Q1 Nothing Short of Honest: Apple's Highs and Foxconn's Lows
1. Unstoppable Startup RapidAPI Lays Off Even More Employees, Proving That Failure is an Option
Despite being valued at $1 billion, RapidAPI has proven that even the most successful startups can hit rock bottom. The API marketplace recently let go of an additional 70 employees, mere days after already cutting 50% of its staff. In a move that shocked everyone, the company managed to reduce its headcount by a staggering 82%. Founder and previous CEO, Iddo Gino, is now a technical advisor, but a source close to the company revealed that he was actually removed by the board. The company is expected to sell for a price that's "well below" its $1 billion valuation last year. Yikes.
2. Foxconn's Slay to Slump
Foxconn, the massive contract electronics manufacturer and proud iPhone assembler, revealed a slump of 11.77% in April revenue due to the inadequacy of "smart" consumer electronics. Sadly, the company is anticipating an even bigger decline this quarter, all because of the pesky "off-peak period" and a relatively high earnings bar from last year. They slayed too hard and now, may never slay again. A classic tragedy.
3. An Apple A Day…
Apple's shares surged almost 5% to a nine-month high after the company's quarterly results exceeded expectations, boosted by growth in emerging markets such as India. Despite reporting lower revenue and profits, Apple beat analysts' predictions, and executives said gross profit margins for the current quarter would be better than forecast. The company's stock market value rose by more than $100 billion to about $2.7 trillion, extending its lead over Microsoft, the world's second most valuable company. Apple's shares have recovered almost 40% from their closing low in January and are down just 4.7% below their record high close in January 2022. There aren’t many jokes to be made when the world’s most valuable company crushes their quarterly earnings…
4. Court Tells States to Try Harder After Antitrust Lawsuit Against Meta Falls Short
Federal appeals court graciously allows Meta to continue world domination after states fail to make a compelling case against the company's data policies. The lawsuit alleged that Meta's "buy-or-bury" approach in acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp violated antitrust laws. However, the court found that the states were too late to file their complaint - about 10 years too late - and failed to prove that the policies impacted Facebook's third-party developers. “Break up Big-Tech” may fall short today, but let’s be honest, there’s always a next attempt lurking around the corner.
5. Mass Migration: Graphcore to Meta
Meta Platforms has hired a team of engineers from British chipmaker Graphcore to work on AI-specific networking technology at Meta's data centers. The move is part of Meta's bid to improve the efficiency and performance of its data centers as it seeks to cope with demand for AI infrastructure from teams across the company. Trust me, just imagine my voice as Sofia Vergara's or Danny DeVito's and this story instantly becomes way more interesting. Graphcore, which develops computer chips optimized for A.I. work, faced setbacks in 2020 when Microsoft scrapped an early deal to buy its chips for its Azure cloud computing platform... so losing 10 engineers to Meta should go over well.