Week in Review

Amazon layoffs begin, Ticketmaster can’t handle Taylor Swift, and much of Twitter HQ quits • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 19, 2022Posted in Layoffs, Media & Entertainment, media and entertainment, Social, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hello again! Time for another edition of Week in Review, the newsletter where we recap the week’s most read ZebethMedia stories in one quick and easy-to-skim blast. Get it in your inbox every Saturday AM by signing up here. (There won’t be a newsletter next Saturday because I’ll be off being thankful/eating leftovers/being thankful for leftovers, but we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming the weekend after.) If you read last week’s edition, you’ll notice some echoes here: more layoffs, more FTX drama, and more absurdity at Elon’s Twitter. Let’s dive in! —Greg most read Mass resignations at Twitter: After laying off thousands of Twitter employees over the past few weeks, Elon presented something of an ultimatum to those remaining: commit to being “extremely hardcore” as “part of the new Twitter” or leave with three months severance…and, well, a lot of people took door number 2. It’s unclear at this point (even to Twitter, it seems) how many declined the ultimatum, but all indications are that it was hundreds/thousands. SBF DMs: For some reason the founder of FTX — the once massive crypto exchange that imploded last week — decided to have an impromptu interview with a Vox reporter by way of DM. Seemingly without any agreement that any of it was off the record, said DMs were, of course, quickly published. His biggest regret in all this? Weirdly, filing for bankruptcy. Evernote gets bought: Evernote was once something of an App Store darling — an early go-to example of design, quality, and company leadership. Then after a series of pricing/privacy/design changes pissed off the user base, it just sort of…faded away. This week the company was acquired by Italian app developer Bending Spoons, in what Kyle Wiggers calls “the end of an era.” Amazon layoffs: Rumors suggested layoffs were on the way at Amazon, with some estimates suggesting upward of 10,000 would be let go. This week the layoffs began, with CEO Andy Jassy writing in a memo that the layoffs will continue into next year. Ticketmaster face-plants: Tickets for Taylor Swift’s first tour in years went on presale this week, and Ticketmaster, the website that no one on earth is happy to use, couldn’t keep up with the Swifties. Things went so awry with the gated presale that the scheduled public sale was outright canceled. You know your site outage is bad when it relights the political fire to break up your company’s overwhelming dominance. audio roundup Podcasts! We’ve got them! People seem to like them! Or a lot of people are just downloading/subscribing for the sake of inflating our collective ego. That’s okay too. Here’s what’s up in TC podcasts lately: Live from our ZebethMedia Sessions: Crypto event during one of crypto’s wildest weeks in ages, the Chain Reaction crew “tore up the script” and talked all about Sam Bankman-Fried’s “surreal, absurd” DM conversation with Vox. What does a corporate comms team do? The Equity team sat down with a pair of deeply experienced comms people to learn how all that behind-the-scenes machinery works. ZebethMedia+ Two states received 80% of venture funds raised: “Through the third quarter of 2022, U.S. venture firms raised $150.9 billion across 593 funds,” writes Rebecca Szkutak. Where did it all go? Rebecca breaks down the stats. A look at Sateliot’s Series A deck: 90% of the planet has no cell connectivity. What if you need an IoT device to phone home from, say, the middle of the ocean? That’s the idea behind Sateliot, which raised an $11.4 million Series A earlier this year. The company shared the pitch deck it used to raise with our resident pitch expert Haje Jan Kamps, who explored “the good and the bad of this high-flying space deck.”

