Hello friends! Welcome back to Week in Review, the newsletter where we summarize the key TBEN headlines from the past seven days. Get it in your inbox every Saturday by signing up here.
Finished? Let’s go.
most read
Twitter had a week that was so odd it could easily make this whole newsletter, so we’ll stick with the bullet points:
- Last week, Elon fired a large part of the company. This week, some of those who were released were reportedly asked to return.
- Twitter started giving blue verified check marks to anyone who would pay $8. It quickly became chaotic.
- Twitter has a new, second checkmark for “Official” accounts. And then got rid of them. And then… did she bring them back?
- Friday morning, after fake “verified” accounts appeared for everything from businesses to athletes to politicians, Twitter suspended its $8 verification badge program.
- A number of execs stopped—to the point where the exits pricked the ears of the FTC.
- Elon reportedly told Twitter employees that: “bankruptcy is not excluded” for the company.
FTX Collapses: Once one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, FTX effectively exploded this week. It looked for a while that competitor Binance would step in to take over FTX, only for Binance to take one look at FTX’s books and pull out almost immediately. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has since stepped down and the company has filed for bankruptcy.
Meta fired: Meta – the parent company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – laid off 13% of its staff this week. With a global workforce of approximately 87,000 employees, that’s more than eleven thousand rolls cut.
Gmail won’t let you go back to the old Gmail: Don’t like the new look that Gmail started rolling out in July? Bad news. While users were previously able to revert to the old design, the Gmail team announced this week that the new design will be the “default experience” for everyone within weeks.
Google finds exploits in Samsung phones“Google says it has evidence that a commercial surveillance vendor exploited three zero-day vulnerabilities found in newer Samsung smartphones,” writes Zack Whittaker. “The chained vulnerabilities allow an attacker to gain read and write permissions from the kernel as a root user and ultimately expose a device’s data.”
audio overview
Looking for a new podcast to tune into on your commute? Here’s what’s been happening in TC podcasts lately:
- The chain reaction crew broke the absurd collapse of FTX as it happened.
- Equity (with a guest appearance from TC’s Becca Szkutak) covered the seemingly endless layoffs we’re seeing from tech companies big and small, and what the FTX meltdown means for it and companies that like it.
- Darrell joined The TBEN podcast by TC senior reporter Dom-Madori Davis to talk about “the coalition of VCs championing reproductive rights” and to round up the week’s biggest tech stories.
TBEN+
Not a TBEN+ member yet? Here’s what members checked out most behind the paywall:
How ButcherBox Started Up to $600 Million in Revenue: How did ButcherBox grow from a humble Kickstarter to $600 million in revenue in just a few years? Haje outlines the company’s path to date.
the exchange: In his increasingly popular daily newsletter, Alex Wilhelm asks himself: Has everyone misjudged software companies all this time?
