Dear reader,
1Komma5° boss
Philipp Schröder
(40) and Enpal CEO
Mario Kohl
(39) are among the biggest climbers in recent years. They grew rapidly when other start-ups were already collapsing. But at Enpal, internal documents raise doubts that, despite all the growth, the business will be as profitable in the future as Kohl predicts. And there are also problems with 1 point 5°. So how sustainable is the business of solar high flyers?
We're addressing this question in today's top story! These are our topics this week
:
Inside report: The problems of solar newcomers Enpal and 1Komma5°
Failure of an ex-SAP manager: Why the hyped AI start-up Nyonic falls apart
Column: How the crash of X (formerly Twitter) is becoming a problem for Elon Musk
Filmed dismissals on TikTok: Why this is dangerous in Germany
Exclusive research: The Battle of the Solar Boys
The two solar start-ups
Enpal
and
1Komma5°
have quickly become billion-dollar companies; investment banks are already promising 1Komma5° a market value of 6 billion euros in confidential documents. But internal documents show: Problems are increasing at Enpal - and 1Komma5° is also taking dangerous shortcuts. My colleagues Christina Kyriasoglou and Jonas Rest have analyzed the situation of the solar climbers: Will they soon fall again?
Heads: Feiyu Xu ++ Brad Smith ++ Philipp Westermeyer ++ David Reger ++ Frank Hassler ++ Petra von Strombeck
Hyped AI company in crisis: The Berlin start-up
Nyonic , founded by
Feiyu Xu
(54), the former AI boss at SAP, and a former OpenAI manager,
actually wanted to build European AI for Europe's industry. But now the company is falling apart. My colleague Mirjam Hecking explains the background.
There are also rumblings at
Xing
: corporate veteran
Frank Hassler
(51) is leaving the board of Burda's digital subsidiary New Work. Their boss
Petra von Strombeck
(54) is currently fighting to save her core business.
Microsoft President
Brad Smith
(65) was able to announce good news: At a meeting with Chancellor
Olaf Scholz
(65; SPD) on Thursday in Berlin, he explained that the company would invest 3.3 billion euros in the expansion of data center capacities over the next two years wants to be in Germany.
Philipp Westermeyer
(44), head of the media brand
OMR
, is known in his team as a notorious latecomer. He told my colleague Katharina Hölter which dates are really important to him and how he made it into Kim Kardashian's (43) calendar.
David Reger
(35) and his robotics company
Neura Robotics
are competing against Tesla boss Elon Musk (52): Unlike Musk, the founder from Metzingen in Baden-Württemberg already has the first robots on the market. My colleague Mirjam Hecking introduces the man in whom an early Musk investor claims to have recognized a “young Elon”.
Column: Crash of X
Today's column is also about Elon Musk. Since Musk took over Twitter (now
X
), the social media platform has been in decline. Columnist and investor
Philipp Klöckner
analyzes why the decay could accelerate - and why it is becoming a problem even for the richest man in the world.
Round-up: OpenAI ++ Airbnb ++ Earlybird ++ AI.Fund ++ Tinder ++ Lyft
Mira Murati
(35; CTO of
Open AI
) and her team are building new functions for ChatGPT: A memory function should now expand the chatbot's possible uses. In addition, Open AI is apparently secretly working on a search engine.
The dating app
Tinder
is facing a class action lawsuit. Accusation: The app is addictive.
In view of the slowing growth, the rental platform
Airbnb
has announced that it wants to expand into new business areas. CEO
Brian Chesky
(42) is also launching a $6 billion share buyback program – much to the delight of shareholders.
There is new money from the German venture capitalist
Earlybird
, which is launching a new healthtech fund worth 173 million euros. Meanwhile, the AI-focused
AI.Fund
is launching in Hamburg with a volume of between 35 and 50 million euros. The person behind this is, among others, Point Nine co-founder
Fabian Westerheide
(37).
The ride-hailing service provider and Uber rival
Lyft
, on the other hand, earned less money than announced : A typo in the business forecast (a small zero too many) ensured that the price initially shot up by more than 60 percent - and then, after the correction Tippers, dropped steeply again.
Number of the week: $1.83 trillion
The absolute darling of the stock market this week is the chip manufacturer
Nvidia
. Its stock market value has climbed to $1.83 trillion, even exceeding that of Google's parent Alphabet. This means that Nvidia is now the third most valuable company in the USA behind Apple and Microsoft.
Skilling me softly: TikTok cancellations
Perhaps you have recently come across videos on
TikTok
and Co. in which former employees of big tech companies secretly filmed their resignations? Companies are already afraid of damage to their image due to the new social media trend (#layoffs). A labor law expert explains why you shouldn't do this in Germany.
Even more crisis advice:
What companies can learn from young start-ups and their ambitious founders in the current difficult times - three tips from our colleagues at Harvard Business Manager.
Error 404 – that was missing: glasses tester of the week
Meta
CEO Mark
Zuckerberg
(39) tested Apple's Vision Pro. Conclusion: His significantly cheaper Quest 3 VR glasses not only offer the better price-performance ratio that was expected before the test. After the test, he even thinks “that the Quest is the better product, period.” The best-known Apple product review was of course delivered by
Steve Ballmer
(67) as Microsoft boss about the iPhone 2007. (Although some think that Zuckerberg isn't all that wrong.)
And that’s it for this week’s “Tech Update”, we’ll read it again next Friday.
Questions, comments or criticism are always welcome to: tech-update@manager-magazin.de.
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Many greetings
Sarah Heuberger