The United States has a history of using its military to provide food, water and other humanitarian aid to civilians during wars or natural disasters. The walls of the Pentagon are adorned with photographs of such operations in Haiti, Liberia, Indonesia and countless other countries.

But it is rare for the United States to try to provide such services to people bombarded with tacit American support.

President Biden’s decision to order the US military to build a floating pier off the Gaza Strip so that aid can be delivered by sea puts US military personnel in a new phase of their history of humanitarian assistance. The same army that sends the weapons and bombs that Israel uses in Gaza is now also sending food and water to the besieged area.

The idea of ​​a floating pier came a week after Mr Biden authorized humanitarian airborne landings on Gaza, which were criticized as inadequate by aid experts. Even the floating pier, aid experts say, will not do enough to alleviate suffering in the area, where residents are on the brink of starvation.

Nevertheless, senior Biden officials said, the United States will continue to supply Israel with the munitions it uses in Gaza as it tries to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians bombed there.

So the Pentagon does both.

For decades, the Army Corps of Engineers, with the help of combat engineers, has built floating docks where troops can cross rivers, unload supplies and conduct other military operations. Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said Friday that the Army’s Seventh Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), based at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, near Norfolk, Virginia, would be one of the key military units involved are involved in the construction of the floating pier for Gaza.

The dock will be built and assembled next to an army ship off the coast of Gaza, General Ryder said. The ship will need armed escorts, especially if it comes within range of the coast, Defense Ministry officials said, adding that they are working to ensure its protection.

A US military official said these operations typically involve a large ship being moored off the coast of the desired location, and a “roll-on-roll-off discharge facility” – a large floating dock – being built next to the ship to serve. as a waiting area. Cargo driven or placed on the dock is loaded onto smaller Navy boats and moved to a temporary pier or causeway anchored to shore.

The 1,800-foot-long, two-lane temporary levee is being built by Army engineers, flanked by tugboats and driven, or “stabbed,” into the shore. Cargo on board the smaller naval boats can then be driven up the dike and onto land.

General Ryder insisted Friday that the military could build the causeway and insert it into the coast without putting American boots — or fins — on the ground in Gaza. He said it would take 60 days and about 1,000 U.S. troops to move the ship into place from the east coast and build the wharf and causeway.

After the ship arrives offshore, it will take about seven to 10 days to assemble the floating dock and causeway, a Defense Department official said.

“This is part of an all-out push by the United States to focus not only on opening and expanding land roads, which is of course the optimal way to get aid into Gaza, but also on conducting air drops” , he said. Ryder said.

The floating pier will enable the delivery of “more than two million meals a day,” he said. The Gaza Strip has approximately 2.3 million inhabitants.

General Ryder acknowledged that neither the airborne landings nor the floating pier would be as effective as sending aid by land, which Israel has blocked. “We want to see a significant increase in the amount of aid coming through land,” General Ryder said. “We understand this is the most viable way to get help.”

But, he added, “we’re not going to wait.”

The United States will work with regional partners and European allies to build, finance and maintain the corridor, officials said, noting that the idea for the project originated in Cyprus.

On Thursday, Sigrid Kaag, the UN humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, welcomed Biden’s announcement. But speaking to reporters after briefing the Security Council, she added: “At the same time, I cannot but repeat: air and sea are not a substitute for land, and no one is saying otherwise.”

Biden’s humanitarian efforts in Gaza so far “might make a few people in the United States feel good,” Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, said in an interview. But, he added, “this is putting a very small band-aid on a very large wound.”

The humanitarian aid will likely be collected in Larnaca, Cyprus, about 130 nautical miles from Gaza, officials said. That would allow Israeli officials to first screen the shipments.

Although the temporary port will initially be operated by military personnel, Washington envisions it will eventually be operated commercially, the official said.

Officials did not elaborate on how aid delivered by sea from the coast would be transferred further into Gaza. But the help is partly distributed by the Spanish chef José Andrésfounder of the nonprofit World Central Kitchen, which has served more than 32 million meals in Gaza.

Two diplomats briefed on the plans said the port would be built on Gaza’s coastline, just north of the Wadi Gaza border crossing, where Israeli forces have built a key checkpoint.

