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Twitter launched “Blue for Business” last week alongside relaunching Twitter Blue. At that time, the social network had assigned a gold checkmark to businesses. Now it’s offering some more details.

With Blue for Business, Twitter is also providing an additional badge — refer to our checkmark and badges guide — that helps organizations identify brands and people associated with it.

Twitter’s product manager Esther Crawford said the social media platform is launching a pilot program for Blue for Business with select businesses. The company plans to expand this to more organizations next year, Crawford said.

Those with Blue for Business will also get a small badge next to their profile display name, establishing to others that they work with the said organization. For instance, you can see a square Twitter badge next to Crawford’s display name.

Brands, media houses and others now have a square profile picture, instead of the round one, making another clearer distinction. But it’s not clear if the square profile picture is a part of the Blue for Business package.

Twitter has yet to share details about how much it will charge for Blue for Business and what other perks it may entail, but asserted that “a company can link any number of their affiliated individuals, businesses and brands to their account.”

The company said that organizations, media houses, and sports teams can use this feature to link the accounts of their employees, journalists, and players.

“By creating this connection, we’re making it possible for businesses to create networks within their own organizations–on Twitter. Businesses can affiliate their leadership, brands, support handles, employees or teams. Journalists, sports team players, or movie characters can all be affiliated,” Twitter said in a blog post.

While identifying associated brands and employees is a good feature for companies, they would want many more benefits out of this plan.

Twitter has had a rollercoaster of the last 48 hours. The company rolled out a terrible policy banning links and handles to other social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Mastadon, and even link-in-bio tools Linktree, and lnk.bio. After facing backlash over that, Twitter swiftly deleted tweets and the policy page detailing the announcement. On the other hand, Twitter chief Elon Musk put out a poll asking people if he should step down as CEO — and 57% of people voted in favor of that.

Twitter Blue for Business now allows companies to identify their employees by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Viva Republica, an operator of South Korean finance super appToss, has finalized a $405 million Series G funding and it says it is now valued at 9.1 trillion won ( $7 billion), up from 8.5 trillion won in June 2021, when it raised $410 million in pre-Series F funding at a $7.4 billion (8.5 trillion won) valuation. (South Korea’s currency has depreciated against the dollar this year.)

The company’s recent funding caught our attention, including that it signals the company is doing comparatively well amid a gloomy macroeconomic outlook. Indeed, unlike global fintech companies, includingKlarna,Stripe, andCheckout.com, which have seen their valuations cut fairly dramatically in 2022, Viva Republica boosted its valuation again.

Viva Republica was also on a bit of a hiring spree in October, in stark contrast to many global tech companies, includingfintech startups, that have been conducting major layoffs this year. The Seoul-based company had about 1,900 employees as of August.

Fintech-focused investor Tonic Private Equity led the Series G round along with returning backers, including Korea Development Bank (KDB), Altos Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Greyhound Capital, Aspex Management, Bond Capital, and DUMAC. Korea Investment & Securities participated in the latest funding as well. The fintech company said it had completed its first and second close of Series G, approximately $226 million (295.8 billion won) and $175.8 million (229.3 billion won), respectively, in the third quarter of 2022, and the third close of the new funding in November.

Chief operating officer of Viva Republica Hyunwoo Seo told TechCrunch “profitability” is key now and is as significant as growth, particularly in these extremely tough market conditions. (Profitability would also go a long in enabling the company — which is eyeing a potential initial public offering in the near term — to do so successfully.)

Toward that end, Toss plans to use the proceeds of its newest fundraise to invest in its products, including digital lending and online payment service for individuals and local merchants.

The new capital will help also Toss accelerate growth for the challenger bank Toss Bank— launched last year by Viva Republica —and a Robinhood-like retail investment app,Toss Securities, which both look to turn a profit next year, according to Seo.

The company says Toss Securities began a turnaround in the 3Q22. Besides, the registered users of Toss Bank have quintupled to 5 million from 1.1 million since its December 2021 launch.

When asked about its listing plan, Seo declined to comment on its exact IPO schedule, but per previous media outlets, Viva Republica aims to go public in the next four years after increasing its revenue by 2025.

