What happened in tech this week?
The Google saga continues, Snap and Blue Apron release earnings reports and Travis Kalanick is sued by an Uber investor.
The Google memo saga isn’t over just yet. 🗒
Google engineer James Damore has been fired after writing a 3,300-word essay that included his thoughts on why women aren’t biologically wired for tech jobs. On Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai cancelled a staff meeting to discuss the memo over fears that employees would be harassed. And as if that wasn’t enough, the tech giant is now in court after the Labor Department found Google to be underpaying women. Google called it an “unfounded statement." Talk about a busy week.
More trouble in store for Uber. 🚙
Uber was in for a ride this week. Cofounder Travis Kalanick was sued by early investor and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Benchmark for withholding information on Uber’s sexual harassment allegations. On top of this, former CEO and now senior vice president of global operations Ryan Graves stepped down from his role. He follows a string of C-suite execs that have left Uber including Kalanick who resigned as CEO in June.
Snapchat earnings: big losses, small user growth😕
Let’s cut to the chase: things aren’t looking good for Snapchat. Parent company Snap posted losses of $443 million for the quarter with only seven million new daily active users. That brings the total to 173 million daily users. Snapchat now needs to find a way to catch up with its copycat, Instagram Stories, which has 250 million daily users.
Blue Apron earnings aren’t cooking up a storm. 🍳
Stocks fell as much as 15% on Thursday after the meal kit delivery service delivered its first earnings report. Blue Apron is now grappling with the aftermath of a disappointing IPO in June as well the challenges of moving staff to a new factory in Linden, New Jersey.
Can’t get your baby to sleep? 👶🏽
Don’t fret, there’s now a $1,200 crib to help you out. See if it lives up to the hype here.
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