Meta lays off another 10,000 employees; India investigating crypto startups for money laundering

One Thing Today in Tech

Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms will lay off 10,000 more workers and incur restructuring costs ranging from $3 billion to $5 billion, the company announced Tuesday, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg warning economic instability could continue for “many years,” CNBC reports. Also in this brief, OpenAI releases GPT-4, the latest version of its large language model AI; and Infosys sees a second big exit in 2023, as Mohit Joshi, a president and 22-year veteran at the Bengaluru company, is named CEO-designate at smaller rival Tech Mahindra.

Notes:

Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms will lay off 10,000 more workers and incur restructuring costs ranging from $3 billion to $5 billion, the company announced Tuesday, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg warning economic instability could continue for “many years,” CNBC reports.

The company will also close 5,000 additional open roles that it hasn’t filled yet. In an SEC filing announcing the cuts, Meta also said it anticipated lowered total expenses in 2023, ranging from $86 billion to $92 billion.

India’s Enforcement Directorate is investigating several crypto cases for money-laundering schemes and has seized Rs. 953.7 crore or about $115.5 million to date in such crimes, TechCrunch reports, citing the Ministry of Finance.

The ministry’s statement was in a written response to a question in the country’s parliament, which was published on the Lok Sabha’s website on March 13.

OpenAI, yesterday, announced the next version of its primary large language model, GPT-4 which it says exhibits “human-level performance” on many professional tests, CNBC reports.

GPT-4 is more accurate than the previous versions GPT-3 and GPT-3.5, according to OpenAI. It performed at the 90th percentile on a simulated bar exam, the 93rd percentile on an SAT reading exam, and the 89th percentile on the SAT Math exam, according to the company.

However, the company warns that the new software is far from perfect or reliable in many scenarios. It still has a major problem with “hallucination,” or making responses up, and is still prone to insisting it is correct when it is wrong.

And in some IT services news, I bring you the update, a little belatedly, that Mohit Joshi, last week, resigned as president of Infosys, to be named managing director and CEO-designate at Tech Mahindra.

Mohit will take over as MD & CEO on Dec. 20, as the long-time incumbent CP Gurnani retires on Dec. 19, according to the Mumbai-listed company’s stock exchange filing and a press release on March 11. Mohit is expected to join much earlier to facilitate a good transition.

Mohit’s 22-year tenure at Infosys will come to an end in June and till then he will be on leave, MoneyControl reports. This is the second big exit for Infosys in 2023, after Ravi Kumar S, also an Infosys President at the time left to become CEO of larger US-based rival Cognizant Technology Solutions, in January.

Before Infosys, where he worked from the year 2000, Mohit worked with ABN AMRO and ANZ Grindlays in their Corporate and Investment bank. Mohit has lived and worked in Asia, America and Europe and currently lives with his wife and two daughters in London, according to the press release.