Microsoft outage takes out thousands of websites
Plus: Xero Small Business Insights report, Nvidia hits $5 trillion
Happy Thursday!
Kia ora Caffeinators. We kick off with a developing story this morning, with a Microsoft outage causing interruptions all over the world. It’s the kind of thing that might make you want to turn the computer off, go for a walk or a coffee and hope it’s sorted by the time you get back. Wouldn’t that be nice…
Here’s what’s brewing in your Daily Shot:
Major Microsoft outage impacting users around the world
Report: Xero Small Business Insights
Recap: I Wish I Knew with Lara Henderson
Nvidia the world’s first $5 trillion public company
As always, thank you to everyone who has upgraded to a paid subscription or simply recommended Caffeine to friends and whānau. We couldn’t do any of this without you.
Nick and the CAFFEINE team
Microsoft Azure fault impacting thousands of websites around the world: If you’re unable to access Office 365 this morning, you are certainly not alone (although it could also mean you won’t get this newsletter until it’s all back online, in which case this information will likely be no use to you).
An “inadvertent configuration change” at Microsoft has kicked off a major tech outage, impacting some of the world’s biggest online retailers, airports and many more. The Scottish Parliament was suspended because of issues with its online voting system, and in New Zealand, RealMe logins, flights, ferries, police, banking and many other sites and services are reportedly affected.
A fix has been deployed, and as I write this there are reports of things getting back to normal. It may still take a few hours until it’s all back online. For all the benefits of technology, these kinds of global outages illustrate how it can be a house of cards sometimes. If you’re caught up, all you can really do is just cop it and wait for our tech overlords to rebuild.
Report: Xero Small Business Insights finds positive signs amid the struggle: It feel like we’ve been hearing this kind of sentiment for a while now - the ‘green shoots are there, but for now it’s tough going’ sort of thing. Yip, it’s good to have something to be positive about but jeez it would be nice if those green shoots started sprouting a bit faster.
Check out the full report here - highlights include:
For the first time in two-and-a-half years sales rose for the quarter, though at 1.9% year-on-year, this is still a decline in inflation-adjusted (real) terms.
Modest quarterly sales growth in Auckland and Wellington, bucking a trend of recent underperformance by finally recording sales increases at +0.6% y/y and +0.4% y/y respectively.
Canterbury (+4.3% y/y) and Otago (+6.3% y/y) continue to be the two best performing regions for sales.
Jobs in small businesses were 1.2% lower than a year ago in the September quarter, after a similar fall in the June quarter.
Agriculture’s hot streak cooled in the September quarter, with sales growing “only” 3.3% y/y, down from 11.1% y/y in the June quarter.
The star performers for 2025 have been the manufacturing (+2.9% y/y sales and +0.6% y/y jobs) and professional services (+2.4% sales and +1.8% y/y jobs) industries, having recorded at least three consecutive quarters of positive sales and jobs growth.
Industries including construction, hospitality and retail continued to be challenged, recording sales growth results of -0.7%, 1% and 2.9% y/y respectively.
Recap: I Wish I Knew with PURE MAMA founder Lara Henderson: Our partnership and events guru Georgia has been on absolute fire lately, with a string of events with amazing founders sharing their biggest insights and lessons.
Tuesday’s I Wish I Knew event with Lara Henderson is a great example of how you just can’t replace the experience of meeting in person and digging into the problems and challenges you can face as a founder and trying to overcome them together.
In startups, there is so much we can learn from each other - so much value in sharing and learning within our community.
I won’t post the laundry list of learnings here (you can see our LinkedIn for that), but as always, there were some great nuggets and practical tips to take away.
A shout out also for +MORE Mount Maunganui for having us - again, it’s people that make the difference and your hosting and your venue were spot on.
Founders’ Brains On Tap
We have a handful more events coming up before the end of the year, including Founders’ Brains On Tap: A workshop that tackles startup challenges.
Naomi and Kris Ballantyne are up there with NZ’s leading business builders, and they’ll work through three real founder challenges live on stage.
Attendees can share a challenge they’re facing right now, and we’ll select three for Naomi and Kris to work through in real-time. Super helpful for those in the thick of it, and we’ll look for the most relevant, common issues to provide value for as many people as possible.
Remember, these events are free for the Caffeine community - use the promo code CAFFEINEFRIENDS in the checkout.
Details:
📅 Wednesday 5 November, 5.15 - 7pm
📍Precinct Flex Britomart Place (Formerly Generator), #Level 10, 11 Britomart Place, Auckland
Nvidia becomes the first public company worth $5 trillion: What do you call a company that is a unicorn 5,000 times over? If someone has the answer, or wants to try to come up with a name, please let us know.
Nvidia shares rose more than 5.6% overnight on the back of news that Donald Trump expects to discuss Nvidia chips with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The company itself has also delivered positive news to the markets multiple times this week, including that it expects to hit $500 billion in AI chip sales, and that it’s also building seven new supercomputers in the U.S., requiring thousands of chips.
Stock is up more than 50% already this year, and it’s showing no sign of slowing down - it became the first company to hit the $4 trillion just three months ago. So, all in all, they’re going pretty good.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Want to get in touch with a news tip, bit of feedback or just to chat? Email hello@caffeinedaily.co
The $5 trillion milestone for Nvidia is absolutly mind-blowing when you think about it - they went from $4T to $5T in just three months. What really catches my attention is the geopolitical angle with Trump discussing chips with Xi. The US-China dynamic around AI compute is going to be one of the defining stories of this decade, and Nvidia sits right at the epicenter of it. The $500B in expected AI chip sales is also staggering - that's bigger than most countries' GDP. I do wonder if we're approaching some kind of saturation point though, or if the demand for compute is genuinely limitless as long as the AI progress continues. Either way, seven new supercomputers requiring thousnads of chips shows they're betting big on sustained demand. The momentum is undeniable, but at these valuations there's probaly not much room for disappointment.