TechCrunch 2023 Recap

Last year’s techwide reckoning continues. The tech industry has seen more than 240,000 jobs lost in 2023, a total that’s already 50% higher than last year and growing. Earlier this year, mass workforce reductions were driven by the biggest names in tech like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, Meta and Zoom. Startups across many sectors also announced cutbacks through the first half of the year. And while tech layoffs slowed down in the summer and fall, it appears that cuts are ramping up yet again. Many economists…

From Salesforce drama to the year of generative AI Apologies to the Grateful Dead, but what a long, strange year it’s been in 2023 enterprise tech news. It began with a ton of Salesforce drama and eventually got taken over by generative AI and ChatGPT, which seemed to come out of nowhere to completely dominate the news cycle this year. But even though AI clearly influenced much of the news, and even my own coverage, there was still a ton of other enterprise stories that made the…

Not every startup collapse is an FTX or Theranos. They don’t all burn so brightly and explode so spectacularly. More often than not, there won’t be some high-profile court case and prison time. Amanda Seyfried isn’t going to play you in the made for Hulu movie. The story of most startup failures is far less exciting. The timing isn’t right, funding dries up, runways run out. Of late, a lot of macroeconomic factors have come into play, as well. These past few years have been especially brutal for startup land.…

Despite a rise in cyberattacks and breaches, the cybersecurity industry is by no means exempt from the uncertainty inspired by the current economy. 2023 will likely be remembered as the “year of the layoff.” While many expected the tide to shift after a rough 2022 that saw more than 130,000 tech workers lose their jobs, these unsettling workforce reductions only worsened this year as the industry continued to battle economic uncertainty. TechCrunch has comprehensively tracked these layoffs,…

A funny — but true — joke at TechCrunch is that the security desk might as well be called the Department of Bad News, since, well, have you seen what we’ve covered of late? There is a never-ending supply of devastating breaches, pervasive surveillance and dodgy startups flogging the downright dangerous. Sometimes though — albeit rarely — there are glimmers of hope that we want to share. Not least because doing the right thing, even (and especially) in the face of adversity, helps make the cyber-realm that little bit…

It’s round two of our Pub Quiz! If you didn’t do too well on our first one, no worries — New Year’s Eve is around the corner, so we’ve created a second game to help you kick off the night. Good luck, and Happy New Year! (P.S: Remember to click the box and scroll.)  It’s round two of our Pub Quiz! If you didn’t do too well on our first one, no worries — New Year’s Eve is around the corner, so we’ve created a second game to help you kick off the night. Good luck, and Happy New Year! (P.S: Remember to…

Over here at TechCrunch, our time is often spent finding and reporting on the next new new thing in mobility, from autonomous drones and electric air taxis to self-driving trucks and even batteries made of paper. While this tech, in theory, may someday help people and goods move from point A to B, much of it is just that — theory. Hope. Promise. Showy demos to impress VC investors. That’s why we dug into the technology that’s helping cities move today. Some of it is unsexy, but transportation is, more often than not,…

Welcome to Startups Weekly. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Thank you for subscribing to Startups Weekly. This week, I’m taking my parents to Yosemite to explore the snowy peaks and to see if my car can handle snow. In lieu of a regular Startups Weekly, I figured I’d dive in and give you a reminder of some of the biggest startup stories from 2024 — both on TechCrunch and our subscription sibling TechCrunch+. Here are some of the biggest themes that have echoed throughout the startup ecosystem in…

As 2023 comes to an end, it is only natural to reflect on what happened in the markets we cover. But when it comes to cannabis, the answer is “not much,” which won’t help cannabis startups that are already facing a challenging funding environment. Namely, 2023 wasn’t the year that Germany legalized adult recreational cannabis use. That matters because that’s not what the legal cannabis market once anticipated, and whenever there is misalignment between reality and what investors expected,…

With just a couple of days left in 2023, there’s no better time to take a moment to reflect on all that’s happened this year. From the Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse and crypto’s widespread troubles to AI’s ascent amid a volatile fundraising market, there was a lot to talk about this year, and investors and founders sure did share their thoughts freely with us in our surveys. Of course, some sectors are going to be more pertinent than others going into 2024, so we’ve listed some of our most…