Meta's 'year of efficiency' continues as CEO announces plans to dismiss 10,000 more workers

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Imagine being a tech reporter coming back after a few lovely days at Disney World with the family, only to discover that the entire startup ecosystem is in turmoil after a major bank collapsed. Anyway, what we're saying is welcome back, Christine! We've missed you! Apropos SVB — the bank's clients received a surprising email in their inboxes late Monday evening, Natasha M reports. It was from the bank's new CEO Tim Mayopoulos stating that the institution was not only open, it was also business as usual. Who had that on their bingo cards? Let's jump right into the Tuesday Crunch.  — Christine and Haje Image Credits: Chesnot / Getty Images

The TechCrunch Top 3 More Meta layoffs: We'd heard a rumor that said Meta was going to have some layoffs, and now Manish and Paul confirm the company will cut another 10,000 jobs. In addition, the company is not going to fill thousands of open jobs and will be canceling "low priority projects." More on Zuck's thoughts about remote work in the Big Tech section. All-out battle for generative AI: If you've been enjoying the updated features in Google Workspace, here are some more: Google is going all-in on bringing AI to Workspace, Frederic reports. More Google news below. OpenAI will not be outdone: If you saw this meme today, it pretty much sums up what happened with dueling AI announcements (see above). After Google's news, OpenAI dropped GPT-4, a multimodal AI that it claims is state-of-the-art, Kyle writes. Meanwhile, Devin reports that GPT-4's first app is a "virtual volunteer" for the visually impaired.

Startups and VC Caught in the wake of the shock collapse of erstwhile rival Silicon Valley Bank, shares of First Republic fell 62% yesterday. Well, that stock appears to rebounding a little today, as investors appear to have a little more confidence that we've staved off the banking apocalypse, Alex reports. Flat6Labs is among the most active VCs in Africa, having invested in over 100 startups to date, across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Annie reports that after 11 years, the Egypt-based seed-stage accelerator is setting out on a foray through a new $95 million fund to back startups in East and West Africa. And we have five more for you: Surfin' the Light Electric: Lightship just showed off its electric recreational vehicle, and Kirsten was able to take a peek inside. Copy that: Paul reports that RightHub wants to be the command center for intellectual property management. So, what can you do?: Haje reports that AG5 throws a lifeline to a manufacturing industry drowning in spreadsheets. A hire state of mind: TuSimple co-founder resigns, reports Rebecca. He's accused of poaching staff for new venture. Y Combinator pumps the brakes: Natasha M reports that the YC accelerator cuts nearly 20% of staff, and starts scaling back growth-stage investments.

3 investors predict the future of startups and VC following SVB's downfall Silicon Valley Bank was more than just a preferred choice for managing payroll and investor cash: It also offered wealth management services and below-market-rate home loans and helped coordinate private stock sales. So where does this bank’s collapse leave the tech industry? Who’s most vulnerable, who stands to benefit, and what are some of the long-term implications for VC? To learn more, Karan Bhasin and Ram Iyer interviewed: Maëlle Gavet, CEO, Techstars Niko Bonatsos, managing director, General Catalyst Colin Beirne, partner, Two Sigma Ventures “We're probably going to see consolidation in the VC class,” said Gavet. “It was already on the way, but this is probably going to accelerate it, because SVB was also a preeminent provider of loans for GPs to make their capital commitment polls.” Three more from the TC+ team: Vertigo-coin: Jacquelyn reports that SVB's mess could become stablecoins' problem. Walking the tightrope: Rising interest rates are putting VCs back in their lanes, observes Alex. Not as bad as you thought: Despite 2022's volatility, VC funds performed better than you think, Becca reports. TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Read More Image Credits: Dimitri Otis / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. If you're dying to buy Apple's new "banana phone" but want to know if the shade is more "sunshine" or "dandelion," the consumer products giant is offering a live concierge that can answer that and any other question you have. Sarah reports that this new way to shop online for an iPhone includes a live shopping feature with your very own specialist for that high-touch customer experience without waiting in line for hours. Now to bring you all things Google: YouTube TV now has a "multiview" feature so you can watch four streams at once, Sarah reports. Just in time for March Madness. Google Play Games for PC to roll out to Europe and Japan, Sarah writes. Aisha has your look at a new series of updates that Google launched to make it easier to find low-cost healthcare centers in search results. If you're a developer who likes to build healthcare-related apps, Google is hooking you up with Open Health Stack for developers, Ivan reports. Speaking of developers, Google Cloud gives developers access to its foundation models, Frederic writes. Here's five more that have nothing to do with Google: If you're not into ChatGPT: Kyle writes about a group of researchers coming "Together" to develop an open source ChatGPT alternative. If you're following the Microsoft layoffs: In January, Paul reported that Microsoft was laying off 10,000 employees, and now we've learned that an ethical AI team was part of that. It's no secret that it is doubling down on OpenAI, though Rebecca notes that "the move calls into question Microsoft's commitment to ensuring its product design and AI principles are closely intertwined at a time when the company is making its controversial AI tools available to the mainstream." If you're getting into your Uber: Rebecca also writes that a California court upholds Prop 22 in a win for Uber, Lyft and DoorDash. That ballot measure from 2020 is related to classifying drivers as employees versus independent contractors. If you're thinking of laundering money in India: The country's Enforcement Directorate seized over $115 million as it has investigated cryptocurrency cases for money laundering, Manish reports. If you're enjoying remote work: Paul writes that Mark Zuckerberg is pointing to some internal data points that suggest engineers who joined Meta in-person perform better than those who joined remotely.

