Discord launched a major refresh of its mobile app on Tuesday, putting messaging front-and-center while making a host of small improvements that users have been asking for. Inspired by user feedback, the redesigned app tailors the mobile Discord experience for on-the-go use compared to its popular desktop app, while changing things up to better organize Discord’s
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The 23andMe Data Breach Keeps Spiraling
23andMe has provided more information about the scope and scale of its recent breach, but with these details come more unanswered questions.
Spotify’s not going for Pulitzers anymore
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge
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The dust is still settling on Spotify’s latest round of layoffs. On Monday, Spotify announced it was cutting 17 percent of its workforce, or approximately 1,500 employees, as a means of making the company even more efficient. This round of layoffs dwarfs the past two this year, with the company cutting about 600 employees in January and another 200 employees (mostly from podcasting) in June. Details are still coming out, but it appears the cuts are impacting people across the company, from product to content to advertising.
“I realize that for many, a reduction of this size will feel surprisingly large given the recent positive earnings report and our performance. We debated making smaller reductions throughout 2024 and 2025,” CEO Daniel Ek said in a letter to employees. “Yet, considering the gap between our financial goal state and our current operational costs, I decided that a substantial action to rightsize our costs was the best option to accomplish our objectives.”
Such steep cuts are shocking when the economy is growing and the company is turning a profit. Unlike so many other layoff announcements, this one did not spend a whole lot of time dwelling on macroeconomic factors. Instead, it is an unambiguous attempt at appeasing investors. And in the short term, it is working — Spotify’s stock is up nearly 11 percent from where it was at market close on Friday.
Today, I’ve got some key takeaways from the layoffs so far.
Spotify’s not going for Pulitzers anymore
If Spotify was ever serious about making in-depth narrative podcasts, it certainly isn’t now. Among its many cuts, the company has decided to cancel Heavyweight after it wraps up its current season. It is one of Gimlet’s flagship podcasts and a beloved show among people in the industry. It is also cutting investigative podcast Stolen, which Gimlet launched in 2021 and went on to earn the Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting and a Peabody Award for it this year.
The cancellations come after Spotify cut shows like Reply All and How to Save a Planet, laid off the vast majority of Gimlet’s staff, and folded what remained of Gimlet into Spotify Originals in June. The only shows that remain from Gimlet’s slate are The Journal, a daily news co-production with The Wall Street Journal, and Science Vs.
I have some hope that this is not the end for Heavyweight or Stolen, as both shows will be allowed to be shopped elsewhere. These are the kinds of shows every podcast studio wishes they had and the kind of content Spotify wanted when it got into podcasting in the first place. The reaction on podcast X / Twitter / whatever has been unforgiving.
“Wow, that feels like the end of times,” EarBuds Podcast Collective founder Arielle Nissenblatt told Hot Pod. “I know podcasts are still kinda new to many people but canceling #heavyweight is like canceling Breaking Bad or the Sopranos,” posted Jay Cowit, former director of The Takeaway and Freakonomics. “A Pulitzer and a Peabody and one of the most critically acclaimed shows Gimlet has ever had! Truly what is one supposed to do to keep their job in this industry,” said former Gimlet producer Meg Driscoll.
The answer, at least within Spotify, is to make a high-margin show — something that is straightforward to make, always on, and has broad appeal. You can see that in the company’s support of interview shows like anything goes with emma chamberlain and Call Her Daddy. To make the Sopranos of podcasting, you need time and resources, neither of which are on offer right now.
In his letter to employees, Ek said that “we still have too many people dedicated to supporting work and even doing work around the work rather than contributing to opportunities with real impact.” The “impact” in question here does not mean accolades, or perhaps even audience. It means margin. Like we have seen at WNYC with La Brega and More Perfect and at APM with In the Dark, Spotify has decided that a show that requires too much time, manpower, and money to make is not worth it, no matter the acclaim.
The head of brand safety is gone
The advertising side is experiencing steep cuts, despite CFO Paul Vogel pointing to ad revenue growth as a bright spot in last quarter’s earnings. Among the executives let go is Dave Byrne, who joined Spotify last year as the director of global advertising platform integrity after leading brand safety at TikTok. The point of brand safety is to make sure that a company’s ads don’t end up on podcasts or playlists with which they don’t want to be affiliated.
That sounds boring, but it’s important! If the industry is going to make money in a serious way, advertisers need to be assured that their ads are reaching the right audiences and aren’t supporting content they consider harmful. You can check out this interview Amrita Khalid did with Byrne in October about the company’s approach to brand safety.
“The safety of our community, including our listeners, creators, and advertisers, remains a top priority,” Spotify spokesperson Erin Styles told Hot Pod. “Brand safety at Spotify has always been a team effort and will continue to be overseen by leaders across our product and policy orgs.”
It does not appear that there is any executive left at the company dedicated specifically to brand safety. When I asked Styles about this, she said that teams across the company address brand safety and pointed to VP of product Per Sandell and director of monetization product marketing Chloe Wix as key executives in this space.
This may not be the end of Spotify’s M&A
Something that stopped me in Ek’s note was the indication that, after so many mergers that put so many people out of their jobs, the company is still not done with acquisitions.
“Embracing this leaner structure will also allow us to invest our profits more strategically back into the business,” he writes. “With a more targeted approach, every investment and initiative becomes more impactful, offering greater opportunities for success.”
When I asked Spotify whether “investments” means more M&A, Styles said, “We will continue to allocate capital towards the highest return opportunities for the business, both internally and externally.”
That’s all for today. I’ll see Insiders on Thursday and the rest of you next week.
