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Blissful Friday! Be part of us in wishing Lorenzo a really heat welcome to the crew! He’s becoming a member of our crack crew of cybersecurity reporters, working alongside Zack and Carly. He simply printed his first article on TC, about T-Cellular reporting a hacker accessed private knowledge of 37 million prospects. Welcome aboard!!
Take pleasure in your weekend! — Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch High 3
- Alphabet spells out layoffs: With all that speak about tech layoffs prior to now couple months, it was solely a matter of time earlier than we noticed one thing from Google’s father or mother, Alphabet. The search engine big introduced it was reducing 6% of its workforce, which impacts 12,000 folks. And just like the others, CEO Sundar Pichai took his flip explaining how the corporate “employed for a unique financial actuality,” Paul writes.
- Sport off: With gaming being as common as it’s, this subsequent layoff story is a little bit of a shock, although not completely surprising since media firms are being hit onerous. Leisure firm Fandom, which publishes content material underneath Big Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic, laid off roughly 10% of its employees throughout these publications, Ivan studies.
- It’s all in regards to the cash, cash, cash: Social media influencers in India need to disclose promotional content material, aka paid promotions, to the federal government, and now the Division of Shopper Affairs has launched some tips on how to do this. Jagmeet has extra.
Startups and VC
A $32 million seed spherical for Chris DeWolfe’s latest gaming firm might look like a throwback to frothier occasions, like … 2021. However that’s how a lot PLAI Labs simply raised in a deal led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), studies Connie. She factors out that that’s quite a lot of moolah in a risky market, even coming because it does from two separate a16z funds: the agency’s $600 million debut video games automobile and its $4.5 billion crypto fund, each of which have been introduced final Might.
Right here’s one other handful for ya:
4 traders focus on the following large wave for different seafood startups
Picture of WildType’s sushi-grade, lab-grown salmon. Picture Credit: Arye Elfenbein/WildType
There’s quite a lot of hype round plant-based burgers and nuggets, however different seafood merchandise are attracting extra consideration — and funding — from traders lately.
“Greater than $178 million was pumped into different seafood within the first half of 2022, and the market’s worth is poised to achieve $1.6 billion over the following 10 years,” she studies.
To study extra about this maturing area, Christine Corridor surveyed 4 traders to get their ideas on regulation, the “distinctive challenges” firms face as they attempt to attain scale, and the way they’re approaching progress and threat:
- Kate Danaher, managing director of ocean and seafood, S2G Ventures
- Friederike Grosse-Holz, director, Blue Horizon
- Christian Lim, managing director, SWEN Capital Companions’ Blue Ocean
- Amy Novogratz, co-founder and managing companion, Aqua Spark
Three extra from the TC+ crew:
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup groups get forward of the pack. You may join right here. Use code “DC” for a 15% low cost on an annual subscription!
Massive Tech Inc.
Okay, no extra layoff discuss. We’re going to have some enjoyable, as a result of it’s Friday, rattling it!
Are you continue to enjoying Wordle? Or maybe you switched to its clone Quordle. Properly, Quordle was acquired by Merriam-Webster, Paul studies. Should you’ve by no means tried it, Quordle is just like the fundamental Wordle idea, guessing a phrase in a specific amount of tries, besides there are 4 five-letter phrases to guess directly, with simply 9 tries. It may be simply the factor to heat you up on a chilly winter’s evening.
Right here’s 4 extra to your Friday enjoyment:
- Your flip: Amanda writes that after weeks of backlash and protest from content material creators and followers, Dungeons & Dragons’ writer decided to place the sport underneath a Inventive Commons license.
- An abrupt goodbye: After lately reducing off third-party shoppers, together with Tweetbot and Twitterific, Twitter went forward and formally banned them, Kyle writes.
- ICYMI: Netflix founder Reed Hastings stepped down as co-CEO however will stay on the board, Taylor writes. In the meantime, Netflix is eyeing free streaming “FAST” channels as a risk to develop its advertisements enterprise, Lauren studies.
- Up, up, and away: As Darrell writes, Canada is getting up off the sidelines and becoming a member of the area race, saying it desires to assist industrial area launches.
