SurveyMonkey parent Momentive Global lays off 11% of workforce

Momentive Global, the parent of the web-survey portal SurveyMonkey, laid off 11% of its workforce this week. Multiple people across divisions — including those handling the business development, customer support, recruitment and sales at the San Mateo, California-headquartered company — have been impacted, TechCrunch has learned and confirmed. “In an 8-K filed on October 13, … Read more

TechCrunch+ roundup: Layoffs and H1-B visas, SaaS growth levers, blockchain startup tips

For cash-strapped SaaS startups trying to reach scale, the math doesn’t look great. A slump in the public markets has dragged the entire sector down, but customer acquisition isn’t getting any cheaper. In the meantime, runways are shrinking like a wool sweater in an electric dryer, and teams that hope to fundraise better have some … Read more

Today – last day to save on Disrupt passes

It’s time for procrastination to stop here. Well, it is if you’ve put off buying your pass to TechCrunch Disrupt. Today is your final opportunity to avoid paying full freight. Nobody likes full freight, just sayin’. You can still save $700 if…and only if…you buy your pass before the deal expires precisely at 11:59 p.m. … Read more

How to force quit an app in Windows

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge We all want everything to work just fine all the time. But sometimes they just don’t. Your Windows app slows down. You get the dreaded “this program is not responding” pop-up. Your whole computer freezes. In cases like this, the best option is often to force quit the … Read more

Beyond Meat to cut 19% of its workforce amid sales slump

Beyond Meat plans to lay off about 200 employees, or 19% of its workforce, according to a regulatory filing disclosed Friday. The company cited declining sales and said the layoffs are “based on cost-reduction initiatives intended to reduce operating expenses…and target cash flow positive operations within the second half of 2023.” Beyond Meat expects the … Read more

Big Tech and industry lobby groups accused in EU transparency complaints

Members of the European Parliament have lodged complaints against three tech giants, Amazon, Google and Meta, with the EU’s Transparency Register — aka, the oversight process that’s intended to track lobbying activity aimed at the bloc’s lawmakers — accusing the trio of breaching the lobbying transparency rules by using smaller front organizations to press their … Read more

Google now labels ads as ‘Sponsored’ in mobile search results

Google’s new mobile search results, complete with reformatted favicons, site names, and the new “Sponsored” tag. | Image: Google Google is changing how it formats search results on mobile, the company announced today. Paid results will now carry a larger “Sponsored” tag rather than the simple “Ad” tag they had before, and each website’s name … Read more

3 growth levers every SaaS founder should know about

Christian Owens Contributor Share on Twitter Christian Owens is CEO and co-founder of Paddle, a payments infrastructure provider for SaaS businesses. Scaling a SaaS company is tougher today than in the past few years. Whatever stage your company is at, a near 70% drop in the value of public SaaS stocks, increasingly limited access to … Read more

A user’s guide to TechCrunch Disrupt 2022

TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 kicks off in just four days, startup fans. We can’t wait to greet you. Here’s a handy how-to guide for everything you can expect at TechCrunch Disrupt presented by AT&T on October 18-20 in San Francisco at Moscone West (Oct. 21 online). All times listed here are Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). p.s. … Read more

Apple’s mixed reality headset reportedly lets you make payments with your eyes

Apple’s Face ID has long provided biometric logins for the iPhone. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Apple’s rumored virtual and augmented reality headset will reportedly use iris scanning tech for logins and payments, according to The Information. The report, which cites two people involved in developing the headset, says the scanning is … Read more