Spicy ripples

He's back! If you've been fiending for season 3 of Ted Lasso, Electronic Arts (EA) has the next best thing. In a first of it's kind move by EA, Ted Lasso will make an appearance in the upcoming FIFA 23, along with his fictional AFC Richmond team. Looks like EA's ready to go rogue, after announcing an end to it's 30 year relationship with FIFA.

Wait... They shipped what!?

Rippling says "why hello there" to Brex and Ramp, launching a suite of spend management products.

Backstory: Parker Conrad's second act, Rippling, is a powerhouse. Rippling more than doubled it's valuation in May, less than 7 months after hitting a $6.5 billion valuation in October 2021.

Details: Rippling's spend management solution covers three umbrella use cases:

1. Corporate credit cards

2. Expense management

3. Bill pay

Why it matters: Corporate spend was already getting spicy, with the likes of Ramp and Divvy eating away at Brex's early gains in the market.

Rippling's entrance is a bigger deal. What Salesforce has done with customer relationship data, Rippling is emulating with employee data.

Rippling has tremendous reach across HR departments, and is a growing presence in IT. The new finance offering is deeply integrated with its other products, which allows it to provide a more unified view of spend while reducing manual administrative work.

Features & products hot off the press

Big Tech

• Nvidia launches a chip to take over the software vehicle world (TechCrunch)

• TikTok enables users to tag Penguin Random House titles (TechCrunch)

• Google ships search tools for eco-conscious travelers (TechCrunch)

• TiKTok to restrict monetization options for political accounts (Verge)

• Twitch to take more revenue for itself from larger creators (Twitch)

• Salesforce launches a carbon credit trading marketplace (Salesforce)

• Google lets users request to remove search results (9to5Google)

General & early stage

• Envoy turns on visitor management for high-rise buildings (TechCrunch)

• Getty restricts upload and sale of AI-generated content (Verge)

• Dame launches a new vibrator at a lower price point (TechCrunch)

• Logitech unveils a cloud-gaming handheld console (EnGadget)

• Vanta introduces Connectors API for partner build integrations (Vanta)

• Spawning AI lets you check if you were used to train AI (TechCrunch)

• Rippling launches spend management + corporate credit cards (Rippling)

Getting 1% better at building product

• Collaboration: 7 powerful phrases for PM's (@aakashg0)

• Recruiting: Your activation experience - onboarding successfully in your first 90 days (Fishman AF)

• User research: Using AI to build out quick story boards for user journey maps (@rufflemuffin)

Other tech happenings

• I'm listening. Gen Z wants to pay up for spatial audio (Axios)

• Newfound humility. Meta plays the "it's not going so well" card in court (Axios)

• Messaging rules. WhatsApp announces deeper Salesforce partnership (India Times)

• Lasso fever. Ted Lasso's fictional AFC Richmond team is coming to FIFA 23 (Verge)

• Chips galore. India ups it's incentive scheme for chip production (Reuters)

Courtesy of mindless Twitter scrolling

@alexstamos

@clairevo

@hejhej_jay

And that’s a wrap for today. Stay tuned for more!

- Amol