Founded by dentist-turned-entrepreneur Seung-gun Lee, CEO of Viva Republica, the company started as a money-transfer app, Toss, in 2015. Tossjoined the unicorn club with its $80 million financing at a valuation of $ 1.2 billion in 2018.

It has since become a finance super app by adding more features like banking, P2P lending, mobile-basedstock trading and investing, insurance, credit scoring service, and more. Most recently, Toss launched a buy now pay later (BNPL) service in March, which it says has amassed more than 1 million registered users. South Korea’s BNLP Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) is projected to grow by about $36.6 billion by 2028, up from $5.6 billion in 2021, as fintech and e-commerce firms use BNPL as one of their marketing tools.

In fact, Viva Republica claims it has the largest market share with its fintech super app in the country in terms of monthly active users (MAUs), with 24 million registered users for Toss and 14 MAUs as of August this year.

Viva Republica continues to push ahead with its acquisitions. The startup launched Toss Payments, which enables local merchants to accept digital payment, two years ago by acquiring a payment gateway business from LG’s mobile network company LG U+. (Toss Payments’ monthly trading volume surpassed $ 2.7 billion in November.) Toss also took over Merchant Korea, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), in July this year, planning to offer wireless communication services to consumers in 2023. The latest acquisition comes roughly eight months after it acquired a 60% stake in VCNC, an operator of the Korean ride-hailing platform Tada, wholly owned by car-sharing platform SoCar, in October 2021 to make a foray into the mobility market.

Regarding its international growth strategy, Viva Republica could make equity investments in global companies, including Southeast Asia, following entering Vietnam in 2019. But, it is more likely to focus on the domestic business, for the time being, Seo noted.

Viva Republica with Toss Securities, Toss Payments and Toss Insurance is expected to post about 1 trillion won ($ 767 million) in revenue next year, according to the company.

South Korean financial super app Toss closes $405M Series G as valuation rises 7% by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch

Autonomous trucking technology company TuSimple plans to cut a chunk of its workforce, potentially as early as this week, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited “people familiar with the matter.”

While the Journal reported layoffs could affect at least half of TuSimple’s workforce, TechCrunch’s own source familiar with the matter said that number is not correct, but wouldn’t say more. It might be closer to 15%, according to online forums, some of which have speculated there’s been a game of telephone happening here (e.g. 15 sounds like 50).

Talks of layoffs at TuSimple have been ongoing for weeks, particularly following the end of TuSimple’s deal with Navistar to co-develop purpose-built autonomous semi trucks. TuSimple has rescinded offers it gave to interns to join the company, and posts on LinkedIn and Blind have mentioned “huge layoffs.”

While the number of employees to be let go is still unknown — TuSimple currently has about 1,430 full-time employees globally — it’s not surprising to see yet another tech company downsize as a result of macroeconomic headwinds and internal dramas.

TuSimple has suffered a couple of executive shakeups this year. CEO Cheng Lu, who was asked to step down into an advisory role in March, took over again last month. His predecessor and TuSimple’s founder Xiaodi Hou was fired following an internal probe that showed certain employees having ties and sharing confidential information with Hydron, a China-backed hydrogen-powered trucking company. The company is still facing multiple federal investigations related to its relationship with Hydron.

TuSimple’s stock price has also plummeted this year, dropping 95.63% from January, and the company has dealt with loss of investor confidence following the crash of one of its trucks in April. As a company building frontier technology, TuSimple has struggled to generate nearly enough revenue to cover its cash burn. In the third quarter, TuSimple reported $113 million in losses on a revenue of $2.7 million — revenue which came from hauling freight for shippers in trucks that had a human safety operator behind the wheel.

“Like every technology and self-driving company, we are closely examining our spending and how to align that with our strategy,” Lu told TechCrunch.

WSJ reported that TuSimple plans to scale back its work building self-driving systems and testing autonomous trucks on public roads in Arizona and Texas, a claim that Lu denied to TechCrunch. The teams involved in TuSimple’s operations in Tucson and self-driving software algorithms would be cut down as a result, the sources told the Journal.

