🖥️ Wikipedia is making money moves

PLUS: Why the FTC didn’t stop Google’s monopoly. Brought to you by The Hustle together with Mailbrew. March 18, 2021 [The Hustle] TOGETHER WITH [Mailbrew]( GOOD NEWS: The IRS is extending the tax filing deadline until May 17 (from April 15). BAD NEWS: You will owe the same amount of money. The Big Idea [Wikipedia]( Big Tech loves using Wikipedia. Now, the free site is planning an enterprise product. Chances are, you use Google to find answers. Chances also are, Google uses Wikipedia to find answers to your questions. Partly because of this -- and other cases like it -- Wikipedia’s site [traffic]( has remained static for years. That’s a problem for the Wikimedia Foundation -- a nonprofit that relies on site traffic to drive donations that support its existence. And Big Tech is the main culprit Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and others leverage Wikipedia’s content for a wide range of commercial purposes, including: - The “infoboxes” displayed in search engine results - Virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa - Information on digital maps - Fact-checking tools on Facebook and YouTube The Wikimedia Foundation is fully [aware]( that Big Tech invests big money into reworking Wikipedia data for its own products. So now Wikimedia wants to make their lives a whole lot easier Any company can freely use Wikipedia data through a clunky [API](. But Wikipedia-reliant products need teams of people to clean up and manage data. So, the nonprofit is building the Wikimedia Enterprise API -- designed to quickly deliver cleaned, tailored data paired with high-level customer service -- to make the process easier, faster, and a whole lot cheaper. The enterprise move is a long-term sustainability play Individual donations aren’t going anywhere -- Wikimedia estimates ~8m readers will donate this year at an average of $15 per donation. In 2019, the foundation [raised]( $122m, up 18.5% YoY. But as Wikipedia’s content is increasingly drawn from the site rather than viewed on wikipedia.org, the foundation sees a need to diversify its revenue streams for the long run. It’s a strategic move from one of the world’s most successful internet companies (the [13th]( most-visited site in the world) -- that also just so happens to be a nonprofit. [Share on Facebook]( [Share on Twitter]( [Send as email to a friend](mailto:?subject=The%20Hustle%20wrote%20something%20I%20think%20you%27ll%20like...%0A&body=Big+Tech+loves+using+Wikipedia.+Now%2C+the+free+site+is+planning+an+enterprise+product.%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthehustle.co%2F03182021-big-tech-loves-wikipedia%3Futm_campaign%3DWikipedia%26utm_content%3D03182021-big-tech-loves-wikipedia%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Ddaily%0A%0AYou%20can%20subscribe%20with%20my%20link%20here%20to%20get%20the%20latest%20in%20tech%20and%20business%20daily:%0A [View on our website]( Snippets - Apple dumps supplier: The company reportedly [cut]( ties with Chinese supplier Ofilm over allegations of involvement in a government program to transfer ethnic minorities from Xinjiang to work in other areas. - Zuck cracks down: Facebook [announced]( a swath of new group moderation rules in a broad effort to lower the temperature on the platform and stop the spread of misinformation and harassment. - A new AI copywriting startup -- rightly named Copy.ai -- [raised]( a $2.9m funding round led by Craft Ventures. The company offers automated copywriting tools built atop Open AI’s mind-blowing [GPT-3](. - Opendoor founder Keith Rabois is going stealth with his new startup OpenStore (wonder where he got the name). The [new venture]( reportedly plans on buying up a bunch of smaller ecommerce businesses. - Weed gets its own Shopify: Dutchie -- a 4-year-old [startup]( out of Oregon that helps dispensaries run websites and process orders-- raised $200m at a high $1.7B valuation. - Not your grandparents’ bank: Crypto wealth management is a new [reality]( at Morgan Stanley, the first major US bank to offer wealthy clients access to funds that enable ownership of bitcoin. - Fed Chairman Jerome Powell (AKA J Pow) said that he doesn’t expect to raise interest rates through [2023](. Unsurprisingly, stonks responded to the news by stonking and the Dow closed above 33k for the first time ever.  