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Whoo boy. As Alex would say: This week has been a long year. You just know it was a pretty wild ride when Meta was able to lay off 13% of its staff, and it’s not even really in the top 10 crazy things that have happened.
Gmail no longer lets you use the old interface, you retro-loving geek, you. Salesforce made a series of layoffs, the DOJ seized $3.36 billion worth of Silk Road crypto, Binance said it would buy FTX, then pulled out, causing Sequoia to write off its entire FTX investment. Theranos founder, Elizabeth Holmes, will find out her fate next week, while Peloton founder has given up gym equipment and now sells carpets. Then there was a wall of Twitter drama, including utter chaos with Twitter’s new “verified” system after it laid off half of its staff, before quickly taking steps to take some of them back. Oh, and we’re all #RatVerified 4lyf now, I guess.
Could be next week slightly more chill for you. It will be for Haje, who is out for a week-long dive, possibly entrusting Apple with his life in the process. As he left that day, he could be overheard muttering, “I hope there’s some internet left when I get back.”
Take a breather, instead you can always implode with stress next week. — Christine and hi.
The ukbusinessupdates.com Top 3
- Only the beginning, we fear: If you’ve been following the entire FTX corporate drama, then you’ve no doubt got a glimpse of today’s big story that crypto exchange founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and also resigned from office. This comes after SBF thought there was a chance to save the company in other ways, such as linking to Binance and then some liquidity. This has been so much that Jacquelyn said on CNBC this morning that everyone should put their crypto in their own private keys.
- All that back and forth hurts our necks: We fear that Twitter developers have spent much of their 84-hour work week turning on and off the “official badge” switch to appease Elon Musk’s constant flip-flop ideas. Natasha L has more about what is happening.
- Potato, potahto, let’s turn the whole thing off (and back on): Ivan has the best headline of all week: “Have you tried turning it off and on again, Elon?” We are still waiting for that answer.
Startups and VC
Our entire news team is reclined in their respective sofas, slightly shaken after one of the wildest news weeks we’ve seen. You know, we’re so exhausted, we’re not even going to write a decent intro. Here, make yourself a cup of tea and click through. Or not. You are in charge of your own destiny.
Pitch Deck Teardown: Syneroid’s $500K seed deck
Image Credits: Smart GPC Tags (Opens in a new window)
Stolen vehicle recovery systems have been available for decades, but a lost pet has higher emotional stakes.
According to Syneroid, a startup that makes smart tags, 10 million pets are lost in the United States every year, but “less than 30% are returned home.”
After raising a $500,000 seed round, the company founders shared their 12-slide pitch deck with ukbusinessupdates.com for a review. According to Haje Jan Kamps“no information has been redacted or omitted.”
Three more from the TC+ team:
ukbusinessupdates.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams stay ahead of the curve. You can register here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
Brian visited Amazon’s BOS27 robotics facility and not only saw cute robots lining up, but learned about the delivery giant’s plans for global domination. If you can’t see it by now, it’s about robotics and how Amazon wants to improve the world of last-mile delivery.
Need more entertainment? Here are five more:
