The Sunday Brew #4
Tech space doesn't seem to be getting anything going good for it - #Theranos #FTX #Amazon
Your weekly brew made up of top stories, key events and some great insights; slow roated & served hot!
In this week’s brew:
The Payback Time: Theranos CEO sentenced 11 years jail time for fraud
The maxim - ‘fake it, till you make it’ - flies around quite commonly in the startup circles, and some actually go on to emulate it without knowing where to draw the line. In my perception, Elizabeth Holmes is a case of this attitude going awfully too far, in a space - diagnostic healthcare- where there should be no room for it. Over years, I have heard a lot of argument in favour & against. There might be some academic merit in them, but I have no doubt that in real terms, it was a willful fraud which had put lives of people in danger. If you have not been aware of the the Theranos saga, do read Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, the journalist instrumental in breaking the story.
For the news on sentencing, The Independent has a live report here.
Do share your take on the case.
Decentralization to Decimation: The FTX Bankruptcy
The impact of FTX crash is going to be far & wide. Now, John J Ray, the new CEO has come to the helm, to take it through the bankruptcy process and calls it, ‘unprecedented failure’. And to think, he was a liquidator for Enron. The ripples of this crash is affecting and will go on to affect the entire crypocurrency ecosystem for long. The interest in self custody is already picking.
Financial Times has a comprehensive write up covering the full bankruptcy filing. If you are still catching up on the whole saga, Jason Choi has put together a comprehensive tweet thread which now has tons of sub threads and contribution from many on twitter:
Alexa, how many are getting fired?: Layoffs at Amazon
Close on the heels of Twitter & Meta, now Amazon has announced a cycle of downsizing which, as per the CEO, is going to run well in to next year. The first to take the hit was Alexa or devices team. Many are quick to raise questions on the future of Alexa, given that Amazon doesn’t have a great track record, when it comes to hardware business.
Andy Jassy’s own statement can be read here:
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