This week the africast returns to discuss the recent spate of mass layoffs sweeping through Silicon Valley, with the likes of Meta (formerly Facebook), Twitter, Amazon and several others culling workforces.

Before that, however, we discuss the week’s most important news stories, starting with a report from the CSIR regarding the number of hours that the country has had to deal with loadshedding in 2022 to date. With Eskom noting that continuous loadshedding will be a fixture for South Africa over the next six to 12 months, the nation’s power utility is in an even worse position than we initially thought.

Next is some new silicon from Qualcomm in the form of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Built on the same 4nm architecture as its predecessors, it is the third iteration in this lineup and will be utilised by many Android phone makers on flagship devices next year. Some of the OEMs include brands available in SA, including OPPO, vivo, ASUS Republic of Gamers and more, so we should see many offering sporting the new processor.

Our last piece of news surrounds The Game Awards 2022, taking place on 8th December. As predicted, both Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarok feature heavily among the nominees. With voting now open to the public, it will be interesting to see which of these titles takes home the Game of the Year title, as opinion is split on this podcast as to who will win.

As for the meat and potatoes, we are looking at the increasing number of mass layoffs at Silicon Valley companies. Many of the firings are the result of miscalculations during the pandemic, coupled with the global economic downturn and the rising cost of living. These factors have all come together in a Tech Winter that could last for quite some time, along with resulting in some casualties too, like the currently embattled Twitter.

Mentioned in this africast: 

• Musk will be sleeping at Twitter for awhile
• Top executives at Twitter have resigned as chaos descends 
• Zuckerberg decides to axe 11 000 people at Meta
• Amazon confirms mass layoffs, but not how many
• Eskom had more loadshedding between July and September than the rest of the year combined
• Game of the Year 2022 nominations revealed
• Next year’s flagship Android phones will be running the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

[Image – Photo by Madhur Chadha on Unsplash]