Tesla says EV sales growth may be “notably lower” in 2024 The automaker's earnings show a company at a profit-growth crossroadsTesla’s strategy to drive sales through price cuts combined with the cost of bringing the Cybertruck into production put pressure on profits in the fourth quarter, according to earnings reported Wednesday.
Tesla reported operating income of $2.06 billion in the fourth quarter, a 47% decrease from the same year-ago period.
Tesla spent $1.1 billion on research and development in the fourth quarter, a 35% from the same period last year.
Tesla was able to claw back some of its automotive industry-leading margins in the fourth quarter, thanks in part to a push to further reduce costs.
Analysts had expected the company to earn around $25.62B billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to Yahoo Finance data.
Tesla’s once-leading solar business is in decline, according to the latest figures from its fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report.
Crucially, the automaker revealed that its solar deployments cratered 36% to a total of 223 megawatts (MW) last year, down from 348 MW in 2022.
In Q4 2023, Tesla’s solar deployments dropped 59% year-over-year to 41 MW — down from 100 MW in Q4 2022.
However, Tesla’s energy generation and storage business is comparatively booming (surprise, surprise).
The company said its 2023 energy storage deployments — which include Powerwall home batteries and utility-scale Megapacks, topped 14,724 megawatt hours (MWh), up 125% from the year earlier.
Expense management startup Brex, which was valued at $12.3 billion two years ago, laid off 282 people, or about 20% of its staff today.
The once high-flying fintech startup sent a note to employees (that was also published on the company’s website) today, announcing the news.
In addition, Brex announced that its COO, Michael Tannenbaum, is transitioning from his role to become a board member.
It is not clear how many employees Brex has today, though its layoff indicates the figure at around 1,400 before its latest cuts.
But that growth has since slowed, largely due to the hike in interest rates and resulting slowdown in VC funding.
TikTok is the latest tech company to mount another round of layoffs in an increasingly bleak January.
According to NPR, which broke the news, TikTok cut about 60 jobs, mostly in sales and advertising.
Since then, TikTok users have complained that their For You Page is overrun with videos from creators seeking to make affiliate commissions by promoting products from TikTok Shop.
Across social platforms and other consumer tech products, layoffs have been rampant so far this year.
Google has laid off hundreds of employees in hardware and advertising sales, plus another hundred employees at YouTube.
Now, new data indicates that TikTok’s growth has started to slow, begging the question if the app’s move into e-commerce via TikTok Shop is to blame.
According to new data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, while TikTok’s growth remains positive, that growth is decelerating.
The change comes on the heels of TikTok’s launch of TikTok Shop in the U.S.
While TikTok users are adapting to their favorite social network turning into an online mall, TikTok’s Shop Seller app, which powers its e-commerce initiative, has grown.
However, users aren’t yet so upset with TikTok Shop as to abandon the app for Instagram Reels.
The iPhone 15 and its many iterations comprised more than half of Apple’s Q4 smartphone shipments of nearly 2.8 million units in India, Canalys said in its quarterly report.
Apple started selling the iPhone 15 series in India in the first batch of its availability in September.
Nonetheless, Apple is becoming a familiar brand in the Indian smartphone market and is rapidly growing its local presence.
However, the country saw a minimal 2% yearly drop, with 148.6 million smartphone units shipped in 2023.
“Canalys expects the Indian smartphone market to grow by mid-single digits in 2024, driven by affordable 5G and the pandemic period replacement cycle.
Investors bring expertise from their prior careers as COOs, CFOs, or other operational roles.
However, navigating conversations with investors in their areas of operational expertise isn’t always straightforward.
I keep the following principles in mind to avoid these pitfalls and get the most out of investors’ operational knowledge and experience.
What would happen if we broke down the percentage of our sales reps hitting 50%, 80%, or even 100% of their quota?
Our numbers looked good on paper, but unless we could democratize sales success, our efforts wouldn’t scale.
Twilio’s CEO and co-founder, Jeff Lawson, is stepping down from his role and his seat on the company’s board, following months of pressure from activist investors and several quarters of slowing revenue growth.
Khozema Shipchandler, Twilio’s president and a former GE denizen, is taking over as CEO.
While the timing of the move was a surprise, it’s not a massive shock to see Lawson heading for the exits.
Investors have long made clear their discontent with Twilio’s recent performance, and at some point, either the results improve or something changes at the top.
First, activist pressure on companies is not something that can always be ameliorated by a board shakeup or smaller changes to operations.
Hopes that it would become easier for startups to raise capital in 2023 were left unmet as the year ended.
The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.
New data from business database PitchBook paints a modestly dim picture of venture capital investment activity in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Per PitchBook’s preliminary count, startups in the U.S. raised 2,879 rounds worth about $37.5 billion in the fourth quarter — the lowest quarterly deal value since Q3 2019, and the lowest deal count since Q4 2017.
Across stages, venture capital investment activity in the United States is flagging, and this extends past aggregate figures — for example, we saw less total capital invested in U.S. startups last year than in 2020.
The Southeast Asian venture capital boom of the late 2000s and early 2010s was the result of a number of factors. Several nascent startup scenes in the region had already…
