New loop, who dis? Welcome to the biggest refresh of The Inner Loop since its inception! I hope you like the new format. Suss out the ‘Jimmy’s Notes’ section if you want to have a bit more of a read on why it’s been all dressed up. Otherwise, this week covers: Australian Fintech and Startups / Big Tech / Spotlight: Neuralink / Potpourri / Jimmy’s Notes / Trivia. Dig in:
Australian Fintech and Startups 🇦🇺
Neobank ‘Hay’ released their roadmap. Hay’s been iterating on their product at light speed. Awesome to see. Link
Fintech ‘Plenti’ (formerly Ratesetter) is looking to list on the ASX. Link
Corporate expense platform, Divipay, released rewards Product to complement their core product offering. Also, their site is looking slick as. Link
The interim report on the Senate Inquiry into BNPL has been overly supportive of BNPL providers, suggesting that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to regulation could potentially smother the industry. Great outcome for BNPL providers. ASIC’s report, which will likely be more critical, is due next month too. Link
Big Tech 🖥
PayPal released a BNPL product - Pay in Four. Given PayPal’s global reach and how they’re integrated pretty much everywhere (especially the giants like eBay, Amazon etc) - it means that existing merchants can just ‘turn it on’, and new merchants will not need to go through integration with other BNPL providers. Link
Spotlight: Neuralink 💡
Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
"None of these advances are close at hand, and some are unlikely to ever come about,"
MIT Technology Review on Musk’s Neuralink
Elon Musk’s neuralink update presentation was this week and felt like something out of Black Mirror. It was complete with three pigs at various stages of brain implants, with their devices sending a heap of signals to a giant screen, with people watching, 1.5m in awe. You can watch the totally unsettling video here. Thankfully - it’s been heavily disputed by scientists, including those at MIT, who wrote a scathing article in response here.
Potpourri
Images: Aeroglphys drawn with Drone light. Link
Interesting read: Braess’s Paradox. Adding one or more roads to a network can slowdown overall traffic through it. Link
Nice stats: Zip by the raw numbers, since 2016. Link
Trivia (answers @ the end)
(a) What three US states border Lake Superior?
(b) The word haptic pertains to which of the five senses?
(c) Solve the following anagram: “BEST IN PRAYER”, rearranged to make a Protestant denomination:
Jimmy’s Notes
You’ll notice everything’s looking a little different. For the last 2.5 years or so, I’ve been using MailChimp as my main email tool. Don’t get me wrong - the product is bloody awesome. It’s also especially impressive that, as a product, it was bootstrapped for so long. But I’ve wanted to mix things up for a while.
Substack has big appeal: It’s a clean design and super easy to read across any device. It also acts as a blog, meaning the writing flows a little easier. It allows people to comment on the posts and promotes interactivity. It handles image, video and embedded content incredibly well. And the speed to publish is insaaanely quicker than on MailChimp. (also, my friend Oli has been doing one called ‘Curio’ for a while, and I was so impressed by how well it reads).
So, apologies for an interruption to the cadence over the last few weeks. I’ve been sussing out a bunch of tools that could better serve this newsletter’s purpose.
I’d love to know what you think of the new format in reply.
Have a ripping weekend.
Trivia Answers 👇
(a) Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota
(b) Touch
(c) BEST IN PRAYER = Presbyterian
better. VT