1 important thing: SoftBank Group is planning to cut at least 20% of staff at its loss-churning Vision Fund operation.

• Earlier this week, Vision Fund head Rajeev Misra had stepped down from his roles as a corporate officer and executive vice president.

In today's newsletter:

• A new SaaS war: BrowserStack Vs LambdaTest
• Flipkart is saving every penny
• Google’s gift to app developers

Have you played truth or dare? Sure you would have.

Imagine getting a job offer from a rival company of yours and it comes with uneasy strings attached, so now you either play truth and inform your present employer about it or you dare and take the job offer. Let me explain and you get your popcorn ready!

In the heat and dust of competition, cross-browser testing platform LambdaTest is facing charges of trying to gain unethical access to BrowserStack’s core intellectual properties and sensitive client data.

• Sources tell us that LambdaTest has approached at least 60 employees of BrowserStack since January with an attractive salary package not just for their skill set but to get some confidential data and develop the same products that BrowserStack is developing.

LambdaTest was specifically asking the product engineering candidates to develop the entire public cloud infrastructure, local connection testing tool which is the core IP and a product of BrowserStack. For the sales team, the soft nudge was for some niche, SMB client data.

Most of the BrowserStack employees rejected the offer as they felt it was unethical and also feared that it might result in a lawsuit. About 7-8 employees joined the rival firm.

This is clearly a fight for top talent and the lucrative $50 billion testing market globally, also it is an easy way to get to the top. Imagine if your new employee comes with the right skillset plus brings in your rival's client data and future project details too. Voila!

But, HR experts and Investors say that this kind of unethical poaching will always backfire. HR experts are alsp advising companies to diversify their talent sourcing and not just depend on employees from rival firms.

The company has denied the accusations and said that the company is focussing only on charting and trailblazing a path of its own, and doesn't really have time to do all the accusations stated.

Delve deeper to know more

The current recession-like environment has not spared any one in the tech industry, be it startups or large tech giants.

Everyone is taking a range of measures to tackle these macro environment challenges. And Walmart-owned Flipkart is no different.

Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said at a industry conference today that they are cutting down spending across new experiments, capex, and mergers & acquisitions.

• In his keynote, Krishnamurthy attributed the reversal of fortunes to the end of cheap money as central banks tighten monetary policy, a softening of the global economy, supply shocks in essential commodities, and overestimation of the digital shift due to Covid outbreak.

A slowdown in the funding of growth and late-stage technology companies was the flavour of discussions at the conference today.

"In 2022, we are seeing a big reset. From 8-9X revenue multiples (in terms of valuations) in 2018 to 15x in 2021, we are back to the 2018 levels. There have been big corrections in valuations of e-commerce and work-from-home companies. Fintech is one of the worst hit categories” Krishnamurthy said.

While several investors and entrepreneurs conceded that early-stage startups do not have a lot to worry about in the near term, they maintained that a path to profitability was the writing on the wall for more mature companies.

• The average monthly Series B and Series C rounds for startups, typically called growth-stage rounds, have fallen 25 percent in the first half of the year, as per data shared by Tracxn.

Google is set to fulfill a long-standing demand of app developers, albeit with a catch. 

Google is extending its third-party in-app billing pilot programme to India and four other markets such as Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and the European Economic Area.

• The pilot enables developers to offer an additional billing system to users along with that of Google Play. This comes amid rising scrutiny over Google Play's business practices across the world, including a CCI probe in India.

All non-gaming developers across the world can sign up to participate in the pilot and offer this alternate payment option to its mobile and tablet users in these five markets.

• Google will still charge a service fee for transactions through these alternative billing systems but will reduce it by 4 percent, the company said. It claims that 99 percent of its developers qualify for a service fee of 15 percent or lower at present.

Google currently takes a 15 percent cut from the first $1 million revenue developers earn using the Play billing system every year, after which the fees double to 30 percent.

• Subscription-based services are however charged at a flat 15 percent fee, with ebooks and on-demand music streaming services eligible for more reductions in its service fee that can be as low as 10 percent.

Google has introduced mandatory Google Play billing across the world from June 1, with India being the only exception. Following an intense backlash from domestic app developers, Google has extended the policy deadline in the country to October 31, 2022.

• The Reserve Bank of India is holding consultations with US fintech company FIS and is said to have asked four public sector banks in India to run a pilot Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) project ahead of a possible rollout in this financial year.

• Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has hit back at critics, reiterating that Binance is not a Chinese company. He claimed the company was never incorporated there nor does it operate like a Chinese company culturally.

• Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius is seeking to return $50 million worth cryptocurrency to a small set of users who are locked out of their accounts.

It's a big day for "The Lord of the Rings" fans and Amazon as the online retail giant releases its highly anticipated magnum opus "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power"

• The stakes are unusually high on this show, bearing a price tag of over $1 billion, making it possibly the most expensive television series of all time.

It's likely that everyone's eyes would be on how this show performs. 

• Watch it on Amazon Prime Video

P.S. If you love cringe shows (no judgement!), then the second season of 'The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives' is also available on Netflix.