However, the central problems remain unresolved. Aid officials say delivering supplies by truck is much more efficient and cheaper than bringing them to Gazans by boat. But trucks are still unable to deliver goods amid Israeli shelling and ground fighting, which is fierce in southern Gaza.

And delivering aid by sea may not prevent the chaos associated with deliveries.

More than 100 people in Gaza were killed last month, health officials there said, when hungry civilians rushed a convoy of aid trucks, sparking a stampede and prompting Israeli soldiers to fire into the crowd.

The U.S. military has dropped aid in the Middle East and South Asia during previous conflicts, even during wars in which the United States was directly involved.

In 2014, President Barack Obama ordered military planes to drop food and water to tens of thousands of Yazidis trapped on an arid mountain range in northwestern Iraq. The Yazidis, members of an ethnic and religious minority, were fleeing militants who threatened genocide.

In 2001, President George W. Bush ordered British and American forces attacking the Taliban in Afghanistan to drop daily rations to civilians trapped in remote areas of the country.

President Biden used his State of the Union address Thursday to remind Americans of his efforts to guide the nation’s economy out of a pandemic recession and to lay the groundwork for a second term aimed at making the economy by increasing taxes on businesses and corporations. the wealthy while taking steps to lower costs for the middle class.

Mr. Biden introduced a series of policies aimed squarely at the middle class, including efforts to make housing more affordable for first-time homebuyers. The president used his speech to try to differentiate his economic proposals from those of Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump. Those proposals largely focused on cutting taxes, rolling back the Biden administration’s investments in clean energy and gutting the Internal Revenue Service.

Many of Biden’s policy proposals require action from Congress and depend on Democrats gaining control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. However, the president also unveiled plans to direct federal agencies to use their powers to lower costs on expensive items like housing, at a time when the lingering effects of inflation continue to weigh on economic sentiment.

From taxes and housing to inflation and consumer protection, Mr. Biden had his eye on pocketbook issues.

Raising taxes on the rich

Many of the tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017 are set to expire next year, making tax policy among the most critical issues on the ballot this year.

On Thursday night, Biden built on many of the tax proposals he has promoted over the past three years, calling on big corporations and the wealthiest Americans to pay more. He proposed raising a new minimum tax on corporations from 15 to 21 percent and proposed a new 25 percent minimum tax rate for billionaires, which he said would raise $500 billion over ten years.

Mr. Biden criticized the cost of the 2017 tax cuts, asking, “Do you really think the rich and big corporations need another $2 trillion in tax breaks?”

Help for the housing market

High interest rates have made housing unaffordable for many Americans, and Mr. Biden called for a mix of measures to help ease those costs. That included tax breaks and mortgage assistance for first-time homebuyers and new incentives to encourage the construction and renovation of affordable housing.

Mr. Biden called on Congress to make certain first-time buyers eligible for a $10,000 credit, and to make some “first-generation” homebuyers eligible for up to $25,000 as a down payment.

The president also unveiled new subsidies and incentives to encourage the construction of affordable housing. He also said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would pursue new rules to address the “competitive” closing costs that lenders impose on buyers and sellers, and called for greater oversight of landlords who collude to raise rents and include hidden fees in leases to stop.

Protecting consumers against “shrinkflation”

There is only so much a president can do to curb rapid inflation, but Mr. Biden used his comments to take aim at his favorite new bogeyman: contraction inflation.

“Same size bag, put fewer chips in it,” Mr. Biden said. He called on lawmakers to pass legislation to end the corporate practice of reducing the size of products without lowering their price tag.

The president also touted his efforts to reduce late credit card fees and “junk” fees and to eliminate surprise fees for online ticket sales, claiming he saved Americans billions of dollars through various forms of price gouging.

American building and buying

One of the mysteries preoccupying Mr. Biden’s advisers is why he is not getting enough credit for key pieces of legislation passed in the past three years.

The president moved through these achievements, reminding his audience of the construction of new roads and bridges and investments in microchip development and clean energy production.

Biden went off script and chided Republicans for voting against some of those policies while reaping the benefits of investments in their states.

