A new Worker Accounting and Retraining Notification (WARN) report reveals that 606 LinkedIn employees were notified of permanent layoffs last week, which will go into effect on July 13.

The bulk of the layoffs (352) come from their Mountain View, California office, with another 66 remote employees in the same city.

Another 108 employees were laid off at their San Francisco office, plus another 59 at their Sunnyvale office and 21 in Carpinteria.

The layoffs were foreshadowed by an internal memo from LinkedIn CEO Daniel Shapero

“We need to reinvent how we work, with agile teams focused on our highest priorities, and by shifting investments toward areas such as infrastructure to fulfill our mission and vision over the long term. This requires hard prioritization and tradeoffs,” the memo stated.

“Today I’m sharing the difficult decision that I, along with our leadership team, have made to reduce roles across GBO, Marketing, Engineering and Product,” the CEO added.

A 5% cut of the company’s 17,500 employees would result in a cut of 875 jobs, though there is no indication that more could be shown the door at LinkedIn quite yet. The cuts come just weeks after LinkedIn announced in a third-quarter earnings statement that they posted a 12% growth in revenue year-over-year.

Source: New York Post

Google is bringing AI by default into their search box.

Intelligent Search Bar

• Expands for longer queries
• AI-powered query suggestions
• Follow-up questions in AI mode

Search Agents

• Navigate web for users
• Run in the background 24/7
• Track changes across the internet
• Alert users to new information/updates

Agentic Coding

• 'Mini-apps' within Search
• Custom dashboards and trackers
• Turns search results into interactive page

GitHub has since detected and contained a compromise of an employee device involving a poisoned VS Code extension.

GitHub has removed the malicious extension version, isolated the endpoint, and began incident response immediately, according to their claims.

Their current assessment is that the activity involved exfiltration of GitHub-internal repositories only. The attacker’s current claims of ~3,800 repositories are directionally consistent with their investigation so far. They have moved quickly to reduce risk. Critical secrets were rotated yesterday and overnight with the highest-impact credentials prioritized first.

GitHub continues to analyze logs, validate secret rotation, and monitor for any follow-on activity. They have said that they will take additional action as the investigation warrants. They will publish a fuller report once the investigation is complete.

Source: GitHub

This is similar to when Yuri Milner offered to invest in every startup back when Sam was a YC partner.

The deal gives fledgling AI startups guaranteed compute resources and significantly extends their runway by covering heavy API costs.

Some in the community have warned that taking these tokens could be risky. Because OpenAI will get a clear look at how the startups use the tokens, some fear the platform could copy promising ideas and integrate them into its own free or native offerings.

Source: Sam Altman

Anthropic announced Monday it has acquired Stainless, a startup founded by former Stripe engineer Alex Rattray whose software is widely used by rival AI labs, including OpenAI and Google.

Anthropic is gradually winding down Stainless’s general-purpose, hosted services. The startup's engine that automatically creates and updates SDKs will no longer be available to the wider market.

Existing clients will retain full rights and access to the SDKs they have already generated, allowing them to modify and maintain them.

The New York-based startup, founded in 2022, rose to prominence in the emerging AI industry for automating the creation and maintenance of software development kits, or SDKs; the libraries developers use to interact with APIs.

Source: Stainless

Notices invoke IT Act after state says aggregators have flouted EV policy, failed on women's safety, and ignored repeated warnings.

The Maharashtra State Cyber Department has issued notices to Apple and Google, directing them to remove ride-hailing applications Uber, Ola and Rapido from their app stores over alleged illegal bike taxi operations in Maharashtra.

Ola, Uber and Rapido have come under heavy scrutiny in the state over its bike taxi services; with Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik recently demanding criminal action against company owners.

The notices were issued on May 15 by the Office of the Additional Director General of Police, Maharashtra Cyber, under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Apple and Google were instructed to “remove and disable access" to the applications from the App Store and Play Store.

In the notices, Maharashtra Cyber said the bike taxi services offered through the apps were “unlawful and in violation of the existing legal and regulatory framework". Authorities alleged that the platforms were running passenger transport services “without obtaining valid permissions, government approvals, or compliance with the rules and regulations prescribed by the Transport Department and the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act."

