Hello TechCrunch best friends. After a week in Korea and the Philippines, it’s great to be back in the States, and a little more tanned (ie sunburned) than before. Many thanks to Henry, who was forced to intervene in the last two weeks thanks to my not realizing that Korean Air it’s not They offer Wi-Fi on board. Talk about a good sport.
If you’re wondering about Greg’s status, don’t worry: He’s due back from some well-deserved paternity leave in a month and change. In the meantime, I’m here to tease you about the upcoming TechCrunch main events.
TechCrunch Early Stage is fast approaching: it’s taking place on April 20 in Boston this year, and will feature experts from across the tech and business landscape talking about solutions for getting a startup off the ground. (Also in Boston: City Spotlight, beginning February 27.) On the far horizon, there’s TechCrunch Disrupt (Sept. 19-21), which promises to be an absolute blast this year. Having taken a look at the preliminary guest list, let me say this: you will not disappoint.
With those administrative parts out of the way, let’s get on with Week in Review. (If you want it in your inbox every Saturday, sign up here.) Here are the best stories of the last days!
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frustrated ambitions: carry informs exclusively that supposedly Dash The chief executive, Prince Boakye Boampong, has been temporarily suspended pending an investigation into financial irregularities at the company. Boampong, one of Africa’s best-known serial entrepreneurs, is allegedly accused of engaging in false financial reporting; sources tell TechCrunch that executives repeatedly hid financials within the company while laying off employees at will. Before Boampong’s alleged suspension, Dash had raised tens of millions in venture capital with a valuation of more than $200 million.
New iOS, new emojis: Apple released the developer beta version of iOS 16.4, which brought with it the next set of emoji coming to iPhones. Originally introduced during the draft phase last year, the emoji span categories such as food and drink, activity, objects, animals, and symbols. Sarah writes that among the highlights are variations on the heart emoji, hand gestures, and a “shaking face” emoji. Curious users can check out the new additions by signing up for the Apple Developer Program.
Prepare for Paramount: Prior to the launch of “Paramount+ with Showtime,” a new streaming TV service package that will integrate Showtime with Paramount+, Paramount announced that it would increase the price of its Paramount+ Premium tier from $9.99 per month to $11.99 per month. It’s not an unexpected move: Paramount CEO Bob Bakish wired the plans in early December, but it could nonetheless put Paramount+ at a disadvantage to Showtime as it competes with Warner’s upcoming HBO Max/Discovery+ service. Bros. Discovery.
Feishu is the new Slack: Feishu, ByteDance’s Slack-like workplace collaboration app, surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue last year. rita writes ByteDance’s heavy investment in Feishu speaks to the state of enterprise software in China. At a time when Silicon Valley investors herald product-led growth, software in China still relies heavily on sales, marketing and services to recruit users.
Channeling Instagram: Instagram launched a new streaming chat feature this week called “Channels.” Aisha reports that it allows creators to share public one-to-many messages to interact directly with their followers. Channels support text, images, polls, reactions, and more. Instagram is beginning to test channels with select creators in the US and plans to expand the feature in the coming months.
Sales force under pressure: Salesforce is looking for new ways to cut costs as activist investors put pressure on the company. This week, Salesforce rolled out tougher performance measures for engineering, with some vendors coming under pressure to back down or succumb to their own tough performance policies. As Ron writes, it’s probably related to the fact that activist investors have been turning the company around, no doubt putting pressure on management to increase productivity and cut expenses.
Tesla Dog Safety Concerns: This week, Tesla issued a recall of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software, an advanced driver-assistance system that federal regulators say could allow vehicles to act unsafely at intersections. The recall, which affected more than 362,000 vehicles, was prompted in part, Telsa revealed, by concerns that FSD-powered vehicles might insufficiently respond to changes in posted speed limits, among other things. concerns. FSD’s beta software, from its name and Musk’s promises of its capabilities to its implementation and security concerns, has been controversial and has drawn scrutiny from regulatory agencies.
User acquisition: Snapchat now has more than 750 million monthly active users (MAUs). The company announced the milestone during its Investor Day on Thursday. Sarah reports. Snapchat said it sees a path to reach more than a billion people in the next two to three years, but whether it will actually succeed remains to be seen. In any case, 750 MAUs put Snapchat ahead of Pinterest (450 million) but behind Facebook (2.96 billion).
A Tetris movie: Apple TV+ this week released the first trailer for its movie “Tetris,” based on the origin story of the popular puzzle video game. Starring Taron Egerton, who plays American video game salesman Henk Rogers, “Tetris” tells the story of Rogers and his mission to secure the distribution rights to the game. The film will premiere at the South by Southwest film festival in March, after which Apple will release it worldwide on Apple TV+ (March 31).
Audio
TechCrunch has a wonderful line of audio programming, in case you didn’t know. In other words, we have podcasts for days. this week in Equity, maria anna and Scholarship took the microphone to discuss Descope’s $53 million seed round, the new fund from Phenomenal Ventures, and the latest raise from a Mexican neobank. In Found, darrell and Scholarship spoke with Alex Rappaport, CEO and co-founder of ZwitterCo, making it practical for industries to recycle water and improve product recovery with new filtration technology. And to the Tech Crunch liveThe team went live (not to be repetitive) with CFO-turned-CEO Christina Ross and her Mayfield Fund partner Rajeev Batra to discuss the story behind Ross’s company, Cube, and how it meets your customers where they are. in.
TechCrunch+
Is the tech job market as bad as it seems?: Ron He investigates the state of the tech job market and finds that while some numbers are down, it’s not a clear cut. His high-level observation? Tech workers, especially those with specialized skills like engineering, data science, AI and cybersecurity, remain in demand as supply lags the number of open positions.
