Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Amazon: these behemoths have shaped our world. Now, however, the world is shaping them. Faced with a global downturn, a US economy that appears headed for recession and interest rates shooting up across the west, big tech is in big trouble.
Last week, Meta – which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – declared it will sack 11,000 employees – more than 13% of its staff. A week earlier, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, got rid of half the workforce. In August, Snap, the parent firm of Snapchat, reduced staff by 20%. Amazon has announced a hiring freeze, while the payments-processing platform Stripe is also shedding 14% of its workers.
A bleak time lies ahead for many of those employees and their families, as well as the firms…