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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 about to end, and we, for two, are thrilled to see the back of it. Bring on the last 300 hours of the year, and we can start thinking about what the new year will bring. — Christine and Hey
Contents
The businesskinda.com 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 thought he should, Ingrid reports. Musk says a lot of things, then says some more things, so we’ll see if he actually takes his advice and sticks to the poll results.
- Gaming for a fine: Fortnite creator Epic Games agreed to take its chunk from the Federal Trade Commission, which fined the company $520 million over child privacy charges. Amanda has more on the fines and what this means for Epic.
- Here’s a collection of Google news: Google is doing a lot in India, and Jagmeet, Manic and Ivan were for it. First, the company addressed official documents with a DigiLocker integration in the Files app and said Indian regulations should provide companies with legal and innovation assurance. New features for the country include multisearch and in-video search, and the ability to decode a doctor’s bad handwriting. There are also some new YouTube features, such as 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 boring. That goes doubly for black founders, who routinely struggle to raise money, get noticed, and get their share of the attention, Dominic Madori reports. Before the new year, she conducted a mini-survey to find out what black founders expect in 2023. All three founders raised 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 built his venture FJ Labs in recent years. He often compares the outfit to an angel investor “on scale,” saying that, like many angel investors, “we don’t lead, we don’t price, we don’t take board seats. We decide after two one-hour meetings in the over the course of a week whether we invest or not.”
We have a few more for you, to pique your curiosity:
3 Black founders predict little will change in VC by 2023
Image Credits: tiphon images (Opens in a new window) /Getty Images
A rising tide lifts all boats, but when free-flowing venture capital begins to recede, the underrepresented founders are the first to stand on dry land.
Dominic-Madori Davis spoke with three Black founders to get their take on the current funding landscape and the issues that matter to them as we enter the new year.
- Vernon Coleman, Founder and CEO, Realtime
- Sevetri Wilson, founder and CEO of Resilia
- Abimbola Adebayo, Founder and CEO, Pinnu Analytics
Okay, well, if that’s not enough for you, here are three more TC+ stories to rest your eyes on:
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Big Tech Inc.
Deleting on WhatsApp didn’t always mean deleting for everyone until now. WhatsApp lets you undo that deletion if you went too fast. Jagmeet writes that the “new feature, called ‘accidental deletion,’ provides a five-second window where users can reverse the action of deleting messages for themselves in an individual or group chat and delete them for everyone.” Remove away!
And we have five more for you:
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.