Biggest tech stories - 2025 Recap

This is what the flux.

I'm Brett and I'm Justin and it's Wednesday, seventeenth of December Fox. Today we are doing a recap of some of the biggest tech stories of twenty twenty five. In twenty twenty five, we saw some of the biggest acquisitions we've had in years and even bigger earnings results. But not just that, we also saw markets reacting, sometimes very quickly, when expectations were met. It was part of this recap.

Three splendid stories Today, Juzzy Boy, let's do it for our first domain, the Aussie real estate website, will be sold to US real estate giant Coast in a deal worth two point eight billion dollars.

Ooh, Aria Group not happy right now, It's got a red competitor here be man, so tell me more well.

Juzzy Boy Domain is the real estate marketplace that first listed its properties online in nineteen ninety nine, back.

When those real estate newspaper fold outs were the best way to know which properties were selling.

But Domain has always played second fiddle to real estate dot com dot a U in the digital real estate industry.

Yet real estate dot com dot U has forty six percent more monthly unique visitors than Domain.

But Josie Boy, that didn't stop a mystery buyer from acquiring a sixteen point nine percent stake in Domain back in February of this year.

And spoiler alert that mystery buyer was the US real estate firm Coastar. Yep.

They slid into Domain's DMS with an offer, which was rejected.

Then they sweetened the deal, and.

Now Domain's majority shareholder Nine Entertainment has backed this deal.

Which was it a forty two percent premium to Domain share price before the proposal.

And technically shareholders still need to vote on the deal.

Given nine has a sixty percent steak in Domain and coast has now got nearly seventeen percent, there's not too much up for debate.

Yep. So what's the key learning here?

Controlling stakes don't just influence outcomes, they often decide them.

Yep. When a company or a shareholder owns a large stake in a business, they can effectively control the outcome of major decisions.

Everything from leadership changes to mergers and acquisitions.

In this case, Nine owns sixty percent of Domain, which means their vote basically seals the deal with Costar.

As long as Nine's on board, the deal is likely to go ahead.

But does not all controlling shareholders are willing to facilitate a takeover like this deal.

Remember when the private equity firm KKR try to acquire the Australian hospital operator Ramsey Healthcare in twenty twenty two for twenty billion dollars I do.

The deal fell apart because the Ramsey family, which owned nineteen percent of the company, did not back the proposal.

So be man at Controlling stakes don't just influence deals, they often make or break them. For our second story, Google has announced its largest acquisition in history, acquiring cybersecurity startup Whiz for thirty two billion US dollars.

Holy Smokerroni's not bad for a four year old company. Juzzy boy, What is going on here?

Ky So Whizz was founded back in twenty twenty and he's one of the fastest growing startups of all time.

Is an Israeli company that's New York based and sells security tools that protect information stored in data centers.

And we know that the data centers are the second hottest word right now behind.

AI so jes wait. Google has now announced its acquisition of Whiz for thirty two billion US dollars, and this is Google's largest acquisition by a country mile. The next biggest is Motoroller Mobility in twenty eleven for twelve and a half billion US dollars, which it.

No longer owns the men. Whiz currently works with others like Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud market too, but it's possible that Google will make the tech exclusive for Google customers in the future.

And interestingly, this isn't Google's first interaction with Wiz Nope.

Last year, Google tried to acquire Whiz for twenty three billion US dollars, but they rejected the offer.

So now Google's having a second bite of their cherry, and this time it's been successful, but paying forty percent more than its original offer and thirty times Whizz's forecasted future revenue.

So what is the key lenny here?

When big companies by smaller ones, they often assess value using a multiple of revenue or a multiple of earnings.

For example, when Microsoft acquired LinkedIn, it was for eight point seven times their revenue, and.

Into It acquired Mailchimp for about a fifteen times multiple on their revenue.

But in this case, being Man Alphabet is paying thirty times. Wiz is forecast at future revenue of one billion dollars, or roughly sixty times their existing revenue. Because Wiz is growing like wildfire YEP, It's one of the fastest growing startups of all time according to the Wall Street Journal.

Top of that, cybersecurity tools are in very high demand right.

Now, so be man. Sometimes buyers will pay a premium when they say strategic.

Value, like Google securing a partner that also works with its two biggest cloud rivals. Remember when Meta acquired WhatsApp for nineteen billion US dollars in twenty fourteen.

YEP.

At the time, WhatsApp was believed to be earning about thirty million bucks in annual revenue.

It was a huge risk, but eventually a huge payoff because What'sapp generated one point three billion revenue in twenty twenty three.

Google's hoping Whiz will follow a similar part.

For our third and final story, Meta share price has jumped nine percent after its quarterly earnings smash past investor expectations that the spenderthon is continuing.

Not only Zuck bulking right now, but metas profits are too.

Tell me more you No Meta. The company bid Facebook, which started in the Harvard dorm back in two thousand and four.

Since then it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp.

And the man we know that the part man, part Cyborg, Mark Zuckerberg loves to chase the next big thing.

For a hot minute, it was creating a digital currency called Libra.

And there was the hot a minute when it was creating the metaverse.

And now the hottest minute with Meta focusing on competing against Open Ai, Google and Anthropic for AI dominance.

But now Mark cyborg Berg has revenue of forty seven and a half billion US dollars for Meta's last quarter, up.

To twenty two percent. Year on you next minute, share price up more than nine percent, and.

The Man Meta says that AI is becoming a real revenue driver for the business. While investors clearly like the vision, they also like the projected dollars coming through.

But Josey Boit growth in revenue means next to nothing if it's not coupled with a growth in earnings as well.

So what is the key learning here?

Well, revenue tells you how much a company made. Earnings tell you whether they actually kept any of it.

For example, Meta earned forty seven and a half billion dollars in revenue this quarter.

Earnings, also known as profit or net income, is what's left after the bills are paid.

Think staff wages, AD spend, R and D and yes, those billion dollar data centers as well.

And jes a boy for investors. Both metrics matter a lot.

But be man. In this quarter, Meta didn't just scre a revenue. It also grew its earnings per share by thirty eight percent.

And that was well above expectations.

So yes, Meta's AI dreams are expensive, but this quarter at least it looks like they're starting to pay off.

And for shareholders who were worried that AI was becoming a money pit, it's a reassuring sign.

Because it means the AI arms race might actually deliver financial returns. Box Sham, thanks for listening to the biggest tech stories of twenty twenty five. On Friday, we'll be talking about the biggest stories from the streaming world this year.

Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on Friday.