Twitter has published a policy change saying that newly-created Twitter accounts will have to wait 90 days before being allowed to subscribe to the new Twitter Blue plan and get verified. This is likely to avoid impersonation and spam from verified accounts.
“Newly created Twitter accounts will not be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 90 days. We may also impose waiting periods for new accounts in the future at our discretion without notice,” the company said on its FAQ page about Twitter Blue.
Prior to this, the Elon Musk-led company just said that new accounts created after November 9 won’t be able to purchase the $8 Twitter subscription plan.
Twitter Blue terms on Nov 10 noting accounts created after Nov 9 can’t sign up for Twitter Blue. Image Credits: Twitter
The old terms were published during the rushed rollout of Twitter Blue, which caused havoc and a barrage of verified accounts started impersonating brands, celebrities, and athletes. Because of fake verified accounts tweeting misinformation, shares of companies like Eli Lilly and Lockheed Martin took a dip.
To avoid impersonation, the company has prohibited verified users from changing their names. Earlier this week, Musk said that paid accounts will lose the verified checkmark until the social network confirms that the new name follows its rules. However, the company hasn’t made any formal policy around that.
With new release, changing your verified name will cause loss of checkmark until name is confirmed by Twitter to meet Terms of Service
Twitter is in the soup with the new paid plan. On the one hand, Musk has promised that subscribers will get prominence on the notification tab, replies, and searches — the company briefly moved the verified notification tab’s position to place it before all notifications too. On the other hand, after assessing the initial results from the verification rollout, it clearly has to thwart spam and impersonation to prevent more advertisers from leaving the platform.
As a result, Musk paused the rollout of Twitter Blue last week. He also promised to relaunch the relaunched Twitter Blue program on November 29, but in Elonverse things can change rather quickly.
OSTRAVA, Czech Republic — In this part of northeastern Czech Republic, huge piles of coal are stacked up ready to sell to eager buyers and smoke belches from coal-fired plants that are ramping up instead of winding down.
Ostrava has been working for decades to end its legacy as the most polluted area of the country, transitioning from an industrial working-class stronghold to a modern city with tourist sights. But Russia’s war in Ukraine has triggered an energy crisis in Europe that as paved the way for coal’s comeback, endangering climate goals and threatening health from increased pollution.
Households and businesses are turning to the fuel once considered obsolete as they seek a cheaper option than natural gas, whose prices have surged as Russia slashed supplies to Europe.
Demand for brown coal — the cheapest and most energy inefficient form — used by Czech households jumped by almost 35% in the first nine months of 2022 over a year earlier.
In the same period, production rose more than 20%, the first increase after an almost continuous, decadeslong decline, the Czech Industry and Trade Ministry said.
“We’re worried,” said Zdenka Němečková Crkvenjaš, who is responsible for environment as a member the governing council of the Moravian-Silesian region. “If the prices won’t go down, what might happen is that we’ll be facing an increased pollution.”
The region is part of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin, a large industrialized area straddling the Czech-Polish border with rich deposits of coal and factories producing steel, power and the type of coal used for steel-making that date to the 19th century.
A combination of burning coal for residential heating and industrial plants resulted in “catastrophic” air pollution at the end of the communist era in 1989, said Petr Jančík from Technical University Ostrava, an air pollution expert who cooperated on the Air Tritia project that recently produced an online model of the polluted air on the Czech-Polish-Slovak border.
Coal-fired power is not only disastrous for climate, it’s also a health hazard, releasing heavy particle emissions, nitrogen oxides and mercury, which contaminates fish in lakes and rivers.
A decline of industrial and mining activities and advent of new environmental standards after the Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004 vastly improved air quality.
But big challenges remain.
Airborne dust emissions — PM10 particles — now meet environmental limits in the region, but concentrations of smaller PM2.5 particles that can reach deep into the lungs and bloodstream still do not hit World Health Organization standards.
A 2021 study of more than 800 European cities by Spain’s Barcelona Institute for Global Health, or ISGlobal, puts the regional capital of Ostrava and the nearby towns of Karviná and Havířov among the top 10 most polluted European cities. It estimated that 529 deaths a year could be avoided in those three cities if air quality guidelines are met.
Burning coal also spews the dangerous substance benzo(a)pyrene, whose levels are still high despite government programs that pay to replace old furnaces with more effective ones that reduce pollution.
Some 50,000 furnaces still need to be replaced in the Ostrava region, said Němečková Crkvenjaš, estimating that figure at 500,000 in a more populated and polluted area across the border in Poland.
“I’m afraid this winter won’t be ideal as far the air pollution is concerned,” she said. “I’ll be delighted if I’m wrong.”
Roman Vank, a board member for coal seller Ridera in Ostrava, said coal sales went up some 30% compared with last year. The cheapest form — brown coal — was most in demand.
Jančík, the scientist, said the impact to air quality is hard to predict right away, especially if it’s another mild winter, and that pollution “might get only slightly worse.”
He said a positive development is that high natural gas and electricity prices force people to acquire solar panels, more effective heating systems and try to become less dependent on sources of energy.
“There are two opposing trends: The first one is that people have been trying to use better and more efficient furnaces, and the second one is they consider using more coal and wood,” Jančík said. “That’s perhaps a result of a shock or worries, and they want to get supplies ready.”
Czech Greenpeace spokesman Lukáš Hrábek expected a negative impact in the near future.
“We see conflicting trends right now. We see higher coal consumption, but at the same time, we see a massive investment in renewable energies, in heat pumps, in insulation,” Hrábek said. “So it’s hard to say what the long-term effect will be, but the short-term effect is quite obvious, the air pollution will be worse because of the higher coal consumption.”
In another sign of coal’s revival, the Czech Republic has reversed plans to completely halt mining near Ostrava to help safeguard power supplies amid the energy crunch.
The state-owned OKD company will extend its mining activities in in the Ostrava region until at least the end of next year, citing “enormous” demand. It will be mostly used for generating power and household heating, with coal-fired power plants producing almost 50% of the country’s electricity.
