Wall Street finally has the leverage it's been wanting over Big Tech
It's Friday! We made it! Hooray! This is Matt Weinberger, writing to you from San Francisco. The week is drawing to a close, and with it, my time writing this newsletter. Monday's edition of 10 Things in Tech will be written once more by your usual host, Jordan Parker Erb. Before I go, let me just say: Thank you for reading!
Thursday was another messy day for tech, in the middle of the messiest month for the industry in recent memory. Meta reportedly fired or disciplined about two dozen employees over the last year for hijacking Facebook user accounts — with some of them accused of taking thousands of dollars in bribes.
Meanwhile, the new CEO of now-defunct crypto exchange FTX is blasting former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried in bankruptcy court, saying that he's never seen a company in such bad shape. Google is inching closer to performing mass layoffs. Thursday was also the deadline for Twitter employees to accept Elon Musk's ultimatum: Get with the program, or get out. It seems many effectively opted for the latter, as Musk abruptly shut down Twitter's offices and workers resigned en masse.
Take one giant step back, and there's one group benefitting from all the tech carnage: Wall Street investors, who finally have leverage over Big Tech after years of having to swallow spending to excess.
There is, once again, very much happening. So let's get to it:
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1. Wall Street is ready to slice and dice. Insider's Jake Swearingen writes that Wall Street firms have had little choice but to bite their tongues when Big Tech firms spend good money after bad on hiring, acquisitions, office perks, and cutting-edge research.
- The balance of power has shifted: With tech companies struggling on the public markets, Wall Street has more leverage than it's held in a long time.
- That's made an opening for activist investors to call on companies like Meta and Google to trim headcount — marking the end of an era where tech CEOs had free rein.
- Those investors are having an impact. Meta already made Wall Street happy when it recently trimmed 11,000 jobs, and Insider reported on Thursday that Google is imperiling as many as 10,000 jobs with a new performance-review system.
Read more about how Wall Street is taking the driver's seat in tech here.
In Other News:
2. Elon Musk has locked Twitter staff out of offices until next week. According to Slack messages seen by Insider, a current employee said the move wast intended to "prevent physical sabotage," after hundreds of employees effectively resigned after being given an ultimatum by the billionaire.
3. The plan to outwit human evolution. Insider's Julia Black reports on the underground world of pronatalism — a movement embraced by Elon Musk and other tech industry elites who want to avert the threat of population collapse by having lots of genetically-superior children. I found the idea pretty unsettling — you can read more here.
4. How hard is being a CEO, really? Insider contributor Ed Zitron writes that if Elon Musk can be the CEO of three extremely prominent companies simultaneously — Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter — it says that there's something very wrong with our notion of what it actually means to be a chief executive officer.
5. Amazon could hold retail layoffs after Thanksgiving. Insider's Katherine Long reports that Amazon plans to preserve its current level of staffing in its retail division until the busy Black Friday weekend is over. After that, Katherine reports, layoffs xare on the table.
6. The new CEO of FTX calls out the old one. In bankruptcy filings, new FTX CEO John J. Ray calls out founder and former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, saying he's never seen a worse-run company. That's particularly funny when you realize that Ray once oversaw Enron's bankruptcy proceedings, too.
7. TikTok and the music industry are best frenemies forever. TikTok needs access to the latest and greatest hits to stay relevant. The music industry needs TikTok to promote new singles and artists directly to their target demographics. Their mutual interest is complicated by fights over licensing and costs, Insider reports here.
8. Ticketmaster in trouble over Taylor Swift. In the wake of the absolute rodeo that's been the Taylor Swift Eras tour ticketing process, figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called on Ticketmaster to be broken up. Now, the attorney general of Tennessee says that he's probing Ticketmaster customer complaints.
Odds and Ends:
9. A newly-resigned Toyota Prius is coming next year. Earlier this week, Consumer Reports said that hybrids like the Prius are generally more reliable than your favorite pickup truck. On Thursday, Toyota unveiled a redesigned Prius with a sleek new design, 57mpg, and a horsepower boost.
10. Sleep in the Airbnb CEO's house. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is putting a bedroom in his own home up on the home-sharing service — and for free, to boot. He says he'll even bake you chocolate chip cookies.
Keep updated with the latest tech news throughout your day by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief from the Insider newsroom. Listen here.
Curated by Matt Weinberger in San Francisco. (Feedback or tips? Email mweinberger@insider.com or tweet @gamoid.) Edited by Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London.