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☆ Stripe and Meta's layoff memos are a lesson in accountability and empathy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Rachel Durose | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Stripe's and Meta's memos are excellent examples of how leaders can handle layoff announcements. Similarly, on November 9, Meta cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a public, company-wide message about the impending lay-off of 11,000 employees. Why these memos are resonating with workersIn one case, employees at the human-resource platform Compt discussed Stripe's memo in their company Slack. Stripe's memo praises the laid-off workers, stating that they would make "fantastic additions at almost any other company." "This was handled, in my opinion, the best way possible," Amy Spurling, the CEO and founder of Compt, said of Stripe's memo.

☆ What the wave of tech layoffs tell us about the economy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

What’s happening: Tech companies are announcing an alarming number of layoffs and hiring freezes. ▸ Lyft (LYFT) said last Thursday that it will lay off 13% of its employees, or nearly 700 people, as it rethinks staffing amid rising inflation and fears of a looming recession. But other companies won’t be immune to the softening demand from consumers and businesses that tech companies have noted. It doesn’t help that the uncertainty around the platform comes at a bad time for ad revenue-dependent tech companies. More potential supply chain woesThe threat of a US rail strike that could disrupt supply chains is still very real.

☆ The midterms are moments away, and these 9 behind-the-scenes agencies are helping politicians get elected, with control of Congress at stake
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Political midterm ad spending is expected to hit a record high of $9.7 billionA new crop of digital-first firms is competing with traditional ad agencies for that money. Here are 9 of the most notable firms working for top GOP and Democratic candidates and organizations. Political advertising is reaching unprecedented levels for a midterm election. An August report from analytics firm AdImpact projected that political ad spending would reach $9.7 billion this year, beating the previous $9 billion record set in 2020. Kantar CMAG has forecast that $8.4 billion political ad dollars will be spent this year.

As a result, political observers say, public school funding is effectively on the ballot Tuesday. “These groups have been demonizing what is being taught in public schools, and that’s the fastest way to erode faith that public schools work,” Rottinghaus said. (Abbott publicly came out in support of private school vouchers two months after winning the primary with 66.5% of the vote.) Greg Abbott in the GOP primary, campaigned in support of private school vouchers. “I will never support vouchers.”Rep. John Bucy III said he will continue to oppose private school vouchers.

☆ The Stripe founders' memo explaining its layoff plan to employees is a remarkably candid look at why so much of tech is in freefall
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Travis Clark | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Its memo to employees highlights the economic headwinds other tech companies are facing. From Meta to Shopify, tech companies are navigating an uncertain future. It over-hired during the pandemic"We over-hired for the world we're in," the founders wrote. It failed to keep other costs in checkThe founders' wrote: "We grew operating costs too quickly. The open question facing Stripe and other tech companies is what that recalibration looks like, beyond simply cutting costs.

But the new era at Twitter could also be an opportunity for the company to redefine its brand for the better. But it remains unclear what Twitter under Mr. Musk will actually be, Mr. Calkins said. Twitter before Mr. Musk weathered a number of controversies that rattled some advertisers and users. But this is a potential inflection point for Twitter, Mr. Miller said. “I think the brand is irrevocably damaged, actually, unless and until Musk finds somebody else to run Twitter,” Mr. Kwittken said.

☆ A memo from Stripe's cofounders announcing sweeping job cuts is a lesson for companies everywhere on how to conduct layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Rachel Durose | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Cofounders Patrick and John Collison break down what led to the decision and apologize to workers. Still, Patrick and John Collison, the cofounders of Stripe, laid off 14% of the payment company's workforce in one of the best ways possible. On the same day the Collisons shared their message with employees, Twitter sent an unsigned memo to its workers announcing sweeping layoffs and office closures. Why the memo is resonating with workersIn one case, employees at the human-resource platform Compt discussed Stripe's memo in their company Slack. Patrick Collison serves as CEO, while John Collison is president.

☆ Stripe to Cut 14% of Jobs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Peter Rudegeair | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Stripe CEO Patrick Collison said the company ‘overhired for the world we’re in.’Stripe Inc., one of the world’s most highly-valued startups, said Thursday it is laying off about 14% of its employees and blamed the harsh economic climate. Stripe, a payment processor to fast-growing Internet companies like Shopify Inc. and Instacart, was a big beneficiary of the pandemic-driven surge in e-commerce in 2020 and 2021.

Lyft confirmed its plans Thursday to lay off 13% of its workforce, equivalent to about 700 employees, as the broader downturn in once high-flying tech companies persists. An emerging trendStill, Lyft's announcement adds to the broader trend of hiring freezes and job cuts across the tech industry. Amazon announced Thursday it will pause hiring within its corporate workforce, citing the increasingly "uncertain" economy and the company's spate of new hires in recent years. The payments company Stripe announced Thursday it was cutting 14% of its workforce, equivalent to approximately 1,100 workers. The tech sector had come through a significant portion of the pandemic seeing roaring growth.

