Gm. Thanks to #Bitcoin.
Welcome to Issue 17 of The Quest Digest, where we break down Silicon Valley news for you every week, in 3 minutes.
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Tech and the Roe v Wade decision
Last week the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, reversing the constitutional right to abortion that was upheld for half a century.
Here’s how the tech sector has responded:
European period tracking company, Clue have made public commitments to data protection after the decision
Apple, Netflix, Meta, Microsoft, Snap, Salesforce and Amazon have agreed to cover out-of-state travel expenses to receive medical care
A Meta memo has told workers to not discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling
Our Take
Many women are deleting their period tracking apps. And it’s hard to argue with their fears. Many apps in the industry were found to have engaged in dodgy data-sharing practices, so it’s a relief to hear public commitments from Clue and Stardust. But even those aren’t so failsafe.
On the other end of things, big tech companies have banded together to support women in states where abortion has been banned to relocate which have been great moves in solidarity.
Although, other critics say that tech companies have played no role in protesting against the move – with some which is also arguably true.
Layoffs this week
It’s been another miserable week in the tech sector for layoffs.
Here’s a recap:
Tesla has laid off 200 employees on the Autopilot team, according to Elon – 10% of Tesla’s staff will lose their jobs
BlockFi laid off around 200 employees or 20% of its staff
Crypto.com has laid off 260 workers
Unity has laid off 300 to 400 staffers and layoffs are still ongoing
Niantic has cut 85 to 90 jobs, approximately 8% of the workforce
Tencent and ByteDance are laying off “thousands” of employees across the board
Substack is laying off 14% of its staff
Our Take
We don’t share these layoffs to be heralds of doom and gloom, but to be transparent about what’s happening in the ecosystem.
A lot of people are being affected by this downturn, so if you know someone affected, offer a helping hand. If you’re one of the people affected by these layoffs, best of luck with your job search these turbulent times won’t be permanent.
Feel free to also reach out to the Fractal team, we’re still hiring ❤️
BAYC vs Ryder Ripps
The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga Labs has sued artist, Ryder Ripps in federal court alleging that he was “trolling” them and “scamming consumers” by selling copycat NFTs.
Ripps is the creator of RR/BAYC, an Ethereum NFT collection that features identical BAYC images he does not own. Ripps first began minting his NFTS in the middle of May, which neared $3.5 million in total volume traded. OpenSea has since removed Ripp’s collection due to “intellectual property infringement”
Our Take
Yuga Labs states the move is part of Ripp’s smear campaign which includes false accusations that the origins of BAYC are connected to Nazi imagery. Ripps is the owner of gordongoner.com, claiming that BAYC are “dehumanising” and are racist representations of Black and Asian people.
It’s a difficult agree or disagree with said claims due to the astonishing nature of the conspiracy, but it comes at a tumultuous time for Yuga Labs, following their million dollar hack in April.
🔥 Press Worthy
Meta warns of ‘serious times’ ahead in internal memo
Facebook groups are being revamped to look like Discord
YCombinator releases Launch YC: a directory of YC companies and launches
Niantic rolls out Campfire social AR app for Pokemon Go players
Chinese tech giants issue a development proposal for the NFT industry
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The Quest Digest is written by Hannah Ahn and edited by Brent Liang, two dropouts who hate long tech newsletters. You can sign up to our next issue below.