Seattle-based digital freight network Convoy is closing its Atlanta office and laying off workers. Convoy has fired workers three times in a year. CEO and co-founder Dan Lewis announced the restructuring on LinkedIn Thursday as Convoy moves to a new customer service model that automates many employee tasks. This change …
Read More »In Q4 2022, Jumia cut 20% of staff to cut losses by half
As part of its streamlining efforts, Jumia cut managerial headcount by 60% in Dubai and over 900 positions across its 11 markets, affecting 20% of its staff. Jumia’s FY2022 financials show this happened in Q4 last year. This follows the Jumia Supervisory Board’s note on senior management shake-ups when it …
Read More »Live “TikTok Trivia” game to award $500K
Today, TikTok announced “TikTok Trivia,” a 5-day live trivia game for U.S. users 18 years or older to win a share of a $500,000 prize pool by answering multiple-choice questions about beauty, lifestyle, music, and sports. Next week’s TikTok Trivia runs from February 22 to 26. TikTok Trivia will have …
Read More »Salesforce caves to activist pressure with harsh sales and engineering policies
As activist investors pressure Salesforce, the company is exploring cost-cutting options. Today, Insider reported that the company is implementing stricter engineering performance measurements, with some salespeople being pressured to quit or adopt harsh performance policies. Performance reviews based on engineers’ code output, a flawed way to measure engineering productivity, encourage …
Read More »You.com’s multimodal chat search is aimed at Google and Microsoft
Richard Socher, the founder of You.com, is aware that his business has always been a David battling Google and, to a lesser extent, Microsoft for supremacy in the search market. He likes to point out that his business developed search based on generative AI in December, well in advance of …
Read More »India lifts restrictions on some lending apps, including PayU’s LazyPay
According to a person familiar with the situation, India’s IT Ministry has lifted the ban on seven well-known lending apps, including PayU’s LazyPay, Kissht, KreditBee, and Indiabulls Home Loans. This is welcome relief for the fintech sector, which has recently been subject to intense scrutiny. According to a copy of …
Read More »Amazon is in talks to buy MX Player, a major player in Indian video
According to four people with knowledge of the situation, Amazon is in talks with Times Internet to investigate buying MX Player, one of the biggest on-demand video streaming services in India, as the American e-commerce company looks to expand its entertainment ambitions in the important international market. Three sources warned …
Read More »Otonomo, a mobility data company with a 2021 SPAC IPO valuation of $1.4B, was acquired by Urgent.ly as its market cap fell to $70M
Otonomo, a connected automotive company that went public in 2021 and has seen a sharp decline in the value of its stock, recently announced a reverse merger with roadside assistance tech company Urgent.ly. In an all-share merger, Urgently shareholders will receive 67% of the combined company, and Otonomo shareholders will …
Read More »Statsig increases the number of its free feature management tools
With the help of feature gates and other experimentation tools, Statsig, a well-funded Bellevue, Washington-based startup that enables product teams to test and evaluate new features (using real-time data from actual customers), announced today that it is essentially making its feature gating capabilities available for free to most users. All …
Read More »Amex and Microsoft use AI to improve the dreadful expense report
The focus these days is all on ChatGPT, but contemporary AI technologies have a variety of applications that go beyond making Bing finally useful. Utilizing AI to help with the tiresome and frustrating process of filing and auditing corporate expense reports is one new trend. Microsoft and American Express today …
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