☆ Stripe plans to lay off 14% of workers
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Annie Palmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Online payments giant Stripe plans to lay off roughly 14% of its staff, CEO Patrick Collison wrote in a memo to staff Thursday. Here's Collison's full memo:Earlier today, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison sent the following note to Stripe employees. We will pay 14 weeks of severance for all departing employees, and more for those with longer tenure. We'll accelerate everyone who has already reached their one-year vesting cliff to the February 2023 vesting date (or longer, depending on departure date). We'll cover career support, and do our best to connect departing employees with other companies.

☆ Lyft to lay off 13% of staff
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN Business —Lyft on Thursday said it will lay off 13% of its staff, or nearly 700 employees, as it rethinks staffing amid rising inflation and fears of a looming recession. In a memo to staffers on Thursday, a copy of which was shared with CNN Business, Lyft (LYFT) co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer said the layoffs will impact every part of the company, and pointed to broader macroeconomic challenges that led to the cuts. But a number of tech companies reported slowing growth in the September quarter, as customers and advertisers rethink spending. “We are not immune to the realities of inflation and a slowing economy,” Lyft’s founders wrote in the memo to staffers. Shares for Lyft are down nearly 70% so far this year.

☆ China's Covid controls are pushing companies to diversify away from a 'start-stop economy'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

After a Covid outbreak at a Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, China, some workers chose to go home. Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty ImagesBEIJING — China's decision to maintain Covid controls is pushing companies to look to factories outside the country, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit. Beijing's stringent Covid controls helped the country resume work while the rest of the world still struggled with the pandemic in 2020. watch nowOver the weekend, some Foxconn workers reportedly forced their way out of Covid controls at the factory. JPMorgan analysts predicted that just 5% of Apple's global iPhone 14 production would move to India this year.

☆ LGBT Representation in Ads Has Grown, but Many Consumers Find It Inauthentic
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Patrick Coffee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

Still, marketing to LGBT consumers can be tricky due to political tensions as well as consumer skepticism, particularly when big companies roll out Pride Month campaigns in June but are seen as not following through on standing up for LGBT rights. Many marketers still treat LGBT consumers as more of a niche group than they are, some experts said. A 2021 Nielsen survey found that, outside of Pride Month, only 1% of ads included LGBT characters or topics. Harris found that 67% of consumers think Pride Month has become too commercialized. In the Disqo survey, 46% of respondents said advertising already has enough LGBT themes and characters, and some experts think brands might mistakenly conclude that representing LGBT consumers in ads is no longer a pressing issue.

☆ Egypt's pound sinks further against dollar after flexibility pledge
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

CAIRO, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Egypt's pound fell about 4% to 24 against the dollar as trading resumed on Sunday, Refinitiv data showed, after authorities committed to a flexible exchange rate under an International Monetary Fund support deal. The pound slid about 14.5% to 23 against the dollar on Thursday after they pledged a "durably flexible" exchange rate in conjunction with a staff-level agreement for a $3 billion IMF extended fund facility. Egypt's currency has been held steady or allowed to depreciate only gradually following previous sharp devaluations in 2016 and this March. It has weakened about 34.5% against the dollar so far this year. It introduced a mandatory requirement for importers to use letters of credit, leading to a sharp slowdown in imports and bottlenecks at ports.

“When something comes up that requires a fast, human, unambiguous action, very few companies are prepared,” said Mr. DiMassimo. “If the talent retains some ownership, then you have to stop making the product entirely instead of just taking their name off,” said Mr. Chase. The offensive behaviors may be specific to the company in question; alcohol brands commonly include contractual clauses forbidding D.U.I. arrests or drunk and disorderly behavior among their representatives, said Mr. Chase. And that is not just because such behavior could occur again, according to Mr. Chase.

☆ Venture capitalists are betting on a part of China’s chip industry safe from U.S. bans
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The U.S. this month imposed new restrictions to maintain a lead over China in advanced chip technology. That gap leaves a large market opportunity far more insulated from U.S. restrictions — and one that Chinese startups can tap, some venture capitalists said. He claimed WestSummit-backed GigaDevice Semiconductor is one of the Chinese companies well-positioned to capture the mature market. "However, chip-making is a mature technology that has been developed many years. Looming risksDespite the large market opportunity, early-stage investment in Chinese chip startups still face risks from potential lawsuits and the complexity of the technology itself, Vertex's Tay said.

