Data Sheet: Google shakeup, Benioff vs. Microsoft, Meta layoffs, Zuora goes private

Good morning. I was delighted to learn recently that Winamp, the free audio player of choice for a certain demographic (cough) of Windows users at the turn of the millennium, soldiers on to this day.

Apparently “tens of millions” of users still fire it up on a regular basis, according to its Belgian owner—hopefully still with skins that look like an aftermarket head unit from a ‘96 Mitsubishi Eclipse.

The name of Winamp’s owner, by the way? Llama Group. Which really whips…ah, nevermind. —Andrew Nusca

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Google’s search and ads chief is out

Google SVP Prabhakar Raghavan during a meeting in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 17, 2024. (Photo: Julia Nikhinson/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

It’s big news, even for big tech: Prabhakar Raghavan, the most senior Google executive overseeing search and advertising, is leaving his gig. He spent four years leading the company’s core business.

Raghavan isn’t leaving Google; he’ll become its chief technologist. “He’ll partner closely with me and Google leads to provide technical direction and leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence,” CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a staff memo.

Why the change? Likely because Google’s cash cow is under assault. (And parent company Alphabet, for all its divisions, is still largely driven by that cash cow.) Artificial intelligence assistants threaten to replace search as the leading destination for information and antitrust regulators have taken the company’s primary moneymaker to task.

Nick Fox, a long-serving search executive, will replace Raghavan (and immediately occupy the “who will succeed Sundar” seat), with two caveats: The team overseeing Google’s Gemini generative assistant will move out of Raghavan’s former org and into Google DeepMind, and the team overseeing Google Assistant will join the group that handles the Android mobile operating system. Watch this space. —AN

Marc Benioff really doesn’t like Microsoft Copilot

No one said the AI wars wouldn’t get heated. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff took to social media yesterday to put rival Microsoft on blast for its “disappointing” AI-powered assistant, Copilot.

“It just doesn’t work, and it doesn’t deliver any level of accuracy,” he wrote. “Gartner says it’s spilling data everywhere, and customers are left cleaning up the mess.” (Salesforce, naturally, has been promoting its own AI-powered agent called Einstein. Ahem.)

It’s not the first time Benioff has taken a swing at Copilot. He called the tool “the new Clippy,” in a dig at Microsoft’s memorable 1990s feature, in a television interview a month ago.

Why the war footing? Because Salesforce needs to win mindshare against its more entrenched peers. Microsoft is able to win customers simply by deploying Copilot across its Office business suite as well as developer favorite GitHub; same deal for Google and Gemini.

Salesforce may be tops in customer relationship management software—its ticker is CRM for a reason—but its peers are far bigger. Just remember, Marc: Coffee is for closers. —AN

Meta lays off 2,000 people

If 2023 was Meta’s “Year of Efficiency” then how come it’s still going on in late 2024? According to The Verge, the company is laying off staffers as it reorganizes teams in its WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs units.

Meta says the aim is “to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy.” So, nothing to do with Meta’s eye-watering capital expenditure in the AI race, then.

But it’s not just Meta. Intel, which is struggling because of multiple reasons including the AI chip race, let go more than 2,000 employees in the U.S. this week.

And Nokia, the telecommunications equipment maker, just announced over 2,000 job cuts in China, where life becomes ever harder for Western businesses.

It’s not clear how many Meta employees are affected by the latest cuts there, but the figure’s unlikely to be in the same ballpark.

Zuora goes private in $1.7 billion deal

In 2018, Zuora was on top of the world. The business software company had just gone public on the New York Stock Exchange. Founder and CEO Tien Tzuo had published a philosophical book called Subscribed. Seemingly everything was moving to a subscription-based business model—music to the ears of a company built to launch and manage such things.

It’s been tough sledding in the years since. Revenue growth has proven steady but unspectacular. Rounds of layoffs have been demoralizing, even if they’ve kept the company’s profits in line. And the company’s stock has been hovering below $10 a share, making it a prime acquisition target.

The winning suitors? None other than private equity firm Silver Lake and Singaporean wealth fund GIC. The pair announced Thursday that they will pick up Zuora for what amounts to $1.7 billion, a 6.2% premium, when the deal closes in early 2025.

In theory, going private will allow Zuora to reverse its recent slowdown and better compete with billing rivals SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce. At least that’s what its new owners, uh, subscribe to. —AN

FCC will require hearing aids, phones to work together

It’s a win for the hearing impaired everywhere.

The Federal Communications Commission approved new regulations on Thursday that require phonemakers to make their devices compatible with hearing aids, and vice versa.

The rule includes recently approved over-the-counter hearing aids, which includes Apple’s “clinical grade” AirPods Pro 2.

The FCC didn’t stop there. The federal agency approved a regulation that requires all new mobile handsets sold in the U.S. to allow users to raise the volume without introducing distortion. It also rolled out mandates that phone labels at point of sale include hearing aid compatibility.

After a transition period, “Americans with hearing loss will no longer be limited … in the mobile handset marketplace,” the FCC said. To which we say: Heard. —AN