Some of the imminent layoffs might come from the teams responsible for co-building trucks with Navistar. However, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that TuSimple is planning on replacing Navistar with a new OEM partner.

Sources told WSJ they expect layoffs to begin Tuesday, and that TuSimple told employees offices would be closed down Tuesday and Wednesday.

Canary in the coal mine

Interns whose offers to join the company were rescinded, as well as current TuSimple employees, have mentioned layoffs occurring at the company on LinkedIn and Blind.

“Affected by today’s TuSimple massive layoffs, my return offer as a Research Engineer was rescinded,” posted one former intern earlier this month who worked at TuSimple from June to September.

In response to a query on Blind by a person who recently interviewed at the company, one TuSimple employee commented on December 5 saying: “We’re going through huge layoffs right now. Stock is at an all time low. No clear path to making money.” The same person also said that staff morale “is pretty low.”

That sentiment is mirrored by other comments on TuSimple’s Blind profile. The latest company review, dated December 6, is titled “never trust this company.” The employee, a software applications engineer, said that a pro of working for TuSimple is the company “provide[s] you with a hallucination that [it] may succeed.” Cons were listed as toxic culture, horrible CEO, no profitable product and massive layoffs on the way.

While Blind posts are anonymous, the company told TechCrunch its community is made up of verified professionals. No one is allowed to post unless they are verified as a current employee of a given workplace using their work email.

Layoffs are coming for self-driving truck company TuSimple by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

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December is getting long in the tooth, there’s Christmas music on every radio station, and the poinsettias are in full bloom. It looks like the year is getting close to the end, and we, for two, are perfectly happy to see the back of it. Bring on the last 300 or so hours of the year, and we can start pondering what the new year will bring. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

Will he or won’t he?: The poll has spoken — a majority of people who came across Elon Musk’s post asking if he should step down as the head of Twitter felt he should, Ingrid reports. Musk says a lot of things, and then says some more things, so we’ll see if he actually takes his advice and abides by the results of the poll.
Gaming for a fine: Fortnite maker Epic Games agreed to take its lumps from the Federal Trade Commission, which fined the company $520 million related to children’s privacy charges. Amanda has more about the fines and what this means for Epic.
Here’s a gaggle of Google news: Google is doing a lot in India, and Jagmeet, Manish and Ivan were there for it. First, the company addressed official documents with a DigiLocker integration to the Files app, and said that India’s regulations should provide legal and innovation certainty to firms. New features for the country include multisearch and in-video search features and being able to decode a doctor’s bad handwriting. There are also some new YouTube features, like watching a video in multiple languages and Courses, the video unit’s new edtech experience.

Startups and VC

Life as a startup founder is never dull. That’s doubly true for Black founders, who routinely struggle to raise funds, be noticed and get their fair share of attention, Dominic-Madori reports. For the new year, she conducted a mini-survey to find out what Black founders are expecting in 2023. All three founders brought up the same concerns — the economy, the environment and equality.

Connie had the chance to catch up with Fabrice Grinda, a French, New York–based serial entrepreneur who co-founded the free classifieds site OLX — now owned by Prosus — and who has in recent years been building up his venture firm, FJ Labs. He often likens the outfit to an angel investor “at scale,” saying that like a lot of angel investors, “We don’t lead, we don’t price, we don’t take board seats. We decide after two one-hour meetings over the course of a week whether we invest or not.”

We have a few more for you, just to scratch that curiosity itch:

AI see what they did there: ImagenAI, which uses AI to personalize photo editing styles, lands $30 million, reports Kyle.
Really going places: Helm.ai snags $31 million to scale its ‘unsupervised’ autonomous driving software, reports Kirsten.
Very NFTy: Jacquelyn reports that Revel raised $7.8 million to become the Instagram and Robinhood of NFT platforms.
A cut above: Rita reports that salon software Mangomint raises $13 million as it booms in post-COVID labor shortage.
These keyboards really click: Frederic writes up a gift guide for the mechanically (keyboard) inclined.