The decision came after the European Union agreed to ban Russian coal starting in August over the war in Ukraine and as it works to reduce the bloc’s energy ties to Russia.
The Czech government aims to phase out coal in energy production by 2033 and increase its reliance on nuclear power.
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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said job cuts at the e-commerce giant would continue into early next year, in his first public remarks since the company began widespread layoffs earlier this week.
“Our annual planning process extends into the new year, which means there will be more role reductions as leaders continue to make adjustments,” Jassy wrote in a letter to staff Thursday. “Those decisions will be shared with impacted employees and organizations early in 2023.”
Jassy said that the company hasn’t “concluded yet exactly how many other roles will be impacted” by the layoffs, but added that “each leader will communicate to their respective teams when we have the details nailed down.”
Amazon confirmed on Wednesday that layoffs had begun at the company, just days after multiple outlets reported the e-commerce giant planned to cut around 10,000 employees this week.
Amazon
(AMZN) and other tech firms significantly ramped up hiring over the past couple of years as the pandemic shifted consumers’ habits toward e-commerce. Now, many of these seemingly untouchable tech companies are experiencing whiplash and laying off thousands of workers as people return to pre-pandemic habits and macroeconomic conditions deteriorate.
Jassy alluded to the macroeconomic climate in his memo Thursday, saying this year’s annual operating review “is more difficult due to the fact that the economy remains in a challenging spot and we’ve hired rapidly the last several years.”
Jassy said that this is the most difficult decision the company has had to make during his year-and-a-half tenure at Amazon’s helm.
“It’s not lost on me or any of the leaders who make these decisions that these aren’t just roles we’re eliminating, but rather, people with emotions, ambitions, and responsibilities whose lives will be impacted,” Jassy wrote.
Twitter continued to bleed engineers and other workers on Thursday, after new owner Elon Musk gave them a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay.
Some took to Twitter to announce they were signing off after Musk’s deadline to make the pledge. A number of employees took to a private forum outside of the company’s messaging board to discuss their planned departure, asking questions about how it might jeopardize their U.S. visas or if they would get the promised severance pay, according to an employee fired earlier this week who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
While it’s not clear how many of Twitter’s already-decimated staff took Musk up on his offer, the newest round of departures means the platform is continuing to lose workers just at it is gearing up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. one of the busiest events on Twitter that can overwhelm its systems if things go haywire.
“To all the Tweeps who decided to make today your last day: thanks for being incredible teammates through the ups and downs. I can’t wait to see what you do next,” tweeted one employee, Esther Crawford, who is remaining at the company and has been working on the overhaul of the platform’s verification system.
Since taking over Twitter less than three weeks ago, Musk has booted half of the company’s full-time staff of 7,500 and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial efforts. He fired top executives on his first day as Twitter’s owner, while others left voluntarily in the ensuing days. Earlier this week, he began firing a small group of engineers who took issue with him publicly or in the company’s internal Slack messaging system.
Then overnight on Wednesday, Musk sent an email to the remaining staff at Twitter, saying that it is a software and servers company at its heart and he asked employees to decide by Thursday evening if they want to remain a part of the business.
Musk wrote that employees “will need to be extremely hardcore” to build “a breakthrough Twitter 2.0” and that long hours at high intensity will be needed for success.
But in a Thursday email, Musk backpedaled on his insistence that everyone work from the office. His initial rejection of remote work had alienated many employees who survived the layoffs.
He softened his earlier tone in an email to employees, writing that “all that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring you are making an excellent contribution.” Workers would also be expected to have “in-person meetings with your colleagues on a reasonable cadence, ideally weekly, but not less than once per month.”
As of 7 p.m. Pacific Time, the No. 1 topic trending in the United States was “RIPTwitter” followed by the names of other social media platforms: “Tumblr,” “Mastodon” and “MySpace.”
Twitter did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Ticketmaster is facing more scrutiny from politicians after its chaotic presales for tickets to Taylor Swift’s tour. Tennessee attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti said he is looking into whether Ticketmaster violated consumer’s rights and antitrust regulations. Skrmetti is the latest politician who has called attention to Ticketmaster and Live Nation’s hold on the ticketing market.
This comes as Ticketmaster cancelled its public sales for Swift’s tour, called Eras. In a tweet, Ticketmaster said the cancellation was due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.”
The public sale would have been for tickets left over from the site’s troubled presales, which started on Tuesday for members of its Verified Fan program. Many fans experienced technical glitches and hours-long wait times, with many ultimately unable to buy a ticket.
According to the New York Times, Ticketmaster said in a now-deleted post that 3.5 million people registered for the Verified Fan program. Around 1.5 million were given a special access code, and the rest were put on a waiting list. “Never before has a Verified Fan on sale sparked so much attention—or uninvited volume,” Ticketmaster said.
Skrmetti said he had received complaints from fans who tried to purchase tickets for Eras. In a tweet on Thursday, the attorney general said that other state attorney generals are also looking into the matter: “Ticketmaster’s decision to cancel sales underscores the important need for accountability. Fans deserve a fair chance to buy a ticket. I’m encouraged by other state AGs who are taking this issue serious as well.”
The Washington Post reports that Skrmetti said Ticketmaster should have been better prepared for the high demand and questioned whether “because they have such a dominant market position, they felt like they didn’t need to worry about that.”
In another tweet before the sale was cancelled, the attorney general’s office said Skrmetti “is concerned about consumer complaints related to @Ticketmaster’s pre-sale of @taylorswift13 concert tickets. He and his Consumer Protection team will use every available tool to ensure that no consumer protection laws were violated.”
TechCrunch has contacted Ticketmaster and the Skrmetti’s office for comment.
Eras is Swift’s first tour in four years and comes after the release of her new album “Midnights.”
Other politicians who have raised concerns over the combined company of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which merged in 2010, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Representative David N. Cicilline and Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr.
On Tuesday, Representative Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet on Tuesday that “Ticketmaster is a monopoly, its merger with LiveNation should never have been approved, and they needed to be reigned in. Break them up.”