Meta lays off thousands, FTX collapses, and Twitter has a very weird week • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 12, 2022Posted in Crypto, Media & Entertainment, media and entertainment, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hey, friends! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we recap the top ZebethMedia headlines from the past seven days. Get it in your inbox every Saturday AM by signing up here. Ready? Let’s go. most read Twitter had a week so strange that it could easily make up this entire newsletter, so we’ll keep to the bullet points: Last week Elon laid off a huge chunk of the company. This week, some of those who were let go were reportedly asked to come back. Twitter started giving blue verified checkmarks to anyone who’d pay $8. Things got chaotic fast. Twitter rolled out a new, second checkmark for “Official” accounts. And then got rid of them. And then…brought them back? By Friday morning, after fake “verified” accounts popped up for everything from companies to athletes to politicians, Twitter paused the $8 verification badge program. A number of execs quit — to the point where the exits perked the ears of the FTC. Elon reportedly told Twitter employees that “bankruptcy isn’t out of the question” for the company. FTX collapses: Once one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world, FTX effectively exploded this week. It briefly looked like competitor Binance would step in to acquire FTX, only for Binance to take one look at FTX’s books and back out almost immediately. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has since resigned, and the company has filed for bankruptcy. Meta layoffs: Meta — the parent company behind Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp — laid off 13% of its workforce this week. With a worldwide headcount of around 87,000 employees, that works out to over eleven thousand roles cut. Gmail will no longer let you go back to old Gmail: Don’t like the new look that Gmail started rolling out back in July? Bad news. While users could previously revert to the old design, the Gmail team announced this week that the new design will be the “standard experience” for all within weeks. Google finds exploits in Samsung phones: “Google says it has evidence that a commercial surveillance vendor was exploiting three zero-day security vulnerabilities found in newer Samsung smartphones,” writes Zack Whittaker. “The chained vulnerabilities allow an attacker to gain kernel read and write privileges as the root user, and ultimately expose a device’s data.” audio roundup Looking for a new podcast to tune into on your commute? Here’s what’s up in TC podcasts lately: The Chain Reaction crew broke down the absurd collapse of FTX as it was happening. Equity (with a guest appearance from TC’s Becca Szkutak) covered the seemingly endless layoffs we’re seeing from tech companies big and small, and what FTX’s meltdown means for it and companies like it. Darrell was joined on The ZebethMedia Podcast by TC senior reporter Dom-Madori Davis to talk about “the coalition of VCs that are standing for reproductive rights” and to recap the biggest tech stories of the week. ZebethMedia+ Not a ZebethMedia+ member yet? Here’s what members were checking out most behind the paywall: How ButcherBox bootstrapped to $600M in revenue: How did ButcherBox grow from a modest Kickstarter to $600 million in revenue in just a few years? Haje outlines the company’s path so far. The Exchange: In his increasingly popular daily newsletter, Alex Wilhelm wonders: Has everyone been valuing software companies the wrong way all along?

Elon guts Twitter, Google shutters Hangouts, and the tech layoffs continue • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 5, 2022Posted in Layoffs, Media & Entertainment, Startups, Twitter, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hey, all — welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we sum up the most read ZebethMedia stories from the past week. And oof, what a week it was. Want this newsletter in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Signed up? Let’s just dive right in. most read Mass layoffs at Twitter: It was Elon’s first full week as the boss of Twitter post-$44 billion acquisition. Sweeping layoffs were said to be on the way — and, well, they’ve begun. After a painfully impersonal heads-up email went out Thursday evening, entire teams are waking up to find their access suddenly revoked. With reports suggesting layoffs could impact up to half the company, Twitter employees have reportedly taken to referring to the whole thing as “the snap” (à la Thanos). A class action lawsuit has already been filed alleging that Twitter isn’t following the proper legal processes here. Layoffs everywhere: Meanwhile, news of tech industry layoffs continues to pour in. Lyft let go of 13% of its workforce, Stripe cut 14%, Opendoor reduced its workforce by 18%, Chime parted ways with 12%, and more. Meanwhile, both Apple and Amazon have reportedly gone into hiring freezes. Google kills Hangouts: We knew it was coming, but this week Google put the final nail in Hangouts’ coffin, shutting down the chat-focused web app (the Hangouts Android/iOS apps were shuttered last year) in favor of Google Chat. Of course, given Google’s history with chat apps, I expect at least two more to be launched and/or shuttered by the time I finish this newsletter. Falcon Heavy returns to space: This week SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time since 2019, finally moving forward on a mission that had been delayed (“due to payload readiness issues”) since late 2020. Amazon expands its Music service: “The company said it will now offer Prime subscribers a full music catalog with 100 million songs, instead of the previously more limited selection of just 2 million songs,” writes Sarah, “and will make most of the top podcasts on its service available without ads.” audio roundup Whats up in TC podcast land this week? Here’s some of the highlights: The Equity crew chatted about the ever-evolving role of the venture capitalist, and our friend Melia Russell from Business Insider stopped by to fill us in on her recent story about how “investors are rewriting the playbooks when it comes to maternity leave policies at their firms.” Amanda joined Darrell on the TC Podcast to discuss Elon’s “questionable plans” to change up how identity verification works on Twitter The Chain Reaction team dive into the growing list of troubles that have developed for Bitcoin miners in the last few months. techcrunch+ Not a part of ZebethMedia+ yet? Here’s what TC+ members were reading most behind the paywall: Pilot’s CEO tears down their $60 million Series C deck: Published in early 2021, this one blew up for some reason this week! Just a few weeks after raising a big Series C, Pilot CEO Waseem Daher sat down with Lucas Matney to break down what worked about their pitch deck. The most common pitch deck mistakes: Speaking of pitch decks, TC’s resident pitch expert, Haje Jan Kamps, has a list of the mistakes he’s tired of seeing in decks, having reviewed thousands of them.