3 Black founders predict little will change in VC in 2023

A rising tide lifts all boats, but when free-flowing venture capital starts to recede, underrepresented founders are the first to find themselves on dry ground.

Dominic-Madori Davis spoke to three Black founders to get their thoughts on the current funding landscape and the issues that are top of mind for them as we head into the new year.

Vernon Coleman, founder and CEO, Realtime
Sevetri Wilson, founder and CEO, Resilia
Abimbola Adebayo, founder and CEO, Pinnu Analytics

Okay, fine, if that ain’t enough for you, here’s three more TC+ stories to rest thine eyes on:

EVs r the worst: Toyota president keeps pushing idea that people hate EVs, despite epic waitlists,Tim reports.
Less risk, more dollars: The fundraising stages are not about dollar values — they’re about risk,Haje muses.
Chained to a desk: Tech’s latest controversy? The return of the five-day, in-person work week, reports Natasha M.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

Deleting on WhatsApp didn’t always mean delete for everyone, until now. WhatsApp lets you undo that deletion in case you moved too fast. Jagmeet writes that the “new feature, called ‘accidental delete,’ brings a five-second window to let users reverse the action of deleting messages for their own in an individual or group chat and delete them for everyone.” Delete away!

And we have five more for you:

A buyer for Voyager Digital: It’s been a tough year for Voyager Digital, Romain writes, but there is some good news: Binance.US has agreed to buy Voyager Digital’s assets for $1 billion.
Market monopoly: The European Union is proceeding with an investigation into Meta, after some preliminary findings suggest the company abused its dominant market position to benefit Facebook Marketplace, Paul writes.
Get ready for the recap: We all enjoy seeing what the year was about. Remember the top nine? Well, Instagram’s new Reels template lets you create your own 2022 recap, Aisha reports.
Is the WFHer the new slacker?: Marc Benioff made some statements about work-from-home that had Ron scratching his head. He went to the company for some clarification only to find these new statements also muddle the message about Salesforce’s view of WFH.
Bored Apes gets a new Chief Ape: Bored Apes creator Yuga Labs appointed a new CEO — former Activision COO Daniel Alegre, Amanda reports.

Daily Crunch: After Musk puts it to a vote, 57% of Twitter poll respondents tell him to resign by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

Bradley Tusk — who spent his early career in Democratic politics and later became a consultant and lobbyist for private companies battling regulators — spends much of his time these days as a venture capitalist. But while Tusk is a generalist, he insists he isn’t interested in just any startup; his expertise, he says, is at the intersection of tech and regulation, and his firm adds the most value to startups in sectors where changing regulations are bound to alter the scale of the opportunity they are chasing.

As a service to Tusk Ventures’s current portfolio — and a kind of calling card for potential founders — Tusk every year puts together some thoughts about the changes he sees coming over the next 12-year period. Because he’s often proven right in retrospect, we hopped on a call with him late last week to discuss some of his many 2023 predictions, and these three stood out to us in particular, so we thought we’d share them here.

1.) Major CPG brands start selling cannabis products, wiping out a lot of cannabis startups that were operating in the relative shadows. Here Tusk is, discussing why:

Big brands [sell] alcohol all of the time and cannabis, many people would argue, is a less harmful substance than alcohol. We’ve got this real disconnect between the close to two-thirds of the states and the federal government, where cannabis is legal recreationally and medicinally. Yet it’s on Schedule 1 at the DEA [along with] heroin and meth and cocaine . . which really doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially as states keep legalizing it entirely.

President Biden has said, ‘Let’s remove this from Schedule 1.’ Once that happens all of a sudden all kinds of interstate commerce that so far has not been allowed will open up. So you’ll be able to have real banking, trucking of [plants] across state lines, advertising . . . All the things that a normal, really big company — a Kraft or Unilever and Anheuser-Busch or Philip Morris — might engage in, they can’t really do under the current system, but once the federal restrictions are loosened, then all of a sudden it opens up for them.