Representative Cicilline tweeted on Wednesday that Ticketmaster’s “excessive wait times and fees are completely unacceptable, as seen with today’s @taylorswift13 tickets, and are a symptom of a larger problem. It’s no secret that Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an unchecked monopoly.”
And Representative Pascrell, Jr., who was among the millions of fans put on a waitlist for Swift tickets, tweeted that Ticketmaster “The Ticketmaster-Live Nation monopoly should never have been allowed to merge and must be broken up.”
Consumers are also pushing for a break up of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. An alliance of consumer rights groups, including antitrust nonprofit American Economic Liberties Project, launched a campaign last month called Break Up Ticketmaster, saying that Ticketmaster’s “market power over live events is ripping off sports and music fans and undermining the vibrancy and independence of the music industry.”
NEW YORK — The mass layoffs that began in Amazon‘s corporate ranks this week will extend into next year, CEO Andy Jassy said Thursday.
In a note sent to employees, Jassy said the company told workers in its devices and books divisions about layoffs on Wednesday. He said it also offered some other employees a voluntary buyout offer.
“I’ve been in this role now for about a year and a half, and without a doubt, this is the most difficult decision we’ve made during that time (and, we’ve had to make some very tough calls over the past couple of years, particularly during the heart of the pandemic),” Jassy wrote in the memo.
Seattle-based Amazon, which has been cutting costs in various areas of its business in the past few months, is undergoing an annual review process to figure out where it can save more money. Jassy said this year’s review is “more difficult” due to the economic landscape and the company’s rapid hiring in the last several years.
Other tech companies — many of which had gone on hiring binges in the past few years — have also been trimming their workforce amid concerns about an economic slowdown. Among others, Facebook parent Meta said last week it would lay off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce. And Elon Musk, the new Twitter CEO, has slashed the company’s workforce in half this month.
On Tuesday, Amazon notified authorities in California that it would lay off about 260 corporate workers at various facilities in the state. The company has not publicly disclosed how many employees it laid off this week across its entire corporate workforce, though some based in Seattle said they’ve also been let go.
Jassy said the company hasn’t concluded how many other jobs will be impacted. He noted there will be reductions in certain divisions as the company goes through the annual review process, which will continue into next year. As they weigh job cuts, he said leaders at the company will prioritize what matters most to customers and the long-term health of the company.
Amazon is offering severance packages for employees who leave the company. But — unlike Meta, for example — it hasn’t publicly provided details of the package.
The company employs more than 1.5 million workers globally, primarily made up of hourly workers.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge on Friday will decide whether disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes should serve a lengthy prison sentence for duping investors and endangering patients while peddling a bogus blood-testing technology.
Holmes’ sentencing in the same San Jose, California, courtroom where she was convicted on four counts of investor fraud and conspiracy in January marks a climactic moment in a saga that has been dissected in an HBO documentary and an award-winning Hulu TV series about her meteoric rise and mortifying downfall.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila will take center stage as he weighs the federal government’s recommendation to send Holmes, 38, to federal prison for 15 years. That’s slightly less than the maximum sentence of 20 years she could face, but far longer than her legal team’s attempt to limit her incarceration to no more than 18 months, preferably served in home confinement.
Her lawyers have argued that Holmes deserves more lenient treatment as a well-meaning entrepreneur who is now a devoted mother with another child on the way. Their arguments were supported by more than 130 letters submitted by family, friends and former colleagues praising Holmes.
A probation report also submitted to Davila recommended a nine=year prison sentence for Holmes.
Prosecutors also want Holmes to pay $804 million in restitution. The amount covers most of the nearly $1 billion that Holmes raised from a list of sophisticated investors that included software magnate Larry Ellison, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and the Walton family behind Walmart.
While wooing investors, Holmes leveraged a high-powered Theranos board that included former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, who testified against her during her trial, and two former U.S. Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and the late George Shultz, whose son submitted a statement blasting Holmes for concocting a scheme that played Shultz “for the fool.”
Davila’s judgment – and Holmes’ reporting date for a potential stint in prison — could be affected by the former entrepreneur’s second pregnancy in two years. After giving birth to a son shortly before her trial started last year, Holmes became pregnant at some point while free on bail this year.
Although her lawyers didn’t mention the pregnancy in a 82-page memo submitted to Davila last week, the pregnancy was confirmed in a letter from her current partner, William “Billy” Evans, that urged the judge to be merciful.
In that 12-page letter, which included pictures of Holmes doting on their 1-year-old son, Evans mentioned that Holmes participated in a Golden Gate Bridge swimming event earlier this year while pregnant. He also noted Holmes suffered through a case of COVID in August while pregnant. Evans didn’t disclose Holmes’ due date in his letter.
Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor who is now a defense attorney, predicted that Davila’s sentencing decision won’t be swayed by the pregnancy, but expects the judge to allow her to remain free until after the baby is born.
“She will be no more of a flight risk after she is sentenced that she was while awaiting sentencing,” Levin said. “We have to temper our sentences with some measure of humanity.”
The pregnancy makes it more likely Davila will be criticized no matter what sentence he imposes, predicted Amanda Kramer, another former federal prosecutor.
“There is a pretty healthy debate about what kind of sentence is needed to effect general deterrence to send a message to others who are thinking of crossing that line from sharp salesmanship into material misrepresentation,” Kramer said.
Federal prosecutor Robert Leach emphatically declared Holmes deserves a severe punishment for engineering a scam that he described as one of the most egregious white-collar crimes ever committed in Silicon Valley. In a scathing 46-page memo, Leach told the judge he has an opportunity to send a message that curbs the hubris and hyperbole unleashed by the tech boom of the past decade.
Holmes “preyed on hopes of her investors that a young, dynamic entrepreneur had changed healthcare,” Leach wrote. “And through her deceit, she attained spectacular fame, adoration, and billions of dollars of wealth.”
Even though Holmes was acquitted by a jury on four counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to patients who took Theranos blood tests, Leach also asked Davila to factor in the health threats posed by Holmes’ conduct.
