Techmeme
January 21, 2023, 2:45 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Alphabet plans to cut ~12,000 jobs, 6%+ of its global workforce; CEO Sundar Pichai says he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that led us here”  —  Google parent Alphabet Inc. said it will cut about 12,000 jobs, more than 6% of its global workforce …
Emily Baker-White / Forbes:
According to six employees and an internal doc, TikTok and ByteDance staff engage in “heating”, or inflating video view counts, to court influencers and brands  —  TikTok and ByteDance employees regularly engage in “heating,” a manual push that ensures specific videos …
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
The US SEC charges Avraham Eisenberg with manipulating Mango Markets' governance token MNGO to steal $116M of crypto assets and says MNGO was sold as a security  —  - The SEC brought charges against Avraham Eisenberg on Friday after the U.S. securities regulator said Eisenberg stole $116 million from Mango Markets.
Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Internal records: Twitter now has around 1,300 active employees, including fewer than 550 full-time engineers, and about 1,400 non-working employees  —  - Internal records show that Twitter has shed about 80% of its employees since Elon Musk took over and headcount is hovering around 1,300 employees today.
Dietrich Knauth / Reuters:
US prosecutors provide a list of ~$700M worth of Sam Bankman-Fried's seized assets, including ~$525M in Robinhood stock and $94.5M cash at Silvergate Bank  —  Federal prosecutors have seized nearly $700 million in assets from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in January, largely in the form of Robinhood stock …
Mia Sato / The Verge:
In a staff call, CNET and Red Ventures executives said they were pausing AI-generated content on CNET and other websites and detailed their proprietary AI tool  —  The call, which lasted under an hour, was held a week after CNET came under fire for its use of AI tools on stories …
The Verge:
Can Duruk / Margins:
The main reason ChatGPT is a threat to Google is because the latter's monopoly position allowed search to degenerate into a spam-ridden, SEO-fueled hellscape  —  I hate monopolies and welcome our AI overlords … I don't really cook often, but I do love making pasta aglio e olio.
Nico Grant / New York Times:
Kevin Simauchi / Bloomberg:
Josh Scott / BetaKit:
Waterloo-based Magnet Forensics, which develops digital investigation software, agrees to be acquired by Thoma Bravo for CA$1.8B  —  Kitchener-Waterloo's Magnet Forensics has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by software-focused American private equity firm Thoma Bravo.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
Zoho Directory 2024: Enabling Access and Empowering Security  —  Hey there!  👋 As 2024 comes to a close, we're excited to highlight the latest updates in Zoho Directory.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Fri. 12/27 - A New "Definition" Of AGI
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:45 AM ET, January 21, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Brian Fung / CNN:
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:

Earlier Picks

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
The Block:
Catherine Larkin / Bloomberg:
Karissa Bell / Engadget: