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☆ The man who led Google Photos to 1 billion users is now the newest group partner at Y Combinator
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Lieb, having a background in semiconductors and not server management, reached out to his fellow Y Combinator founders for support. After a year and a half of advising at the accelerator, he's stepping up as a group partner, Y Combinator tells Business Insider exclusively. It was never released, but many of the ideas would later come back in the form of Google Photos. From there, he reached into the Y Combinator alumni network to find other promising upstarts. David Lieb, second from left, speaks to a group of Y Combinator founders.

Persons: David Lieb, Lieb, Alex Polvi, Combinator —, Garry Tan, Jared Friedman, Harj Taggar, Michael Seibel, Sam Altman, it's, Y Combinator, " Lieb, Dan Lieb, Y, Xoogler, Patrick, John Collison's, Mixpanel, Jake Mintz, Forbes, Kevin Systrom, Flock, Andy Huibers, Mary, 72m2YgJZq8 — David Lieb, Ryan Peterson, He's Organizations: Apple, Business, Investors, Google Locations: Cloudkick, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Flexport

☆ Laid-off techies face 'sense of impending doom' with job cuts at highest since dot-com crash
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-15 | by ( Alex Koller | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

Last month's job cut count was the highest of any February since 2009, when the financial crisis forced companies into cash preservation mode. CNBC spoke to a dozen people who have been laid off from tech jobs in the past year or so about their experiences navigating the labor market. Additionally, some listings required applicants to have advanced degrees or professional experience in machine learning and artificial intelligence, a new development in Croisant's experience on the job market. "It is a combination of how well you brand yourself, about your access through networking to any given position — to the hidden job market." Still, Powers said she's trying to stay optimistic, "because giving up is not going to get me a job."

Persons: Ed Jones, Allison Croisant, Croisant, Roger Lee, Layoffs.fyi, Lee, I'm, Powers, who's, Tayfun, Christopher Fong, Fong, Michael Kascsak, Kascsak, It's, Lee of Layoffs.fyi, Amit Mittal, Amit Mittal Amit Mittal, Mittal, he's, Bill Vezey, —, Vezey, She's, would've, she's, Jennifer Elias Organizations: Afp, Getty, PayPal, Meta, Microsoft, eBay, Unity Software, SAP, Cisco, Wall, CNBC, Google, Anadolu Agency, Nationwide Locations: New York, Omaha , Nebraska, Comprehensive.io, Natchez , Mississippi, View , California, United States, Austin , Texas, U.S, who's, India, Chicago, Santa Cruz , California

☆ VC firm Sequoia is pulling out all the stops to dominate AI, insiders say. The firm is using everything from 'speed dating' to star studded summits to woo founders.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

It's just one move of many the VC firm has taken to cement its position in the white-hot AI space. Huang and Grady wrote a public blog post on Sequoia's website inviting AI founders to email them their ideas and pitches directly. But the firm has been louder where it counts, investing in splashy AI startups like Harvey and LangChain. Every member of the firm, from managing partner Roleof Botha on down, has made AI a top priority, with Grady, Huang, and Buhler most prominently involved. Both Huang and Buhler now spend over 90% of their time researching AI companies, versus 50% in previous years, they said.

☆ Google nixes paying out remainder of maternity and medical leave for laid-off employees
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

The group includes people who were approved for or are currently on maternity leave, baby bonding leave, caregiver's leave, medical leave and personal leave. Early last year, Google announced it would be increasing parental leave for full-time employees to 18 weeks for all parents and 24 weeks for birth parents. Pichai said U.S.-based employees would receive 16 weeks of severance pay plus two weeks for each additional year they worked at Google. The Laid off on Leave group sent its first email to executives in January, and shared specific examples of Google employees impacted by the job cuts while on their previously approved leave. The company didn't address whether it would cover full medical leave on top of the severance payout.

☆ A Google engineer says survivors of the mass layoffs cried in meetings the day around 12,000 of their colleagues were culled
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Google engineer said survivors of the recent mass layoffs cried in meetings the day of the cull. Laid-off Google staff in the US woke up on January 20 to an email saying they'd been cut, though some found out through messages from concerned colleagues. Several laid-off staff told Insider they'd been overwhelmed by offers of help from current and former staff, such as offers to share résumés. Xoogler, a community of former Google staff, has organized mental-health and immigration-advice sessions. "I miss my colleagues," Jarrod Ahalt, a laid-off security engineer, told Insider.

☆ A Google software engineer says it was a 'slap in the face' to find out he was laid off via email after 20 years at the company
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Jeremy Joslin, a 20-year Google engineer, says being laid off via email was a "slap in the face." Jeremy Joslin, who according to his LinkedIn profile had worked at the tech giant since 2003, said on Friday that the company told him over email. "It's hard for me to believe that after 20 years at Google I unexpectedly find out about my last day via an email," he tweeted. After 17.5 years at Google, it was kind of a tough way to discover that I'd become a Xoogler." "Not the same company I started at 20 years ago," he said on LinkedIn.

"As counterintuitive as it may sound, this layoff left me in a really good position," the 24-year-old said. U.S. tech giants including Meta, Microsoft (MSFT.O), Twitter and Snap (SNAP.N) have purged more than 150,000 staff, according to Layoff.fyi, which tracks technology job losses. Day One Ventures, an early stage venture fund in San Francisco, launched a new initiative in November to fund startups founded by people who had been laid off from their tech jobs, touting the slogan "Funded, not Fired". Silicon Valley investor U.S. Venture Partners and Austrian VC firm Speedinvest have meanwhile earmarked a similar amount for newly founded companies. Fong told Reuters that experience in Big Tech firm gave founders a "strong brand that can be leveraged to meet investors, potential customers, and recruit team members".

☆ Startups find better access to talent as top tech companies cut jobs, freeze hiring
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

More than 50,000 tech workers were let go from their jobs in November, according to data collected by the website Layoffs.fyi. “Given the tech layoffs and lower hiring by the big-tech companies, folks are looking for smaller tech companies to join,” said Christopher Fong, founder of Xoogler.co, a network for ex-Google employees. In the absence of the stability that the largest tech companies once offered, workers are looking to startups and midsize companies that offer greater flexibility and, in some case, the opportunity to have a bigger impact. “I tried not to think a lot about tech layoffs when interviewing," Bell said. Lauren Illovsky, talent partner for Alphabet's CapitalG venture firm said “hiring has gotten a little easier" for the group's portfolio companies.

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