The big noise in tech this year was the sound of trends dying and eras concluding.
The big picture: Tech's 20-year run of mad growth, fueled for much of that time by easy money, came to a crashing halt in 2022 as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to fight inflation.
Twitter has stopped paying the rent on some of its office leases and hasn't paid numerous other vendors since Elon Musk acquired the company in late October, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
Why it matters: One of the world's richest men isn't honoring financial obligations made to those with far fewer resources.
Government agencies and critical infrastructure operators will now have the opportunity to test out zero-trust security tools at a lab opening Tuesday at a U.S. Cyber Command-run innovation center in Maryland.
Driving the news: Cisco, CyKor and nonprofit MISI are unveiling a testing lab at Cyber Command's DreamPort innovation center right outside of Baltimore.
More than a week after a ransomware attack sparked the shutdown of servers at cloud and email-hosting provider Rackspace Technology, questions are still rising and its customer base is growing frustrated.
The big picture: Experts tell Axios that corporate ransomware victims face a tough dilemma: Sharing too much info risks it being weaponized in lawsuits or ruining negotiations with attackers. Not sharing enough could lead to customer outrage or even a mass exodus.
Snyk, a Boston-based developer security company, said that it raised $196.5 million in Series G funding led by Qatar Investment Authority.
Why it matters: Because the company isn't shying away from the fact that this is a down round, as its $7.4 billion valuation is 12% lower than when Snyk raised money last fall.
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried with eight counts of fraud, conspiracy, campaign finance law violations and money laundering.
Driving the news: The disgraced crypto wunderkind was arrested Monday by police in the Bahamas and is expected to be extradited to the U.S.
Anti-transgender campaigns resulted in the online harassment of 24 different hospitals and health care providers in 21 states over a recent four-month period, according to a report from Human Rights Campaign shared first with Axios.
The big picture: Despite being uniformly recommended by major medical organizations including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, gender-affirming care has been under fire from a variety of directions, including via legislative attacks and online threats.
Meta is sharing an open-source tool that other social networks can use to help spot and track problematic images and video content, including terrorist threats and child sexual abuse material.
Why it matters: It's a challenge for a company as big as Meta to try to monitor and remove dangerous and abusive content, but doing so is even harder for smaller companies with fewer resources.
Today's popular AI-driven image-generating apps can already costume a user's selfie in fantasy-world garb. But some in the field are working on using similar tech to mimic brand-name characters and worlds from popular movies and video games.
Why it matters: Whether it's "Star Wars," the Marvel universe or "The Simpsons," people have strong ties to their favorite fictional worlds and, presumably, might be willing to pay handsomely to see themselves in such environments.
Pandemic gains in American wealth are melting away. American household net worth declined for the third consecutive quarter this year as stocks were hit hard by rising interest rates.
Plus, fires prompt a movement to ban e-bikes.
And, Utah becomes the latest state to partially ban TikTok.
Guests: Axios' Matt Phillips and Jennifer Kingson.
Credits: Axios Today is produced by Niala Boodhoo, Sara Kehaulani Goo, Alexandra Botti, Lydia McMullen-Laird, Robin Linn, Fonda Mwangi and Alex Sugiura. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at [email protected]. You can text questions, comments and story ideas to Niala as a text or voice memo to 202-918-4893.
Twitter disbanded its "Trust and Safety Council," according to an email sent Monday night to the members of the panel that was obtained by news outlets including Axios.
Why it matters: It's another example of owner Elon Musk rolling back years of efforts designed to make the social media site a more civil and safer place, per the Washington Post.
IBM announced Monday its technology will help power the chipmaking ambitions of Rapidus, a newly formed Japanese company aiming to bring leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing back to that country.
Why it matters: The deal is part of a broader move on the part of governments and chip giants to diversify leading-edge chip production, which today is concentrated in Taiwan and South Korea.
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, was arrested and taken into custody on Monday by police in the Bahamas.
Why it matters: This appears to set up an extradition of Bankman-Fried to the U.S., as the Bahamian attorney general's office says it received notice of a U.S. criminal complaint and "likely" extradition request.
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