Welcome to Startups Weekly, this week’s spotlight on startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and co-host of Equity Natasha Maskerenhas To get this in your inbox, sign up here.
We’ve been living through a lot of tech history over the past couple of years, but Twitter’s brutal eviction feels especially sad, complicated, and exhausting for anyone who follows the industry. We knew it was coming, then we were told it wasn’t, then it definitely was, then it happened. Half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff are reportedly out of a job.
I don’t have a hot take or a musk-related quip about this moment. I sympathize with those who have lost or may lose their jobs after spending time, energy and care building Twitter. Twitter staff are turning to hashtags. #Love what you do, a riff on the internal hashtag #lovewhereyouwork, to thank each other, say goodbye and share personal news. As one former employee put it, the new hashtag is “a bittersweet phrase – not because I’m gone, but because it’s gone.”
I’ve covered dozens and dozens of layoff stories over the past year, all with the same statement: “The macroeconomic environment has caused us to adjust our expectations, which has impacted a percentage of our workforce.” One thing that strikes me about the Twitter firings is the lack of emotion and acknowledgment of the way they were handled. Even Better.com, which had its worst layoff of the year, did better. See below:
On Thursday night, all Twitter employees received an email saying they would be notified of their job status on Friday at 9 a.m. PDT. Each email should be sent with the subject line “Your role on Twitter”. If an employee is to continue working, they should be notified by their work email – if they are let go, they will be notified by personal address.
“To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended,” Thursday’s email read. “If you are in the office or on your way to the office, please go home.”
The email is personally signed “Twitter”.
TechCrunch put together Twitter thread for former Tweeps to search for next jobs, which will continue to be updated. While I’m joking that some high-profile members may join Andreessen Horowitz next, I’m excited to see how the alumni network chooses their next career. Will it be in the beginnings? Or courage? Or do you seek refuge in roles that feel less threatening than technology roles? Or can you start a career outside of the tech industry entirely?
I can only imagine this experience as a blow; Instead, as you look around, perhaps unaware of the audience and stage you were once responsible for entertaining, you can feel the wonderfully warm spotlight finally letting go.
I’m as lost as the rest of us when it comes to predicting what’s next, but today is clearly a turning point in the history of technology. What Twitter and alumni do at the moment is another question. He likes to pretend about networks and how they start and stop people. My DMs are open.
In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll talk again about Gen Z turnover, fintech trends and Twitter. As always, you can follow me Every day of the week on Twitter for my thoughts.
Gen. Z. V.C
Megan Lois Lehrer announced this week that she is leaving Hippe to continue working full-time on the community she has been building for years. Gen. Z. V.C. In a tweet announcing the news, she said she’s teaching a Lost VC 101 course, starting a newsletter, working on content creation and working with organizations to eradicate Gen Z.
The news comes a month after GV’s Terri Burns left the firm, where she became the youngest and first black woman to earn the title of partner. As Burns shared with TechCrunch in 2020, her investment thesis is simple: Gen Z.
Here’s why it’s important: While we don’t yet know what Burns is up to next, her and Lois’ departure from institutional firms during a volatile time in technology is a good reminder of how cyclical ventures can be. We recently recorded an Equity podcast about venture capitalism and how it’s expanding and rewriting itself over time: Investors are either paranoid, have gone quiet or are rewriting their entire playbook.
Image Credits: Mirage C (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images
Another part about dismissal
Streep and Chime announced the layoffs this week, a reminder that fintech still faces volatility despite its potential to attract venture dollars.
- In addition, sources have learned that stock trading service Public.com has laid off 13 people, or about 7% of its team. “These decisions were made to meet our most strategic goals and develop our talent pool accordingly,” CEO Leif Abraham said in a statement to TechCrunch. While the public’s workforce reductions have been less severe than Chim & Strip’s, it is saying it has downsized its workforce. In the same week that he pushed for international expansion. Credit: Anita Ramaswamy And Mary Ann Azevedo For efforts to verify this news.
Here’s why it’s important: Companies don’t just downsize when they have to. In a memo announcing the strike, Stripe CEO Patrick Collin said the company “signed an impressive 75% more customers in Q3 2022 than Q3 2021, and recently set a record for total daily transaction volume on the platform.” Partnership announced. So it’s a little confusing that the same startups that are growing are the same startups that are downsizing. All I can say is that the weeks leading up to the holiday season are likely to bring more layoffs (and I’m sad to see that).
Image Credits: ersinkisacik / Getty Images
Twitter’s only fan moment
My talented colleague Amanda Silberling He appeared in her column this week about the Twitter OnlyFans opportunity. She reminds us that Twitter has a lot of work to do before it can safely and monetize adult content creators on the platform — but at the same time, trying to make some of its $44 billion acquisition might be Musk’s best bet. Feeling.
Here is an excerpt:
Twitter is the only major social media platform that allows users to post pornographic images. Thus, for online sex workers, Twitter has historically served as an advertising tool for their online fan accounts. But what if those creators monetized the platform and bypassed the hassle of sending fans elsewhere?
“Sex sells” is not for nothing, and OnlyFans’s financials prove it. In the year In 2021, the company made a pre-tax profit of $433 million, up from $61 million in 2020. In 2021 alone, $4 billion was paid out.
Because the market for online sex work is so large, it can offset the fallout from advertisers.
Read the whole thing here and tell me what you think!
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch
A few notes
- If you missed last week’s newsletter, it upset a few people enough to hang on: “Venture capital will soon be full of ghosts.”
- TechCrunch is going to Miami in a few weeks to throw, you guessed it, a crypto conference. Some of my absolute favorite people are going to be there, including our all-star crypto team, so make sure you go and DM me for a sweet, sweet discount code. Buy tickets and check out our lineup here.
- I’m going to a friend’s wedding next week (pictures to come!) so Kyle Wiggers is taking over the newsletter. Follow him first. And bye, okay?
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