New Funding Alert Airtable and the unbundling of Microsoft Office You probably used a Microsoft Office product this morning. Whether that be Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or… gasp… Teams. Unsurprisingly, this part of Microsoft’s business -- dubbed Business & Productivity -- is a complete cash cow, bringing in [$10B+]( a quarter. Where there’s money… … there are companies sniffing around. No one has sniffed harder than Google, which jacked recreated Office with Google Workspace (e.g., Sheets, Docs, Slides). But there are also many startups building products to [unbundle]( the individual Microsoft Office tools: - Notion is building a more collaborative and feature-filled alternative to Word - Figma is a better visual-creation tool than PowerPoint - Superhuman is creating a better email experience than Outlook To see how lucrative the opportunity is, look no further than Airtable -- an alternative to Excel that just raised $270m at a $5.8B valuation. Airtable’s secret sauce… … is that it is a no-code platform, as explained by [Forbes](. You can do all the spreadsheet-y stuff you do with Excel, but you can also customize it to create software tools… without having software experience. Airtable is supercharging its functionality by building the equivalent of an App Store for the product, allowing 3rd-party creations into the ecosystem. The startup already has 250k+ users, and its enterprise customer base -- the bread-and-butter for Microsoft -- is up 350% YoY. As long as startups leave =SUM() alone, unbundle away. [Share on Facebook]( [Share on Twitter]( [Send as email to a friend](mailto:?subject=The%20Hustle%20wrote%20something%20I%20think%20you%27ll%20like...%0A&body=Airtable+and+the+unbundling+of+Microsoft+Office%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthehustle.co%2F03182021-airtable-unbundling-microsoft-office%3Futm_campaign%3DWikipedia%26utm_content%3D03182021-airtable-unbundling-microsoft-office%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Ddaily%0A%0AYou%20can%20subscribe%20with%20my%20link%20here%20to%20get%20the%20latest%20in%20tech%20and%20business%20daily:%0A [View on our website]( SPONSORED Stop scrolling. Seriously Here at The Hustle, we need to stay on top of everything. Hot news, hot tweets, hot links, you name it. We literally spend hours scrolling feeds so that you can enjoy the la crème de la crème every day. Luckily we get a single daily digest with all we need to check, thanks to[our friends at Mailbrew](. In fact, it takes 5 minutes to set up a Mailbrew digest with: - Top tweets from our favorite accounts - Hottest news from the best RSS feeds on any topic - The can't-miss links going around today - Even your actual stocks and crypto So if you're tired of scrolling, go[check them out](. [Sign up for free →]( Big Tech Antitrust Unreleased FTC documents detail Google’s monopoly playbook In the last year, a total of [3 antitrust lawsuits]( have been brought against the Big G. One -- from the US Department of Justice and filed in October -- claims Google used anti-competitive tactics to maintain its monopoly over mobile and desktop search. This isn’t Google’s first antitrust rodeo Far from it. [Politico]( recently uncovered FTC documents from 2012 that detail a probe by antitrust investigators into Google’s search practices focused on, you guessed it, Google’s mobile search. The documents disclose Google's internal playbook to maintain search dominance in the early days of smartphones -- the forgotten days of Microsoft smartphones, Yahoo, and Gangnam Style. Evidence like: - “Humongous” payments to wireless carriers to keep Microsoft and Yahoo out - A deal with Apple to share 50% of ad revenue for the first 5 years and 40% thereafter to remain the default search engine on Safari. - Emails between Google executives and wireless carriers stating Google is “paying revenue share *in return for* exclusivity” - Android Chief Andy Rubin advocating for Verizon to drop Bing so Google would “own the US market” in an email to then-CEO Eric Schmidt But no lawsuit was brought against Google The FTC antitrust attorneys who conducted the investigation recommended an antitrust lawsuit be brought against the company, but the 5 FTC commissioners at the time sided with the staff economists. The economists argued the mobile search market in 2012 was too small to bring an antitrust lawsuit. Fast forward a decade, Google is still being Google, and mobile search is no longer desktop’s little bro. Your move, feds. [Share on Facebook]( [Share on Twitter]( [Send as email to a friend](mailto:?subject=The%20Hustle%20wrote%20something%20I%20think%20you%27ll%20like...