Coinbase said Thursday that it lost more users in the third quarter. But the decline wasn’t the disastrous drop that Wall Street was expecting, and that sparked a rally in the crypto company’s shares after-hours.

Coinbase said its monthly transacting users fell to 8.5 million in the third quarter, down from 9 million the previous quarter and significantly lower than 11.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The “Street was expecting a train wreck, and it was slightly better than feared,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Protocol.

Coinbase shares were up about 4% in late trades. The company reported a loss of $2.43 a share on revenue of $590 million, compared to a profit of $1.62 a share on revenue of $1.3 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts were expecting a loss of roughly $2.40 a share on revenue of about $656.6 million.

Coinbase said it had “a mixed quarter” as transaction revenue was “significantly impacted by stronger macroeconomic and crypto market headwinds, as well as trading volume moving offshore,” the company said in a letter to shareholders.

But Coinbase saw “strong growth” in subscription and services revenue, aided in part by rising interest rates.

The results appear to show that Coinbase has managed to stabilize its business after a bruising second quarter and a broad market downturn. In August, the company told shareholders that the market slump “came fast and furious” and called the quarter “a test of durability for crypto companies and a complex quarter overall.”

Coinbase has been reining in costs to cope with the economic crisis, including a major round of layoffs.

The Biden administration announced $9 billion in funding Wednesday to improve home efficiency, which could help support the installation of up to 500,000 heat pumps. With winter approaching and utilities warning of gas shortages, there are some major challenges facing the technology that money can be used to tackle.

To help decarbonize home heating and cooling, we need those heat pumps, and fast. The electricity-powered systems — which keep homes comfortable by pushing heat into the home in the winter and pulling it out in the summer — will be crucial in weaning the world off of fossil fuels. But installing the units on a timeline in keeping with net zero goals will require both a robust supply chain and well-prepared labor force. While neither of these are fully in place in the U.S., the Defense Production Act and Inflation Reduction Act represent opportunities to build them out.

The funds allocated Wednesday fall under a new state- and tribe-administered rebate program made possible by the IRA. The White House said this helps put the country on track to achieve the president’s campaign promise of weatherizing 2 million homes.

To get on track for the goal of net zero by 2050, the International Energy Agency has said the global stock of heat pumps needs to reach roughly 600 million by 2030. Last year saw a 25% increase in investment in the technology and record-high growth in sales, and roughly 190 million units were in operation worldwide. However, the organization said this growth has been stymied somewhat by ongoing supply chain issues.

The U.S. currently relies largely on foreign suppliers of heat pumps, leaving the White House’s goal vulnerable to supply chain complications like those brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sam Calisch, head of special projects at the electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, characterizes the U.S. heat pump supply chain as “not too bad,” but he added that investment is needed as “an ounce of prevention” for future complications, especially as the market grows.

The DOE is planning to devote an initial $250 million, which isn’t part of the $9 billion, to encourage more heat pump manufacturing, funding which relies upon the DPA authorities that President Biden invoked in June to strengthen the domestic supply chain for clean energy technologies. The agency is currently soliciting opinions on how to make best use of that pot.

In a recent report, Rewiring America encouraged the DOE to invest $500 million in up to 10 facilities in the U.S. in order to “ensure that American manufacturing capacity can meet the increased demand.”

The country’s goal, Calisch said, should be that all HVAC systems are replaced by heat pumps at the end of their lives “definitely by 2030, faster if we can do it.” Rewiring America found that the U.S. installed 3.9 million heat pumps in 2021; the 500,000 unit boost provided by the IRA funds is designed to “supercharge” the market, he said, but also fits within larger market trends.

Installing all those heat pumps will also require a workforce to grow alongside the market. The IEA encourages policymakers to anticipate potential labor challenges “to avoid bottlenecks” on the way to net zero, and specifically recommends investment in knowledge-sharing and upskilling for HVAC employees.

The DOE said Wednesday it is putting together a discussion between “labor, businesses, and other key stakeholders” to determine how best to spend another $260 million, also not part of the $9 billion, on workforce development for energy efficiency. This federal investment is something Calisch said is greatly needed.

“There are new programs springing up, but we are consistently finding that, particularly around electricians, we're facing a shortage,” Calisch said. He said one option for ameliorating that shortage is for the U.S. to reinvigorate apprenticeship programs.

The IRA contains funding that requires companies receiving wind or solar tax incentives to employ apprentices, though it doesn’t have a similar requirement for home efficiency companies. Specific companies like heat pump company BlocPower have created apprenticeship programs geared toward training a green workforce and advancing racial justice goals at the same time.