One [question I’ve asked cannabis founders over the years is] how are they going to compete with Unilever? Why would Unilever choose to buy them as opposed to just burying them? And most of the time, the answer is they can’t [compete]. They’re really just racing against the clock, hoping the federal government doesn’t actually do the right thing. But I think once cannabis goes off Schedule 1, and I don’t know if it happens in six months or two years, big companies will get into the game [because] there’s money to be made. And a lot of cannabis startups that were highly valued or overvalued or that traded at really high multiples on the Canadian stock exchange are going to feel a lot of pain.

2.) Instead of drive further crypto regulation, Sam Bankman-Fried and the abrupt implosion of FTX actually winds up playing a minor role in any new regulations that get enacted (and he does think we’ll see more regulation at the state and federal level in the next 12 months). Here’s Tusk:

When the FTX thing blow-up started happening, my take was, ‘Okay, this is going to lead to a lot of very harsh crypto regulation that will be bad for the sector, because SEC chief Gary Gensler has been pushing for this for a long time and it hasn’t happened yet because crypto is very popular among a lot of actual real people.’ I thought FTX would give him the cover to move very aggressively against the industry as a whole.

In a weird way since then, as the story gets crazier and crazier and just more and more like Sam Bankman-Fried was just a criminal mastermind who was defrauding people out of tens of billions of dollars and [that this debacle] is not something specifically related to crypto per se, it actually shifts the argument again. It [shifts from], ‘This whole industry is out of control’ to ‘this person was out of control.’ It’s almost gotten so extreme that it’s actually helping [tamp down talk of overregulation].

3.) Twitter ends up costing Musk far more than the $44 billion he and his investors paid for it . . .

What Musk did is consistent with things that we’re seeing across the cultural zeitgeist right now, which is in this world with 24/7 media coverage and social media activity, the people who really need attention and can’t get enough of it just have to keep doing more and more outrageous things to try to get it right. We saw that with Donald Trump. We saw that with Kanye West. And the main reason why Musk bought Twitter is so that people would be talking about him, just as we are right now. From that standpoint, I suspect he’s achieved his goal.

What worries me for him is when you look at the market cap of Tesla, for example, it is significantly higher than Toyota or General Motors, companies that sell a lot more cars,. Tesla makes a great car and they’re growing and it’s okay for them to lean into the future. But the differential between what [Tesla] probably should be valued at and where it is valued is that Elon Musk hype and pixie dust. He managed to create such an image of being so far in the future and so much better than everyone else that really drives retail investment in the stock. The same is true of SpaceX. While that’s still a private company, I saw a piece yesterday saying that it’s now valued at $140 billion, [yet] there’s no way SpaceX could be [worth] $140 billion given its revenue. So his genius in some ways is that he manages to create this perception that what he’s doing is so innovative and so unique, and that only he can do it; it drives tremendous amounts of value and investment toward his companies.

The really big risk with Twitter is that every time he does something really high profile and public, he puts that reputation on the line. He has taken over Twitter, which no one has really ever figured out how to make it a successful business, and now it’s in his hands. And so far, the ideas that he’s put out there don’t sound that new or interesting to me; they feel like variations of things that people have already done before in different ways. And if he does not succeed with Twitter, the question is, does it puncture the balloon for Tesla, and SpaceX and all his other projects? He may have paid $44 billion for Twitter, but ultimately, this could cost him $100 billion or more if there’s a risk that Tesla and SpaceX and other companies that he owns lose value because he’s exposed as being a mere mortal.

. . . and no, it doesn’t create great opportunities for startups looking to capitalize on the chaos at the company, per Tusk. More here:

There’s just not a great revenue model for all of this to begin with. To make matters worse for them, I still think that there’s a risk eventually that Section 230 of the Telecommunications Decency Act does get changed or repealed. Right now, it exempts platforms from liability from content posted by the user, so I can defame you on Twitter, and you could sue me personally but you couldn’t sue Twitter. And as a result, Twitter, Facebook, all the platforms, their real economic incentive is to move toward negative and toxic content, because as much as we hate it, that drives eyeballs and drives clicks and thus drives advertising rates and revenue. So effectively, the lack of liability by the platforms is creating a world where the Internet has to be as toxic and awful as possible.