Tackling China

As president, Mr. Biden has prioritized stabilizing America’s economic relationship with China while seeking to reduce the United States’ dependence on Chinese products. Mr. Biden took aim at Mr. Trump, saying that while the former president portrayed himself as tough on China, the Biden administration’s policies had a bigger impact on narrowing the bilateral trade deficit and boosting U.S. economic growth.

The president added that his administration stood against China’s unfair trade practices and kept the export of sensitive U.S. technology away from the Chinese military. He said Republicans who say the U.S. is going after China were wrong.

“America is rising,” Biden said. “We have the best economy in the world.”

Theater in the second phasea leading nonprofit that presents work by living American writers both on and off Broadway is giving up its Rem Koolhaas-designed Off Broadway home in a former bank near Times Square because the rent was too high and the lease had unfavorable terms .

The theater company, which has produced multiple Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning shows over the years, until recently operated three theaters: the Hayes Theater on Broadway, an Off Off Broadway space on the Upper West Side and an Off Broadway theater, the Tony Kiser Theater, in a former bank building on the corner of West 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue.

Last year, Second Stage terminated the lease on its Off Off Broadway space. Now it is also getting rid of the Kiser Theater, a 296-seat theater space where it has presented plays and musicals since 1999. The Broadway house has not been affected by the changes. The company said it was committed to continuing to produce work Off Broadway and was looking for a new place to do so.

Second Stage is the Kiser’s release at a time of great pressure on nonprofit theaters around the world, and at a time of transition for the organization. Carole Rothman, one of the company’s founders and now president and artistic director, is leaving the organization this summer after a 45-year tenure; the board is looking for her successor.

Second Stage’s board had agreed to an eight-year lease extension for the West 43rd Street building in 2021, but decided late last year to exercise a one-time option that would allow it to exit the lease at the end of this year.

Lisa Lawer Post, the company’s executive director, cited financial concerns in explaining the organization’s board’s decision to terminate the lease on the West 43rd Street building, where the company presented early productions of shows including ” Dear Evan Hansen,” “Next to Normal” and “Between Riverside and Crazy.”

She said the building’s infrastructure was aging and the terms of the lease required the resident to be responsible for repairs and maintenance, which would be difficult to finance given the relatively short term of the lease. She said the company concluded the rent was about twice the market rate, and there were concerns because the landlord could end the lease at any time with 18 months’ notice.

“It was a very precarious situation, so the board decided to terminate, and we are actively in discussions to find a more permanent home for the theater,” Post said.

Asked about the overall financial health of the company, Post said: “I would say we are in a strong position as we have just come out of Covid-19, and we have been fortunate to have had a very strong season that certainly helped us.”

The company said it currently has an annual budget of $23.5 million and 45 full-time employees.

Second Stage is having a good winter because its current Broadway show “Appropriate,” a drama about a Southern family with disturbing secrets, is a hit. It is the first Broadway production of a play written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, an acclaimed American playwright whose work grapples with serious social issues. And with Sarah Paulson as star, the film sells so strongly that a group of commercial producers do the same moving it to a for-profit Broadway home after the second phase ends next month.

The landlord of the theater could not be reached for comment. There are reports that developers are eyeing the block, which includes several low-rise buildings along Eighth Avenue, for possible redevelopment. According to a 2022 report in Crain’s New YorkTrans World Equities has built several holdings along Eighth Avenue, which, the release said, “could be an indication of Trans World’s plans to put together a major development package.”

Second Stage currently presents “The Apiary” at the Kiser. Next, the company plans to present a new work by Paula Vogel, “Mother Play,” on Broadway starting in April, and then an off-Broadway play called “Breaking the Story,” opening at the Kiser in May.

In a concession to automakers and unions, the Biden administration plans to relax elements of one of its most ambitious strategies to combat climate change: limits on tailpipe emissions intended to encourage Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles. to three people familiar with the plan.

Rather than requiring automakers to rapidly ramp up electric vehicle sales in the coming years, the government would give automakers more time, with a sharp increase in sales not needed until after 2030, these people said. They asked to remain anonymous because the settlement has not yet been finalized. The administration plans to publish the final rule in early spring.