Holmes’ lawyer Kevin Downey painted her as a selfless visionary who spent 14 years of her life trying to revolutionize health care with a technology that was supposed to be able to scan for hundreds of diseases and other aliments with just a few drops of blood.
Although evidence submitted during her trial showed the tests produced wildly unreliable results that could have steered patients in the wrong direction, her lawyers asserted Holmes never stopped trying to perfect the technology until Theranos collapsed in 2018. They also pointed out that Holmes never sold any of her Theranos shares — a stake valued at $4.5 billion in 2014 when Holmes was being hailed as the next Steve Jobs on the covers of business magazines.
Defending herself against criminal charges has left Holmes with “substantial debt from which she is unlikely to recover,” Downey wrote, suggesting that she is unlikely ever to pay any restitution that Davila might order as part of her sentence.
“Holmes is not a danger to society,” Downey wrote.
Downey also asked Davila to consider the alleged sexual and emotional abuse Holmes suffered while she was romantically with Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who became a Theranos investor, top executive and eventually an accomplice in her crimes. Balwani, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 7 after being convicted in a July trial on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy.
SpaceX executives illegally fired nine workers who objected to CEO Elon Musk’s tweets, a complaint filed this week with the nation’s labor board alleges.
After a group of workers this summer complained that Musk’s frequent tweeting of insults, sexual puns and political statements reflected badly on the space exploration company, executives targeted the employees for dismissal, the workers charge. According to the workers, five of them were fired immediately and four more were let go over the ensuing two months.
Now, lawyers for eight of the SpaceX employees have fileda formal complaint with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to get their jobs back.
SpaceX “missed an incredible opportunity to improve the company culture and instead just fired them. And that’s just tragic. I mean, these are the type of workers you want,” Anne Shaver, a partner with Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein who is representing the workers behind the complaint, told CBS MoneyWatch.
“This letter they sent was incredibly diplomatic — they truly hoped to engage in a dialogue to make the company a better place for everyone to work in order to help the mission succeed. The messaging at SpaceX had always been, anybody at any level can raise concerns to the top,” she said.
Musk’s management of SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter, which he now owns, has come under scrutiny after his move to take control of the social media company. At Twitter, employees also said they lost their jobs after disagreeing with Musk’s strategies publicly and privately.
Harassment allegations
In May, allegations surfaced that Musk had exposed himself to a SpaceX flight attendant, and that the company gave her a $250,000 settlement in exchange for her silence. Musk denied the report, challenging the accuser to “describe anything at all” about his body “that isn’t known to the public.” He gleefully suggested naming the scandal “Elongate” and went on to tell another Twitter user, “Fine, if you touch my wiener, you can have a horse.”
Other comments the CEO has tweeted include: “Jack in the Box should do double duty as a sperm clinic”; a picture of dinosaurs mating; and various posts opposing the use of pronouns in written communications to indicate someone’s gender.
In their open letter to Musk in June, the employees asked SpaceX to clarify its worker conduct policies and to apply those rules uniformly across the company. Separately, they asked SpaceX to “condemn” Musk’s “harmful Twitter behavior.”
“Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us,” workers wrote in the letter, a copy of which was filed with paperwork with the NLRB on Wednesday.
“As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company. It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values. SpaceX’s current systems and culture do not live up to its stated values,” they wrote.
Letter to Musk a “distraction”
On June 16, the day after the letter circulated, SpaceX fired Tom Moline, a senior engineer who helped lead the effort to draft the missive, along with four other employees, according to the NLRB complaint. The company in July and August fired four other workers involved in circulating the letter.
The same day Moline and four others were dismissed, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell called the letter a “distraction” in an email, saying the company had “no need for this kind of overreaching activism.”
“The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views,” Shotwell said in the email, which was filed with the NLRB along with the employees’ complaint.
“We performed an investigation and have terminated a number of employees involved,” she said.
Under federal law, it’s illegal to retaliate against workers who try to improve their conditions, including by collectively raising concerns about the workplace.
If the labor board agrees that the workers were fired illegally, it could order SpaceX to rehire them and offer back pay.
A lawyer for the workers also did not rule out pursuing a private lawsuit against the company, alleging that SpaceX broke several laws when it fired them, including federal and state laws against discrimination.
Christopher Cardaci, head of the SpaceX legal department, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Jeffery Pfeffer, a professor who specializes in organizational behavior at Stanford University’s business school, told the Associated Press that the allegations were hardly a surprise given Musk’s leadership style at Twitter. Musk recently eliminated half the staff of the social media company and imposed an ultimatum on the remainder, telling workers they need to “be extremely hardcore” and work long hours to rebuild the platform.
Musk’s success at Tesla and SpaceX have created what Pfeffer labeled as hubris under the false notion that it was “all about individual genius.”
“Powerful people get to break the rules. They don’t think they are bound by the same conventions as other people,” Pfeffer said. He added that it showed the arrogance of Musk, one of the world’s richest men: “Why would he think he is a mere mortal?”
Free speech, but not for all
While Musk champions free speech and openness, workers said their firing in response to raising concerns was a shock.
“Part of what was supposed to be so great about SpaceX was that any person at any level could escalate issues to leadership and be taken seriously and treated with respect,” Paige Holland-Thielen, another of the fired workers, said in a statement. “We never imagined that SpaceX would fire us for trying to help the company succeed.”
The workers were dismayed at what they saw as a reversal from Shotwell, who was initially supportive, Moline told the New York Times, which first reported the labor charges.
“I thought she was doing a good job protecting and advocating for us against some of the worst impulses that Elon and others might have had,” he told the outlet. “Finally realizing that she wasn’t that savior — that broke down the trust for me.”
You only have to search Google for “coupon codes” once to see how annoying and time-consuming it can be to find one that actually works. Honey is a browser extension that finds coupon codes for 30,000-plus online retailers. It works with Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, and Opera.
