Contrary to expectations, the Tesla boss did not announce a small, affordable electric vehicle. Also: Salesforce shares climbed by 15 percent according to the quarterly report and the CEO of the Amazon subsidiary Ring resigned.
Good morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.
The top topics:
At the Tesla Investor Day at the Gigafactory in Austin, CEO Elon Musk presented part 3 of his master plan for the future of the electric car manufacturer. The presentation went into detail about vision and included a review of past achievements, but offered few details about new Tesla products or services. The show was made by engineers this year, a nod to Tesla’s attempt to show the depth of its boardroom beyond the CEO. Tom Zhu, the new global head of production, announced on stage that Tesla’s global capacity is two million vehicles per year. Musk presented a blueprint for a sustainable supply of electricity to the earth.
Contrary to expectations, the Tesla boss did not announce a plan to produce a small, affordable electric vehicle that would increase the brand’s appeal. Engineers announced that they would cut assembly costs in future vehicle generations by half. Tesla shares fell more than 5 percent in after-hours trading. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt, CNBC, Financial Review und Wall Street Journal]
On the founding scene: The first two months of the year could not have been less favorable for many German companies. The reluctance of investors, a lack of capital, fragile valuations and rising energy costs are now becoming the norm for startups bankruptcy filings visible. We have created a list for you of the tech companies that recently had to go to the district court. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]
And here are the other headlines of the night:
Die Salesforce-Shares are up more than 15 percent in after-hours trading after the release of fourth-quarter earnings. The cloud software provider’s revenue increased 14 percent year-on-year to nearly $8.4 billion and for the twelve months ended January 31 was up 18 percent to $31.4 billion. Operating margin was 29.2 percent in the most recent quarter, compared to 22.7 percent in the previous quarter. Salesforce had free cash flow of about $2.6 billion in the quarter, up 42 percent year over year. [Mehr bei Bloomberg, CNBC und The Information]
The founder of Amazon Smart Doorbell daughter Ring, Jamie Siminoff, resigns as CEO. Siminoff will be replaced by Elizabeth Hamren, the most recent COO of Discord was and previously held management positions Meta and Microsoft held. Siminoff oversaw Amazon’s $839 million acquisition of Ring in 2018. Ring is part of Amazon’s device unit, which has taken deep cuts during the company’s recent layoffs. [Mehr bei CNBC und The Information]
Coinciding with the launch of the ChatGPT API OpenAI launched the Whisper API. This is a hosted version of the open source speech-to-text model Whisper. According to OpenAI, the automatic speech recognition system provides “robust” transcription in several languages as well as translations into English. Countless organizations have now developed high-performance speech recognition systems that are at the core of software and services from technology companies such as Google, Amazon or Meta the picture. [Mehr bei Techcrunch]
Tiktok has announced that it will introduce an automatic 60-minute screen time limit for all users under the age of 18. When this is reached, teens are prompted to enter a passcode to continue watching videos on the social media app. Teens can turn off the feature, but the app will ask them to set a limit if they spend more than 100 minutes on Tiktok in a day. [Mehr bei Axios und The Guardian]
redundancies: Waymo has announced a second round of layoffs. Along with the cuts in January, the Alphabet-Self-driving technology subsidiary laid off eight percent of its workforce, or 209 employees. The software consulting company Thoughtworks headquartered in Chicago has laid off four percent of its global workforce – approximately 500 employees. Thoughtworks employs people in 18 countries on five continents. [Mehr bei Techcrunch und Techcrunch]
Our reading tip on Gründerszene: The Munich start-up Yfood sells a minority stake in the industry giant Nestlé. Now customers and advertising partners are distancing themselves. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]
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A nice Thursday!
Your Gründerszene editors
Source: https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/das-ist-elon-musks-neuer-masterplan/