☆ Elon Musk closed his deal to buy Twitter, and it could cost the platform big with advertisers
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Lucia Moses | Lindsay Rittenhouse | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk's $44 billion deal for Twitter has big implications for its advertising-driven business. Musk reportedly will eliminate lifetime bans, and advertisers were already worried Twitter would be less brand safe. This article was updated October 28 to reflect news that Musk closed a deal to buy Twitter. Just before he closed on the deal on Thursday, Musk tweeted a message to advertisers assuring them the platform wouldn't become a "free-for-all hellscape. When Musk balked on following through with the deal, that uncertainty further hurt the company's revenue, Twitter said during its second quarter.

☆ OpenWeb, Which Helps Publishers Target Readers With Ads, Raises $170 Million
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Patrick Coffee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +3 min

Open Web Technologies Ltd., which helps publishers engage readers and target them with ads, raised $170 million in a Series F round led by Canadian venture firm Georgian Partners, the company said. The new round values OpenWeb at $1.5 billion, up from $1 billion in its previous round, according to the company. It later expanded its services to include live-blogging, polling and data-management tools, as well as the placement of ads across publishers’ sites. OpenWeb counts more than 1,000 publishers as clients, most of which are based in North America, Mr. Shoval said. The company also focuses on content-moderation services to help protect both publishers and readers from harassment, hate speech and offensive content.

The Musk video by reAlpha included “robust disclaimers” establishing it as satire, said Christie Currie, chief marketing officer. The first Musk video went live days after reAlpha launched a public offering under regulation A+ in 2021. But the ease of creating deepfakes means some celebrities could soon be deluged by ads featuring their unauthorized, but very convincing likenesses, Mr. Moss said. At the same time, the language in contracts written years before the technology existed may be vague enough to allow marketers to use existing footage to create new deepfake videos. Companies most often request celebrity deepfake videos to use internally for training, communications, parties or other purposes—but not for ads, said Daynen Biggs, owner of Slack Shack Films, which produced the Elon Musk videos.

☆ Uber to Let Marketers Target Riders by Destination
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Patrick Coffee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc. wants to help marketers target consumers with ads based on where they have been and where they are going. The ride-hailing ad business could grow far larger, Mr. Grether said, especially when self-driving cars become more common. “Cars will become our next living rooms,” Mr. Grether said. The rider can also conduct transactions, such as clicking the ad to buy a product without leaving the Uber app, said Mr. Grether. Users can opt out of targeted ads on the Uber app at any time, said Mr. Grether.

Improvements are needed to make sure the same ad doesn’t appear too often and to ensure the TV is on when ads are shown, experts say.

☆ Retailers, Brands and Tech Platforms Bet Big on Live-Streamed Shopping in the U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Patrick Coffee | Photographs Maggie Shannon For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Can live-streamed shopping become a big thing in the U.S.? A number of retailers, brands and tech platforms are convinced that it can, despite a slow start. The practice, which adapts the QVC model of televised home shopping to the digital era, grew popular in the Asia-Pacific region before exploding in China during the pandemic as businesses rushed to connect more directly with homebound consumers.

☆ Kroger-Albertsons Merger Would Create a Big Player in Retail Advertising
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Patrick Coffee | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

It also would create a big player in so-called retail media, one of advertising’s fastest-growing sectors. Kroger and Albertsons entered the retail advertising market in 2015 and 2021, respectively. Kroger and Albertsons don’t break out the ad revenue generated by their Kroger Precision Marketing and Albertsons Media Collective divisions. The merger of Kroger and Albertsons would create a fourth market leader at more than 13% market share, Mr. Lipsman said. For marketers, that would help simplify the retail ad market for consumer-goods brands and other advertisers who currently confront a rapidly increasing number of offerings.

☆ Analysis: IMF plugs financing gaps as riskier emerging markets face squeeze
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Jorgelina Do Rosario | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Ghana, Egypt, Tunisia and Malawi are all in talks on some type of IMF financing. Countries' debt burdens have risen. Turning to the IMF for financing has been the traditional playbook for smaller, strained countries in times of crisis. A set of new IMF tools should also help funnel more funds to such countries in the short-term. "But IMF does act as an anchor and allows access to a broader set of funding, even if not from the market," said Alexandru-Chidesciuc.

☆ I made $200,000 last year ghostwriting tweets for superstar VCs. It takes me 5 hours a week. Here's how I found my clients and built a booming side hustle from scratch.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Mattathias Schwartz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Ghostwriting tweets for venture capitalists is my side hustle. So I have a special CRM I use just for ghostwriting work, as well as a dedicated laptop, a dedicated phone, and a separate email address. VCs would deploy $10 million or $15 million a year into companies trying to raise $1 million or $2 million. My life as a ghostAs a ghostwriter, I never log in to a client's Twitter account. It's important to me that I do all of the ghostwriting work myself, as a side hustle.

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