EBay to eliminate about 1,000 jobs, or 9% of full-time workforce Jamie Iannone, eBay’s CEO, told employees in a letter published on a corporate blog, that the company will also “scale back the number of contracts we have within our alternate workforce over the coming months.” Iannone said the job cuts are necessary because eBay’s “overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business.” “To address this, we’re implementing organizational changes that align and consolidate certain teams to improve the end-to-end experience, and better meet the needs of our customers around the world,” Iannone said. “Shortly, we will begin notifying those employees whose roles have been eliminated and entering into a consultation process in areas where required.” Translation: I regret to inform you that some of you will soon be joining the ranks of the jobless peasants. Why? Because we got greedy and hired way too many of you. Oopsie! As you know, running a successful business like eBay requires making very difficult decisions, like cutting costs instead of my eight-figure salary. Therefore, we have decided to axe a bunch of jobs to boost our profits. It's nothing personal, we just value shareholders more than employees. We will be handing out pink slips shortly. Please form an orderly line so security can swiftly escort you out. On your way, be sure to drop off your badge and parking pass. We wish you the best of luck in this economic hellscape we've created! For those of you still clinging to your jobs, work harder! We need to wring every last drop of blood, sweat and tears out of you to make up for those we fired. If you don't like it, you can go join the dirty jobless masses. Please direct any complaints to our automated customer service line, which never picks up. Have a very eBay day!

CoinTelegraph: A Colorado-based online pastor who has been charged with fraud for selling a “worthless” cryptocurrency says he only did it because “the Lord” told him to give his followers a “10X.” In a strange 9-minute video — posted to INDXcoin’s official website — INDXcoin founder and pastor Eli Regalado told users of the INDXcoin community that the charges being leveled against him and his partner were true. “The charges are that Kaitlin and I pocketed $1.3 million dollars, and I just want to come out and say those charges are true.” On Jan. 18, Eligio Regalado and his partner Kaitlin Regalado were charged with fraud for their role in issuing and marketing a sham token called “INDXcoin” to their followers, according to a statement from the Colorado Securities Commission. 780,000 words in the Bible, and there are still no words for this.

The old saying goes that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps - if they work hard enough. There's this pervasive and poisonous idea that success or failure rests solely on the individual and their effort. And if you don't make it, if you don't lift yourself out of poverty, if you can’t provide for your family (in the middle of a fucking recession, no less), it's your own damn fault, and yours alone. Reality check: not everyone starts off on equal footing in our society. Factors like race, gender, socioeconomic status, family background, access to education, networks, and more contribute to differences in opportunities and resources available to people…

Capital Brief: Blackbird-backed Kiki outlined plan to target 'corporate girlies' in December investor memo Blackbird-backed subletting startup Kiki wrote to investors on Christmas Eve to tell them that it was struggling and would pivot to target the “super niche persona of ‘corporate girlies’" aged between 25 and 28. The news that Kiki was pivoting from a subletting platform to a NY based “girls club” has been widely ridiculed in the startup ecosystem this week, and has also caused outrage among women given it has a founding team of five men. Kiki Club's testosterone-fueled founding team believing they could define women's needs would be laughable on its own if it weren't so infuriating. Capital Brief's scoop that the startup was happily categorising women as "corporate girlies" makes it so much worse. And it promotes the same tired, diminishing stereotypes that should be fossils by now. I'm all for good-faith efforts to serve underrepresented groups. But this ain't it. Kiki's terminology sets inclusion back to the Mad Men era. The brewing brouhaha spotlights the diversity wasteland that is startup leadership. Homogenous teams breed blindspots and build hubristic and superficial products, failing the very users they aim to serve. Tech still struggles to dismantle barriers to diversity, clinging to the status quo like a security blanket. And the next time, the so-called leaders throw up their hands, asking, "What more could we have done?" I'll point to bullshit like this - where inclusion takes a backseat, and even the fucking girls' club is run by the boys' club. To Blackbird, let me just say this: the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. When you read this investor memo, were you proud of where your money is going?