One quick thing: PhonePe has raised another $100 million from General Atlantic, as part of its ambitious $1 billion funding round. 

• With this, the company has now raised $750 million from a group of investors that includes Tiger Global, Walmart, Ribbit Capital, and others

In today’s newsletter:

• TCS turns cautiously pessimistic
• Good news for Dailyhunt and Josh employees
• Elon Musk says Twitter will play safe in India

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India’s largest IT company Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) kicked off the IT earnings season on a tepid note, with signs of macroeconomic headwinds getting reflected in its commentary. 

• The company’s revenue and margins both came below estimates
  
  
• Order book was $10 billion for Q4, down 11.5% year-on-year

In fact, outgoing CEO Rajesh Gopinathan said this quarter was weaker than expected primarily due to North America, its largest market. 

• This was Gopinathan’s 25th press conference as CEO, and also his last one in the position

TCS expected North America to recover well, which hasn’t happened. Other markets, however, grew as expected. 

The company’s exposure to BFSI is the highest among its tier-1 peers. 

It was expected to weigh on the company as the quarter was marred by the global banking crisis with the collapse of several US-based regional banks.

• The company saw volatility in banking and said it was difficult to call out how long this will last
  
  
• People rushed to save costs in BFSI, sentiments were down
   
• Some transformation or discretionary projects could get cancelled if there is further deterioration in sentiment

This pessimism has also shown in hiring, a strong indicator of demand. 

TCS saw a steep drop in its net headcount addition for the fiscal year that just ended, when compared to the preceding year — at 22,600 in FY23 v/s 1.3 lakh in FY22. 

It’s not all bad news though. It has rolled out offers to 46,000 freshers for FY24 already, at a time onboarding delays have become a norm in the industry. 

The funding winter and macroeconomic downturn have hit startups hard, leading to some of the most successful companies laying off employees and cutting salaries for founders.

VerSe Innovation,  the parent company of news aggregator Dailyhunt and short video platform Josh, joined the growing list of unicorns implementing cost-cutting measures in November. But over the last four months, the company has changed course and undone some of these cost-cutting initiatives.

VerSe has decided to reverse its decision of pay cuts starting next month, in a rare instance of a unicorn overturning cost-cutting initiatives in the recent past.

• In November, the company announced salary cuts of up to 11% for employees earning more than Rs 10 lakh amid worsening macroeconomic headwinds
  
  
• VerSe also laid off about 150 employees 

In addition to reversing pay cuts, co-founder and CEO Umang Bedi said that the company would expand its ESOP pool in order to incentivise employees.

• Employees will also be given incentives based on their performance in FY23 (2022-23) or the previous fiscal year, Bedi told employees

Go deeper

Who repeatedly flip-flops from a point, but toes the line for safety? A gymnast? Yes, but a better answer today would be: Twitter's 'free speech absolutist' owner Elon Musk.

Musk said unequivocally today that if the choice is between complying with India's social media laws and having employees imprisoned, Twitter will choose compliance.

This remark was made during a Twitter Spaces interview with the BBC in response to a question about the blocking of content related to the broadcaster's controversial documentary on PM Modi.

"The rules in India for social media are quite strict and we cannot go beyond the laws of the country," he said.

In January, the Indian government used its emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021 to issue directions for blocking multiple Twitter posts that were sharing links to the documentary.

Also, a blast from the past: Elon Musk and Twitter fight over India's importance and standoff with govt

• Twitter's employee base is down nearly 80% to about 1,500 people
  
  
• Paid verifications are here to stay and social media companies that don't insist on it will cease to be relevant
  
  
• Musk’s dog Floki is now Twitter CEO, thus honouring the mercurial billionaire's promise to step down as CEO last year
  
  
• Musk thought one of Twitter's data centers was redundant and shut it down in late December, but that turned out to be 'quite catastrophic'
  
  
• Twitter is roughly breaking even and could be cash flow positive as soon as this quarter
  
  
• Most of the advertisers who had left the platform after the acquisition are back, or said they are coming back, with only a few exceptions 

Go deeper

Before the Twitter Spaces session, Musk tweeted that April 20th would be the "final date" for removing legacy blue checkmarks. What is special about April 20? It is regarded as a cannabis holiday in the United States.

• The move comes at a time when Twitter has ceased to become an independent company after merging with a newly formed firm X Corp, as per a recent US court filing

Read: Doge in, Larry Bird out: How Elon Musk is reshaping Twitter

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin made history by becoming the first human being to travel into space aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1. During his flight, the 27-year-old Gagarin achieved another incredible feat by becoming the first person to orbit the planet.

Quick Trivia: Unlike the early US human spaceflight programs, Vostok's reentry was computer-controlled. However, instead of landing inside a capsule, Gagarin ejected from the spacecraft and descended to Earth by parachute. (Picture credit: NASA)

• South Korean authorities are in the process of freezing Terraform co-founder Do Kwon's assets worth $5.3 million and are tracking his overseas proceeds and Swiss bank accounts. Kwon was arrested in March following an Interpol red notice issued in September.  
  
  
• A bankruptcy judge is set to decide whether FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried can access the company's $10 million director and officer liability insurance to pay for his substantial legal expenses.

MS Dhoni, the charismatic captain of Chennai Super Kings (CSK), is all set to etch his name in the annals of Indian Premier League (IPL) history once again. 

Dhoni will make his 200th appearance as the captain of the Yellow Brigade, as they take on the Rajasthan Royals at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai tonight.

Having joined the franchise way back in 2008, Dhoni has been an integral part of the CSK setup, leading them to four IPL titles. He has captained the team in 199 matches in the IPL. He has won 120 of those matches, lost 78, and one match has been a no-result.

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