It’s so important to let our loved ones know we care during this Christmas season and always. (iStock)
Honey connects to coupon databases and checks them against expiration dates and current promotions. When a matching coupon is found, it is automatically applied during checkout. I use it myself and have saved a ton over the years.
When you’re shopping, look for a coupon checkbox near the item’s price. If you click, a virtual coupon will be applied.
Select a later shipping date to get credit toward future orders or media at checkout. When you select a delivery date, you’ll see any available incentives for no-rush delivery.
Chances are, your favorite store probably has an app of its own. You may find a few sales or promotional discounts you won’t hear about anywhere else, along with coupons or offers for loyal shoppers.
There are lots of apps out there that will pay you for what you’re already buying. Some pay out in gift cards you can spend anywhere, and others in points or specific credit toward future purchases.
You can shop with the Ibotta browser extension or app for online purchases. Tap or click here for direct download links. To withdraw your accrued savings, it must be greater than $20. You can also transfer money to your PayPal account or a gift card purchased through the Ibotta app.
Friends having fun celebrating Christmas, sitting at table, eating, drinking wine and having fun while spending time together during winter holidays (iStock)
Google Alerts allows you to track keywords across the internet and alert you when they are mentioned. This can come in handy if you have your eye on something specific. For example, you might set one up to track “AirPods sale.” You’ll get an alert in your inbox whenever that’s mentioned.
Apps and extensions that pull coupon codes are great, but CamelCamelCamel goes a step further. It tracks prices on Amazon over time, so you can see if that advertised special is worth it.
Let’s say you’ve had your eye on expensive noise-canceling headphones. You can use the CamelCamelCamel website or browser extension to see how the price has fluctuated. That way, you’re not paying more than they might go on sale for later.
My popular podcast is called “Kim Komando Today.” It’s a solid 30 minutes of tech news, tips, and callers with tech questions like you from all over the country. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts. For your convenience, hit the link below for a recent episode.
In this 30-minute podcast, Meta is in steep decline. Is this the beginning of the end for Facebook? Plus, all the changes at Twitter and a look at its newest competitor Mastodon. And a trick to find the best seat on a plane, get reminders from your smart assistant, and how to do a free background check.
Copyright 2023, WestStar Multimedia Entertainment. All rights reserved. By clicking the shopping links, you’re supporting my research. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. I only recommend products I believe in.
NEW YORK — Several SpaceX employees who were fired after circulating an open letter calling out CEO Elon Musk’s behavior have filed a complaint accusing the company of violating labor laws.
The complaint, made Wednesday to the National Labor Relations Board, details the aftermath of what allegedly happened inside SpaceX after employees circulated the letter in June, which, among other things, called on executives to condemn Musk’s public behavior on Twitter — including making light of allegations he sexually harassed a flight attendant — and hold everyone accountable for unacceptable conduct.
The letter was sent weeks after a media report surfaced that Musk paid $250,000 to the flight attendant to quash a potential sexual harassment lawsuit against him. The billionaire has denied the allegations.
Employees in their letter urged SpaceX to uniformly enforce its policy against unacceptable behavior and commit to a transparent process for responses to claims of misconduct. A day later, Paige Holland-Thielen and four other employees who participated in organizing the letter were fired, according to the filing, which was made by Holland-Thielen to a regional NLRB office in California. Four additional employees were fired weeks later for their involvement in the letter.
A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and is currently running Twitter, prefers to do things his own way even if that means running afoul of rules and regulations. He’s currently in a defiant fight with Civil Rights department, a California regulator that is suing Tesla for rampant racial discrimination.
Some view Musk’s management style as autocratic and demanding, as evidenced by a recent email he sent to Twitter staff giving them until Thursday evening to decide whether they want to remain a part of the business. Musk wrote that employees “will need to be extremely hardcore” to build “a breakthrough Twitter 2.0″ and that long hours at high intensity will be needed for success.
A number of engineers also said on Twitter they were fired last week after saying something critical of Musk, either publicly on Twitter or on an internal messaging board for Twitter employees.
In a statement, Holland-Thielen said as a woman engineer at SpaceX, she experienced “deep cultural problems” and comforted colleagues who had experienced similar issues.
“It was clear that this culture was created from the top level,” she said.
Still, she said part of what she liked about the company was that any person could escalate issues to leadership and be taken seriously.
“We drafted the letter to communicate to the executive staff on their terms and show how their lack of action created tangible barriers to the long term success of the mission,” Holland-Thielen said. “We never imagined that SpaceX would fire us for trying to help the company succeed.”
The firings coincide with Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter. Around the same time, the billionaire used a sexual term to make fun of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ belly and also posted a poop emoji during an online discussion with then-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.
After terminating the first set of employees, SpaceX allegedly interrogated dozens of others over the next two months in private meetings, telling them they couldn’t disclose those conversations to anyone else due to attorney-client privilege, according to the complaint. Four additional employees who helped draft or share the letter were fired in July and August, the filing said, adding up to nine terminations in total.
“Management used this ‘ends justifies the means’ philosophy to turn a blind eye to the ongoing mistreatment, harassment, and abuse reported by my colleagues, much of which was directly encouraged and inspired by the words and actions of the CEO,” said Tom Moline, who was also fired from SpaceX after organizing the letter.
Jeffery Pfeffer, a professor who specializes in organizational behavior at Stanford University’s business school, said that the allegations were hardly a surprise given Musk’s leadership style at Twitter. Musk’s success at companies like Tesla and SpaceX have created what he labeled as hubris under the false notion that it was “all about individual genius.”
“Powerful people get to break the rules. They don’t think they are bound by the same conventions as other people,” Pfeffer said, criticizing Musk’s behavior. He said it showed the arrogance of Musk, one of the world’s richest men: “Why would he think he is a mere mortal?”
If you haven’t ordered one of the higher-end iPhone 14 models by now, it may be harder than usual to get one before the holidays.
The wait time for the 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max in the United States is now 34 days, up from seven days last week and 19 days as of three weeks ago, according to a new report from UBS, which tracked iPhone availability in 30 countries.