But if [we repeal] Section 230, it’ll be a lot like what happened with the tobacco companies beginning in the 1980s, where all of a sudden they were vulnerable to litigation and started receiving these multi-billion-dollar judgments, and as a result, they felt real economic pain and had to finally get a hold of their [marketing practices] because it was costing them more money than otherwise. Right now Facebook will pay the little fines that it gets from the FCC, because ultimately, they make so much money driven by negative content. Repealing Section 230 would change that.

Three counterintuitive 2023 predictions about Musk, SFB, and even Kraft by Connie Loizos originally published on TechCrunch

The bad blood between tech boot camp MyTechBestfriend and many of its former students is anything but finished, according to nearly a dozen people who spoke to TechCrunch.

In November, TechCrunch detailed the fallout between Mary Awodele, the founder of the Texas-based MTBF, and her students. Students accused Awodele of bullying and harassment while alleging that the MTBF program, which cost up to $6,000, consisted of plagiarized courses that could be found online for a more affordable price. At the time, Awodele told TechCrunch she couldn’t comment on those allegations “due to ongoing legal proceedings.”

Since then, those who spoke up against Awodele and the program said they are struggling to obtain refunds and facing continued harassment.

Awodele, meanwhile, posted online in an Instagram story screenshot seen by TechCrunch that she plans to rebrand the company in the new year. She also hired a Texas-based lawyer, Kim Daily, and brought on Curt Bender, a Florida attorney who is consulting for MTBF. Neither Awodele nor Daily directly responded to TechCrunch’s requests for comment, but Bender replied to a set of questions sent to Awodele. Bender said MTBF has no imminent plans to rebrand.

To request refunds, students said they began contacting Stripe, which was, per receipts seen by TechCrunch, one of MTBF’s payment processors. MTBF then posted an Instagram story saying that the new program it hopes to launch would be for those who are an “Affirm, Klarna, or Afterpay kinda person.” MTBF also said it wanted to venture into career services and would vet prospective students to ensure the new program had a more “mature crowd.”

The #MyTechFallout continues

A major point of contention between Awodele and her students remains the fees paid to participate in MTBF’s courses. Awodele told students she would grant refunds to those who wished to drop out after the fallout in late November, even though the course contract students signed said MTBF would not process any refunds. Students told TechCrunch that the refund process has been inconsistent with Awodele’s promises.

A November 18 email forwarded to TechCrunch shows an MTBF employee agreeing to refund Shay, a former student who requested to go by their nickname, within 10 days. After 10 days passed, Shay followed up, but MTBF responded: “Hi. Call your bank, and please do not email us again. Thank you.”

Allegations about the program’s deceit also continued to spread. Some students sent TechCrunch their receipts from MTBF, showing that their transactions were processed as gifts rather than services, which can be a tactic to avoid paying a tax on generated revenue. If these purchases were indeed processed as gifts, it would be a revenue misclassification that impacts the way MTBF is taxed and could land Awodele in serious trouble with the law, including jail time, two financial experts and attorney David Reischer of Reischer & Reischer told TechCrunch.

Bender said that MTBF “was not aware that transactions regarding scholarships were being processed as gifts, and it is correcting and remedying the situation.”

According to correspondence seen by TechCrunch, Awodele also threatened to report multiple students to credit bureaus in instances where she lost bank disputes. Bender, however, said MTBF “never sent anyone to a credit bureau” but “engaged with Fidelity Information Corporation in two instances.”

Victoria, a former student, using a pseudonym for fear of retribution from Awodele, successfully disputed MTBF’s tuition with her bank. Then she received, according to documents seen by TechCrunch, what appears to be a letter from Fidelity Information Corporation, a debt collector. The letter, an attempt to retrieve tuition money on behalf of MTBF, said to mail payments directly to MTBF and listed an address associated with an apartment building in Houston, not FIC, which is based in Los Angeles. (Bender said this is due to FIC’s engagement terms. FIC could not be reached for comment.

