Meta, Amazon and Microsoft post huge earnings, but tech layoffs pile up

In the biggest set of earnings results of the new year, not every tech company outperformed, but those that did really set the pace for a better year.

Meta Platforms’ stock jumped 20% on Friday after profits tripled, while investors also liked Amazon’s renewed growth. Microsoft killed it too, but investors decided to take some profits after buying its stock like crazy for the past year. Google parent Alphabet did OK but investors wanted more ad growth.

Meantime, though, layoffs continued and even some big tech companies such as Alphabet warned that hiring would remain flat at best. These layoffs may be more strategic than last year’s — which no doubt helped produce those improved profits — but that’s cold comfort to those without a job.

Late breaking Friday, perhaps a thaw in initial public offerings is coming as spring approaches? Reports Friday indicate Rubrik and Reddit are both looking at IPOs.

AI continued to draw more attention from regulators — partly thanks to Taylor Swift of all people — but it got just as much attention from investors still piling into the hot new thing.

If you can stomach yet another glimpse of the thinking of some of Silicon Valley’s loudest elites, it’s worth checking out an article in the Atlantic that has gotten a lot of attention and some criticism. I’m not alone in thinking these people are entirely too full of themselves, especially when it comes to politics, which they regularly show they know nothing about, so the worry about them in that realm seems over the top. But they certainly have plenty of influence in the tech realm, so it’s good to know where they’re coming from.

This and other news will be discussed in John Furrier’s and Dave Vellante’s weekly podcast theCUBE Pod, out this afternoon on YouTube. And don’t miss Vellante’s weekly deep dive Breaking Analysis coming Saturday.

Here’s a sampling of this week’s news:

AI: Mo’ regs, mo’ money

Biden Administration to implement new AI regulations on tech companies

Italian data protection regulator accuses OpenAI of violating GDPR rules

EU member states approve landmark AI regulation

Who had America’s sweetheart driving AI policy changes on their 2024 predictions list? Microsoft and X respond to Taylor Swift AI misuse with increased content moderation

Anecdotal evidence that increased AI investment is indeed sucking investment from other areas: AI Infrastructure Focus is Delaying Front-End Network Deployments, According to Dell’Oro Group and Investors threw 50% less money at quantum last year But it’s also boosting investment in cloud infrastructure of all kinds.

TrueMedia.org aims to use AI to fight political deepfakes

Google powers up Bard with Gemini Pro and releases new AI tools

Google Maps adds generative AI to maps for local search

Kore.ai rakes in $150M to build generative AI tools for global brands

AI startup Sema4.ai, led by former Cloudera CEO Rob Bearden, raises $30.5M

Korean AI chip startup Rebellions raises $124M at $650M+ valuation

Report: Humanoid robot startup Figure AI seeks $500M raise led by Microsoft and OpenAI

DataSnipper nabs $100M for its AI-powered accounting automation platform

OpenAI introduces a new customized GPT feature

Meta releases more powerful Code Llama 70B model for writing software

Codeium reels in $65M for its AI-powered coding platform

Amazon debuts AI-powered Rufus shopping assistant

Allen Institute for AI launches open and transparent OLMo large language model

ThoughtSpot’s generative AI assistant gets more personal

Cognizant introduces Flowsource, a new generative AI platform for software engineering

Neurelo launches with $5M in funding to simplify database connectivity headaches

Databricks acquires team behind natural language data notebook Einblick (from VentureBeat)

Enterprise and cloud: earnings ups and downs

The big earnings week: Big tech largely came through with upside surprises, with Amazon and Meta in particular beating expectations and seeing their stock rise smartly, though Apple, Alphabet and AMD disappointed investors a bit, as did smaller companies such as Extreme Networks and Atlassian. It’s a mixed bag but a lot of it seems to have to do with macro expectations, which remain uncertain as the Fed’s continuing caution on interest-rate cuts trumps the near-perfect soft landing of the economy.

Microsoft again blows away earnings estimates as AI’s contribution grows

Alphabet’s stock falls as advertising revenue falls short of Wall Street’s targets

Amazon’s stock rises after it trounces analysts’ earnings expectations

Strong iPhone sales help Apple return to growth, but its stock falls on cautious guidance

Meta’s operating profit triples as it smashes forecasts, sending its stock 20% higher

Light guidance weighs heavily on AMD, sending its stock lower

Super Micro’s stock pops on monster earnings and revenue outlook

Samsung records lowest annual profit in more than 15 years

Qualcomm beats the Street’s estimates but warns of slow smartphone recovery

Commvault shares jump on expectation-topping quarterly results

F5 Networks shares pop on surprise revenue and earnings beats

Juniper announces unsurprising preliminary earnings as Cisco acquisition awaits

Shares of Extreme Networks tumble 16%+ on mixed earnings

Despite solid figures, Atlassian shares fall on widening quarterly loss

OpenText impresses with strong revenue growth driven by increased bookings

In other news

Late-breaking Friday: Rubrik (per Reuters) and Reddit (per the Wall Street Journal) are both reportedly looking at going public soon.