Elon Musk completes Twitter purchase, Meta’s in trouble and it’s time to admit self-driving cars ain’t gonna happen • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 29, 2022Posted in Apple, Argo AI, Elon Musk, meta, Startups, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hey, folks, welcome back to another edition of ZebethMedia Week in Review, the place where we point you to the hottest stories of the past sevenish days. I’m stepping in front of the laptop for Greg Kumparak this week, but don’t fret, he will be back soon. If you want this goodness in your inbox every Saturday, head on over here to sign up. Now, let’s get to it. most read (Elon edition, somewhat) Elon did it: He bought Twitter. The $44 billion acquisition closed this week and on day 1, the platform’s new owner “cleaned house,” Taylor and Amanda write, firing CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde. The purchase capped off months of ups and downs, and this week was no different. Darrell rounded up some highlights. Elon’s layoff about-face: While Elon Musk immediately fired some folks at the top, earlier this week in a reversal from his layoff declaration last week, he said he won’t actually lay off 75% of Twitter’s staff — or 5,600 people — writes Rebecca, citing a Bloomberg report. Apple’s Elon problem: Darrell’s headline says it all, really: “Twitter’s Elon problem could soon become Apple’s Elon problem, too.” At issue is that Apple updated its developer guidelines this week, one of which “seeks rent on revenue made by social networks around promoted posts.” Argo AI shutdown: Autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI, flush at launch in 2017 with $1 billion, has shut down. Its parts, writes Kirsten Korosec, are “being absorbed into its two main backers: Ford and VW.” Speaking of autonomous vehicles: After the Argo AI news hit, Darrell took to the site to explore the fact that, no, autonomous vehicles just aren’t going to happen. MrBeast’s worth: Amanda asks if MrBeast, or 24-year-old YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, is worth the $1.5 billion he’s valuing his business at. Meta is in trouble: That’s the headline. Meta reported its third-quarter results this week and they weren’t great. As Taylor writes: “With the Instagram portion of the business not looking so hot lately, Meta has quintupled down on the metaverse without examining if it even knows what users want at all these days. And after changing the name of the company while ruining a perfectly fine word in the process, there are no easy take-backs.” Meta really was a perfectly fine word. Google Pixel 7’s “dumb” flaw: Haje took a picture through an airplane window and noticed a reflection caused by the reflective chrome surrounding the phone’s camera lens. “It’s a pretty common use case for most photography applications, which makes it all the harder to grok why Google went out of its way to make that experience worse.” audio roundup On Equity this week, we share with you one of Natasha Mascarenhas’s Disrupt panels. She talked to Chief co-founders Lindsay Kaplan and Carolyn Childers about the future of their private membership club for women in leadership positions. This week on Found, Darrell and Jordan sat down with Shanthi Rajan from construction management software company Linarc to discuss breaking into a slow-changing industry, building a team with talent across the globe and working with customers to build the most useful product possible. And on Chain Reaction, Anita and Jacquelyn chat about Apple’s new App Store guidelines, Reddit’s foray into the NFT space and whether the U.K.’s new prime minister will live up to the hype he’s received from the crypto community. techcrunch+ 5 tips for launching in a crowded web3 gaming market. Contributor Corey Wilton explains the steps that will set you apart when looking for capital. Pitch Deck Teardown: Palau Project. Haje usually passes on tearing down pre-seed rounds, but he went for it this week with the Palau Project, which was founded by professional kite-surfer Jerome Cloetens, who is taking on climate change.