Many students have continued reporting MTBF to the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), the FBI and the IRS, all of which, according to some students, have reached out to students regarding the allegations against MTBF. (The IRS declined to comment, while the FBI and TWC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) Bender said “MTBF is in the process of meeting [TWC] regulatory demands” and is aware that “at least one former student saying the FBI and FTC reached out to them.”

Students who initially spoke out about allegations against MTBF say they continue to face harassment. On December 15, Charlie, a former student, awoke to text messages, one reading that her name was in a pot somewhere in Haiti.

“Make sure you pray for the wickedness that’s in your heart. When a stream of bad luck starts to come your way. Just know it’s us. What’s done is done. So let it be. Ashe,” the text message read, followed by a photo of what appears to be an object used for voodoo.

Bender told TechCrunch that “the founder of MTBF is a Christian and Nigerian and neither practice[s] nor participate[s] in voodoo.” He added that MTBF does, however, employ “hippie-esque practices with students, including lighting candles and manifestation for personal success.

“But never anything against enemies,” he noted.

Charlie, whose last name is being withheld, believes Awodele gave her number out to people for them to harass her. TechCrunch previously reported that Awodele had a group called #MTBFSPECIALFORCES, which she sent out to pester people who spoke up against her or the company. Two hours after TechCrunch reached out to Awodele and her lawyer for comment, Charlie received a message from Bender, who wrote that MTBF “nor its affiliates” were involved with the alleged threats — which was the question TechCrunch posed to them just hours before.

“Please report those threats to law enforcement, and MTBF will assist with any investigations,” Bender wrote in the email seen by TechCrunch. Charlie responded, “There is nothing else to be said other than I’ll see you in court.”

The voodoo incident has scared many people, adding to the fear that is keeping most students enrolled in the program, one current student, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Awodele, told TechCrunch. Though MTBF is back in session, it’s unclear how many students have dropped out — and how many remain.

“She’s a narcissist with a God complex who believes she’s untouchable and needs to be shut down,” Amber, a former student using a pseudonym for fear of retribution from Awodele, said of the founder. “We won’t stop until she’s unable to do this to anyone else.”

The #MyTechBestfriend fallout continues by Dominic-Madori Davis originally published on TechCrunch

According to a survey sent to creators in the Spotify for Podcasters program, the streaming giant might be doing away with the Anchor brand. Anchor, which Spotify acquired for $340 million in a deal that included the studio Gimlet, is a free podcast hosting service. In 2020, Anchor said that its service was used to create 1 million new podcasts, accounting for 80% of new shows uploaded to Spotify that year.

But now that Anchor has been part of Spotify for almost three years, the company appears to be considering a rebrand. In the survey, sent to some podcasters who have claimed their show on Spotify for Podcasters, Spotify’s user research team shared information about the possible rebrand, which is still being tested with potential users.

“Anchor and Spotify for Podcasters are now Spotify Creator Studio, the all-in-one platform for creators of all kinds (and sizes) to express themselves and find success on Spotify,” the sample announcement in the survey reads.

Currently, podcasters can join Spotify for Podcasters to access analytics about their show, even if they host with another service like Libsyn, Podbean, or Buzzsprout. Those who host via Anchor have access to features like subscription monetization and video podcasts, but only listeners using Spotify are able to interact with that content.

If the proposed rebrand from the survey were to go through, Spotify for Podcasters would be rebranded to “Spotify Creator Studio – Unhosted.” Anchor would be rebranded to “Spotify Creator Studio – Hosted.” Both products would remain free.

Spotify’s survey of podcasters about this potential change indicates an interest in the rebrand, but that doesn’t mean it will come to fruition.

“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of surveys and tests in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of these end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We have no news to share on future plans at this time,” a Spotify spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Over the last few years, Spotify has made a number of podcasting acquisitions like Anchor and Gimlet. These include Podz, a podcast discovery platform, and Megaphone, a podcast ads company. For four of its recent acquisitions — Findaway, Podsights, Chartable and Sonantic — the company paid about $295 million.

Spotify considers rebranding Anchor to Spotify Creator Studio by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch