Following Bret Taylor's departure, more top executives are leaving Salesforce

Hello, tech readers. Quick question: Have you gone "goblin mode" yet this year?

Maybe you have — even if you didn't realize it. Goblin mode, which was crowned Oxford English Dictionary's 2022 word of the year, means being unapologetically self-indulgent or lazy, "typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations."

I've got more on goblin mode below, but first, let's talk about Salesforce, which is seeing more executive departures this week.

I'm your host, Jordan Parker Erb. Let's get started.

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1. Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield will exit Salesforce in January. The news of Butterfield's departure comes just days after Salesforce announced co-CEO Bret Taylor is also leaving the company — though Butterfield told staff the moves were unrelated.

• Butterfield posted his announcement, viewed by Insider, to an internal Slack channel at Salesforce on Monday morning, saying: "This has nothing to do with Bret's departure. Planning has been in the works for several months!"
• According to the memo, Lidiane Jones, currently executive vice president and general manager of digital experiences clouds at Salesforce, will take over for Butterfield as CEO of Slack. Meet Jones here.
• Butterfield's departure isn't the only exit to follow Bret Taylor's. A day after Taylor's announcement, Tableau's CEO and one of Salesforce's CTOs announced their exits. Here's a running list of the top execs who left Salesforce recently.

Read the memo Butterfield wrote to employees.

In other news:

2. Elon Musk gambled big on Twitter. Tesla is going to pay the price. Vicki Bryan, founder of a bond research firm, writes that she's never seen new management blow up a company as fast as Musk is destroying Twitter — and that he might have to raid Tesla to keep his new purchase afloat. Meanwhile, the company's former C-suite is set to receive $200 million in combined stock payouts after getting fired by Musk, if he abides by their contracts.

3. "Metaverse" lost the word of the year contest to "goblin mode." Oxford Languages, the publisher of Oxford English Dictionary, named "goblin mode" the 2022 Word of the Year — beating out semifinalist "metaverse." A look at what "goblin mode" means.

4. Inside the stunning unraveling of Bright Health. The health-insurance upstart went public in 2021 at a dizzying $11.2 billion valuation. But now, the company has taken a hatchet to most of its business as it works to stave off a collapse, and experts and insiders are blaming Bright's pursuit of rapid growth for its undoing. Read the full story.

5. Want an extra $2 per month? That's what Amazon is offering some customers who let it monitor the traffic on their phones. Under the company's new invite-only Ad Verification program, Amazon is tracking what ads participants saw, where they saw them, and when they were viewed. The program could raise privacy concerns over how Amazon handles customer data — see what we know so far.

6. Shopify told employees not to engage with tweets about its business ties with Libs of TikTok. A leaked memo shows that so many people have contacted Shopify about its hosting the controversial store that the e-commerce company issued specific guidance to customer-support representatives about how they should handle inquiries about the topic. What we learned from the leaked memo.

7. Tesla drivers say they've faced more incidents of road rage since they started driving the EVs. According to the Guardian, drivers claim they've faced more harassment, like being cut off in traffic and heckled, since they started driving the electric car. More on that here.

8. The EU hosted a party in its $400,000 metaverse, but pretty much no one showed up. One journalist who attended the 24-hour launch party said he was one of just six people at the event. More on the event here.

Odds and ends:

9. These are the best tech gifts for everyone on your list. We've been searching for the gifts people actually want, and have compiled a list of gifts you can get right now. From portable speakers to action cameras, here are our 33 top picks.

10. What is ChatGPT? The tool, which has reached over one million users in five days, is a new artificial intelligence chatbot that answers questions in a conversational, human-like way. See what the hype is about.

What we're watching today:

• TechCrunch Sessions: Space, for investors, founders, and technologists on the future of space.
• The Microsoft Azure + AI Conference starts today.

Curated by Jordan Parker Erb in New York. (Feedback or tips? Email jerb@insider.com or tweet @jordanparkererb.) Edited by Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London.