Break out the Bud Heavy

Because it's Friday and we're not on a diet. [The Hustle]( Fri, Mar 3 Snap’s IPO: Everything you need to know Snap [made its trading debut yesterday]( and as expected, the internet went ‘nanners. Opinions! Up-to-the-second reports! Unique angles! Therefore, we figured the best way to cover everything would be with a grab bag of sorts, as opposed to a single, in-depth analysis. Here goes. First, we need to correct an error (and maybe teach you something) In yesterday’s email, we said that “Snap stock officially began trading at $17 per share.” That’s incorrect -- it began trading at $24. The $17 number was Snap’s “offering price,” while the $24 was its “opening price.” Our mistake. What’s the difference? Here’s a [great article]( to explain, but in short, the offering price is what underwriters large institutions (like money management firms and investment banks) buy shares for before they reach the open market. The opening price is what individual investors like you and me pay. “I keep hearing everyone talk about the ‘first-day pop.’ What’s that?” Snap’s shares closed at $24.48, which was up $7.48 (or 44%) from its offering price. That 44% “pop” is both good and bad. Why it’s good: A big IPO pop generates headlines and, since Snap will sell more stock in coming years, the higher the share price is, the better (obviously). Why it’s bad: If you’re Snap, you want the underwriters and large institutions that bought at $17/share to make some profit. But a 44% pop? That’s high (ideal pop is in the 20% range) and means bankers may have underpriced Snap’s shares. Remember -- every dollar above $17 is money that Snap didn’t get (since it already sold at $17). So they left some money on the table. Next up: A brief summary (in numbers) of what happened - 200 million. The estimated number of shares that changed hands throughout the day, roughly 10% of total trading volume at the NYSE. - $28.33B. Snap’s market cap at close. In comparison, Google’s was [$27.2B]( Twitter’s was $24.46B, and Facebook’s was $81.74B. - $936m. Snap’s expected 2017 revenue, which means investors think it’s worth roughly 30x that number. - $272m. The amount of money co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy each made on the offering. They both only sold 16m of their roughly 211m shares, though. The remaining shares for each of them are worth about $5.3B. Good day/bad day Lots of people made a fortune yesterday, including that high school we wrote about recently, whose $15k investment in Snap’s seed round was worth a cool [$50m at Snap’s opening price](. Then there’s Chris Sacca, who runs VC firm Lowercase Capital and is occasionally on Shark Tank. On Twitter yesterday, he [shared an email]( he received from Murphy back in 2012 suggesting he come by for lunch (clearly to try and get him on board as an investor). Unfortunately, Sacca never replied. And finally, an article for the road… Because reading is fun and company culture/office functionality matters. Snapchat’s IPO Filing Comes With An Unusual Investor Warning ([Washington Post]( In addition to your typical risk factors, Snap’s filing also included an unusual one: the company’s dispersed office buildings and lack of a designated HQ keep employees “siloed” and could “negatively affect employee morale.” [Stocks, man]( Amazon, they’re just like us! Turns out, tech giants struggle with typos too. Difference is, our bugs make your email late… and Amazon’s take out 20% of the internet. According to the company’s [blog post]( Amazon Web Service’s four-hour server outage -- which handicapped sites like Slack, Quora, and Medium -- was caused by human error. In their words: “An authorized S3 team member using an established playbook executed a command which was intended to remove a small number of servers for one of the S3 subsystems... Unfortunately, one of the inputs to the command was entered incorrectly and a larger set of servers was removed than intended.” Basically, some sleep-deprived employee with huge pickle fingers (let’s call him Ralph) tried to speed up the program, and instead took a bunch of servers offline. This [caused a cascade of failures]( that forced the entire S3 system to reboot… and cost companies in the S&P 500 index $150m. “AH, F*CK.” -- Ralph, probably. “Wait, you’re telling me one dude could do that much damage?” Or lady (Ralphina?). But seriously, come on, Amazon. We don’t blame Ralph’s pickle fingers, we blame you for not having a failsafe. The company says it’s adding safeguards to prevent engineers from taking server capacity below a minimum level, and recover more quickly in emergencies. Nevertheless, this is just another reminder of how dependent we are on a just a few companies (and fingers, apparently) to supply our sweet, sweet internet. [Classic pickle fingers]( Programmers vs. whiteboards For many programmers, exams aren’t over when they graduate -- they still have to make it through the dreaded “[whiteboard gauntlet]( This infamous interview format popularized by Google, where candidates must solve convoluted questions and write algorithms on a whiteboard, is all too familiar to developers on the job hunt. But [many of them feel that that it's unrealistic]( and is keeping talented developers with diverse backgrounds from entering the industry. So they’re starting to revolt Recently, David Heinemeier Hansson, (CTO of Basecamp and creator of programming language