Elon Musk's tall order, Netflix's newest game studio, and another university endowment shares lousy returns

Hello! We're running from one plane to another so shooting this out in between flights to be on the safe side. (We never have great luck with in-flight WiFi.)

Happy Halloween -- more tomorrow. 🎃🎃🎃

Things are moving so fast at Twitter that this could be old news by the time we hit "send," but, here's all the news we know as of this writing.

First, news outlets were reporting over the weekend plans for broad layoffs at the company as new owner Elon Musk establishes control over the platform. 

Twitter has 7,500 employees and it's not clear yet how many people will be impacted, though since firing top executives last week, Musk has said the firings were "for cause," meaning mismanagement, meaning he thinks he isn’t required to pay them the multimillion-dollar severance packages that had been expected. 

"Departed executives are weighing their options," sources tell the WSJ. But don't worry about these executives or their rich exit packages, suggests Bloomberg's Matt Levine. A close follower of this saga (and a former M&A lawyer), Levine says Musk doesn't have a leg to stand on here.

Musk has also dissolved Twitter's nine-person board of directors, which was expected, but it means he is the company's sole director right now, and so much concentrated power in the hands of a single individual is -- a little belatedly -- setting off  alarm bells in Washington, where there's growing concern over Musk's ability to a.) reign in hate speech and b.) misinformation and also c.) the possible national security implications of Saudi Arabia becoming Twitter's second-biggest shareholder, owing to the combined takes of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and the Kingdom Holding Company. 

Indeed, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy tweeted today that the U.S. "should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting US politics" are now the biggest owners in the platform after Musk himself. "There is a clear national-security issue at stake and CFIUS [the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] should do a review," he wrote.

It's worth noting that Europe isn't thrilled about Musk as "Chief Twit," either. After Musk tweeted last week that "the bird is freed," Thierry Breton, the EU's industry chief, tweeted: "In Europe, the bird will fly by our EU rules." 

According to Reuters, Musk has since sought to assure the European Commission that Twitter will abide by European rules on illegal online content policing and told Breton he plans to comply with the region's Digital Services Act, which levies hefty fines on companies if they do not control illegal content. 

But everyone might feel better if Musk had a CEO is mind (he says he has "no idea who the CEO is") or his interim management team weren't comprised mostly of his friends, including David Sacks, whose relationship with Musk dates back to their PayPal days (Sacks was its founding COO); investor and gadfly Jason Calacanis; Sriram Krishnan, a former Twitter product leader who was pulled into the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz early last year; and Alex Spiro, a renowned trial lawyer who has worked with Musk over the years on at least a handful of cases.

Musk is also reportedly leaning heavily on engineers from Tesla and the Boring Company. (You have to wonder how Tesla shareholders in particular feel about this.)

As for advertisers, in addition to GM, Ford has now paused its ad spending on the platform.

A tweet published by Musk undoubtedly worried them further. On Sunday, he advanced baseless allegations about the recent attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The tweet was later deleted.

Naturally, Musk is very focused on revenue, even, according to the Financial Times, ordering Twitter staff to work around the clock to implement a charge on users to keep their verified “blue tick," a charge of possibly $10 to $15 each month. (Musk separately said in a tweet on Sunday that “the whole verification process is being revamped right now.")

Some inside Twitter think this new idea won't (yes) fly. One manager tells the FT that the new verification model “opens up another vector of abuse, for which I highly doubt we will be prepared for given such a timeline." 

It could also be a futile endeavor, if history is any indication. Since last year, Twitter has been trying to push "Twitter Blue," a monthly subscription for which customers gain access to a handful of exclusive features, like tools to organize bookmarks; the ability to read news articles without ads; custom icons and navigation; early access to new features, a way to quickly fix a typo; and, most recently, the long-awaited Edit button. But subscription sales have been dismal, generating only single-digit millions of dollars, notes TechCrunch.

Perhaps more promisingly, Musk is also reportedly trying to bring back Vine, a highly popular looping video-app that Twitter acquired in 2012, then shut down in 2016, much to the chagrin of creators and others of its fans. 

Axios says Twitter engineers have already been assigned to look at Vine's old code base, which hasn't been changed or updated since the shutdown. Little wonder it "needs a lot of work," as one tells the outlet.

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Bright Machines, a four-year-old outfit that primarily develops software for robotic systems that manufacturing companies already have in place, has collected $132 million in more capital. Eclipse Ventures, which helped to create Bright Machines, led a $100 million equity round for the company; it also secured $32 million in debt co-led by Silicon Valley Bank and Hercules Capital. Bright Machines planned to go public last year through a special purpose acquisition company but pulled the plug in December. TechCrunch has more here.

Icertis, a 12-year-old, Bellevue, Wa.-based maker of AI-powered contract lifecycle management software that's used by Microsoft, Infosys, and Johnson & Johnson, says it has raised $150 million in debt funding from Silicon Valley Bank. TechCrunch has more here. more here.

Solugen, a six-year-old Houston startup that is trying to replace the dirtiest ingredients in common industrial materials such as fertilizer, cleaning products, and cement with bio-based specialty chemicals, raised a $200 million round co-led by earlier backer Lowercarbon Capital, Refactor, and Kinnevik, with additional capital provided by Baillie Gifford, GIC, and Temasek. Bloomberg has more here.