In a series of checks conducted on Apple.com by CNN for several cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Chicago and Miami, most iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models in varying storage and color options had delivery dates of December 28 or later. The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max were also unavailable for pickup in most locations.
The wait times, which a UBS analyst called “extreme,” come as Apple
(AAPL) confronts supply chain constraints and increased Covid-19 restrictions at its main assembly facility in Zhengzhou, China, which the company previously said is operating at a significantly reduced capacity.
Earlier this month, Apple released a statement that noted it is experiencing “strong demand” for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models but it expects lower shipments than anticipated. “Customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products,” the company said.
Apple told CNN on Thursday that Apple Stores get regular shipments and customers can continue to check for in-store pickup options at their local retail location. The company also sometimes ships products ahead of the stated delivery date, and it’s possible some retailers and wireless carriers have more in stock than Apple.
While it’s unclear whether the higher-end iPhone 14 models will be available in time, the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max showed availability in many locations for same-day pickup in CNN’s test on Thursday. UBS said it initially expected consumers to purchase a lower-priced iPhone 14 instead of an iPhone 14 Pro model, but the wait times did not increase for the less expensive devices last week.
Apart from being a potential headache for consumers, the uncertainty around iPhone availability could add to Apple’s challenges for the all-important holiday quarter. Apple CFO Luca Maestri previously said the company expects year-over-year revenue growth to decelerate in the December quarter compared to the prior quarter, citing the strength of the US dollar and ongoing macroeconomic weakness.
Apple released its new smartphone lineup in September, including the larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus model and an updated iPhone 14 Pro that rethinks the much-maligned notch. In typical Apple fashion, the devices also offer better battery life and camera features than the year prior.
The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus start at $799 and $899, respectively, while the iPhone 14 Pro starts at $999 and the Pro Max starts at $1099.
In a blog post, the search engine giant said Thursday that its Live View feature would roll out in London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo.
Live View lets users explore their surroundings with the help of AI, including billions of Street View images and augmented reality.
People can see places that aren’t in their immediate view as well as key information, including business hours, how busy a store is, what its price range is and if it is rated highly by the Google Maps community.
Google thumbnails – including Google Apps like Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Drive, Hangouts etc. – as seen on a smartphone screen. ((Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images))
In addition. Google has made it easier for electric vehicle users to find the best charging stations for their cars.
“Search for ‘EV charging stations” and select the ‘fast charge’ filter – you’ll see stations with chargers 50kW or higher so you can charge up faster. You can also filter for stations that offer your EV’s plug type in more countries so you only see stations with plugs that are compatible with your car,” Google explained.
A mobile phone with the Google Maps application is seen in this photo illustration on September 18, 2018. ((Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images))
Both of those abilities are live now on Android and iOS in countries where EV charging stations are available.
Lastly, Google’s “Accessible Places” setting is now available worldwide on Android and iOS.
After turning the function on, users will see a wheelchair icon in the business profile if it has a wheelchair-accessible entrance.
The Google Maps logo is seen displayed on smartphone in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on March 10, 2020. ((Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images))
Entrances without a wheelchair-accessible entrance will have the same icon with a strike through it.
People can also see if the place has accessible seating, restrooms and parking.
Google said that Accessible Places could also be useful to those who want to avoid stairs.
“With even more intuitive, sustainable and accessible ways to explore and navigate, Google Maps can help you make the most of your holidays so you can focus on the festivities,” it said.
Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News and Fox Business Digital.
The success of the commercial space sector, in both significantly reducing the cost of technology and massively increasing its capabilities, has captured the attention of the U.S. military. That attention translates into growing interest in startups and how they might secure the space domain for the U.S. and its allies.
Frank Calvelli, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisitions and Integration, is charged with bridging the gap between commercial and defense space operations. We are thrilled to announce that Cavelli will join us onstage for a one-on-one conversation at TC Sessions: Space on December 6 in Los Angeles.
The U.S. military has signaled that it intends to deepen its relationships with the startup sector — in the space domain in particular. Just one example of projects integrating private space startups and the military is the Air Force’s Rocket Cargo project, which explores using commercial space rocket technology to provide fast, low-cost deliveries for the military. While an Air Force C-17 aircraft can transport 100 tons of cargo across the planet, it can take days, whereas a rocket can do it in 90 minutes.
We’re interested in learning how Cavelli defines the ideal relationship between the U.S. defense apparatus and the startups and private vendors it taps. We’ll also ask him what problems they want their commercial partners to solve, how startups can apply for funding, and the best way to work with the Air Force acquisitions engine he oversees.
We reckon this is an essential conversation for startups eager to learn more about collaborative opportunities within the growing commercial-military space sector.
Frank Calvelli is responsible for all architecture and integration with respect to acquisition of space systems and programs in the armed forces. He chairs the Space Acquisition Council, where he oversees and directs the space acquisition centers in the Department of the Air Force. He also serves as the DAF service acquisition executive for Space Systems and Programs.
Calvelli has more than 34 years of experience in national security space acquisitions, operations and leadership in the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Prior to joining the Department of the Air Force, Calvelli served for eight years as the principal deputy director of the NRO, where he managed the day-to-day operations of the more than 3,500 people.
TC Sessions: Space takes place on December 6 in Los Angeles. Buy your pass today, join us to learn about the latest trends in commercial-military space collaboration, see cutting-edge technology, and network for opportunities to help you build a better, stronger startup.
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Space? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.
Former FTX Trading CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, NFL quarterback Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bundchen and comedian Larry David are among a celebrity-studded list of people accused of defrauding investors who lost money in the cryptocurrency exchange’s sudden collapse
A proposed class-action filed in federal court in Florida late Tuesday names those four, along with other athletes and entertainers, as defendants in the case. All promoted FTX, one of the world’s largest crypto trading platform exchanges before it declared bankruptcy on November 11, with the company now under investigation for possible securities violations.
“It is still very difficult to comprehend that just one company defrauded more than $11 billion dollars from consumers, all from our backyard here in Miami,” Adam Moskowitz, the attorney leading the class action, said in an email.The suit seeks unspecified damages and is the first filed against Bankman-Fried and his companies since FTX filed for bankruptcy protection.
