One important thing: Byju's founder Byju Raveendran is in talks to raise funds to buy back as much as 15% of the company by using his shares as collateral, as per Bloomberg.

• Byju's was last valued at $22 billion, although the buyback may happen at a lower valuation, the report says.

In today’s newsletter:

• Google suffers initial setback in CCI fight
• PhonePe's $1B tax bill for Walmart
• Gloomy times for IT sector

Bonus: A prominent tech company is cancelling all its recurring meetings and encouraging employees to say no to them. Scroll below for more deets!

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Google has suffered an early setback in its fight against the Competition Commission of India (CCI)'s recent Android antitrust order. 

National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has declined Google's plea to stay the antitrust watchdog's October 2022 ruling against its Android business.

The order had directed the company to modify its conduct against smartphone makers with corrective measures, apart from imposing a penalty of Rs 1,337.76 crore.

• NCLAT has ordered the search giant to deposit 10% of the penalty amount as an interim measure. The final hearing is now expected in April.

Also Read: Antitrust watchdog CCI's ruling against Google and what it means for the smartphone ecosystem

Google has previously said the move opens "serious security risks for Indians who trust Android's security features and potentially raises the cost of mobile devices for Indians"

Yesterday, the search giant alleged in a legal filing to the tribunal that CCI's investigation unit had "copy-pasted extensively" from a European Commission antitrust ruling against Android business, deploying "evidence from Europe that was not examined in India", according to Reuters.

CCI has issued a separate antitrust order against Google's Play Store policies in October 2022 and is currently probing the company's alleged dominance in areas such as the smart TV market and news aggregation among others in the country.

It's a big billion day of a different kind for Walmart.

The US retail major and other PhonePe shareholders have to shell out $1 billion in tax as a consequence of shifting the domicile of the fintech company from Singapore to India, according to Bloomberg.

The tax bill is due to the relocation and rise in value of PhonePe, which Walmart took majority ownership of after acquiring parent outfit Flipkart in 2018.

• Investors, including Tiger Global Management, have now purchased shares of PhonePe in India at a new price.

The new price is also due to a fundraise by PhonePe on the horizon at a $12 billion valuation. These factors have led to tax implications of roughly Rs 8,000 crore for existing shareholders.

In October, PhonePe moved its registered entity from Singapore to India ahead of its plans to launch an IPO in the country.

• A source however told us earlier that moving the domicile to India was also because PhonePe's many businesses come under the purview of the regulators here.

Meanwhile, Flipkart will also buy back employee stock options worth about $700 million from staff as a part of its move to separate ownership of PhonePe.

Watch: PhonePe is made in India, will list in India: How Sameer Nigam & Rahul Chari built a unique unicorn

The Q3 IT earnings kicks off next week with Tata Consultancy Services.

While the quarterly results are expected to be muted, analysts at JP Morgan say it could be the beginning of Indian IT’s great reset. The industry’s growth levels are expected to be down from the mid-teens to 6-8%, it mentioned in a note.

NSE IT underperformed Nifty by 30%, and a slowdown in Q3-FY23 is expected, but the note by JP Morgan pointed out that Q4-FY23 is not likely to be great either.

• In fact, it expects growth in the IT sector to remain modest in FY23 or going up to FY24.

Why? While leadership teams may say that furloughs are the cause for slowdown in Q3, Q4 is expected to be weak due to macro concerns, and slower decision making driving flatter tech budgets and delayed deal closures.

Growth recovery beyond CY23/FY24 is also expected to be modest, with the analysts citing the lack of new disruptive tech drivers beyond cloud adoption.

Margin recovery of IT companies too is expected to be limited, due to pricing pressure and slowing growth.

Startups are playing a crucial role in the development of jobs all across India in addition to bringing a multitude of disruptive inventions to market. But how do we accelerate their growth? 

In a column for Moneycontrol, 100X.VC founder Sanjay Mehta presents a wishlist from that startup community for the upcoming Union Budget 2023.

Read the column

January 4 marks the birth anniversary of Isaac Newton, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists and among one of the most influential scientists of all time.

His three laws of motion, which explain the relationship between the motion of a physical object and the forces acting upon it, laid the foundation for classical mechanics.

The legend also has it that Newton discovered gravity when he saw an Apple falling from a tree, which led to him formulating the law of universal gravitation.

Image credit: Wellcome Library, London, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

• FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in US court to eight criminal charges related to the sudden collapse of the now-bankrupt crypto exchange, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering and violate campaign finance laws. 

• The turmoil in the crypto industry throughout 2022 will lead to more stable companies in 2023, according to Circle's chief strategy officer Dante Disparte.

What is the biggest time sink in any company? The innumerable long, slow and (mostly) unproductive meetings that one has to participate in every week.

As the new work year begins, e-commerce firm Shopify is helping its employees start with a clean slate.

The Canadian tech company is cancelling all its recurring meetings with more than two people and enforcing a “two-week cooling off period” before any of these meetings can be added back to the calendars.

"Meetings are a bug. Today, we shipped a fix to this bug at Shopify ... Companies are for builders. Not managers" says COO Kaz Nejatian. 

We hope more companies emulate this policy!