Intel puts brakes on $20B chip plant project in Ohio

Dell terminates agreement with VMware after Broadcom acquisition (from the WSJ)

Extreme Networks goes deep on the cloud and subscriptions

SAP announces new migration program to help ERP customers embrace the cloud

Juniper Networks debuts Marvis Minis for simulating and preempting network issues

Cisco teams with Microsoft and Samsung for enhanced hybrid meeting collaboration

Arrcus says it can cut cloud egress fees by up to 40%

Storage appliance maker Nyriad seeking sale after fundraising effort falls through

Pathlight rebrands as Echo AI and debuts new marketing automation features

Cyber beat

Dynatrace expands security capabilities with acquisition of Runecast And an analysis by Rob Strechay: ​​Dynatrace’s latest moves and the future of observability Plus coverage of Dynatrace’s Perform event in Las Vegas: Riding the wave: How Dynatrace looks to capitalize on growth of AI and need for transparency

CISA instructs federal agencies to disconnect deployments of vulnerable Ivanti products

US disrupts botnet operated by Chinese state-sponsored hacking group

Cloudflare Atlassian server hacked by suspected nation-state attacker

Interesting development: Report finds excessive honeypots are spoiling cybersecurity data accuracy

FTC orders software maker Blackbaud to overhaul cybersecurity practices

Protect AI acquires Laiyer AI to strengthen large language model security

Quantinuum and Keyfacor partner to strengthen the root of trust with quantum entropy

SentinelOne announces new services to bolster enterprise threat detection and response

And funding keeps coming:

Israeli non-human identity management startup Oasis Security raises $40M

Incognia raises $31M for expansion of digital identity solutions

AI-powered data security and privacy automation startup LightBeam.ai raises $17.8M

Really old tech FTW : https://twitter.com/d_feldman/status/1751831764207612357

Elsewhere in tech

Amazon ends $1.7B acquisition deal for iRobot amid regulatory issues

‘You have blood on your hands’: US senators blast social media leaders over child safety

Neuralink has implanted a brain chip in a human for the first time, according to Elon Musk

AR glasses maker Xreal raises $60M to expand production

Portal raises $34M for secure decentralized bitcoin exchange

Analysis from theCUBE Research

… and our analyst partners in theCUBE Collective. We’re publishing a lot more research with even more to come, so check out theCUBE Research for more.

Breaking Analysis: Enterprise technology predictions 2024

Dynatrace’s latest moves and the future of observability

Webex Contact Center powered by AI is designed for business optimization – the challenge is awareness

Six cloud security trends we’re watching in 2024

Dbt Labs staffing up: Will this be the year of the Data Platform IPO?

AI, sustainability and enterprise tech marketing take center stage at CES 2024

Extreme Networks goes deep on the cloud and subscriptions

Coming and goings

Layoff watch

PayPal and Block latest two tech companies to announce layoffs

Okta to cut 400 employees a year after its last round of layoffs

Also: Zoom is cutting 150 jobs, less than 2% of its workforce, and Proofpoint is laying off 280 people, or 6% of its staff.

And the media meltdown continues (though this publication was never a great idea, a very bad $50 million bet that people wanted me-too general news): The Messenger is shutting down (from Axios)

In other moves

Mark Porter, former chief technology officer at MongoDB, joined dbt Labs as CTO. Is it heading toward an IPO? Rob Strechay thinks it’s possible: Dbt Labs staffing up: Will this be the year of the Data Platform IPO?

Former Dell Technologies and Iron Mountain exec Jim D’Orisio is Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s new senior vice president and general manager of its storage business.

Dave Russell takes over as CTO of Veeam, moving over from VP of enterprise strategy after the departure of CTO Danny Allan.

Ioannis Antonoglou, co-developer of Google’s Gemini large language model, is leaving the company’s DeepMind unit to do a startup (from The Information).

Coming next

Lots more earnings next week:

Monday, Feb. 5: NXP Semi and Palantir

Tuesday, Feb. 6: Check Point Software, Fortinet, Tenable, Kyndryl, Snap and Freshworks

Wednesday, Feb. 7: Uber, Arm, Confluent, Rapid7 and PayPal

Thursday, Feb. 8: Dynatrace, Cloudflare, CyberArk

Image: SiliconANGLE/Google Bard