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Christine is in an airport lounge and Haje is perched on the corner of a cafe bench, as the TechCrunch team is in transit post-Disrupt today. We miss our work besties already (💯) and are hung over (metaphorically and literally) from an overabundance of wonderfulness this week. Enjoy Daily Crunch, and see y’all next week!
Oh, and we know we mentioned this yesterday, but a good thing deserves to be repeated: A huge congrats to Minerva Lithium and their $100,000 Startup Battlefield win! — Christine and Haje
The TechCrunch Top 3
- Holding back: Manish has some news from Amazon, which is saying that some hardware vendors are choosing not to form television partnership agreements with the delivery giant over fear of retaliation from Google.
- Get ready for a price hike: YouTube Premium is planning to raise prices — by $5 in some cases — for subscription plans in more countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Argentina, Ivan reports.
- What goes up must come down: Another one by our fabulous colleague Manish, who reports that shares of the Indian logistics company fell to an “all-time low” after reporting a not-so-svelte growth report.
Startups and VC
Draymond Green, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors, says he’s working with well-known investors involved in the tech space. That wasn’t a massive secret — Green has historically been quite public about his investments, like SmileDirectClub — but until TechCrunch Disrupt, he hadn’t previously named his go-to investing partners, nor made explicit that he’s not planning to start a fund himself, Kyle reports. You can see all of Draymond’s chat (including some interesting conversation about that video that’s been floating about) with Brian.
When Parker Conrad founded Rippling in 2016, the HR company initially focused on the process of onboarding employees. It has since evolved, Mary Ann reports. Yesterday, at TechCrunch Disrupt, Rippling unveiled what Conrad describes as the “biggest launch” of his career — its new global payroll product.
You know the drill — five more, count ’em! No, seriously, count ’em. We’re very tired today and may have miscounted.
- Hot DAUm that’s impressive: BeReal raised $60 million in its Series B earlier this year, and Sarah and Ingrid report that the company now has 20 million DAUs.
- America’s funniest home surgeries: Andrew reports that as healthcare goes remote, Equipt Health brings medical hardware to the home.
- Tag, you’re it: Handoff is creating a more equitable workforce through job sharing, Catherine reports.
- Mo skills, mo money: Uils wants to lend LatAm’s rideshare drivers cash based on their driving record, Kyle reports.
- Pillar of the community: Paul explored how Talkbase plans to power user-led growth for any company.
Dear Sophie: How can I launch a startup while on OPT?
Dear Sophie,
I’m an international student in the U.S. in F-1 status. I will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computer science this May and plan to apply for OPT. I want to launch a startup.
Can I do that with OPT? What options would I have after OPT to continue growing my company?
— Forward-Looking Founder
Three more from the TC+ team:
- Cloud survey: 5 cloud investors illustrate the various paths ahead for startups, by Anna.
- Sharp money: A brief history of activist investors in tech and the role they play, by Kyle.
- Least bad is good: Forget flat — small cuts are the new up, by Alex.
TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!
Big Tech Inc.
What do you say to the company that has nearly everything? Well, Google doesn’t think it has everything when it comes to its presence in India and had some choice words for some of the country’s regulators. In response to yesterday’s $162 million fine, Google fired back at India’s competition regulators, saying that the order is a “major setback for Indian consumers and businesses” and that it “opens serious security risks for Indians who trust Android’s security features.” Manish has more.
We also can’t ignore this juicy piece of…💩that came in yesterday. With Elon Musk’s deal to acquire Twitter now seemingly approaching the end, Taylor reports that layoffs at the social media giant might now be larger than originally expected. She writes that cuts at Twitter could be up to 75%. For those counting at home, that is like 5,600 people. Not cool.
And we have four more for you:
- Explanation station: Fresh off the TechCrunch Disrupt stage yesterday, Frederic writes about the panel with Figma CEO Dylan Field who discussed why he sold to Adobe.
- Mickey Mouse goes web3: To celebrate 100 years of Disney music, the “happiest place on Earth” partnered with e-commerce platform Obsess to launch a web3 experience so that fans can discover all the movie musical goodness, Lauren reports.
- Gamers only: Amanda takes her love of gaming very seriously and writes about her experience playing a sneak peek of “Pokémon Scarlet.”
- Selling the metaverse: Also from the Disrupt stage yesterday, Animoca Brands’ Yat Siu spoke to Romain about Meta’s $10 billion metaverse investment, which interestingly enough, Siu called “not enough.”
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