As part of a $20 million ad campaign, Brady and Bundchen in 2021 filmed a commercial called “FTX. You In?” showing them telling acquaintances to join the FTX platform, according to the complaint, filed in Miami on behalf of Oklahoma resident Edwin Garrison and seeking to represent “thousands, if not millions, of consumers nationwide.” That involves U.S. investors who enrolled in yield-bearing FTX crypto accounts, which the suit alleges created unregistered securities that are illegal in Florida and the U.S.
The suit contends FTX deployed celebrities to tout the exchange and route them into a Ponzi scheme.
David, the creator of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” appeared in an ad for FTX entitled “Don’t Miss Out on Crypto,” which aired during the 2022 Super Bowl.
Other current and former athletes named in the suit are NBA star Stephen Curry; NFL quarterback William Trevor Lawrence; baseball player Shohei Ohtani; tennis player Naomi Osaka; and broadcaster and former basketball player Shaquille O’Neal. Kevin O’Leary, a host of “Shark Tank,” is also named in the complaint, which was filed in the Southern District of Florida.
The exchange shuffled customer money between affiliated entities, using new investor funds and loans to pay interest to the old ones in an attempt “to maintain the appearance of liquidity,” Moskowitz alleged, adding that FTX used public figures to give the operation an air of credibility.
“FTX were geniuses at public relations and marketing, and knew that such a massive Ponzi scheme — larger than the Madoff scheme — could only be successful with the help and promotion of the most famous, respected, and beloved celebrities and influencers in the world,” he said.
FTX did not reply to a request for comment.
FTX’s creditors will be first in line to get whatever assets a bankruptcy judge deems appropriate to distribute as the company seeks to restructure as part of its Chapter 11 filing. Investors in the Bahamas-based company, which had raised some $2 billion in venture capital, come next.
That means FTX account holders, who used the platform to trade bitcoin, ethereum and other digital currencies, may have to wait years to get their money back – if they ever do.
The new CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency trading firm FTX, who oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy, said he has never seen such a “complete failure” of corporate control.
John Ray III, in a filing with the U.S. bankruptcy court for the district of Delaware, said there was a “complete absence of trustworthy financial information.”
“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Ray said. “From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.”
Ray noted that many of the companies in the FTX Group, particularly those in Antigua and the Bahamas, didn’t have appropriate corporate governance and many had never held a board meetings. The group also had cash management procedural failures, including the absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories. There was also insufficient attention paid to the creditworthiness of banking partners.
Ray also addressed the use of corporate funds to pay for homes and other items for employees.
“In the Bahamas, I understand that corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors. I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of the Bahamas,” he said.
So far, debtors have found and secured “only a fraction” of the group’s digital assets that they hope to recover, with about $740 million of cryptocurrency secured in new cold wallets, which is a way of holding cryptocurrency tokens offline, said Ray.
Ray was named CEO of FTX less than a week ago when the company filed for bankruptcy protection and its CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried resigned. The embattled cryptocurrency exchange, short billions of dollars, sought bankruptcy protection after the exchange experienced the crypto equivalent of a bank run.
In its bankruptcy filing, FTX listed more than 130 affiliated companies around the globe. The company valued its assets between $10 billion to $50 billion, with a similar estimate for its liabilities.
Bankman-Fried was recently estimated to be worth $23 billion. His net worth has all but evaporated, according to Forbes and Bloomberg, which closely track the net worth of the world’s richest people.
FTX’s failure goes beyond finance. The company had major sports sponsorships as well, including Formula One racing and a sponsorship deal with Major League Baseball. Miami-Dade County decided Friday to terminate its relationship with FTX, meaning the venue where the Miami Heat play will no longer be known as FTX Arena. Mercedes was planning to remove FTX from its race cars starting last weekend.
The UK government has ordered a Chinese-owned company to unwind its takeover of Britain’s biggest chipmaker, citing national security concerns.
Nexperia, a Dutch subsidiary of Shanghai-listed semiconductor maker Wingtech, was told to sell “at least 86%” of its stake in Newport Wafer Fab by UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Grant Shapps, more than a year after taking control of the factory.
Shapps said in a statement that he was concerned that the company could start working on more advanced so-called “compound” semiconductors at the Newport site and about “the potential for those activities to undermine UK capabilities.”
Shapps also cited the location of the factory, which is part of an industrial cluster of highly specialized tech firms in Newport, a city in south Wales. “The links between the site and the cluster may prevent the cluster being engaged in future projects relevant to national security,” the government said.
The UK move illustrates growing concern in the West over Chinese links to critical technologies and infrastructure. Last week, the German government blocked the sale of a semiconductor factory to a Chinese-owned tech firm, citing national security concerns. The United States in August ordered two of its top chipmakers, Nvidia
(NVDA) and AMD
(AMD), to halt exports of certain high performance chips to China.
Nexperia said in a statement Wednesday that it was “shocked” by the decision and would appeal. It cited“two previous security reviews” that it said had already cleared the acquisition.
“Nexperia does not accept the potential national security concerns raised,” it said. “The far-reaching remedies which Nexperia offered to fully address the government’s concerns have been entirely ignored.”
The company added that it had offered “not to conduct” the “activities of potential concern, and to provide the UK government with direct control and participation in the management of Newport.”
Nexperia’s UK manager, Toni Versluijs, said the company would fight to overturn the order, suggesting that it could put more than 500 jobs at risk.
“This decision sends a clear signal that the UK is closed for business,” he added.
Newport Wafer bills itself as the UK’s largest semiconductor facility, making more than 35,000 wafer starts a month. The factory has a background in supplying components to automotive and medical companies, according to Nexperia.
Nexperia is a semiconductor manufacturer based in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. It obtained full ownership of the Newport site in July 2021, after previously working with its former owners as a customer and as its second largest shareholder.