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Systems Administrator at Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA, United States) Sr BI Developer at Global Lending Services (Greenville, SC, USA) Database Administrator at ALOM TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION (Fremont, CA, USA) Head of Research and Development at Gene by Gene, Ltd (Houston, TX, USA) Senior Epic Application Analyst at Administration South (Toppenish, WA, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

View this email online in your browser Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Unsubscribe © 2023 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103

HSBC buys Silicon Valley Bank UK, says 'customers should not notice any changes'

TechCrunch Newsletter

By Haje Jan Kamps Monday, March 13, 2023

H'okay, so here's the earth. That's a sweet earth, you might say. This weekend has been So Very Busy with a certain Silicon Valley Bank toppling over. You couldn't go anywhere this weekend without overhearing dozens of conversations and realizing that everyone in San Francisco was an FDIC and national banking bailout expert, so that's good (?) news (??). In Friday's special edition of Daily Crunch, we summarized what had happened so far, but a lot more has gone down (literally, spiritually, and figuratively) since then, so here's my very best attempt at keeping you Sanguinely, Vitally Briefed. Natasha M summarized it well: It's been a surreal weekend. And Becca's exploration of what the collapse of SVB means for venture debt (TC+) is well worth a read as well. — Haje Image Credits: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

The TC SVB rundown Take a deep breath, because there's a lot of info coming down this fire hose at the moment. A great place to start is Alex and Natasha trying to unpack the whole situation on today's episode of the Equity podcast. What do you do next? CEO of Figure Brett Adcock wrote the excellent playbook for founders with Silicon Valley Bank accounts for TC+. The broader TechCrunch team has a ton of news, analysis, and context. Here's what happened over the past few days: The dominoes wobble: First Republic bank was put on a trading halt as its shares went into free-fall after SVB's demise, while Mercury expands FDIC insurance up to $3 million through a new Vault product. Regulators also shut down crypto-friendly bank Signature Bank. Even as the wheels are coming off, regulators requested SVB employees to stay on for the next 45 days to help tidy up the mess. But we're okay, though, right? Right?: The federal reserve announced that Silicon Valley Bank's depositors will be fully protected, although in the fast-moving world of startups where salaries need paying, every hour counts, and it's not clear whether the fed can move quickly enough. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday that the U.S. government would not bail out Silicon Valley Bank. Y Combinator, in turn, called on Congress to act on the SVB collapse. So about that “value-add”: Venture capital is big to talk about value add — and many of them are sitting on a sizable stockpile of cash. This, it appears, was their chance to shine. Sam Altman, Vinod Khosla, and other top VCs say they'll personally loan cash to startups as a short-term shoring-up measure to cover payroll and other expenses as the whole situation shakes out. In other parts of the value chain, the ecosystem is showing up, too. Deel, for example, is making over $120 million available to support its customers, and Brex's CEO leapt into action, trying to raise over $1 billion to cover bridge loans to keep startups running. Adopting is what we do: The startup ecosystem may rely on the banks, but it was also nimble on its feet in reacting to the crisis. Etsy began processing seller payments via alternative partners, while some major players in the ecosystem, such as Life360, Sezzle, Unity and AppLovin, disclosed its exposure to SVB in new statements. Roku, Roblox and others disclosed their own exposure. A fire sale: It seems like the burning wreckage of the bank is being parceled off, with SVB Financial reportedly looking for a buyer for SVB Securities and its SVB Capital VC division, and an FDIC auction for SVB assets is said to be underway. International ramifications: It wasn't just in Silicon Valley that echoes were heard. The whole debacle is causing panic in China's startup industry, and in a historic last-minute deal, HSBC bank acquires Silicon Valley Bank UK, assuring customers that all depositors' money is safe. The response from the U.K. tech ecosystem illustrates just how jarring the bank’s failure is, reaching overseas. International regulators froze SVB assets in international branches in Canada and Germany, and the fallout is impacting many Indian startups. SVB flames out, BTC fired up: We cringed pretty hard at the hot takes that “if everything was on crypto this coulda been avoided,” but crypto doesn't give two craps about our cringing, and leapt 18% in the wake of the SVB crisis, Jacquelyn reported. Coulda been avoided: Investor Mark Suster says a "handful" of bad actors in VC destroyed Silicon Valley Bank. The SVB collapse was also covered with additional context and analysis in our other newsletters. For example, check out this week’s fintech newsletter The Interchange.

