for large tech IPOs.
There are over 500 "unicorns," or upstart companies valued at $1 billion or more by venture capitalists. More than half of those are based in the U.S., and around two dozen are valued at more than $5 billion. - Among the better-known names are ByteDance (owner of TikTok), SpaceX, Instacart, Epic Games (maker of Fortnite), Coinbase and Stripe.
- Then there are the lesser-known cloud software companies seeking to become the next DataDog or Snowflake — valued at a combined $4.6 billion entering 2020, now trading with combined market cap of $130 billion.
There's also been a recent boom in special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which represent another way for startups to go public — including those that might not be ready to do a traditional IPO, like electric vehicle makers. - Most of the SPACs formed in 2020 will seek out targets in 2021.
The bottom line: There used to be only a handful of unicorn IPOs per year, due to a limited pipeline, making each one a major Wall Street event. Those days are over. 💰 Get the full Primack: Hear his afternoon "Re:Cap" podcast ... Sign up for his daily Pro Rata deals newsletter. |
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| 2. Ambush could cripple Iran nuclear quest |
| This photo, released by Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency, shows the scene of the killing. Via AP Israeli officials briefed several media outlets in Israel that without the scientist assassinated yesterday on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran will have a hard time continuing its nuclear program, Axios' Barak Ravid reports from Tel Aviv. - Iranian army commander Mohammed Bagheri admitted the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was a huge blow to the republic's defense establishment.
Why it matters: This is a new peak in the maximum pressure campaign led by the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government against Iran. - But Barak Ravid tells me that while this is indeed a blow to the Iranians, the nuclear program is too advanced to depend on one person.
All signs point to Israel: The killing bore the hallmarks of a military-style ambush. Israel has yet to comment publicly. |
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| 3. 👟 Remembering Zappos visionary Tony Hsieh, 46 |
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| Tony Hsieh in Vegas in 2015. Photo: FilmMagic via Getty Images |
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| Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) — who revolutionized shoe e-commerce as CEO of Zappos, and became the face of Vegas revitalization — died at 46 yesterday after being injured in a house fire, his lawyer told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. - Hsieh's mantra (and the title of his book): "Delivering Happiness."
Axios' Kia Kokalitcheva writes that Hsieh was known for non-hierarchical management "where everyone has a voice and bureaucracy doesn't stifle innovation," as the N.Y. Times put it in a 2015 profile. - After the 2008 recession, Hsieh made ongoing investments in downtown Vegas.
- He invested in Zappos in 1999 and grew the online shoe seller. In 2009, Hsieh sold for about $1.2 billion to Amazon, where he stayed until stepping down as Zappos CEO in August after 21 years.
Read a statement from Zappos about Hsieh's death. |
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| A message from Facebook |
| Facebook supports updated internet regulations |
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| We support updated internet regulations to set clear rules for today's toughest challenges and hold companies, including Facebook, accountable for: - Combating foreign election interference.
- Protecting people's privacy.
- Enabling safe and easy data portability between platforms.
Read more |
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| 4. Remind you of your kitchen? |
| Photo: Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images Great white pelicans eat fish from farmers at a reservoir in the Hefer Valley, north of Tel Aviv, yesterday. - 50,000 pelicans stop off in Israel during their annual migration from the Balkans to Africa, where they enjoy a mild winter before returning to Europe.
The intrigue, via Getty Images: The birds rest and feed for weeks, causing chaos for fish farmers, whose outdoor pools and reservoirs provide rich pickings. - Farmers have tried to deter the birds with loudspeakers and laser beams, and by firing blank rounds from rifles.
- In their desperation, they came up with another way — a free lunch.
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| 5. For history: Scathing ruling sinks POTUS in Pa. |
| President Trump speaks in the Diplomatic Reception Room on Thanksgiving. Photo: Erin Schaff/The New York Times via Getty Images N.Y. Times Quote of the Day ... Judge Stephanos Bibas, writing on behalf of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling that the Trump campaign could not stop or try to reverse the certification of the voting results in Pennsylvania: Voters, not lawyers, choose the President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections. Go deeper: Read the 21-page opinion. |
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| 6. Barron's: Ford stock could double |
| Illustration: Daniel Downey for Barron's Ford — once a leader in reputation, revenue and profits — trails far behind some rivals in the race to produce electric and autonomous vehicles, Al Root writes in the new Barron's cover story (subscription): - "Ford's standing with investors hasn't been helped by the fact that it is on its third CEO in six years."
- But CEO Jim Farley, 58, has domestic and international experience at Ford and Lexus that equip him "to deal with Ford's quality and efficiency issues, and to lead it into an electric future. If he succeeds, Ford shares could surge."
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| 7. How to prepare kids for lean holidays |
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| A drone view of residents lining up last weekend at a food distribution site in Clermont, Fla. (west of Orlando), sponsored by Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida and local churches. Photo: Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images |
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| In her column for WashPost Sunday Business, Michelle Singletary talked to Neha Chaudhary — a child and adolescent psychiatrist on the faculty of Mass General and Harvard Medical School — to help parents talk to children about their financial situations. I like Chaudhary's advice: - "The more direct you are the better, because children pick up on uncertainty and ambiguity, and that can make them feel more stressed than the actual content that you're delivering. Older kids especially will know when you're sugarcoating."
- "If budgets need to be tightened, parents should consider having a family meeting to share the changes so that the kids aren't caught off guard when there are less food-delivery nights ... Managing expectations up front will help lessen disappointment later."
Chaudhary said that if money is extremely tight, "parents should consider sharing with their kids that the holidays might look a little different": - "Explain that it might look different from their friends' holidays too, and that that's okay, because every family is going through something different."
- "It's a great time to focus on forms of giving that are thoughtful but don't cost much, like a family drawing night, cooking meals together, writing each other stories or making each other a coupon book of things you'll do for one another."
Keep reading. |
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| 8. Trending: Santa Zooms |
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| Photo: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images |
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| Santa and an elf, Pipkin, Zoomed yesterday from Newquay, England, with children throughout the country — including Gwen, Rory and Zoe Godfrey in Crantock, England (below). - A partnership lets Santa meet children safely in their homes. For every session booked, a 10% donation goes to Children's Hospice South West.
Photo: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images |
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| A message from Facebook |
| It's time for updated regulations to promote data portability |
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| We joined tech partners in Data Transfer Project to build a framework that enables people move their data securely and easily between platforms. But there's more to do. We support updated regulations to ensure data is safe, portable and used responsibly. Read more |
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| 📬 Thanks for starting your weekend with us. Please invite your friends to sign up for Axios AM/PM. |
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