The change comes as President Biden faces intense crosswinds as he runs for re-election while trying to tackle climate change. He aims to reduce CO2 emissions from gasoline vehicles, which are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States.

At the same time, Mr. Biden needs the cooperation of the auto industry and political support from the unionized auto workers who supported him in 2020 but now worry that an abrupt transition to electric vehicles would cost jobs. At the same time, consumer demand is not what automakers had hoped, with potential buyers deterred by sticker prices and the relative scarcity of charging stations.

Sensing an opening, former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner, has seized on electric cars, falsely warning the public that they “don't work” and telling autoworkers that Mr. Biden's policies are “madness ” is and that he would do the same. deaf on “the first day” of his return to the White House.

Last spring, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the strictest limits ever on tailpipe emissions. The rules would be so strict that carmakers could only comply by selling a huge number of zero-emission vehicles in a relatively short time.

The EPA designed the proposed regulations so that 67 percent of new car and light truck sales would be all-electric by 2032, up from 7.6 percent by 2023, a radical change for the U.S. auto market.

That remains the goal. But as they finalize regulations, government officials are adjusting the plan to slow the pace at which automakers would have to comply so that electric vehicle sales would increase more gradually through 2030 but rise sharply after that.

The change in pace is a response to automakers who say more time is needed to build a national network of charging stations and drive down the cost of electric vehicles, and to unions who want more time to try to build new factories for electric cars. that are opening up across the country, especially in the south.

But delaying the rule's strictest requirements could come at a cost to the climate after the hottest year on record.

An ambitious first plan

Delaying the sharp increase in electric vehicle sales until after 2030 would still eliminate about the same amount of auto emissions by 2055 as the original proposal, according to EPA models. But it would mean that in the short term the nation would continue pumping car emissions into the atmosphere. Scientists say every year contributes to the government's efforts to prevent the planet from falling into even deadlier and more expensive climate disasters.

“There will be more rapid warming if emissions from the U.S. transportation sector do not decline before 2030,” said James Glynn, a senior scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

Scientists have warned that if the Earth's average temperature rises by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, humans would struggle to adapt to increasingly violent storms, floods, fires, heat waves and other disruptions.

The planet has already warmed by about 1.2 degrees Celsius.

Ali Zaidi, Mr. Biden's senior climate adviser, declined to discuss the details of the final settlement. But he said in an interview that Mr. Biden's climate policies, combined with record federal investments in renewable energy, would still help meet the president's goal of cutting the nation's greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 .

“I feel very good about how our policies, including regulatory measures, are aligned to enhance our ability to meet our 2030 targets and prepare for the longer-term path,” Mr Zaidi said.

Still, experts say it is uncertain whether Mr. Biden can achieve his twin goals of cutting the country's greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating them by 2050, a goal that scientists say all countries must achieve to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of prevent climate change. .

Attentive unions

Support from the Labor Party has been an important part of Biden's political coalition and his portrayal of himself as a fighter for the middle class.

That support was threatened last spring when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new tailpipe emissions limits. Soon after, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, wrote that the union was withholding its endorsement of Mr. Biden's reelection bid because of “concerns about the transition to electric vehicles.”

The union is wary of electric vehicles because fewer workers are needed to assemble and many electric vehicle factories are being built in states with few unions.

In public comments on the proposed rule, the United Auto Workers urged the Biden administration to relax the timeline for compliance so that it “increases stringency more gradually and occurs over a longer period of time.” Union leaders repeated that request in conversations with senior White House officials, including Mr. Zaidi, over the past six months. Biden administration officials said the union's comments had “resonated.”

When the union went on strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis last fall, partly over fears about the industry's transition to electric vehicles, Mr. Biden sought to assuage their concerns and became the first president to direct workers to the picket line stood. .

In early January, the EPA sent a revised version of its auto emissions rule with the longer time frame to the White House. Weeks later, the United Auto Workers endorsed Mr. Biden.

A union spokesman declined multiple requests to interview Mr. Fain.

After approval, Mr Trump called Mr Fain a “dope” on Truth Social, his social media site. “He supported Biden's 'vision' of all electric vehicles, which will require far fewer workers to make each car, but, importantly, are not wanted in large numbers by consumers, and will ALL be made in China,” the wrote Mr Trump. .

Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, noted how Mr. Trump has focused on concerns about electric vehicles that are pervading this car-making state, one of the few swing states where the election is likely to take place. decided.

“Trump has been very effective in using wedge issues in the past,” Rabe said. “Every time he comes to state, this comes up. And this isn't abstract in Michigan, it's a real question. 'Which factory am I going to work in?'”

Concerned car manufacturers

Although a record 1.2 million electric vehicles were sold in the United States last year, growth is slowing even though new regulations would require a nearly tenfold increase in such sales within just eight years.

While buyers of new electric vehicles are eligible for up to $7,500 in federal tax credits, only 18 models currently qualify for that full credit, compared to about two dozen last year. One of those eligible models, the Ford F-150 Lightning, an all-electric pickup that once had a waiting list of 200,000 units, sold 24,000 last year, well below Ford's forecast of 150,000.

And while EV charger construction is growing, nearly doubling from about 87,000 in 2019 to more than 172,000 last year, analyst project that the country will need more than two million chargers by 2030 to support the growth in the number of electric vehicles envisioned by the proposed rules.

All that worries car companies, which have invested about $146 billion in electric vehicle research and development over the past three years. Auto companies would face billions of dollars a year in fines if emissions associated with car sales exceed the limits of the new regulations, according to the Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit organization based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents 42 auto companies that produce about 97 percent of new vehicles sold in the United States, has asked the government for the same delay as the United Auto Workers.

“The pace is important,” John Bozzella, president of the alliance, said in an interview. “Give the market and supply chains a chance to catch up, ensure customer choice, bring more public charging online.”

Analysts say the current slowdown in electric vehicle sales is to be expected because the market for early adopters – typically wealthier coastal residents who have bought an EV as a second car – is saturated.

“It may take some time before the larger middle-class market is ready to embrace buying plug-in cars,” said K. Venkatesh Prasad, senior vice president of research at the Center for Automotive Research.

It could be easier to sell many more electric vehicles after 2030, Mr Prasad said.

“New technology is emerging, prices are changing and consumer behavior is changing,” he said. “If you were running one of these companies and you got some extra time, you would use every second. You can do things that will allow you to better source components, test new technologies, battery technology will become cheaper and allow people to drive longer distances, there will be more investment in charging infrastructure, and in the minds of consumers you would can see more acceptance of this.”

Some analysts said the trade-off, loosening rules to give auto companies and workers what they want, could be worth it if it helps Mr. Biden win the election, as Mr. Trump has made clear that if he wins , he plans to completely roll back the rules.

David Victor, co-director of the Deep Decarbonization Initiative at the University of California San Diego, said: “You have a few more years of emissions, but you increase the chance that the rule will stick.”

Last year, Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 a “years of efficiency.His company, Meta, soon laid off a third of its employees. Amazon, Google and Microsoft have also laid off tens of thousands of employees.

Their worlds did not stand still. Not only that, the companies were also rewarded. Their stock prices soared. Some divisions were more productive. And the companies — including X, formerly known as Twitter, which has cut nearly 80 percent of its workforce since late 2022 — continued to operate.

Other top executives took notice. And one month into 2024, technology companies have entered a new phase of cost cutting.

After widespread layoffs last year, the largest companies — including Amazon, Google and Microsoft — have made smaller, targeted job cuts in recent weeks, while focusing on fewer projects and shifting resources to key products such as artificial intelligence. Some tech startups – like Flexport, Bolt and Brex – have cut deeper to stave off a possible extinction. The mandate from the top is the same: do more with less.

“There are three fundamental redundancies that we're seeing,” said Nabeel Hyatt, general partner at venture capital firm Spark Capital, which invests in technology companies. “Big, fat tech oligopolies looking for more growth and profits; there are mid-sized companies that hired too many people during the boom; and there are the smaller startups that are just trying to gain runway to survive.”

The new layoffs are the latest correction to years of a booming global economy and near-zero interest rates, which allowed tech companies to throw away large amounts of cash to attract top talent during the pandemic. Many of the companies have hired tens of thousands of new employees during that time to meet digital demand.

