Happy Friday. Welcome to The Chaos Coordinator! We are Brain Candy's snarky little sister, delivering carefully curated news happening across the industry (that you should probably care about) right to your inbox, with a hefty dose of irreverence.
In this issue, we dive into:
Money-Market Funds
Tech M&A
The Five Stages of Fintech
The FTC and OpenAI
Summer Playlist for Marketers
What's happening in.....
PE/VC
Third Time's the Charm?
The SEC is back with new guidelines for money-market funds.
U.S. regulators rewrote the rules for money-market funds for the third time in 15 years in hopes of preventing bailouts in times of turmoil, as investors continue to pour money into these funds this year, reports the WSJ. The reforms include requirements for money market funds to hold a greater portion of their assets in highly liquid investments and to have stricter limits on exposure to riskier assets. The aim of the reforms is to enhance the funds' ability to withstand market stress and reduce the likelihood of investors facing losses or eventually needing government intervention in times of financial instability. SEC Chair Gary Gensler said the new fees would have a similar benefit as the swing-pricing proposal, but would be easier for fund managers to put into action. “The rules will make money-market funds more resilient, liquid and transparent,” he said.
Microsoft-Activision deal "could open the flood gates for more M&A in tech."
Jefferies Senior Analyst, Brent Thill, sat down with Yahoo Finance to share his take on the future of M&A deals in the broader tech space in light of the impending $69 billion deal between Microsoft and Activision. According to Brent, if this deal successfully closes, confidence will only go up and companies will continue to move forward towards potential M&A activity despite the government's 'hell no' attitude towards dealmaking in tech as of late - "if it's good for the consumer, the government can't just block everything."
The best things come in 5s - vowels, great lakes, and the stages of fintech.
The role of fintech in the financial services space is evolving at a rate that is so fast, it's almost impossible to follow, forecasted to achieve a total value of $556.58 billion by 2030. This accelerated growth can be attributed to a number of factors, however the widespread integration financial technology and APIs, as well as the fusion between traditional and digital banking is what has made the global fintech space the very embodiment of a growth market, reports TechRound.
Check out the five stages of fintech and a breakdown of how the space has evolved here.
GENERATIVE AI
"We Outside" - The FTC
This agency is not letting this summer heat stop them from causing a ruckus. Not one bit.
The FTC has opened an expansive investigation into OpenAI, attempting to unveil whether the company violated consumer protection laws by endangering users' personal reputations and data, reported The Washington Post. This week, OpenAI was sent a 20-page demand for records from the FTC questioning how it addresses risks related to its AI models. While this has been the strongest regulatory threat to the startup thus far, this investigation is yet another high-profile effort by the FTC to rein in big tech. As Reuters reported earlier this summer, "global regulators are aiming to apply existing rules covering everything from copyright and data privacy to two key issues: the data fed into models and the content they produce."
What exactly does this investigation entail moving forward? Read more here.
MARKETING
Cleaned the Kitchen and Made Dinner Without Having a Podcast On
And that's because LinkedIn's 'Summer Playlist for Marketers' is blasting. It's all about balance.
For marketers "looking to update their playlists with a series of tunes that can infuse your leisurely listening with a hint of career relevance and inspiration," LinkedIn has got you covered, with a playlist full of songs "ready to make your marketer sensibilities dance."