This heat pump enthusiasm is happening against the backdrop of instability in the natural gas market, prompting higher winter heating bills worldwide. The Energy Information Administration's recent Winter Fuels Outlook anticipated a 19% increase in natural gas prices this year as compared with last. Electricity prices have also increased, but by just 8%.

“That [increase in fossil fuel prices] definitely spurs increased interest in heat pumps,” Calisch said, citing the fact that heat pumps cost users less in heating than other types of systems.

Welcome back to our Workplace newsletter. Today, Amazon and Qualcomm are freezing corporate hiring and big cuts are coming to Twitter, Lyft, and Stripe. Apparently, sleeping on the office floor is back. And 81% of HR execs told PwC they were reducing head count through layoffs, more aggressive performance management, or otherwise.

— Allison Levitsky, reporter (email | twitter)

Sharpen your knives

Elon isn’t the only one planning big cuts to his workforce. If you’re not scaling back, you’re in the minority of HR chiefs, according to a new Pulse Survey from PwC. Four out of five chief HR officers across sectors told PwC they were reducing their workforce “to a great extent.”

• That’s not just layoffs — the 81% of CHROs who said they were cutting staff included those who are doing so by offering early retirement, not backfilling positions as employees leave, and freezing hiring. The number of execs who said they were doing layoffs has declined since PwC’s August survey, according to PwC’s workforce strategy partner Julia Lamm.
• Companies have been so “panic-stricken” about finding talent in the last two and a half years that these methods of getting rid of employees have fallen out of focus, Lamm said.
• Many PwC clients held on to underperforming employees during the pandemic because of the labor shortage, Lamm said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “They were basically saying, ‘OK, fine, I’ll keep the lower performers I have just because I don’t feel like I’m going to be able to find anything else better out there.’”

Managing out low performers is easy enough — keeping employees engaged and productive is harder. Execs expressed more confidence that their companies could eliminate unwanted employees than ensure high performance.

• 77% of execs said they were either “completely confident” or “mostly confident” in their company’s ability to “exit low performers.” Only 67% said the same about preventing “quiet quitting.”

Amid all these cuts, companies are still hiring. The so-called labor market paradox that surfaced in PwC’s Pulse Survey in August — where companies were both cutting staff and staffing up — is still in effect.

• This time around, 44% of execs said they expected to continue hiring for “specific skill sets” in order to support growth in the next 12 to 18 months.
• “They’re being more cautious,” Lamm said. “They’re looking to rebalance their workforce to make sure they have the skills they need for the future.” Cybersecurity, risk management, and ESG are all areas of interest among clients who are hiring, she added.
• Much of this varies by industry. Tech, media, and telecom made up a combined 15% of the survey’s 657 respondents, who largely came from industries such as industrial products (28%), consumer markets (23%), and financial services (19%).

Return-to-office is on the rise. Across industries, 42% of execs said they now expect employees to work on site four or five days per week, and another 22% said they required three days per week of in-office work. (Apparently we can count Musk among this group — the new Twitter boss is planning to order the company’s employees back to the office.)

• Almost 70% of executives said they agreed or strongly agreed that management showed a preference for offering more advancement and pay to in-office workers than remote staff.
• Two-thirds said they were worried about employees not coming back to the office quickly enough.
• Almost all CHROs said they were offering training, coaching, and mentoring opportunities at the office as a way to draw employees back, and 93% said they were revamping offices to encourage productivity. But in each case, only about half of CHROs said these tactics were effective.

Skills gap

Green jobs and corporate climate pledges abound, but skilled sustainability professionals are scarce. A new report from Microsoft and the Boston Consulting Group on “closing the sustainability skills gap” found that 57% of sustainability professionals lacked a sustainability-related degree, and that more than 40% had no more than three years of sustainability experience.

The job opportunities are increasing — green jobs grew 8% per year between 2016 and 2021, according to the LinkedIn Green Jobs report. But the talent pool lagged, only growing at 6%. Scientists are leaving academia and engineers are leaving Big Tech in order to work on climate tech, but that might not be enough to fill the widening gap.

Read the full story.

A MESSAGE FROM BAMBOOHR

No two recessions are alike. In fact, eight in ten workers reported looking for a new job before the upcoming market shift. Learn what HR can be doing to ensure meaningful retention today and in the near future.

Learn more

More face time, more trust 

Trust and transparency in the workplace are on the rise as knowledge workers head back to the office, according to a new report from Atlassian.