Recent years have forced tech executives to think differently. After lockdowns were lifted and people ventured out into the world again, the use of tech products shrank compared to pandemic heights. More than 1,000 technology companies will cut more than 260,000 jobs by 2023, according to data from Layoffs.fyi, which maps job losses in the technology sector.

Shrinking the tech workforce would have been anathema in Silicon Valley just a few years ago. The technology culture has long been one in which a manager's status was determined by the number of people reporting to him or her and how effectively a company countered competitors' recruiting efforts. Tech executives often viewed recruiting the next generation of computer scientists as a full-contact sport.

But now the stigma of layoffs is gone. More executives at tech companies have admitted to hiring too many people during the pandemic. The largest companies are making strategic cuts in areas where they plan to invest less and where certain types of jobs are no longer needed. Smaller companies that could easily raise capital just a few years ago are cutting back to stay afloat.

According to Layoffs.fyi, 25,000 layoffs occurred at approximately 100 tech companies in the first 30 days of this year. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Meta and Amazon will provide more insight into the state of the sector this week when they release their quarterly results.

Waves of job losses tend to happen suddenly and all at once, says Sheel Mohnot, partner at venture capital firm Better Tomorrow Ventures. “If a company in your space or nearby does it, you get air cover to do it,” he said. “It becomes easier for a company to say: 'It's not us, it's the industry.'”

Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, is an example of the series of layoffs.

Last year, Mr. Zuckerberg eliminated what he called “managers managing managers.” This year, the company has been more targeted with its adjustments, most notably reducing the number of “technical program manager” roles on Instagram, according to two people familiar with the company's plans. A technical program manager, or TPM, oversees various projects within a department and is responsible for keeping teams on track — exactly the kind of middle manager role that Mr. Zuckerberg planned to eliminate.

Business Insider previously reported about Meta's attempt to reduce the role. Meta declined to comment.

Amazon also cut hundreds of jobs this month at its streaming business, including at Prime Video, MGM Studios and Twitch. Google has made thousands of cuts in several areas, including YouTube and the hardware division that makes the Pixel phone, Fitbit watches and Nest thermostat. In an internal memo obtained by The New York Times, Google CEO Sundar Pichai hinted that there is no imminent end to the rolling layoffs, and that the company would remove more “layers to simplify execution and speed up some areas to increase” the company.

“Many of these changes have already been announced, but to be fair, some teams will continue to make specific resource allocation decisions throughout the year as necessary, and some roles may be affected,” Mr. Pichai wrote.

Medium-sized start-ups with hundreds of employees are also scaling back. Some are faced with the prospect of an initial public offering, which has caused them to take a closer look at their finances. Such companies “know they have to get their balance sheets in order,” Mohnot said. “The market appreciates profits.”

Certain areas have been particularly hard hit this month, particularly the video game industry. Companies such as Unity Software, Riot Games, Eidos-Montréal and Activision Blizzard and Microsoft's Xbox have downsized in recent weeks.

These cuts are partly the result of a consolidation of game studios, says Joost van Dreunen, an analyst who monitors the sector. After a number of blockbuster game debuts last year, a relatively quiet slate of titles is expected this year, with fewer employees needed to release those games, he said. Consumers and programmers are also waiting for new consoles like Nintendo's Switch 2, leading to a more immediate decline in customer spending and new title development.

Discord, the social networking and group chat app popular with gamers, this month laid off 17 percent of its staff, or 170 jobs, after increasing its workforce fivefold since 2020.

“We took on more projects and became less efficient in the way we operated,” Discord CEO Jason Citron wrote in a memo to employees.

Few expect the wave of consolidation to slow down anytime soon. Those in the tech industry now joke about ZIRP companies – short for Zero Interest Rate Phenomenon, describing startups that would not have been able to raise capital if they had not had access to cheap and free-flowing venture dollars.

Many of these startups, unable to attract further venture investment due to rising interest rates, are cutting their workforce and focusing on fewer products.

“Maybe they just tried a lot of things to find a business model that works,” Mr Mohnot said. “But now it's time to settle the score.”