Nasdaq CEO on IPOs, Crypto & Market Stability

Jerome Cody

@Nate damn

More Pain to Come Naturally, with the S&P 500 down 17% in the year to date, and the Nasdaq 100 tech sector index down 33%, the question everyone wants an answer to is: When will things get better? Many of the largest tech companies are making the answer clear: It won’t be soon. Take Google’s parent, Alphabet, for example. Mark and Amir reported Wednesday that the company is limiting business travel and asking managers to review upcoming trips. And CEO Sundar Pichai said today at the Code conference that the company is looking to increase productivity by 20%, which its hiring freeze should make easier, as Erin first reported. Netflix, too, is cutting cloud computing, real estate and corporate swag costs, according to The Wall Street Journal, which followed a report in The Information a few months ago about Netflix telling staffers to be more careful with their spending. Meta Platforms, for its part, has scaled back its ambitions in various areas, as we reported on Tuesday. And of course, plenty of tech firms have cut staff. To be sure, these cuts are an effort to boost profitability, which is ultimately what matters. However, all these cuts are a sign that companies aren’t expecting business conditions to get better in the near term. —Akash Pasricha