Alphabet CEO says 12,000 layoffs as company ‘hired for different economic realities’ • TechCrunch

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Happy Friday! Join us in wishing. Lorenzo A very warm welcome to the team! He’s joining our cybersecurity reporters, working alongside Zach and Carly. Published the first article on TC, about T-Mobile’s report that a hacker accessed the personal information of 37 million customers. Welcome!!

Enjoy your weekend! – Christine And came

TechCrunch’s Top 3

• The letter describes dismissalWith all the talk about technology displacement over the past couple of months, it was only a matter of time before we saw something from Google’s parent, Alphabet. The search engine giant has announced that it is cutting 12,000 jobs by 6%. And like everyone else, CEO Sundar Pichai will take his turn and explain how the company has adapted to a “different economic reality.” Paul He wrote.
• Game is lost: This next layoff story is a little surprising, as media companies are taking a hit as the game grows in popularity. Fandom, the entertainment company that publishes content under Giant Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic, has laid off about 10% of its staff at those publications. Ivan Reports.
• It’s all about money, money, money.Social media influencers in India must disclose promotional content, aka paid promotions, to the government, and now the Department of Consumer Affairs has issued some guidelines on how to do so. Jagmet It has more.

Startups and VCs

A $32 million seed round for Chris DeWolfe’s new gaming company as of… 2021. But that’s what PLAI Labs has raised in a deal led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), reports Connie. She points out that there is a lot of moolah even in the volatile market that comes from two different a16z funds: the company’s $600 million first games vehicle and $4.5 billion crypto fund, both of which were announced last May.

Here’s another handful for you:

4 Investors Discuss the Next Big Wave for Alternative Seafood Startups

There’s a lot of hype surrounding plant-based burgers and nuggets, but alternative seafood products are currently attracting more attention — and funding — from investors.

“In the first half of 2022, more than $178 million was invested in alternative seafood, and the market value is set to reach $1.6 billion over the next 10 years,” she reports.

To learn more about this maturing space, Christine Hall surveyed four investors to get their thoughts on regulation, the “unique challenges” companies face, and how they approach growth and risk.

• Kate Danaher, Managing Director of Oceans and Seafood, S2G Ventures
• Friederike Grosse-Holz, Director, Blue Horizon
• Christian Lim, Managing Director, SWEN Capital Partners Blue Ocean
• Amy Novogratz, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Aqua Spark

Three more from the TC+ team:

TechCrunch+ Our membership program helps founders and startup teams stay ahead of the pack. You can register here.. Use code “DC” for 15% off annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

OK, no more talk of layoffs. It’s Friday so we’re going to have some fun, damn it!

Are you still playing Wordle? Or maybe you switched to the clone Quordle. Well, Quordle was discovered by Merriam-Webster; Paul Reports. If you’ve never tried it, Quordle is similar to the basic concept of Wordle, with nine attempts to guess a word, except there are four five-letter words to guess at a time. It might just warm you up on a cold winter night.

Here are four more for your Friday enjoyment:

• Your turn: Amanda After weeks of backlash and protests from content creators and fans, the publisher of Dungeons and Dragons has written about its decision to release the game under a Creative Commons license.
• Sudden greetingAfter recently deprecating third-party clients including Tweetbot and Twitterific, Twitter has gone ahead and officially banned them. Kyle He wrote.
• ICMINetflix founder Red Hastings will step down as CEO but remain on the board Taylor He wrote. Meanwhile, Netflix is ​​eyeing free-to-air “fast” channels to boost its advertising business. Lauren Reports.
• Up, up and up: as a Darrell Canada is joining the space race from space, he writes.