Startups and VC In non-banking-collapse news: A diamond of fresh air: Aether wants to shift you from blood diamonds to gems pulled from thin air, Haje writes. Building blocks: Christine writes that 123 Baby Box delivers for parents seeking children's products without the hassle. Listening on Main Street: TuneIn rolls out its immersive map experience for mobile listeners, Lauren writes. Times are a'changin: Tage reports that Naspers shuts down Foundry, its $100 million fund focused on South African startups. Let's take this behind closed doors: Qualtrics accepts $12.5 billion all-cash acquisition offer to go private, Paul reports.

Building a PLG motion on top of usage-based pricing Last July, Puneet Gupta, a former AWS general manager who’s now CEO and co-founder of Amberflo.io, wrote a TC+ article that explained how SaaS startups can adopt a usage-based business model. In a follow-up published today, he shares four tactics teams can use to gather, analyze and leverage customer data to take the guesswork out of pricing decisions. “When the time comes to make decisions about product packaging and pricing, the first place you turn to should be the metering pipeline for historical usage data,” he writes. Three more from the TC+ team: A bit of a trip-up: Synthesis Institute collapse is a major setback for US psychedelic therapy, by Haje. Plotting a course: As the SVB dust begins to settle, what's ahead for startups, VCs and the banking industry? wonders Alex. Big Gen: Ron is curious if generative AI really is ready for enterprise adoption. TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription! Read More Image Credits: miguelangelortega / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc. Block monitoring firm PeckShield sent an ominous tweet directed at the crypto lending platform Euler Finance, simply saying: "Hi, you may want to take a look," Lorenzo reports. A series of transactions indicated there was an ongoing hack against Euler. Another few to keep you busy: Web of lies: Carly reports that web3 isn't the security fix-all you think it is. Green in several senses of the word: Harri reports that Microsoft bets on algae to mitigate its growing carbon footprint. Less exclusive electric vans: Rivian is in talks with Amazon to remove the exclusivity clause of the two companies' EV van agreement, Kirsten reports. 3…2…1…: Aria invites you to watch as Relativity attempts to launch Terran 1 one more time. Not so stable: Uncertainty stands around multibillion USDC empire as issuer Circle held reserves at Silicon Valley Bank, Jacquelyn and Alex report.

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Sr BI Developer at Global Lending Services (Greenville, SC, USA) Database Administrator at ALOM TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION (Fremont, CA, USA) Head of Research and Development at Gene by Gene, Ltd (Houston, TX, USA) Senior Epic Application Analyst at Administration South (Toppenish, WA, USA) Senior Front End Web Developer (L3) at SalesLabX (Austin, TX, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

View this email online in your browser Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Unsubscribe © 2023 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103