“We rescued an investment-starved company from collapse,” it said. “Those who sold the business to us agreed that it was the only viable solution, and the deal was publicly welcomed by the Welsh government.”
While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the transaction was valued at £63 million (approximately $75 million), according to a UK parliament report.
Managers also appeared supportive. Mr. Edwards, the vice president, said in a meeting after the letter came out that two of its three proposals were “great ideas,” according to minutes of the meeting shared internally and seen by The Times. He said a third idea — that SpaceX separate itself from Mr. Musk’s “personal brand” — was “more tricky.”
But at the highest levels of the company the response soon became antagonistic, employees said. Within hours, Ms. Shotwell sent Mr. Moline and Ms. Holland-Thielen an email passing along comments from an unnamed co-worker who expressed disagreement with the letter and called it distracting. The Information previously reported on the email.
“Please stop flooding employee communication channels immediately,” Ms. Shotwell wrote in her email, on which she copied senior company officials. She added: “I will consider your ignoring my email to be insubordination. Instead, please focus on your job.”
The following morning, news outlets reported on the open letter. By that afternoon, Mr. Moline, Ms. Holland-Thielen and three other employees were separately contacted by human resources and told that they were being fired. An official cited their role in creating and distributing the letter, four of the employees said.
Ms. Shotwell joined those conversations remotely and emphasized that the workers had wasted vast amounts of company time.
The employees were stunned. “We were really trying to make this as palatable as possible to reasonable minds at SpaceX,” Ms. Holland-Thielen said. One of the employees’ lawyers, Anne Shaver, said the company had “viciously retaliated” against them.
Ms. Shotwell did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Wilma Liebman, who was a chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board under President Barack Obama, said a letter seeking clarification of a company’s sexual harassment policies was generally protected by federal labor law. She said the company could argue that the letter’s writers sought to criticize Mr. Musk, activity that isn’t necessarily protected, rather than to improve their workplace. But she said the labor board would probably disagree because the posts from Mr. Musk that employees criticized could be seen as creating a hostile work environment.
Apple has finally launched a redesigned iCloud website with apps appearing as widget-styled tiles instead of icons. People might be used to accessing iCloud through native apps on their iPhones, iPads or Mac, but this is a welcome change for folks who use the website to quickly access some photos, documents, notes and reminders or delete some of the unused files to free up space.
The iCloud website is also particularly useful for people who use a different computer at work, or for people who have an iPhone and a Windows laptop. You don’t have to install any app to access and edit your notes from a computer for instance.
As MacRumors noted, the company has been testing the new design with app tiles for a few weeks, and now it is rolling it out for all users. iCloud site’s legacy design just showed app icons when you logged in, now it shows details under app tiles such as recent reminders, notes, documents, pages, and photos. There is even a launcher tile with app icons to quickly access some of the apps.
iCloud website’s legacy design Image Credits: Apple
With the new design, you can create a new page document, a reminder, a note, a keynote presentation, or a numbers spreadsheet by clicking on the + sign on the top menu bar.
The grid icon on the menu bar lets you access apps. It also hosts options for checking your storage and change your plan. The websity layout is now customizable. When you click on the ‘Customize’ button, you’ll see the widgets shaking — just like on iPhone or iPad — so that you can move them around or remove them.
MENTONE, Texas — A strong earthquake shook a sparsely populated patch of desert in West Texas on Thursday, causing tremors felt as far away as the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez.
The magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck around 3:30 p.m., according to Jim DeBerry, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the West Texas city Midland. He said the strength of the quake means it likely caused damage in the remote oil patch and scrubland, but none had been reported so far.
DeBerry said the epicenter was about 23 miles (37 kilometers) south of Mentone, a tiny community south of the New Mexico state line and 95 miles (153 kilometers) west of Midland.
State Rep. Eddie Morales, Jr., whose district includes Mentone, said he spoke with local authorities and there were no reported injuries. He said via Twitter that state officials will be “inspecting roads, bridges and other infrastructure as a precaution.”
DeBerry said there were reports of people feeling vibrations from the quake 200 miles (515 kilometers) west in the border city of Ciudad Juárez and 200 miles (515 kilometers) south in Terlingua, a small community near the Rio Grande and Big Bend National Park.
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Amazon confirmed on Wednesday that layoffs had begun at the company, two days after multiple outlets reported the e-commerce giant planned to cut around 10,000 employees this week.
The initial cuts at Amazon will impact roles on the devices and services team, per a memo shared publicly by Dave Limp, senior vice president of devices & services at Amazon
“After a deep set of reviews, we recently decided to consolidate some teams and programs. One of the consequences of these decisions is that some roles will no longer be required,” Limp said. “We notified impacted employees yesterday, and will continue to work closely with each individual to provide support, including assisting in finding new roles.”
Limp did not specify how many employees have been cut.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told CNN Business in a statement that the company looks at all of its businesses as part of an annual operating review process. “As we’ve gone through this, given the current macro-economic environment (as well as several years of rapid hiring), some teams are making adjustments, which in some cases means certain roles are no longer necessary,” Nantel added.
She continued: “We don’t take these decisions lightly, and we are working to support any employees who may be affected.”
On Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning, many laid-off Amazon workers posted publicly on LinkedIn that they had been impacted by the job cuts and were looking for work. Some of these posts mentioned they were on teams involved with Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa.
Amazon and other tech firms significantly ramped up hiring over the past couple of years as the pandemic shifted consumers’ habits towards e-commerce. Now, many of these seemingly untouchable tech companies are experiencing whiplash and laying off thousands of workers as people return to pre-pandemic habits and macroeconomic conditions deteriorate.
Facebook-parent Meta recently announced 11,000 job cuts, the largest in the company’s history. Twitter also announced widespread job cuts after Elon Musk bought the company for $44 billion, funded in part by debt financing.
In a sobering sign of the times, a growing number of business leaders in the tech sector – from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey – have been issuing remorseful apologies in recent weeks as their employees lose their livelihoods.
After reaching record highs during the pandemic, shares of Amazon have shed more than 40% in 2022 so far.
