Twitter layoffs violated federal worker protections, class action lawsuit alleges

Friday, and all eyes are on the vast number of Twitter employees who were given the boot, unceremoniously, with many of ’em finding out they’d lost their job because they were unable to log in to their email accounts as they showed up for work in the morning. Yikes.  — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• Not enough WARNing: Twitter is performing a massive layoff, as reported by Amanda and Catherine. The company is now looking at a class action lawsuit alleging Elon Musk did not give the proper legal notice when making said layoffs. Sarah and Ivan have more.
• More ways to pays: Venmo and PayPal are following suit behind Stripe and Square to begin supporting Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhones, Ivan writes.
• Pedal to the metal: Connie is in Lisbon covering the Web Summit conference and has this story on Formula 1’s Toto Wolff, who said he was looking for remote software to get his racing team that checkered flag again.

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Startups and VC

If you’re running a company that’s shipping hundreds of thousands of boxes of frozen meat around, you probably don’t want to run every detail of your supply chain yourself. That’s what outsourcing is for — so why did ButcherBox build two dry ice factories during the pandemic? It turns out it was a combination of removing risk and making the most of financial incentives, Haje reports.

Commercial electric vehicle company Arrival received a warning from the Nasdaq Stock Market because its stock price is trading too low, Rebecca reports. The company issued a press release saying it received a notification that it was not in compliance with the Nasdaq’s requirement to trade ordinary shares above $1.00 per share for 30 consecutive business days preceding the date of notification.

And in other cheerful news…

• Spending management layoffs: Romain reports that spending management startup Pleo lays off 15% of its workforce.
• Robo-greenhouse layoffs: Agtech startup Iron Ox lays off 50 people, which is nearly half its staff, Brian reports.
• Upskilling a captive audience: Devin reports that Emerge Career, which offers job training before inmates are released, lands $3.2 million seed and new state contracts.
• Better sales with deeper LinkedIn integrations: Surfe brings your CRM data to LinkedIn — and vice versa, Romain reports.
• Video games for dogs: Wii? More like Woof, as video games for dogs become a thing, Haje reports.

What investors really think about the TAM slide in your pitch deck

Are you ready to launch a bajillion-dollar startup? Before you start: Are you planning to build a centaur, a unicorn, or perhaps a decacorn?

Startup pitching has become an existential drama, in part because so many founders exaggerate the size of the total addressable market (TAM) in which they hope to compete.

“The way it’s calculated and the way the founder is thinking about it tells us not necessarily about the business or its future, but about how the founder thinks about company creation,” said Deena Shakir, a partner at Lux Capital.

Three more from the TC+ team:

• Up and to the right: Why Robinhood and Coinbase gained ground after reporting earnings, by Anna.
• Everything that’s come before will come again: Is the modern data stack just old wine in a new bottle?, by Ashish Kakran.
• Most common pitch deck fails: Haje reviewed 1,000+ pitch decks and identified the most common mistakes.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

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Big Tech Inc.

Sorry, we have to have another Twitter day, but we promise to include some other really cool articles, too. First, Amanda wonders if porn is a way for the social media giant to recoup some of its losses and make more money. Meanwhile, Kyle reached out to a lot of Twitter’s advertisers to see what their plans are in light of the Elon Musk takeover. Spoiler, they are pausing spending.

And we have five more for you:

• Me, I want a Hulu-hoop: Get ready Hulu lovers, the streaming service will raise the cost of the Hulu Live TV bundle next month, Lauren reports.
• Compromise: Annie writes that Uber is withdrawing a petition to annul new ride-hailing regulations in Kenya and will instead work with the country’s officials to improve drivers’ earnings.
• Just missed: Aria is watching Rocket Lab and reports on a failed attempt at midair catch. Still cool to watch, though!
• New consumer superpowers: Natasha L learned all about the European Union’s plan to reboot product liability rules for AI and lays out a pretty extensive report on what the future will look like.
• Halt! No one goes here right now: An Amazon exec told Brian that the delivery giant will have a corporate hiring freeze through the end of the year as it adjusts to the current economic environment.

• New Business Manager at Rock Paper Scissors, Inc (Bloomington, Indiana, USA)
• SENIOR POLICY & RESEARCH ANALYST POLITICAL VOICE at Catalyst California (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
• Experience Designer II at Ideum (Corrales, New Mexico, USA)
• SharePoint Application Solutions Analyst at Akron Children's Hospital (Akron, OH, USA)
• Spire Animation Studios, Inc. at Spire Animation Studios, Inc. (Los Angeles, California, USA)

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