Livio Acerbo | AI Finance Advisory

Another day, another layoff occuring in the tech world. Instacart, the popular grocery delivery and pick-up service has announced the termination of 250 employees — about seven percent of its workforce. The layoffs are primarily individuals from middle management or who work on advertising through platforms like Google Ads and Roku. Most of the layoffs will go into effect by March 31 with Instacart estimating that the process will cost the company between $19 million and $24 million due to factors like severance pay and employee benefits. Instacart released the news along with its fourth-quarter earnings. Despite choosing to layoff employees, the company reported a six percent increase in revenue, jumping from $803 million to $804 million, year-over-year. At the same time, Instacart is seeing the voluntary departure of three of its executives: the chief operating officer, chief technology officer and chief architect. The layoffs follow only a short time after Instacart's September ...

Photo by Patrick Smith / Getty Images This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more. I hope all you East Coasters had a cozy nor’easter. By the time the snow stopped this morning and I tried to take my baby outside for some winter frolicking, it had already turned to slush. He doesn’t know the difference, but I am bummed! Today, we’re looking at layoffs at SiriusXM, a new podcast deal for Meghan Markle, and how the “Swift Effect” made Travis Kelce’s podcast a top 10 hit. But first, one more programming announcement for Hot Pod Summit! SiriusXM and The Trade Desk are coming to Hot Pod Summit One thing we keep hearing from readers and Hot Pod Summit attendees is a desire to understand what on earth is going on with podcast advertising. Between falling CPMs, challenges with metrics, and YouTube’s increasing dominance in the space, there is a lot to unpack. I am excited to announce that Kelli Hurley, global head of revenue p...

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has finally set up shop on TikTok. Despite controversy in Congress over the app, TikTok is an indispensable tool for presidential candidates to reach young voters, experts say. “I wasn’t surprised at all to see that the campaign launched a TikTok account, because it would genuinely have been such a © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Posted from: this blog via Microsoft Flow .

What’s more rewarding for an angel investor than paper returns in a startup? An acquisition that turns those paper returns into a cash payout while still maintaining shares in the company. “The return after dilution was eight times my investment,” said Selma Ribica in an interview with TechCrunch recently. “I kept some stock of the © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Posted from: this blog via Microsoft Flow .

Lyft is expanding its Women+ Connect program to a bunch of new cities. This initiative originally launched in a limited number of locations back in September, but now it's getting a much larger rollout. Women+ Connect does exactly what the name implies. It connects women and nonbinary riders to similarly identifying drivers, and vice versa. This is an opt-in feature that aims to bolster safety during rides, in addition to enticing women and nonbinary people to become drivers for the platform. Lyft says that nearly half of riders are women, but they only make up 23 percent of drivers. Here’s how it works: You turn on the feature and it’ll connect you to an appropriate driver based on the gender you entered when signing up. For drivers, it uses the gender associated with the license on file. If there’s no women or nonbinary drivers looking for fares, you’ll still get matched with a male driver, so you won’t be standing around outside in the cold. The program started in just a few cit...

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Monday that the agency should investigate Apple over the company’s decision to block the Beeper Mini service, which worked on bringing iMessage to Android. Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky’s Beeper launched a new service called Beeper Mini in December, which claimed to have reverse-engineered the iMessage stack to make it work on © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Posted from: this blog via Microsoft Flow .

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Apple’s response to Beeper Mini — the app that briefly brought iMessage to Android. During the State of the Net Conference on Monday, Carr said the FCC should look into whether Apple’s move “complies with the FCC’s Part 14 rules” about accommodating users with disabilities. Beeper Mini launched last year, allowing Android users to gain access to iMessage features, including blue message bubbles and the ability to send high-quality photos and videos. However, Apple quickly blocked Beeper Mini users and continued to shut down attempts to make the app work, leading its developers to eventually just give up. Today, I called for the @FCC... Continue reading… Posted from: this blog via Microsoft Flow .