%0A&body=Unreleased+FTC+documents+detail+Google%E2%80%99s+monopoly+playbook%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fthehustle.co%2F03182021-unreleased-ftc-documents-google%3Futm_campaign%3DWikipedia%26utm_content%3D03182021-unreleased-ftc-documents-google%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Ddaily%0A%0AYou%20can%20subscribe%20with%20my%20link%20here%20to%20get%20the%20latest%20in%20tech%20and%20business%20daily:%0A [View on our website]( Have you launched a business during the pandemic? We’d like to hear from you: What motivated you to get it off the ground during such a trying time? How’d you pick what industry to focus on? What have your biggest challenges been? Please take a minute to [fill out our quick survey](. We’ll be pulling together anonymized results for a story in an upcoming Sunday email. SPONSORED Learn something new today [The Great Courses Plus]( gives you direct access to over 13,000 on-demand video streaming lectures taught by award-winning professors and experts. We’re talking seriously useful, [crazy-interesting courses]( like: - Understanding Economics: Game Theory - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Daily Life - The Great Tours: Ireland and Northern Ireland After you’ve watched those courses, you can take a [Virtual Tour of Italy](, learn to cook from expert chefs, and learn to speak a new language – it’s all just a click away.  As a special offer, you can get 20% off your annual subscription and start scratching that knowledge itch in 2021. [Get 20% off →]( Stat of the day Is this a buy or sell signal? (Source: SOPA Images / Getty Images) SPAC forecasts are bonkers. One of the most controversial features of the public listing craze known as special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) is that these deals regularly give long-term revenue forecasts. According to the [Wall Street Journal](, the traditional IPO process “strongly discourage[s]” this practice. SPACs -- with lighter regulatory touch -- are happily throwing projections out. A major trend is electric vehicle (EV) companies forecasting insane revenue growth. These 3 EV companies all project to hit $10B in sales within 3 years of hitting the market: Faraday Futures, Fisker, and Arrival. To give an idea of how unlikely these targets are, consider how long it took leading public companies to reach $10B in sales, per WSJ: - Google = 9 years - Facebook = 11 years - Tesla = 11 years - Amazon = 12 years It’s not just new EV companies making future forecasts either. Earlier this week, German car giant Volkswagen held a [Power Day]( (aping Tesla’s Battery Day concept) touting its new car battery technology called “unified cell.” The presentation was very slick, but the tech won’t be available until 2023. Other heady VW [projections]( include 450k+ EV deliveries in 2021 (double last year) and 3m units per year by 2025. Investors praised this forward-looking news. Volkswagen stock is up ~50% since last Friday. Ambassador Giveaway [giveaway details]( Win a profitable SaaS business with a working product, happy customers, and MRR Don’t spend years going from 0-1. Instead, win a proven business you could scale, earn passive income from or flip. Here’s how: We’ve partnered with [MicroAcquire]( to give away a SaaS business valued at up to $25k. All acquisition costs will be covered and the winner will get a profitable business with little to no overhead costs or day-to-day work required. How to enter: Copy and paste your referral link: and share it with as many people as you can. The ambassador with the most referrals between Monday 3/8, 8:30 AM PT and Friday 4/2, 11:59 PM PT will win. P.S. You only need 101 referrals to take the lead. Get ideas on how to share your referral link [here.]( [Share to Win →]( How did you like today’s email? Today's email was brought to you by [Trung Phan](, [Jacob Cohen](, [Kolby Hatch](. 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