Today we explore:
For most of you reading this your life is probably very different now to how it was even a month ago. We dove into Google's data to see exactly how life is changing for millions of people around the world -- and the results are pretty interesting.
Some people are taking up a new hipster hobby like brewing beer or making sourdough bread. Some are keeping in shape while worrying about a recession and trying to find some strategies to deal with cabin fever. Others are just frantically trying to get some toilet paper delivered or get a decent haircut.
If we were able to see search data at the individual level we'd probably be able to build different profiles of how people are spending quarantine.
That would reveal what's probably a substantial divide within this data; that the people searching for "how to keep kids busy" are probably not the same people taking up relaxing, but messy, hobbies like brewing beer or making sourdough bread.
Whatever you're doing to get through this pandemic, keep it up.
This week Norway quietly tapped Nicolai Tangen, a hedge fund manager from the city of Kristiansand, to be the next CEO of its sovereign wealth fund. Someone getting a job at a central bank of a relatively small European country isn't usually that newsworthy, but Norway's sovereign fund isn't like any other.
The fund was set up so that Norwegians could benefit from the North Sea oil reserves for many generations to come after the oil runs out. The first money was transferred to the fund in 1996, and just 23 years later, the total value of the fund crossed 10 trillion Norwegian Kroner, which is about $1.05 trillion US Dollars.
That means that Mr. Tangen is now responsible for investing the largest sum of capital in the world. At the end of 2019 the fund had almost $200,000 (USD) worth of assets for every man, woman and child who lives in Norway. It feels crazy to have to say this, but that is not a typo.The fund owns stakes in more than 9000 different individual companies around the world, and those investments have paid off handsomely. More than half of the value of the fund has come from return on investments, with only about a third from actual deposits from oil revenues.
The fund has strict limitations placed on it by the Norwegian government. It may only invest abroad, and there are strong ethical guidelines for investments, which are likely to get stronger over the coming years. No pressure, Nicolai.
With millions of people quarantined at their homes, video streaming services like Netflix are seeing record surges in demand. The New York Times reported that Netflix's viewership had surged 28% in the last few weeks. So video streaming is doing great, but what about music?
We explored the data from Spotify's top 200 chart for the UK, which has now had significant social distancing for more than 2 weeks, to see if we could find any clues.
Surprisingly the numbers suggest that music streaming won't be able to bank on a big boost as video did. So far the numbers for the last 2 weeks look pretty much exactly the same. If anything, they might actually show a slight fall in how much people have been listening to Spotify.
The data says a lot about how we use music in 2020. The fall is less surprising when you consider that during more "normal" times, the amount of music streamed on Spotify peaks every Friday, before falling substantially over the weekend -- when most people actually have much more free time.
It suggests that people use music streaming as more of a distraction from boredom, say work or commuting, rather than an out-and-out leisure activity in its own right. Sorry Spotify (and artists), it looks like no coronavirus boost for you.
1) The owner of the Houseparty app is offering $1m to anyone who can prove that they were the victim of a smear campaign, amidst online rumours that the app was a security risk that had led to other services being hacked.
2) John Krasinski, who played Jim on The Office, has launched a good news YouTube channel and has already racked up 10 million views on the first video.
3)Xerox has dropped its attempted $34bn takeover of HP, which is a company roughly 6x its size.
4) Peloton shares are still trading 5% below their IPO price. Should they be worth more? Make your own mind up with the charts and graphs from GraphicOne.**
5) The Tiger King documentary from Netflix has gone fully viral. Amidst the crazy there's a powerful message; that more tigers live in captivity in the US (around 5000), than live in the wild (around 3,900).
6) This simulation is one of the best we've seen at simulating how a virus spreads, flexing how contagious the disease is and different social distancing policies, in a stylised video.
**This is a sponsored snack.
