Gm. Jason here for my first solo edition. If you're mourning the weekend this Monday, you're in the wrong place. Let's go get it.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

META

Sleeping With One Eye Open

The Meta Quest Pro was unveiled on October 11th.

With it, came a new update to Meta's privacy policy called The Eye Tracking Privacy Notice. Meta says if you agree to share additional info, this will "help Meta personalize your experiences and improve your Meta Quest".

We already knew eye-tracking was coming. No surprise there. Zuck appeared on The Lex Fridman Podcast and revealed that eye-tracking would be used to make virtual conversations seem more lifelike. But what else will it be used for?

Some are speculating that eye-tracking will be used to serve users ads in the metaverse. With AR glasses on the way as well, this data may be used to serve up ads in AR and VR.

Zuck's Metaverse

With the rebrand, Zuck decided to bet it all on the metaverse. Now, he's doubling down.

But, it's not exactly working.

58% of the company's employees say they don't understand the company's 'metaverse strategy'. Meta just lowered their goal from 500,000 monthly active users (MAU) on their VR platform Horizon Worlds to 280,000 by year-end with less than 200,000 current MAU.

It's easy to laugh at Zuck and call him a dork.

But, let's not forget this guy built Facebook from nothing. If he manages to get the world onboard with his vision, would it really be that shocking?

NFTs

The Great Royalty Debate

When an artist sells a physical work of art like a painting, that is the only time they see a paycheck. NFTs promised something different.

With NFTs, artists could set royalties at a percentage of the sale price. Because all transactions were on-chain via smart contracts, this meant every time an NFT traded wallets, the artist was reaping the benefits.

Since the bear market started, a new crop of NFT marketplaces popped up which did not enforce NFT royalties.

Wait, Royalties Aren't Enforceable???

It turns out that royalties are enforced via the marketplace — not the smart contract.

Because all NFTs are on a public programmable blockchain, this means all that was needed was for some devs to build a new marketplace that called the NFT data and didn't set royalties.

Well that's exactly what they did.

Platforms like SudoAMM, X2Y2, Yawww, and Solanart popped up that didn't require traders to pay creator royalties. These have been hurting the big boys.

Magic Eden's Response

After losing marketshare, Solana's biggest NFT marketplace Magic Eden announced they were making royalties optional on the platform. This of course means most traders will opt for zero royalties.

"Royalties are important for artists long term," tweeted popular NFT artist Amber Vittoria. "In 20, 30, 40 years when my career becomes my living dream, I too (and my family) should benefit from my decades of hard work, not just a collector who bet correctly."

NFT Now founder Matt Medved put it a bit more bluntly, tweeting, "0% royalties are a non-starter. We’re not going back to web2 bullshit."

Preach, Matt. We agree.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: Avraham Eisenberg exploited DeFi hub Mango Markets for $117 million in what he called a "legal" and "highly profitable" trading strategy, but then gave back $67 million back when he realized users couldn't access their funds. Ummm, ok.

Story we're watching: Students are using GPT-3 to write their essays and teachers can't tell. It's up to schools to either ban AI tools or teach students how to use AI for good.

Rabbithole: A Snapchat engineer built a search engine for memes (Twitter)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• Nikola founder Trevor Milton was found guilty of making fraudulent statements about their electric trucks to drive up the stock.

• Climate activists tossed two buckets of soup at Vincent van Gogh's famous "Sunflowers" painting at the National Gallery in London.

• A new AI tool using Stable Diffusion can turn your selfies into completely new pictures of you in any style of artwork.

• Peter Thiel backs a German startup delivering drones to Ukraine.

PICK THAT PITCH DECK

Hint: the founder of this crypto startup previously founded and was CEO of UniversityTutor.com.

MONDAY MUSIC

The best work jams to write, focus, and build your company to.

Artist: Beirut (Spotify)

Playlist: State of Jazz (Spotify)

Song: Kids by MGMT (Spotify)

P.S. If you have any songs or artists you love, feel free to reply to this email and send ‘em our way.

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Notable layoffs this week

NYDIG: 110 people (33%)

Momentive: 176 people (11%)

Clear Capital: 378 people (27%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this weekend that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🤝 a16z crypto released a guide on partnering with NFT projects and communities.

🤔 Contrary Capital's Kyle Harrison explains why dreaming is a learnable skill.

🤑 "Money is my MOOD" — Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

PICK THAT PITCH DECK ANSWER

The slide is from Coinbase's original deck.