Kanye agrees to buy Parler, Elon Musk reportedly plans mass layoffs at Twitter, and Netflix gets into cloud gaming • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 22, 2022Posted in Startups, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hey, friends! Welcome back to Week in Review, where every Saturday we recap a handful of the top ZebethMedia stories from the past seven days. Want it in your inbox? Get it here! This week marked the in-person return of ZebethMedia Disrupt, with our team taking the show back into the real world after two years fully virtual. It was one helluva show, with appearances from people like tennis legend (turned investor) Serena Williams, comedian (also turned investor!) Kevin Hart, Lyft co-founder John Zimmer, and Figma CEO Dylan Field. Congrats to Minerva Lithium for winning the Startup Battlefield competition! most read Google’s Ping-Pong robot: “As if it weren’t enough to have AI tanning humanity’s hide (figuratively for now) at every board game in existence,” writes Devin, “Google AI has got one working to destroy us all at Ping-Pong as well.” Elon expects huge Twitter layoffs: Musk reportedly wants to cut up to 75% of Twitter’s workforce — roughly 5,600 jobs — if/when his acquisition of the company goes through. That number seems pretty absurd. Even much smaller layoffs have compounding effects on things like team morale and productivity — just imagine the amount of knowledge/insight that disappears if the majority of a company is let go. Kanye West is buying Parler: Well, that’s a headline I never, ever, ever would’ve predicted. “Kanye West, the rapper who also goes by the name Ye, has reached an agreement to buy ‘uncancelable free speech platform’ Parler,” writes Manish, “in a move [the involved parties say] will help individuals express their conservative opinions freely.” Stability AI raises $101 million: The company behind the AI-powered image generator Stable Diffusion and music-generating system Dance Diffusion has raised $101 million at a reported valuation of $1 billion. Netflix explores cloud gaming: Just as Google gives up on its cloud gaming efforts, Netflix is diving in. At Disrupt this week, Netflix’s VP of Gaming said the company is “seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering,” saying that Google’s shuttered effort was a “technical success” with “issues with the business model.” audio roundup Here’s what’s up in TC podcast land this week: Equity was live and in person! After years in pandemic mode, the Equity crew (Alex, Natasha, and Mary Ann) kicked off Disrupt by recording a show face-to-face for the first time. On Found, Darrell and Jordan caught up with Jerrica Kirkley and Matthew Wetschler and learned the story of Plume, their telehealth company that focuses on transgender care. techcrunch+ What were TC+ members reading most behind the paywall? Here’s a peek: 2023 VC predictions: After a wild few years of ups and downs, what will venture capital look like in 2023? Contrary Capital founder Eric Tarczynski weighs in. Ron explores Celonis and its $13 billion valuation: Celonis might not be a name that everyone recognizes…but the 11-year-old data-processing company has managed to raise billions of dollars in the last few years alone. What are they doing so right? Ron Miller takes us on a deep dive.

Meta announces legs, Hulu raises prices, and Microsoft embraces DALL-E 2 • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 15, 2022Posted in Media & Entertainment, media and entertainment, Venture, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hi, friends! It’s time for another edition of Week in Review, the newsletter where we quickly recap the most read ZebethMedia stories from the past seven days. Want it in your inbox every Saturday morning? Sign up here. most read LEGS: The company formerly known as Facebook held its Meta Connect conference this week, where it announced everything from a $1,500 VR headset to a work-focused partnership with Microsoft. Here’s the full roundup of all the news. The thing Zuckerberg seemed most excited about? His metaverse is getting legs. Hulu’s price bump: Another year, another Hulu price hike. This week the ad-supported plan got bumped from $7 to $8 per month, while the ad-free plan went from $13 to $15 per month. Microsoft x DALL-E: AI tools that can generate new images from text prompts are starting to go mainstream, with Microsoft announcing this week that it will integrate DALL-E 2 into at least two of its apps. OG App gets KO’d: The “OG App” promised to provide an ad-free/suggestion-free Instagram experience more like that of yesteryear. Unfortunately, it didn’t have Instagram’s permission to do so. Instagram owner Meta quickly announced plans to take “all appropriate enforcement actions” against the app, which has now been pulled from both Google Play and the iOS App Store. Google’s video calling booths get real: Last year, Google announced Project Starline, a wild, experimental “video-calling booth” that uses 3D imagery, depth sensors, and light field displays to make a video chat feel more like an in-person conversation. Until now, Starline booth prototypes were hidden away exclusively in Google’s offices; they’re now expanding that to include “the offices of various enterprise partners, including Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health.” audio roundup Been busy, and not the commuting/working out/doing housework kind of busy that lets you listen to podcasts while you get stuff done? Here’s what you missed in TC podcasts this week: On Equity, Natasha and Alex caught up with the incredibly insightful Sarah Guo, who recently launched a $100 million early-stage VC firm after being an investor/partner at Greylock for nearly a decade. Darrell and Jordan were joined on Found by Attabotics founder Scott Gravelle, who detailed how ant colonies inspired his approach to robotics. The Chain Reaction crew talked about why the SEC is investigating the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection and what it could mean for the crypto ecosystem. techcrunch+ Here’s what subscribers were reading most behind the TC+ member paywall this week: Supliful’s seed deck: “This is one of the best decks I’ve ever seen, despite being butt-ugly and riddled with mistakes,” writes Haje in the latest installment of his popular Pitch Deck Teardown series. Growth hacking is really just growth testing: 10+ years after the term “growth hacking” was coined, what does it really mean today? Growth marketing expert Jonathan Martinez shares his insights.

