Dear Inside Community, Meet Our Fund 3 goes live this week, Tuesday, May 24, and Wednesday, May, 25. If you don’t already know, this is our most popular event series, where VCs pitch their funds directly to startup founders. Just look at this week’s guest list. Registration is free, and if you’re a founder who might be raising soon, we know you’ll want to make MOF3 a priority. See you there! —The Inside Team | |  Daniel |  |
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 During a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, President Biden outlined how a new trade deal for the Indo-Pacific would provide "concrete benefits" to people in the region. Biden said that the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which has yet to be negotiated, would enable partner nations to collaborate on supply chains, clean energy, worker protections, and anti-corruption programs. More: - The initial 13 members of the framework are the U.S., India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
- Combined, these countries represent ~40% of the global economy.
- Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who will lead some of the negotiations, described the initiative as the "most significant international economic engagement that the United States has ever had in the region."
- The IPEF would partly replace the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade deal from which the U.S. withdrew in 2017.
- The TPP moved on without U.S. participation, and although Japan would join the IPEF, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida urged the U.S. to re-join the TPP.
- The IPEF comes as the U.S. tries to counteract China's increasing influence in the region.
- The U.S. economy is expected to grow 2.8% this year, versus 2% for China. The U.S. could be a more desirable trading partner for the region if it can grow faster than China.
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 Polish President Andrzej Duda made a surprise trip to Kyiv, where he spoke to Ukraine's parliament and called for Russian troops to withdraw from the country. He said that only Ukraine should determine the terms of potential peace talks with Russia. More: - Duda is the first foreign leader to address the Ukrainian parliament in person since the Russian invasion in late February.
- He said that Ukraine should not make concessions to Russia in order to negotiate a peace deal.
- On Friday, the Italian government put forward a four-point peace plan to end the war, suggesting that Ukraine allow Donbas and Crimea to become autonomous regions.
- Duda pushed back against the idea, saying:
- "For the sake of a bit of peace of economic interest or political ambition even a centimeter of Ukrainian soil and a piece of their sovereignty will be sacrificed, then this will be a huge blow not only for Ukraine, but also for the Western community."
- He also said that he would not rest until Ukraine is a member of the European Union.
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 Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese was sworn in as Australian prime minister on Monday. After winning a general election this past weekend, Albanese and the Labor Party are set to form a governing coalition with Green and independent ministers. More: - The center-left Labor Party appears to have won 76 of 151 seats in the lower house of the Australian parliament.
- Albanese said he wants to govern with a Labor majority, but has reached agreements with independent lawmakers ensuring that they won't support no-confidence motions against Labor.
- He said his priorities are establishing a national anti-corruption commission and a A$15B ($10.6B) fund to help support domestic manufacturing.
- Albanese, known as "Albo," served in the Australian parliament for 26 years.
- He is a popular figure in Australia, having served as director of a rugby club in the late 1990s and transforming into a DJ for the occasional fundraiser or charity event during his tenure in parliament.
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 GOOD NEWS: A group of self-described "patriotic millionaires" is protesting outside the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. They are calling for higher taxes on wealthy individuals like themselves to help governments fight economic inequality. More: - Patriotic Millionaires originally started as a group of rich Americans who advocated for higher taxes on the wealthiest 1%.
- British businessman and Patriotic Millionaires UK member Phil White, who attended the protest in Davos, said it is "outrageous that our political leaders listen to those who have the most, know the least about the economic impact of this crisis, and many of whom pay infamously little in taxes."
- Another attendee said that to address "gross inequality" governments should "tax the rich."
- Oxfam recently predicted that rising economic inequality could push up to 263 million people into extreme poverty in 2022.
- The annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos is being held in person for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
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 A message from EQUITYBEE Netflix employees are not feeling chill when it comes to their employee stock options, apparently. According to Protocol, Netflix employees asked the company’s leaders in April to issue them more options grants to offset the stock price drop (almost 70% in the last 6 months). Shares of Netflix declined 35% in one day after the company revealed a drop in subscribers for the first time in a decade. What can startup employees learn from this? - Yes, you can negotiate your options - just like you negotiate any other part of your compensation!
- Keep an eye on the market and understand what financial news means for your workplace, even when the company is private.
- Make sure you have a plan to exercise your options.
Equitybee helps you exercise your options without paying a dime out of pocket, no matter what happens to the stock price after the IPO. Want to hear more
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 An investigation revealed that leaders of the Southern Baptist Conference (SBC) protected ministers accused of sexual abuse and stonewalled victims for decades. The 288-page report was produced by an independent agency hired by SBC leadership following pressure for an independent probe into the denomination's handling of sexual abuse. More: - The firm, Guidepost Solutions, found that senior members of the Executive Committee (EC) "largely controlled the EC's response to these reports of abuse... and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC."
- As a result, "survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored [or] disbelieved" while "convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their church or congregation."
- The report recommended that the SBC form an independent commission to address the problem and urged the denomination to develop better protocols to protect churchgoers from known abusers.
- The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
Zoom Out: - In 2019, an investigative report by Texas journalists documented hundreds of cases of abuse in SBC churches and showed that ministers who faced allegations of abuse were still in their churches.
- Last year, SBC delegates voted for a third-party review of the matter instead of allowing the EC to oversee the investigation into its own behavior.
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 Colonel Sayad Khodai of Iran's elite Quds force was shot to death by two gunmen riding a motorcycle outside of his home in Tehran. Iranian government officials called Khodai a martyr and vowed to take revenge on his killers. More: - It is the first major assassination to take place in Iran since the murder of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.
- Iran has claimed that Fakhrizadeh was assassinated by Israel.
- Last year a former Mossad chief said that Fakhrizadeh had been targeted by his agency for years.
- The Quds force is known to operate in Syria and Iraq, where it provides support to increasingly powerful Shia militias.
- The U.S. has accused Quds of supporting terrorist groups in the Middle East, saying that the group is to blame for the deaths of hundreds of American troops.
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 |  | Daniel Smith is an Inside Analyst who currently resides in Miami, Florida. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Daniel spent the last four years as a PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. He is fascinated by tech, business, politics, venture capital, and everything in between. When he’s not writing for Inside he can be found kicking a ball on the nearest rugby pitch. Follow him on Twitter @DanSmithInside. | | | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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