Monday, March 20, 2023

Amazon CEO says laying off 9,000 more workers 'is best for the company long-term'

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By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Monday, March 20, 2023

🚚 Trucking is a vital industry and yet the majority of operations are operating on outdated platforms. AtoB thinks it has the solution and its co-founder says the company is essentially Stripe for transportation. If you wanna learn more, dial in to our TechCrunch Live episode on Wednesday at 12 p.m. PDT / 3 p.m. EDT.

✌️ Happy equinox. May your spring blossom with a million flowers and infinite prosperity.

Christine and Haje

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The TechCrunch Top 3

  • A surprising turn of events: Paul has the latest on Amazon, which confirmed another round of layoffs, this time impacting 9,000 people in AWS (see below), Twitch (see Big Tech) and other units. This comes just a couple months after Amazon revealed 18,000 layoffs. The AWS part had some colleagues scratching their heads, with Paul writing, "[C]ompanies are looking to cut costs due to the economic downturn, which translates into fewer dollars spent on things like cloud computing — even though AWS remains a hugely profitable entity for Amazon."
  • Like looking into a crystal ball of startup exits: PitchBook has a new tool that uses AI to predict which startups will successfully exit, Kyle writes. The tool assigns an "opportunity score" out of 100 and even shows through which method the exit might happen.
  • OMG AWS: As you read above, AWS took a hit in the latest round of Amazon layoffs, and Ron provides more insight on what went down.

Startups and VC

Banking stocks are whipsawing this morning in the wake of the UBS–Credit Suisse deal and First Republic's continued woes — and much more, on this morning's utterly excellent episode of our Equity podcast.

Apropos podcasts: Maximum Fun's owner is selling the podcast company that he founded almost 20 years ago. Rather than surrendering the network to a Big Tech company or media conglomerate, he is selling it to its workers, as a worker-owned co-op, Amanda reports.

You want more? Y'all are hella greedy. But we are nothing if not kind, so fine — here's an omakase menu of yumminess:

The cloud backlash has begun: Why big data is pulling compute back on premises

For most of the Information Age, companies that wanted to scale invested in server farms and hired massive operations teams to keep them running.

The relatively recent shift to cloud computing promised to lower costs and boost productivity, but “cloud-first strategies may be hitting the limits of their efficacy, and in many cases, ROIs are diminishing,” writes Thomas Robinson, COO of Domino Data Lab.

Because “the great repatriation” now taking place among public companies also has direct implications for startup DevOps teams, Robinson shares suggestions for “a few things that can be done to ensure future flexibility for where workloads are created.”

Three more from the magnificently magnificent TC+ team:

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!

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The cloud backlash has begun: Why big data is pulling compute back on premises image

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Big Tech Inc.

Microsoft is getting in on the mobile games craze with its own app store. Ivan writes that the software giant is going where Apple and Google have gone before, even banking on some new regulations in the European Union to help its cause, noting that "Microsoft has had a difficult time creating the user experience it wants with its Cloud Gaming app on Apple devices because the iPhone maker required users to download each game available to play on Microsoft's cloud offering, including Fortnite. So Microsoft now asks people to sign in through Safari and follow instructions, which are not as easy as downloading an app from the App Store."

It's Monday, so as a special treat, we have six more for you:

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Friday, March 17, 2023

With just $2.2B in remaining liquidity, SVB’s parent company files for bankruptcy

TechCrunch Newsletter
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By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Friday, March 17, 2023

Happy Friday Crunch!

There's a persistent theory in hardware that manufacturing overseas is the cheaper/better/more efficient option. You manufacture there, assemble somewhere else, and finally approve and get to market in the United States, Haje writes on TC+. It turns out that it's possible to manufacture closer to home. With supply chains in the news more than ever, "nearshoring" is an oft-overlooked option for startups.

On that note — we're going to drink a beer with a shamrock poured into the foam, for no particular reason whatsoever.  — Christine and Haje

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The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Next stop, Chapter 11: Today, SVB Financial filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, disclosing that it has $2.2 billion in liquidity, Ingrid reports. "This will mean that SVB Financial can apply, and plans to apply, to the courts to resume activities while finding buyers for its assets, which include going ahead with its plans to sell off SVB Securities and SVB Capital, and more," Ingrid notes.
  • More that we didn't ask for: Now U.S. users can add a coveted blue check mark to their Instagram and Facebook accounts — well, at least get on the waitlist to do so — for a monthly fee, that is, Aisha reports. Nothing in life is truly free, loves. But there are stickers, so there's that.
  • In the nick of time: As a serial entrepreneur who has famously endured some ups and downs, Parker Conrad has nearly seen it all. Or so he might have thought until last week, Connie reports. Rippling, his six-year-old workforce management company, would go on to secure $500 million in fresh funding as a kind of insurance in the very likely scenario that SVB's meltdown wasn't resolved nearly as quickly as it happened.

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Startups and VC

Last night, the news broke that Virgin Orbit was pausing operations for at least a week while it looked for funding to support the business. As part of that pause, company executives reportedly told staff in an all-hands meeting that they were being furloughed — and that it would be unpaid. it never should've come to a staff furlough, however, Aria writes.

Unearthly Materials claimed to have big-name investors, but they weren't all on board, Tim reports over on TC+. The startup claims it's on the cusp of a superconductor breakthrough despite questionable scientific record.

And we have five more for you, complete with saltier-than-usual commentary:

Best practices for changing times: How founders should leverage AI and ML in 2023

We don’t run many articles promoting basic best practices. Suggestions like “listen to your customers” and “make data-driven decisions” are so general, they’re hard to implement.

But now that AI-driven solutions are offering search results, producing poems and generating illustrations on demand, startups need a framework for creating customized user experiences, according to Ab Gaur, founder and CEO of Verticurl.

“While excessive or unhelpful customer data can clog content pipelines, the right information can power hyper-personalization at scale,” he writes.

Three more from the TC+ team:

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

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Big Tech Inc.

TikTok had a lot going on in the past day: Taking a nod from several governmental entities in the United States, New Zealand banned TikTok from phones of parliamentarians. Ivan has more on what is going on there. Speaking of the U.S., Taylor writes that the government here is increasing its pressure on TikTok to separate from parent company ByteDance or risk also being banned in the U.S. While the social media giant is dealing with that, it's also managed to strike a multiyear deal with Major League Soccer — well, unless it's banned in the U.S. For now, the deal will provide exclusive content and other in-app programming, Aisha writes.

And we have five more for you:

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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