Elon Musk buying Twitter after all, the ‘next Mark Zuckerberg’ and fare thee well, Stadia • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 9, 2022Posted in Elon Musk, Startups, Twitter, Week in ReviewNo Comments

Hi all! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we quickly sum up some of the most read ZebethMedia stories from the past seven days. The goal? Even when you’re swamped, a quick skim of WiR on Saturday morning should give you a pretty good understanding of what happened in tech this week. Want it in your inbox? Get it here. most read Stadia’s death: Devin opined on the recent Stadia shutdown, saying the shocking demise of the gaming service was the fault of one entity alone: Google. He writes: “No one trusts Google. It has exhibited such poor understanding of what people want, need and will pay for that at this point, people are wary of investing in even its more popular products.” This Week in Elon Musk: First he stepped in it when he waded into the Russia-Ukraine war with his version of a peace plan that Connie characterized as not very well-received. And then he finally said he’d buy Twitter after all. Twitter told us that the “Musk parties” sent them a letter expressing the billionaire’s intention to go through with the purchase, provided the trial between the two, which was scheduled to start October 17, did not take place. As Taylor and Harri said in their story, however, “given Musk’s chaotic nature, it’s possible that another wrench could be thrown into the works.” Fizz to the “next Mark Zuckerberg”: An app created by former Stanford students to limit social isolation across college campuses received a $4.5 million round this week. The founder, a Stanford dropout, “set out to build an app by college students, for college students, seeking to help his fellow classmates feel less lonely and form meaningful connections on campus.” Google on your Lock Screen: iOS 16 users aren’t limited only to Apple widgets on their new Lock Screens. Google made good on its promise to make its apps available as widgets for quick access. Gmail, Google News, Drive and Chrome are now available, with Search and Apps coming. Search in fashion: South Korean search company Naver said it plans to purchase apparel marketplace Poshmark for $1.2 billion in cash. Edu breach: In what appears to be the largest education breach in a while, hackers released a cache of data stolen during a cyberattack against the Los Angeles Unified School District. audio roundup Didn’t have time to tune in to all of ZebethMedia’s podcasts this week? Here’s what you might’ve missed: For Found this week, we rereleased an episode on delivering remote abortion care with Kiki Freedman from Hey Jane. She also tells us about how her experience at Uber informed her founder mentality and how the startup hopes to change the healthcare industry. Chain Reaction connected with Edward Saatchi, an expert in the web3 space and the founder of The Culture DAO and Fable who discussed how emerging technologies can enable new forms of storytelling and how sectors like crypto and AI are changing what the metaverse might look like. Amanda joined Alex this week on the Wednesday episode of Equity to chat about the creator economy. On The TC Podcast, Haje Jan Kamps, stepping in for Darrell Etherington, talks with Dominic-Madori Davis about how conservative VCs are shaping the startup landscape and, by extension, the world. He also talked with Taylor Hatmaker about all things Elon. And check out the ZebethMedia Live podcast, which is the audio version of our weekly ZebethMedia Live show. This week, hear how Mammoth Biosciences Trevor Martin attracted the best partners to form the company, including Mayfield partner Ursheet Parikh, who wrote an early funding check. Step one? It starts with the vision and mission. techcrunch+ What hides behind the ZebethMedia+ paywall? Lots of really great stuff! It’s where we get to step away from the unrelenting news cycle and go a bit deeper on the stuff you tell us you like most. The most-read TC+ stuff this week? Five key IP considerations for AI startups: Early-stage startups are creating new AI-based solutions but might not know whether the tech can be protected and the best way to do it. In this post, Eric L. Sophir, IP partner at law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, and Matthew Horton, senior counsel and IP lawyer at law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, provide guidance for young companies. Vori’s pitch deck: Haje brings you another pitch deck teardown, this time from Vori, which raised to a $10 million Series A. Want your pitch deck featured on TC+? Here’s more information. Also, check out all our Pitch Deck Teardowns and other pitching advice, all collected in one handy place for you! In on this?