together with

Gm. So that Twitter thing we all know and love. Yeah um, it’s still working as of me writing this Sunday evening. But, well hey how do I say this nicely, if Twitter is down now, don’t be too surprised.

TOGETHER WITH FINANCE BUZZ

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POLLS

Ok so remember how I thought my fiancée was weird for making me take my shoes off in our apartment. Well funny story, it turns out I’m the weirdo lol.

The responses were insane on this one, love it hahah.

“Are you engaged to a boomer?” I don’t think so, but I’ll ask her.

“We live in a clean environment so basically the shoes are clean unless you have been out in the rain or snow. And, you can always wear house slippers!” Today I learned about the existence of house slippers.

“Yes, we’re not savages…” Sir, I will have you know my Air Force Ones’s are fresh and smell like lavender.

Ok on to today’s poll for all u degens:

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three startups that just raised. Congrats!

If you want to get your company in front of 20,000+ founders, investors, and operators, let us know! Contact [email protected] with any questions

TECH

Apple’s Avengers

There are very few things cooler than a badass top-secret team. Just think about it. The Avengers. Suicide Squad. The Justice League. The X-Men. Imagine how dope it would be to be a freaking Avenger.

Well, it turns out that Apple has a badass top-secret team of its own.

This team is known as the Exploratory Design Group (XDG), and it’s working on Apple’s most futuristic projects.

Shooting For The Moon

Think of the XDG like Apple’s version of Alphabet’s X team. For those who don’t know, this is Alphabet’s “moonshot factory” which successfully developed Waymo (Google’s self-driving car division), Google Glass, and Loon internet balloons.

So, if XDG is like the moonshot factory, it must also be working on some cool stuff, right?

You’re damn right they are.

Their main project right now is adding non-invasive blood glucose tracking to the Apple watch. This is like the Holy Grail of diabetic health care, and so far, although many have tried, nobody has been able to find it.

Beyond the glucose work, the XDG is also working on next-generation display technology, AI, and features for the perpetually delayed mixed reality headset to help people with eye diseases.

What Else Could They Be Working On?

The XDG is as well-funded and talented as any developmental unit in the world. That made me wonder, “what else could they be working on”?

So, I did what any reasonable person would do and asked ChatGPT. After all, there’s no better way to learn about the future than to ask the future itself.

What it told me was mind-blowing:

You heard it here first.

SOCIALS

Twitter Go Boom?

Twitter laid off another 50 employees… and shut down their Slack.

Ruh-roh Shaggy.

Confusion in Twitterland

Layoffs are never pretty, but this one was quite hectic.

“People receive an email at 2am on Saturday and access cut immediately. This will go down as one of the most extreme layoffs in entire corporate history,” wrote one anonymous Twitter worker.

Martijn de Kuijper, founder of Revue which was acquired by Twitter in 2021, was let go. “Waking up to find I’ve been locked out of my email. Looks like I’m let go. Now my Revue journey is really over,” he tweeted.

Layoffs were 50% in HR, 60% in sales and marketing, 35% in sales and marketing, 35% in engineering, 40% in finance, and 80% in project management. No surprise on the statistics coming from the guy who values good engineering over all else.

No Slack, No Problem?

Apparently Twitter didn’t pay its Slack bill on time, but that’s not even the reason why their Slack got shut down.

According to The Platformer, someone at Twitter shut down access.

Soooo is everyone at Twitter just chatting via Twitter DMs?

Elon hasn’t said much about any of this, but tweeted out “Hope you have a good Sunday. First day of the rest of your life.” on Sunday.

A subtweet to laid off employees or the beginning of the Twitter apocalypse?

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: <1%: The percentage of land in the U.S. lower 48 that’s required to fully shift to wind and solar power. Definitely less than what I would’ve guessed.

Story we're watching: ChatGPT is apparently already leading to layoffs. Is this a sign of new times, or a sign of business owners seeking a quick way to cut some costs?

Rabbit hole: Feeling Behind (Starting From Nix)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• Twitter Blue head Esther Crawford has been canned.

• Long-distance couples, you're in luck. Chinese researchers just invented an internet “kissing device”.

• The SpaceX Crew-6 mission looks ready for liftoff.

• Coinbase has released its own layer-2 blockchain, Base.

MONDAY MUSIC

Future - Where Ya At ft. Drake

How did I just find out about this song? 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

LAYOFFS TRACKER

trueup.io/layoffs

Notable layoffs this week

Poshmark: 16 people (2%)

Velodyne: 220 people

Ericsson: 8,500 people

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this weekend that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

😃 I wrote a post called How I Became an Optimist in 30 Seconds. I’m convinced that optimism is the ultimate career hack.

✏️ Need writing coaching specifically for founders? Check out writing.coach. They’ve worked with everyone from Eren Bali (Carbon Health) to David Perell (Write of Passage).

🧲 Check out Henrik Karlsson’s A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people. If you’re looking to find your people online, try writing about what you like. You’ll become a magnet.

IRL

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