What's latest at Musk's Twitter: Elon Musk has finally suggested how much he might charge for the Twitter Blue subscription and, most likely, for the Blue tick verification as well. In response to a tweet, he suggested $8. A look at the latest updates on Musk's Twitter in the last 24 hours:

• More exits in store: Twitter's chief customer officer Sarah Personette said in a tweet today that she resigned last Friday and her work access has been cut off. Twitter’s head of product Jay Sullivan has deleted his bio while head of engineering Nick Caldwell has included the word “former” in his bio.

• Musk has roped in Indian-born Sriram Krishnan to help work on Twitter. Krishnan is a general partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

• Musk's bio now says "Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator" instead of "Chief Twit"

• The tech billionaire said in a filing he will serve as chief executive of Twitter
  
  
• Elon Musk is reportedly looking to reboot Twitter's short video app Vine, which was shut down in 2016

• Musk also dressed up for Halloween in a leathery suit that cost A LOT of money.

Meanwhile, Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder and CEO of Koo, has urged Twitter users to "switch to Koo" and indicated that the company has no plans to charge users for a verification badge.

In today’s newsletter:   

• WhatsApp biz takes off in India
• Big Tech companies feel the pinch 
• More layoffs at Byju’s?

Bonus: One of India's most prestigious institutes is now allowing students and faculty members to take up to a year off to start their own venture. Scroll down for more deets!

Millions of Indians begin and end their day with WhatsApp. Parent Meta is now looking to tap into the app's ubiquitous presence to expand its revenue sources beyond traditional digital advertising for its future growth prospects.

WhatsApp, which makes money by helping businesses and brands to engage with their customers, is set to hit revenue of $1 billion in India by next year, people familiar with the matter told us.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg recently said that business messaging is a “major monetisation opportunity” and is among the three primary areas where they will focus their investment in 2023.

• A major chunk of the revenues is currently coming from "click to message"/ "click to WhatsApp" ads that recently crossed a $1.5 billion run rate, growing more than 80 percent year on year.

The social networking giant wants to double down on WhatsApp's customer support software and its API platform, to create a SaaS-like revenue stream that is more predictable than online advertising.

"WhatsApp Business has built more product features in FY22 than the past five years combined. So it has transformed into a completely new offering", said Aakrit Vaish, chief executive of Haptik.

For Meta, the idea is to complete the entire customer journey - from discovery to customer support and transactions - within its family of apps. Locking customers to their own platforms will help Meta to monetise better while reducing the dependency on Apple and Google platforms.

Unsolicited promotional messages from brands on WhatsApp are rearing its ugly head, which is causing frustration among many users. Without robust controls in place to tackle them, this could potentially dampen future revenue growth.

Go deeper

Last week, Big Tech companies reported lacklustre earnings, stocks plummeted, and they sounded a note of caution regarding the future.

• The FAAMNG companies—Facebook (Meta), Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and Google (Alphabet)—have all either announced hiring freezes, reduced personnel additions going forward, or layoffs. That pinch is being felt in India as well.

 According to Xpheno data, these companies currently have less than 4,000 active job openings in India currently, down 90 percent from their typical volumes of around 40,000. 

• Google, Apple and Microsoft’s job openings in India are currently in the low three digits.

Hiring has declined significantly across a wide range of skill sets and functions, and is primarily only for critical roles.

It's unlikely to be Indian IT giants or B2C startups, as the former is also limiting hiring and the latter is going through a funding winter.  Additionally, as Monster.com CEO Sekhar Garisa says, the talent in product and service companies rarely intersect.

In the current hiring market, non-tech companies looking for tech talent may benefit. 

But what about the long term? And are there any sectors that stand to gain? Read on.

Last month, Byju’s announced laying off five percent of its staff or over 2,500 employees, in what was one of the biggest mass layoffs announced in the history of India’s startup ecosystem. 

Did you believe that was it, and that Byju's had cut enough flab? That does not appear to be the case, as additional layoffs are likely at the world's most-valued edtech firm.

Over 5,000, or 10%, of Byju's employees, are said to have received performance notices in the last few weeks, which could be a sign of more layoffs at the edtech company.

Byju's also recently changed its internal policy for its sales executives. Now, if a salesperson can't meet 70 percent of their weekly targets, they will be fired right away.

• The assessment period will be of eight weeks or about two months

While the employees were notified about this policy in August, they only took it seriously when Byju’s announced mass layoffs on October 12. 

Byju's has always been aggressive in its advertising and marketing, but this time it is surprising given the firm appears to be cutting costs aggressively.

• It has signed up as the official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup this year
  
  
• Byju’s is also one of the main sponsors of the ongoing Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup
  
  
• A day before it announced layoffs, Byju's became the principal sponsor of an Indian Super League football club
  
  
• It also renewed its title sponsorship contract with the BCCI for $55 million

Besides, Byju’s has tied up with e-commerce companies like Flipkart and Zepto to give users on these platforms a ‘free class,’ which typically acts as a customer acquisition fuel.

Byju's seems to have set two parameters for itself: profitability and growth. The company reported a surprising revenue drop for FY21, despite the fact that it was overall the best year for India's edtech companies. To please its investors, it will need to show significant growth in FY22 and FY23.

On the other hand, the company’s losses surged to Rs 4,589 crore in FY21 from Rs 262 crore in FY20, which also seems to have spooked investors. In October, the company said in a statement that it will try to achieve company-level profitability by FY23.

The concerns around its valuation were visible as it raised its first-ever flat round at $22 billion in October, an indication of the valuation curve flattening for the edtech. It also put the spotlight on edtech valuations in India.

Some eye-popping anecdotes and details about Byju’s new policy for sales executives here.

After a wait of almost five months, the government has made changes to one of the country’s most important laws for regulating internet platforms. Now, the government has given itself the power to appoint a quasi-judicial body which will hear user appeals against the content moderation decisions of digital intermediaries.

• For users, these amendments provide a separate platform where they can appeal the decisions of intermediaries

• The panels will act as traffic lights for user appeals and need to resolve disputes within 30 days

• Non-compliance with the panel's decision would mean that it might lose its safe harbour protection.

Read our in-depth explainer about what it all means for users and platforms

• Coinbase is the latest organisation to support Ripple Labs in its legal battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The crypto exchange has petitioned a federal court for permission to file a friend-of-the-court (amicus) brief in the ongoing lawsuit.
  
  
• GameStop announced that its marketplace now supports NFTs created through the Ethereum layer-2 scaling network Immutable X. This means that assets from Web3 games can be bought and sold through the marketplace.

Imagine that you are in your second year of a tech degree and have just had a brilliant startup idea. What is stopping you from pursuing your goal - two more years of assignments, classes, examinations, and grades?

Well, two more years means someone else can have the same idea and build on it. Isn't that a bummer?

Don't worry if you are a BITSian entrepreneur. Birla Institute of Technology and Science now allows its students and faculty to take up to a year off to start up.

The new policy adds to BITS' progressive approach to tech education taking on IITs, which continue to dominate the startup and unicorn ecosystems in the country.

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