Money Fellows, a six-year-old Cairo startup that is digitizing money circles or a system in emerging markets where a group of people agree to contribute money for a specific period, thereby saving and borrowing together, raised $31 million in what it describes as the first close of its Series B. CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners, and Arzan VC co-led the deal; Partech, Sawari Ventures, Invenfin, National Investment Co., 4DX Ventures, and P1Ventures also pitched in. The company has raised a total of $42.1 million. TechCrunch has more here.

Apply Design, a one-year-old Tel Aviv startup that helps property owners virtually stage their properties, raised a $3.3 million round from Urban Innovation Fund, Cathexis Ventures, Goodwater Capital, and Y Combinator, reports Axios, which has more here.

Arnica, a months-old, Alpharetta, Ga.-based framework for DevOps supply chain security that is behavior-based, has raised a $7 million seed round. Joule Ventures and First Rays Venture Partners co-led the investment. TechCrunch has more here.

Lama AI, a New York startup founded this year that provides a white label service to make it easier for banks and fintechs to loan money to small businesses, raised a $9 million seed round. The deal leads were Viola Ventures and Hetz Ventures, with Foundation Capital and SixThirty also pitching in. More here.

PaintJet, a three-year-old Nashville startup that is using robots to automate large scale commercial and industrial painting, raised a $3.5 million seed round led by Dynamo Ventures, with additional funds provided by MetaProp, Pathbreaker Ventures, and Builders VC. More here.

Topline Pro, a one-year-old New York startup that claims to use generative AI to help "solopreneurs" get discovered, build trust among customers, and generate repeat customers, raised a $5 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures, with TMV and BBG Ventures also throwing in. TechCrunch has more here.

Zebralabs, a two-year-old Chinese startup that is creating celebrity NFTs and metaverse avatars, raised a $5 million. round. NetDragon and Sumitomo co-led the deal. TechCrunch has more here.

Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, launches a report analyzing investment trends that point toward future unicorn status. While the impact of an economic downturn can’t easily be predicted, deal activity trends can help us better understand current conditions and future outlooks. In this U.S. vs. European Unicorn report, Affinity takes a comparative look at global investment data to understand how the landscape for investors and hopeful unicorns has evolved against economic challenges and the role relationship intelligence plays in these transactions. Read the report.

Netflix has acquired Spry Fox, a 12-year-old, Seattle-based independent gaming studio focused on cozy games, the streaming giant announced on Monday in a blog post. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The games studio is known for popular titles like “Triple Town,” “Alphabear” and “Cozy Grove.” Spry Fox is now Netflix’s sixth in-house games studio. TechCrunch has more here.

Remix, a two-year-old startup developing an open source web framework similar to Next.js, has been acquired by Shopify, the companies announced in a joint statement today. The financial terms weren’t disclosed, but in a blog post, Remix CEO (and former Twitter engineer) Michael Jackson said that Remix will receive “long-term backing and support” from Shopify that will allow it to “grow faster” and “sharpen its focus on performance and scalability.” Remix had raised $3 million in seed capital from OSS Capital and angel investors Naval Ravikant, Ram Shriram and Sahil Lavingia. TechCrunch has more here.

Josh Cohen has left Golden Gate Capital after a 13-year run, most recently as a managing director and co-head of consumer tech investments, per an email sent to friends and colleagues and flagged earlier by Axios.

TuSimple Holdings, a San Diego-based publicly traded self-driving trucking company, has fired its co-founder an CEO, Xiaodi Hou. A related securities filing says a board investigation found that TuSimple shared confidential information with Hydron, a trucking startup with operations mostly in China and funded by Chinese investors, which hadn’t been disclosed to the board before TuSimple entered into a business deal with Hydron. TuSimple said it didn’t know whether Hydron shared, or publicly disclosed, the confidential information, the securities filing said. TuSimple went public last year through a conventional IPO process that made Hou a billionaire (at the time). The company's shares are now trading down more than 90% for the year. The WSJ has much more here.

EquityZen, a New York-based marketplace for startup equity, last week laid off 27% of its 110-person workforce, it confirmed to Axios. The outlet notes that the company significantly grew its team last year as the market boomed, but now is adjusting to much less demand from accredited investors (its primary customers) for startup stocks. 

Investment returns for university endowments are pretty universally awful after a string of go-go years. The WSJ says the endowment of Washington University in St. Louis lost 10.6% in the fiscal year ended June 30 after notching a 65% gain the prior year, shrinking its size to $13.3 billion. Other schools that have reported big swings in their multibillion-dollar endowments include Stanford University, which lost 4.2% after gaining 40.1% previously; Brown University, down 4.6% after posting a 51.5% increase; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, down 5.3% after rising 55.5%. The median result for endowments and foundations in the fiscal year ended June 30 was a 7.8% loss, according to a preliminary estimate by Cambridge Associates—the worst showing since 2009. More here.

For the first time, in the third quarter, Silicon Valley accounted for less than 20% of deal making nationally. The WSJ has more on this, too.

A new city law going into effect tomorrow will require companies in New York City with at least four employees to post salary ranges for openings, even if the jobs involve remote or hybrid work.

Forget the metaverse: Meta should make a new Twitter. (They've copied everything else.)

U.S. workers have gotten way less productive. No one is sure why.

The complicated recruiting of Bronny James.

It's me, the person putting drugs in the Halloween candy.

Joan Didion's art, books, desk, and typewriter are headed to auction next month.

Marge and Homer Simpson sneakers, by Adidas.

A new cellphone that can create NFTs with one click. (Grrreat?)