Mark Matousek

After Apple, Amazon May Face Pressure on Executive Pay This Year

Apple may not be the only tech company to cut its CEO’s target compensation this year. Apple drew headlines last week when it announced a 40% cut to Tim Cook’s target pay this year. What was more interesting is that it attributed that cut to a big…

Shopify Tries to Reduce Time Employees Spend in Meetings

Welcome to 2023 and a very happy new year. I’ve been covering technology for almost two decades, and I can’t think of a year that’s been more consequential than the current one. Everywhere you look, the guard is changing, and there’s no clear idea…

Elon Musk Slashes Office Costs at Twitter

Twitter is shutting down its Seattle office after it stopped paying rent for the facility, The New York Times and Platformer reported on Thursday. The social media firm’s CEO, Elon Musk, has also reduced other office-related costs in recent weeks,…

Silicon Valley Leans on Top Performers to Inspire Slimmed-Down Workforces

After slashing headcount and rooting out underperformers, some of Silicon Valley’s biggest employers are leaning more on their best workers to get colleagues to step up their game. Salesforce last month launched a new program aimed at encouraging…

Tech Hiring Remained Hot Even During Layoff Frenzy

Briefing Nearly four out of five tech workers who were laid off or fired earlier this year found a new job within three months, according to a ZipRecruiter survey reported by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The survey included 2,550 workers…

Everything Must Go: The Inside Story of a Startup’s Sudden, Agonizing Collapse

For the founders of rapid-delivery company Fridge No More, bankruptcy was both a nightmare and a reprieve. Fridge No More was about to be no more. It was almost midnight on a cold late-winter night in Brooklyn, and there was little movement inside…

Anatomy of a Failure

Below is a collection of every Anatomy of a Failure article by The Information. Fridge No More was about to be no more. It was almost midnight on a cold late-winter night in Brooklyn, and there was little movement inside the failing startup’s…

SEC Probes Whether SoftBank-Backed Messaging App Misled Investors

The Securities and Exchange Commission has been investigating whether SoftBank-backed messaging app IRL violated securities laws, including in the way the startup described its business performance during talks with investors, according to people…

Electric Vehicle Startups Face Cash Crunch

Startup makers of electric vehicles were one of the biggest beneficiaries of the SPAC party of 2020–21—and that fete is now well and truly in the hangover phase. At least a dozen EV startups have gone public since 2020, mostly by merging with a…

DoorDash Announces Layoffs

You might think, with headlines blaring news of mass layoffs by Meta Platforms, Amazon and other tech companies in the past few weeks, that big tech has heard the message from investors and has started to cut back. Not so fast. A quick review of what…

Laid-Off Tech Workers With Visas Face Deadline but Job Openings Remain

As recruiters fan out to try to grab the best workers Meta Platforms, Twitter, Amazon and other tech firms are laying off, one group of employees stands out as the easiest to hire: those on special visas who need to leave the U.S. if they don’t find…

Amid Layoffs, Tech Companies Throw Cash, Stock at the Workers They Still Want

In August, amid a slump in stock and crypto prices, Robinhood took the dramatic step of slashing 23% of its workforce, just four months after laying off 9% of its employees. But those who survived the online brokerage’s cuts soon got an incentive to…

Inside Tesla’s Top Ranks As Musk-Twitter Deal Looms

Elon Musk, who is set to add Twitter to the sprawling roster of companies he oversees, is known for juggling many responsibilities. His 28 direct reports at Tesla, where he is CEO, reflect his tendency to spread his attention wider than most…

Databricks Is Trimming Its Valuation While Other Startups Are Slashing Theirs

Valuations for a crop of high-profile startups have been falling fast, even according to their own internal assessments. But one company has been notably restrained in revising its valuation: cloud-based database software startup Databricks.…

The People With Power Inside Robinhood

When trading app Robinhood went public in the middle of last year, it was the poster child for a fintech success story: a fast-growing upstart that had disrupted the traditional brokerage model and gained a rabid following of young users. But after…

Tesla Makes Cash, Not Stock, the Default for Many Employees’ Compensation Awards

Tesla will start giving its employees cash grants as their default incentive to stick with the company, rather than the equity awards it has traditionally handed out, according to internal documents viewed by The Information. The electric car maker’s…

Instacart Cuts Staff, Curbs Hiring in Run-up to IPO

Instacart has been letting go of staff, slowing hiring and curbing other expenses as it heads toward a public listing, when the grocery-delivery company will try to convince public investors that it can maintain its growth—and make a profit—as the…

Stripe’s Early Stock Awards Could Spur IPO Plans

Stripe founders John and Patrick Collison have indicated the payments software pioneer, valued in its last fundraising at $95 billion, is in no rush to go public. And few tech firms want to test the whipsawed public stock markets. But a new listing…

Google Goes From Hot to Not With Startup Headhunters

Google employees were prized recruits for tech founders for much of the past two decades. But that’s changing. It was two years ago when Chris Johnson, founder of executive recruiting firm Artisanal Talent, first realized founders’ tastes were…

Google Restricts Employee Travel to ‘Business Critical’ Trips

Google is clamping down on employee travel, telling some senior managers late last week to limit travel to “business critical” trips, according to an email to managers that was viewed by The Information. The move is a sign of how tech’s once…