Techmeme: Creating trustworthy generative AI requires resources probably on the scale of what companies like Microsoft and Google possess, making them even more powerful (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Top News

Sources: Meta delayed finalizing multiple teams' budgets while preparing a fresh round of job cuts, slowing down projects even for the metaverse and advertising — Mark Zuckerberg's aim of wrestling costs in his ‘year of efficiency’ causes disruption at the social media company

More: Reuters, Fortune, Forbes, Appuals.com, Engadget, and Mashable

Tweets: @justpavankumar, @ingmire, and @01core_ben

Emma Roth / The Verge:

Opera says it is testing a new ChatGPT-powered “shorten” feature in its browser that provides bulleted summaries of articles or webpages in the sidebar — The feature, called “shorten,” is part of the company's broader plans to integrate AI tools into its browser, similar to what Microsoft's doing with Edge.

More: CNBC, Opera News, Neowin, TechRadar, Digital Trends, BGR, Tech Startups, and gHacks Technology News

Tweets: @parkerortolani, @fairlight_cap, and @austinnotduncan

Clare Duffy / CNN:

Pathmatics estimates the monthly revenue from Twitter's top 1,000 advertisers fell 60%+ from around $127M in October 2022 to just over $48M by January 25, 2023 — New York CNN — — More than half of Twitter's top 1,000 advertisers in September were no longer spending on the platform …

More: The Verge, Center for Countering …, Insider, and Mashable

Tweets: @helenkennedy, @pnewman51, @scottjshapiro, @charles_gaba, @grady_booch, @paulachertok, and @ccdhate

See also Mediagazer

John Herrman / New York Magazine:

How Rumble, which claims to have 71M MAUs, became the only success story in right-wing social media by letting creators who are banned elsewhere monetize video — For a moment, the right's longtime dream of an alternative social media seemed within reach. Various companies had been trying …

Tweets: @jwherrman, @ggreenwald, and @ben_kew

Benedict Evans:

A 2023 overview of macro tech trends, focusing on the e-commerce slowdown, layoffs, Amazon, advertising, and generative AI opportunities beyond text and images — Presentations Every year, I produce a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. This year, ‘The New Gatekeepers’.

Tweets: @marshallk, @perplexity_ai, @mirkolorenz, @jonathankriner, @marshallk, @tonicowanbrown, @benedictevans, and @cjpberry

Kirsten Grind / Wall Street Journal:

Sources and memo: Zappos laid off over 300 employees in January, or ~20% of its workforce, including in customer service, as part of broader layoffs at Amazon — A round of layoffs marks latest major change to the tech giant's subsidiary — Tech Layoffs Pile Up as Bosses Reverse Course

More: Insider, Bloomberg, and Appuals.com

Tweets: @kirstengrind, @noopkat, @dougonipcomm, and @paulafrancis8

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:

Creating trustworthy generative AI requires resources probably on the scale of what companies like Microsoft and Google possess, making them even more powerful — Relying on tech giants for both answers and assistance, rather than just information, could entrench them into our lives more deeply than ever

More: CRN. Tweets: @gwestr and @astaniscia86

Jennifer Elias / CNBC:

Google staff criticize company leadership over the Bard announcement, calling the unveil “botched”, “myopic”, and “un-Googley” on the internal forum Memegen — - Google employees took to Memegen this week, filling the message repository with criticisms …

More: The Verge, Thurrott, RethinkingUX, WinBuzzer, Appuals.com, Android Central, Mashable, Tony's Thoughts …, Livemint, Tech Startups, Insider, Android Authority, New York Post, Neowin, and 9to5Google

Tweets: @jenn_elias and @ldrogen. Thanks:@mattrosoff

Louise Matsakis / Semafor:

Sources: TikTok's Internal Audit team that spied on journalists had wide investigative powers with little oversight; ByteDance says it's restructuring the team — TikTok's hyper-aggressive internal security team drew a wave of complaints from employees before its conduct exploded …

More: MarketWatch, Observer, Tubefilter, New York Post, Appuals.com, Associated Press, and Livemint

Tweets: @jason_koebler, @lmatsakis, and @lmatsakis

Sponsor Posts

Google:

Try Gemini 3 Pro — Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life

Soxton:

AI-powered law for startups — Soxton automates startup legal so founders can move faster and sleep better. We handle incorporation, advisor, employment and commercial contracts. Join the waitlist for early access!

Zoho:

Zoho CRM Plus in 2025: A year of thoughtful CX improvements — 2025 marked 11 years of building a customer experience platform designed to support organizations as customer expectations, channels …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

The Talk Show With John Gruber:

'A Naughty Citizen', With Quinn Nelson

The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.

Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.

Big Technology Podcast:

2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

BG2 Pod:

AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean

Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.

Subscribe to BG2 Pod.

Great Chat:

The stories we told ourselves in 2025

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:

Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.

Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:05 AM ET, February 12, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.