Ruby on Rails) took a dig at the whiteboard nonsense, tweeting: “I would fail to write bubble sort on a whiteboard. I look code up on the internet all the time. I don't do riddles.” (pssst, non-techies -- a “bubble sort” is a basic algorithm). DHH’s tweet ignited a chain reaction, as coders began sharing their dirty developer secrets about how everyone googles code they can’t remember. Heck, that’s what the internet is for. I mean seriously, no one can remember every algorithm off the top of their head -- and it’s a waste of time to try. That’s why these interview tests are kind of silly Having to regurgitate obscure algorithms without reference materials is like taking a calculus exam without a calculator. There’s just no scenario in the real world where you wouldn’t be able to use those external resources. In fact, there are entire websites, like [Stack Overflow]( created for developers to ask questions and help each other out when they get stumped. Because frankly, sometimes just asking someone who’s done it before is more efficient and practical than trying to reinvent the wheel. Ultimately, this type of gamified grill session [puts self-taught developers]( at a disadvantage, and, much like the SATs, has created a market for expensive interview test prepping. So hiring managers, while the idea of getting a bunch applicants to perform mental feats of strength on a whiteboard may seem sexy, it’s certainly not the be-all-end-all for finding top talent. [Expo markers down]( Beer Pong in Hong Kong is all wrong… At least that’s what purists of the “sport” are saying about the city’s faster-moving version called “double cherry rules.” “The rules are stupid. Period,” 26-year-old Georgetown grad (classic) Marc Simmons [told The Wall Street Journal](. “The double cherry requires absolutely zero skills.” To understand the difference, let’s first look at the “traditional” rules While the core idea is simple (toss more ping pong balls into your opponent’s cups than they do), beer pong rules vary from table to table. Some people play with “on fire” (sink three consecutive shots, and your turn continues), some allow bounce shots (sink a cup off the bounce and the other team has to remove two cups), etc. That’s the “house party” world, though. At the pro level (and at the annual [World Series of Beer Pong]( or WSOBP), those convoluted rules have been removed, thus favoring skill over pure luck ([here are the official rules](. Got it. So back to Hong Kong -- what’s different? Basically, bar owners realized they’d make more money off pong players if games were quicker (more games = more beer sold) and less about skill (more participation). Thus, the “double cherry rules” were born. (As a baseline, every player gets two throws per turn, which is how the WSOBP does it, too): - Double cherry: If you sink the front cup twice on your first turn, six of the 10 cups are removed. - First blood: If you sink the front cup once during your first turn, three cups are removed. - Single cherry: If you sink the same cup twice during the same turn, four cups are eliminated. - Ball in combo: If you sink two different cups in the same turn, three cups are eliminated. As you can see, it’s all about speeding up the game and making even the biggest noob at the bar feel like they could ride a brief hot streak to victory. These business-friendly rules aren’t going anywhere, either… In fact, they were incorporated into PongCONNECT, the digital beer pong table that’s already in 60 bars throughout Hong Kong and performing well with 50,000 games played each month. Pretty crazy to think that even a frat house party game can be commercialized. Is nothing sacred? [Balls back]( friday shower thoughts - They should sell scratch-offs for 99 cents so you have something to scratch it off with. - A really underrated accomplishment is that toilets don’t require power to flush. - Bill Gates is like a video game character who's unlocked everything. All he can do now is self-imposed challenges like cure malaria to keep things interesting. - The first guy to hear a parrot talk was probably not okay for a few days. - My parents taught me to be kind, work hard, and save an unnecessary amount of plastic bags under the sink. - via [Reddit]( This edition of The Hustle was brought to you by Do you know your credit score? You don’t. Stop lying. Here’s the thing, though -- you probably should! Scratch that, you DEFINITELY should! Here’s a few reasons why: - Your score determines your ability to qualify for loans and get better interest rates when borrowing. - Want to buy a house one day? You’ll need good credit. - Better credit score = better credit card rewards. - You know how your mom keeps telling you that you need to “stop acting like you’re still in college because this is the real world now?” Checking your credit score would be a great way to change the narrative. Also… Thanks to [NerdWallet]( it’s quick, free, and easy to do so, meaning there’s really no excuse not to know what it is. So go on, [check it](. [Check that score]( person reading these words on their phone (or is it your computer?). You’ll be glad that you did. Oh, and while you’re on [NerdWallet’s website]( definitely browse around. Whether it’s information about what credit card to buy or tips on investing, it’s the absolute best resource for all your personal finance needs. Happy Friday. 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