Salesforce CEO admits 'we hired too many people' as company lays off +7,000 employees

Wednesday, January 04, 2023

Hello, and welcome to the middle of the week. CES is starting tomorrow, so bookmark TechCrunch’s dedicated CES page to catch up on all the happenings. Now, onto the news! — Christine

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The TechCrunch Top 3

Another round of layoffs: Paul has the latest on what’s happening over at Salesforce. The company said it had to cut its workforce by 10% — approximately 7,000 people — and will close offices in several markets. He checked out Salesforce’s SEC filing related to the matter and reported that CEO Marc Benioff stated the layoffs were a result of hiring “too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing.”
Not so happy new year: More privacy fines and corrective measures greeted Meta as the calendar flipped to a new year. The company was hit with over $410 million in new fines from the European Union due to the number of “General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) complaints over the legal basis [Meta] claims [it has] to run behavioral ads,” Natasha L writes.
Get food, mail your packages: Now you can have your food and your packages too. DoorDash is launching a new service that will pick up prepaid packages and drop them off at a UPS, FedEx or USPS location, Aisha reports.

The Johnson Cornell Tech MBA is for innovators like you

Startups and VC

It’s Autodesk’s turn for a competitor, and Snaptrude wants to be it. The startup took in some fresh venture capital to take on the design giant in the building design space, Jagmeet writes. Snaptrude wants to infuse better interoperability and cloud-based collaboration where others, like Autodesk, have lagged.

And we have four more for you:

App-solutely too slow: If your mobile app can’t keep up, customers may keep away. Product Science, which develops mobile app performance monitoring tools, landed $18 million to find flaws in execution to minimize app freezes and errors, Kyle writes.
It’s all so surreal: Also by Kyle, SurrealDB joins a crowded managed database service industry, raising $6 million for its database-as-a-service approach.
IP oh no: The market uncertainty that has plagued the online grocery delivery industry has caught up with South Korean grocery startup Kurly, which scrapped its IPO, Kate reports.
“There’s a great future in plastics”: Singapore-based AlterPacks took in $1 million in pre-seed funding to turn food waste into food containers, Catherine writes.

5 failure points between $5M and $100M in ARR

Before Tracy Young was co-founder and CEO of TigerEye, she held identical roles at construction productivity software startup PlanGrid.

Even though she led the company to $100 million in ARR before its acquisition by Autodesk, “I’ve had years to dissect the mistakes I made with my first startup,” she writes in TC+.

Young looks back at “five key failure points” that are common potholes on every founder’s path and shares tactical advice for addressing internal conflict, losing product-market fit, and other stumbles.

“If these reflections help even one founder make one less mistake, I would consider this effort worthwhile.”

Two more from the TC+ team:

No, no, not guilty was a good thing: Jacquelyn spoke to some legal experts who say Sam Bankman-Fried was smart to plead not guilty.
Hype or ripe?: Becca queried 35 investors to get their 2023 predictions on a number of VC-related topics, including capital deployment strategies, web3/crypto and what will happen with valuations.

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!

Big Tech Inc.

Roku is expanding its product line to include a range of 11 smart televisions that the company says it designed and built with its own services in mind, Sarah writes. And you won’t have to wait very long to get them — they will be available beginning in the spring.

Meanwhile, the TechCrunch team at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas filed 16 stories since yesterday evening. You can find all of them here, but I wanted to point out a few I’ve enjoyed reading so far:

Bird-watching fans can get their fill of hummingbird species sightings with Bird Buddy’s new smart hummingbird feeder. Sarah reports it can photograph and identify 350 different bird species.
“Urine” for a special treat with Haje’s look at Withings’ U-Scan, which puts a urine analysis lab in your toilet.
If you’re looking for some toy nostalgia, WowWee returns to robots with a dog named ‘Dog-E.’ Brian has more.
Who needs to just sit in cars staring out the window when you can pretend to be somewhere else? Holoride launches a new device to bring VR entertainment to any vehicle, Kirsten writes.

And we have five more for you:

Something going down Down Under: In Twitter news, Manish reports that a lot of users in Australia are experiencing service issues. Meanwhile, the social network is said to be reversing a political ad ban to bolster up its revenue, Ivan reports.
Up up and away: Stellantis is set to mass produce Archer’s electric aircraft in an expanded deal that will give the company access to up to $150 million over the next two years, Kirsten reports.
Time is on your side: Musical tastes change, so to document it, Spotify’s new time capsule feature will let you revisit your musical taste a year from now, Aisha writes.
And yet some more layoffs: The new year was also not good for Vimeo, which had another round of layoffs said to impact 11% of employees, Lauren writes.
Settlement reached: New York financial regulators settled with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for a $100 million fine after finding it violated anti–money laundering laws by failing to conduct adequate background checks, Amanda reports.