Did you attend Google’s K&I Black Summit this summer?
If you or a loved one attended this Summit please, let’s get brunch.
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Elon Musk is looking to raise $1 billion for xAI
Elon Musk is looking to raise one forty-fourth of a Twitter for his AI company, xAI. In other words, the man behind Tesla, SpaceX and X is seeking $1 billion in funding for his next venture. According to an SEC filing, Musk has raised about $135 million so far from four unnamed investors, with the
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Elon Musk’s xAI company is seeking up to $1 billion in investments
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
xAI — the AI company founded by Elon Musk — seeks to raise up to $1 billion in equity investments, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (as spotted by CoinDesk). The company has raised $134.7 million so far.
Founded in April, xAI is Musk’s attempt at jumping on the AI hype train. The company’s purpose is to “understand the true nature of the universe,” according to its website, something the launch of its Grok AI chatbot is apparently supposed to further.
Grok pulls real-time information from X (formerly Twitter) to power some of its responses, but it’s currently only available in early access to X’s Premium Plus subscribers. Despite the close ties between Grok and X, xAI is separate from X Corp., X’s parent company.
The SEC filing notes xAI will only accept a minimum of $2 million from outside investors. The filing also says, “The issuer has entered into a binding and enforceable agreement for the purchase and sale of the Total Remaining to be Sold listed above,” which sure seems like the rest of the billion is already a done deal, as Axios has noted.
Bitcoin’s price dynamics: Unraveling the cryptocurrency’s volatility
CONTRIBUTOR CONTENT: Out of all cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has made the greatest impact, capturing the attention of investors, traders and even the general public. This digital currency, introduced in 2009 by an anonymous entity known as Satoshi Nakamoto, has since undergone significant price fluctuations, making it a subject of intrigue and speculation. When the cryptocurrency’s volatility is unraveled,
Multiple game developers announce layoffs, including EA-owned Codemasters
A trio of game developers have just announced layoffs, adding to the chaos that is the tech industry in 2023. It starts with developer New World Interactive, who are behind the Insurgency series and Day of Infamy, among others. There’s no word as to how many employees were let go, but parent company Saber Interactive says work will continue on Insurgency: Sandstorm, according to The Verge.
Saber Interactive has its own parent company, Embracer Group, which has had a rough year. Embracer conducted mass layoffs back in June and canceled multiple projects. Things are so bad, as a matter of fact, that the company’s looking to sell Gearbox Software, the developer behind Borderlands.
Indie publishing stalwart Tinybuild also announced a round of layoffs, according to Game Developer. The company gives the usual reason for the layoffs, cost restructuring, though the number of impacted employees remains unknown. Some of the blame has been placed on subsidiary Versus Evil, which delayed a number of titles into 2024, thus impacting revenue. Tinybuild has published a number of notable games, like Graveyard Keeper, Party Hard, Potion Craft, Mr. Shifty and dozens more.
The EA-owned Codemasters, which is one of the world’s most renowned racing game developers, issued its own set of layoffs, as reported by IGN. Just like the aforementioned companies, EA and Codemasters are being cagey regarding the number of laid off workers. An EA spokesperson said that the layoffs are due to “small-scale organizational changes that align our teams and resources to meet evolving business needs and priorities.” Okay, cool. Thanks for that useful information. EA bought Codemasters, who are behind the racers Dirt and F1, in 2021 for a whopping $1.2 billion.
These firings are just the latest bit of bad news for the games industry. Last month, Ubisoft Montreal laid off nearly 100 people and Epic Games let go of 16 percent of its workforce in September, in addition to selling Bandcamp to a seemingly predatory music-licensing company. The first half of the year saw layoffs by CD Projekt Red, among others.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/multiple-game-developers-announce-layoffs-including-ea-owned-codemasters-183318247.html?src=rss
Twilio might actually deserve activist investor attention
Twilio’s stock has fallen from 2021 of $400 a share to somewhere in the $60s today. It’s no wonder activist investors are circling.
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23andMe hack now estimated to affect over half of customers
A hack that targeted DNA testing kit company 23andMe back in October is estimated to have exposed significantly more profiles than previously reported. The personal information of about 6.9 million customers is now the current projection for the number of profiles exposed in the breach, according to a report by the BBC. The incident was previously thought to have only exposed the personal information of 14,000 individuals, just a fraction of its 14 million customer base.
The data breach was allegedly executed using compromised customer usernames and passwords which exposed sensitive personal information that included things relevant to ancestry trees, birthdays and general geographic locations. In some cases, the company said that the hack could have exposed the pictures and display names of affiliated family members also using the company’s services through the accounts that were primarily breached. 23andMe insists that no actual genetic material or DNA records were exposed.
Legally, the biotech company is obligated to inform all impacted customers and in October, 23andMe asked all of its users to reset their passwords. Last month, the company said it has required all new and existing users to login into the 23andMe website using two-step verification and that will remain the standard going forward. The emphasis on account security comes after the completion of an internal investigation, which 23andMe says was conducted with the help of third-party forensics experts but it has yet to release a report detailing their findings. The company did, however, say it expects to incur at least $1 to $2 million in expenses related to the hack.
The DNA testing company does more than give customers reports about their family trees — 23andMe offers genetic health risk tests for chronic diseases and cancers, and it even has a research arm where customers can opt in to clinical research programs. Questions about how 23andMe handles data privacy and protects its digital assets could impact the company’s bottom line and if customers shy away from using the services that involve more sensitive medical information.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/23andme-hack-now-estimated-to-affect-over-half-of-customers-165314743.html?src=rss