Alphabet CEO lays off 12,000 individuals, says firm ’employed for a distinct financial actuality’   • TechCrunch

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Blissful Friday! Be a part of us in wishing Lorenzo a really heat welcome to the staff! He’s becoming a member of our crack staff of cybersecurity reporters, working alongside Zack and Carly. He simply printed his first article on TC, about T-Cell reporting a hacker accessed private information of 37 million prospects. Welcome aboard!!

Get pleasure from your weekend! — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch High 3

• Alphabet spells out layoffs: With all that discuss tech layoffs prior to now couple months, it was solely a matter of time earlier than we noticed one thing from Google’s mother or father, Alphabet. The search engine large introduced it was slicing 6% of its workforce, which impacts 12,000 individuals. And just like the others, CEO Sundar Pichai took his flip explaining how the corporate “employed for a distinct financial actuality,” Paul writes.
• Recreation off: With gaming being as in style as it’s, this subsequent layoff story is a little bit of a shock, although not completely sudden since media corporations are being hit laborious. Leisure firm Fandom, which publishes content material underneath Big Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic, laid off roughly 10% of its employees throughout these publications, Ivan stories.
• It’s all in regards to the cash, cash, cash: Social media influencers in India should disclose promotional content material, aka paid promotions, to the federal government, and now the Division of Client Affairs has launched some pointers on how to try this. Jagmeet has extra.

Startups and VC

A $32 million seed spherical for Chris DeWolfe’s latest gaming firm might look like a throwback to frothier occasions, like … 2021. However that’s how a lot PLAI Labs simply raised in a deal led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), stories Connie. She factors out that that’s plenty of moolah in a unstable market, even coming because it does from two separate a16z funds: the agency’s $600 million debut video games car and its $4.5 billion crypto fund, each of which had been introduced final Might.

Right here’s one other handful for ya:

4 buyers focus on the subsequent huge wave for various seafood startups

Picture of WildType’s sushi-grade, lab-grown salmon. Picture Credit: Arye Elfenbein/WildType

There’s plenty of hype round plant-based burgers and nuggets, however various seafood merchandise are attracting extra consideration — and funding — from buyers as of late.

“Greater than $178 million was pumped into various seafood within the first half of 2022, and the market’s worth is poised to succeed in $1.6 billion over the subsequent 10 years,” she stories.

To study extra about this maturing area, Christine Corridor surveyed 4 buyers to get their ideas on regulation, the “distinctive challenges” corporations face as they attempt to attain scale, and the way they’re approaching development and threat:

• Kate Danaher, managing director of ocean and seafood, S2G Ventures
• Friederike Grosse-Holz, director, Blue Horizon
• Christian Lim, managing director, SWEN Capital Companions’ Blue Ocean
• Amy Novogratz, co-founder and managing accomplice, Aqua Spark

Three extra from the TC+ staff:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup groups get forward of the pack. You’ll be able to enroll right here. Use code “DC” for a 15% low cost on an annual subscription!

Huge Tech Inc.

Okay, no extra layoff speak. We’re going to have some enjoyable, as a result of it’s Friday, rattling it!

Are you continue to taking part in Wordle? Or maybe you switched to its clone Quordle. Effectively, Quordle was acquired by Merriam-Webster, Paul stories. In the event you’ve by no means tried it, Quordle is just like the essential Wordle idea, guessing a phrase in a specific amount of tries, besides there are 4 five-letter phrases to guess directly, with simply 9 tries. It could be simply the factor to heat you up on a chilly winter’s evening.

Right here’s 4 extra in your Friday enjoyment:

• Your flip: Amanda writes that after weeks of backlash and protest from content material creators and followers, Dungeons & Dragons’ writer decided to place the sport underneath a Inventive Commons license.
• An abrupt goodbye: After lately slicing off third-party shoppers, together with Tweetbot and Twitterific, Twitter went forward and formally banned them, Kyle writes.
• ICYMI: Netflix founder Reed Hastings stepped down as co-CEO however will stay on the board, Taylor writes. In the meantime, Netflix is eyeing free streaming “FAST” channels as a risk to develop its advertisements enterprise, Lauren stories.
• Up, up, and away: As Darrell writes, Canada is getting up off the sidelines and becoming a member of the area race, saying it desires to help business area launches.