The notices also cited concerns related to passenger safety, alleging that driver verification systems, insurance safeguards, women’s safety measures and emergency response mechanisms were “highly inadequate".

“Recently, a serious incident came to light wherein a bike taxi service operated through one of these applications allegedly resulted in the tragic death of a woman. A criminal case has been registered in this regard," the notices stated. They further claimed that several similar cases had been reported across Maharashtra.

The Cyber Department warned Apple and Google that non-compliance with directions issued by Indian law enforcement agencies could attract legal action under the IT Act and intermediary liability rules.

Earlier in the day Pratap Sarnaik told The Indian Express that the state’s crackdown on illegal bike taxi aggregators was a measure to ensure passenger safety and also part of Maharashtra’s broader Electric Vehicle transport policy to push usage of EV vehicles. He said that the state was keen that vehicles being used to provide bike taxi services are Electric vehicles and not petrol vehicles. He however said that the share of EVs being used to provide bike taxi services is minimal.

He said the government’s priority was clear, stating that “women’s safety is more important than employment,” while referring to recent complaints involving bike taxi riders, including an alleged misconduct case involving a woman passenger and multiple police complaints at police stations.

Sarnaik maintained that the state government is not opposed to bike taxis as a concept, but argued that the current issue lies with aggregators such as Ola, Uber and Rapido. He alleged that they have failed to comply with Maharashtra’s EV bike taxi policy framework despite being given temporary permissions to regularise operations and submit required documents.

According to him, the state had already permitted electric bike taxis and issued temporary one-month permissions to aggregators to complete documentation and formalities. However, he said “they have not submitted a single document yet,” and added that they continue operating “thousands of illegal bike taxis on roads, many of them petrol-powered despite the policy allowing only EV bike taxis.”

Sarnaik also referred to a scheme allegedly introduced by Rapido, saying riders were being told the company would reimburse fines imposed during RTO inspections. He described the practice as encouraging continued operations despite enforcement action.

“Rapido has also initiated a new scheme. They’ve told their riders that if the RTO officials conduct inspections on you, you pay the Rs 200 to Rs 500 fine. Later, provide us with a receipt of this challan and we will reimburse you the money.”

The minister said the transport department has now approached the Cybercrime department seeking action against the apps themselves, adding, “If we shut down the app, then the illegal taxis will be shut down.

Source: Indian Express

The sharp rise in petrol and diesel prices has triggered concern among lakhs of delivery workers and app based drivers, with gig worker unions warning that many may be forced to leave the sector if earnings are not revised soon.

The Gig and Platform Service Workers Union (GIPSWU) on Friday demanded an immediate increase in per kilometre service rates from both the government and major digital platforms after fuel prices were raised by around Rs 3 per litre across the country. The union has also announced a temporary shutdown of app based services from 12 pm to 5 pm tomorrow in protest, according to a report by NDTV.

The union said the increase would directly affect nearly 1.2 crore gig and platform workers who depend on motorcycles and scooters for their daily income. Workers associated with companies such as Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit, Zepto, Ola, Uber, Rapido, Porter and Amazon Flex travel long distances every day while covering fuel, servicing and maintenance costs themselves.

GIPSWU President Seema Singh described the latest hike as a “direct blow" to workers already struggling with rising expenses and severe heatwave conditions. She urged both the government and companies to introduce a minimum service rate of Rs 20 per kilometre.

“Delivery workers for Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit and others simply cannot bear this," she said, warning that many workers could leave the sector if immediate relief is not provided.

National Coordinator Nirmal Gorana said gig workers were among the worst affected sections of India’s unorganised workforce. He pointed out that while fuel prices, vehicle costs and maintenance expenses have increased sharply, payments offered by digital platforms have not risen in proportion.

He added that women gig workers, delivery staff and drivers were facing particularly difficult working conditions, with many spending 10 to 14 hours a day on the road in heavy traffic and extreme weather to earn enough money.

According to NITI Aayog estimates, India had around 77 lakh gig workers in 2020 and 2021, a number expected to cross 2.3 crore by 2029 and 2030.

Source: News18