Newsletter #33: Shopify's 2023 financial results, Naval Ravikant and Erin Brockovich

Hi there,

I hope you're feeling good.

This month, I'm taking a solid holiday break. After Málaga (Spain), I'm now in Miami (USA) with friends.

It's my third time in the United States. However, the last time was 8 years ago so it's been a while. It's good to be back.

It's my first time in Miami. I'm really enjoying my time here.

My friends and I went swimming, played beach volley, tried machine gun shooting, practiced axe throwing, visited the Graffiti Museum, and even drove to Orlando to spend a day at the Universal Studios Theme Park. We also hiked around some lakes and saw an alligator just 1 meter away from us!

Discovering Florida is a wild adventure.

In today’s edition, we’re discussing Shopify's 2023 financial results, Naval Ravikant and Erin Brockovich.

Let's dive in.

Work

In this Work section, I have been writing about Shopify news every week for the past 9 months.

I think we can confidently say that we are doing a good job at staying up to date regarding all things Shopify.

However, how well do you know Shopify as a company? What is their annual revenue? What about their profit?

Good news: Shopify just announced its 4th quarter and full-year 2023 financial results.

Here are my takeaways from them:

• Shopify now powers over 10% of all US ecommerce.

• In 2023, Shopify's total revenue was $7.1 billion. It's a 26% increase compared to 2022.

• In 2023, Shopify's gross profit was $3.5 billion. It's a 28% increase compared to the prior year. And Shopify's gross margin was 49.8%.

• As of December 31, 2023, Shopify's monthly recurring revenue (MRR) was $149 million, which represents a 35% increase compared to 2022. Shopify Plus contributed $46 million, or 31%, of this MRR.

Learn more in Shopify’s article about their 2023 financial results.

Inspire

One person who inspires me immensely is Naval Ravikant, an American entrepreneur and investor.

In 2018, Naval published a thread on Twitter called "How to Get Rich (without getting lucky)".

It turnt into a real "tweetstorm": as of today, it has 70K+ reposts, 200K+ likes, and 120K+ bookmarks.

Naval sums up his philosophy about money and business in 40 tweets. It's a masterpiece.

If you haven't seen this thread, or even if you have, I recommend reading it. It's one of those pieces of content that can strike you in different ways depending on the life period during which you read it.

I often revisit it.

Here are my 6 favorite tweets from it:

• "Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy."

• "You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity - a piece of a business - to gain your financial freedom."

• "Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now."

• "Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but will look like work to others."

• "You should be too busy to “do coffee," while still keeping an uncluttered calendar."

• "Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true."

If you're interested in discovering more about Naval and his philosophy, I recommend watching the interview he gave in the podcast ”The Joe Rogan Experience” in 2019.

Naval and Joe Rogan discussed zero sum games, loneliness in our atomized modern society, the meaning of life and how the answers to all the great questions are paradoxes.

Here are my 3 favorite quotes from this interview:

• "The peace that we seek is not peace of mind, it's peace from mind."

• "Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for some imaginary tomorrow."

• "Would I still be interested in learning this thing if I couldn't ever tell anybody about it? That's how I know it's real. That's how I know it's something I really want to know."

Joe Rogan said that there were some "jams of wisdom" in this conversation, and I agree with him.

Learn more by reading Naval's Twitter thread, watching Naval's interview with Joe Rogan or reading the book “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant - A guide to wealth and happiness” by Eric Jorgenson.

Explore

A bit more than 10 years ago, in December 2013, I created a blog called “Itinéraire d’une cinéphile” (itinerary of a movie buff).

I was 18 years old. I had just entered Law School.

I had this blog for 7 years. I wrote 200+ reviews on it, had 3,000+ monthly visitors and a very active Twitter account with 1,000+ followers where I was talking with other bloggers and movie lovers. It was a great ride.

For the past 4 years, I haven't felt the need to watch as many movies and TV shows. I found other passions and navigated towards new horizons.

I watch less movies but I still enjoy them a lot.

Some movies and TV shows have given me so much inspiration and truly changed the way I approach life.

I could talk about cinematography for hours, but for this newsletter I'll keep it short.

I'll just recommend that you watch one movie, if you haven't already: "Erin Brockovich" (2000), directed by Steven Soderbergh. It's the only movie for which Julia Roberts won the Oscar for Best Actress. And it's well deserved.

I discovered it when I was a teenager. This movie is the reason why I went to Law School. I still watch it regularly. And my opinion remains the same: it's a masterpiece.

Enjoy.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for reading this edition until the end.

I'll talk to you soon.

Take good care of yourself.

Coralie