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Okay, NOW it’s Friday. Got any enjoyable plans for the lengthy weekend? Haje is transferring home (ugh), and Christine is shopping GIFs of puppies till her battery runs out. Probably.
Most individuals aren’t straight-up racist, however it seems unconscious biases sneak into our brains in all kinds of nasty, sneaky little methods. Stereotypes and prejudices exist, and being conscious of yours is an effective place to start out engaged on. The Cornerstone Foundation has a free 30-minute course you possibly can take to uncover and work on them.
We hope you’ve gotten a effective Monday and don’t miss us an excessive amount of whereas we’re off for the vacation. Look for our return on Tuesday. — Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch Top 3
- It’s a chicken, it’s a airplane, it’s a drone: Dronamics raised $40 million in a pre-Series A spherical (or actually massive seed spherical if you happen to’d relatively take a look at it that means) to start out an autonomous cargo drone airline in Europe, Mike writes. It has some bold targets, too: The CEO says will probably be capable of ship to all of Europe in the identical day from a single warehouse.
- Preempted: Some Disney+ Hotstar prospects had been none too happy when the stream went down in the course of a well-liked cricket match. Manish has extra, together with particulars that such a factor will not be an remoted incident.
- Pointing fingers: Carly and Zack report {that a} knowledge breach has Atlassian and Envoy briefly blaming one another for what went down that led to hundreds of Atlassian staff having their knowledge uncovered.
Startups and VC
With so many fintechs shedding workers, it may be straightforward to imagine that the whole business is in misery, however that’s not the case. In reality, some corporations are discovering alternative within the lots of layoffs, Mary Ann discovers. Here’s who’s hiring. Meanwhile, Natasha M and Alyssa collected a complete checklist of 2023 tech layoffs.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the collapsed blockchain agency and stablecoin operator Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon with defrauding U.S. traders who bought the digital belongings Terra USD and Luna, Kate reviews.
And we’ve got 5 extra for you:
So that founder you backed turned out to be problematic. Now what?
Image Credits: retrorocket (opens in a brand new window) / Getty Images
Early-stage traders don’t intently handle the entrepreneurs they bathe with money, even when issues go off the rails. And in some instances, they could not have the ability to exert a lot authority.
Assuming a VC makes an funding by way of a SAFE notice, “if that stake hasn’t converted to equity, they don’t have much say if things start to go wrong,” reviews Rebecca Szkutak.
To be taught extra about how traders deal with problematic CEOs, she spoke to:
- Cameron Newton, founder and basic associate, Relevance Ventures
- Eric Bahn, co-founder and basic associate, Hustle Fund
- Angela Lee, enterprise associate, professor, Columbia Business School
We even have a couple of extra for the weekend:
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Big Tech Inc.
The pandemic compelled us to search out new methods to collaborate in a distant office, and a few corporations have been capable of leverage that want. Rita reviews that Feishu, ByteDance’s Slack-like software, was one among them, producing $100 million in 2022. She writes, “ByteDance’s heavy investment in Feishu is telling of the state of enterprise software in China. At a time when Silicon Valley investors are heralding product-led growth — services that convert users through their products, as exemplified by Calendly — software in China still largely counts on sales, marketing and services to recruit users.”
Now right here’s 5 extra for you: