Next-generation Googles run a tighter ship

MARK ZUCKERBERG dubbed 2023 Meta’s “year of efficiency”, corporate-speak for admitting that his social-media empire was bloated. Since November Meta has cut 21,000 jobs, or about a quarter of its workforce. Bosses of its fellow tech titans have also embraced the efficiency mantra. Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft have collectively shed more than 50,000 jobs since October. Despite an uptick in ad sales, talk of “re-engineering the cost base” and the like still featured in big tech’s quarterly-earnings calls this week. The bloodletting (in plain English) is not limited to the giants. According to layoffs.fyi, a sackings-tracker, nearly 900 tech firms around the world have announced of more than 220,000 in 2023.The slump has hit younger firms hardest. Rising interest rates make their promise of rich profits far in the future look less juicy today. As a consequence, . Globally, venture-capital investment in the first half of this year was $144bn, down from $293bn in the same period in 2022. Those that find investors are seeing their valuations squeezed. According to Carta, an equity platform for startups, in the first quarter of 2023 almost a fifth of all venture deals were “down rounds”, where firms raise money at a lower valuation than before. That of Stripe, a fintech star, fell from $95bn to $50bn after its latest funding round in March.