• More than two-thirds of workers surveyed in the U.S. and Australia said there was a “very high level of trust in leadership” where they work, up from 57% last year.
• Workers were also more likely to report that they could “see how decisions are being made” than they were last year. More than 60% of respondents agreed with this statement, compared to 51% in 2021.
• These changes coincided with a move toward hybrid work. Hybrid was the most common work setup this year, with 43% of workers reporting they were splitting time between home and the office. Last year, hybrid lagged behind both full-time remote work (34%) and full-time in-office work (39%), with only 27% of workers reporting they were hybrid

Some personnel news

Anyone else having a bad case of Great Resignation whiplash? It’s hard to keep up with which tech companies are growing, shrinking, floating, or sinking. We’re here to help.

⬇️ Stripe is cutting 14% of its workforce, which will bring its head count to around 7,000.

⬇️ Twitter is reportedly preparing to lay off half of its workforce, which entails around 3,700 jobs, starting Friday.

⬇️ Lyft is cutting 13% of its employees, around 700 in total, The Wall Street Journal reported.

⬇️ Amazon is freezing corporate hiring, the company announced on Thursday.

⬇️ Qualcomm said it froze hiring at the start of the quarter, according to CNBC.

⬇️ Chime laid off 12% of its staff, around 160 employees, despite being “well-capitalized,” as co-founder and CEO Chris Britt told employees in a memo.

For more news on hiring, firing, and rewiring, see our tech company tracker.

A MESSAGE FROM BAMBOOHR

In conversations around pay equity and pay transparency, the stakes are high and the responsibility is stressful for HR. Learn how to confidently and capably discuss these topics with everyone from executives and managers to entry-level employees with three important steps.

Learn more

Around the internet

A roundup of workplace news from the farthest corners of the internet.

“Ask her not to walk like that.” Women face massive sexism challenges in the tech industry in India. (Rest of World)

Sleeping on the office floor is back — at Elon Musk’s Twitter, at least. (Insider)

Everyone’s productivity is plunging. (The Washington Post)

Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to workplace@protocol.com.

Block beat earnings expectations, with strong growth largely fueled by its Cash App business. Traders sent shares up more than 12% after-hours Thursday.

Investors are closely watching Block's performance as a measure of broader consumer spending amid worries about inflation and a looming recession.

The payments giant generated adjusted earnings per share of 42 cents, handily beating analysts’ estimates of 23 cents, according to FactSet.

Gross profit came in at $1.57 billion, beating expectations of $1.5 billion, per FactSet, and up from $1.1 billion in the year-ago period. Analysts generally prefer to look at gross profit for Block rather than revenue since it excludes bitcoin gross trading volume. The company barely mentioned crypto in its earnings release, except to note that Cash App crypto trading revenue fell.

Total net revenue was $4.52 billion, beating estimates of $4.5 billion, and compared to $3.8 billion a year ago.

Cash App, a closely watched driver of Block's growth, generated $774 million in gross profit, which was up 51% from the year-ago period. More than a third of monthly active users use the Cash App Card product, which generates revenue from interchange fees and other banking services.

Cash App could face more regulatory scrutiny. Though Block said it does not tolerate illegal activity, Forbes reported that Cash App appears more frequently than other services in sex ads, and law enforcement professionals are concerned about its identity checks.

Hi, and welcome to Protocol Climate. We’re transporting you to Egypt today. Virtually, that is. (Sorry, should’ve been clearer.) We chatted with leaders in tech to see what their goals and hopes are going into climate talks that are kicking off in Sharm el-Sheikh next week. Plus, we’re taking a dive into the climate skills gap.

What tech wants from COP27

The world is set to meet in Egypt next week to talk about how to save the climate. (No big deal.) This is the 27th iteration of what’s known as the Conference of the Parties, or COP27 in U.N. speak.

A lot has changed since the first meeting was held in 1995. Carbon emissions reached new highs, and tech has taken over the world. When negotiators first met, Google didn’t even exist. Now, it and other tech companies bring in annual revenue on par with some European countries’ GDP. The technologies they’ve created and invested in are reshaping the world in fundamental ways, including how it addresses the climate crisis.

Big Tech now has a seat at the climate negotiating table. While companies don’t get an official vote, they still wield plenty of influence over the shapes agreements between countries take. Tech companies are also key players in crafting side deals. Last year, for example, major tech companies and governments around the world started the First Movers Coalition at climate talks in Glasgow in order to get nascent climate tech industries off the ground.

With that in mind, we asked major players in and adjacent to the tech industry what their goals are going into COP27.

Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft

I think COP27 is an opportunity to show that we’re consistent and committed, that technology has a vital role to play, and that we need to focus on the needs of the Global South. That’s definitely one of the messages that I want to bring on behalf of Microsoft. We need to put the power of data and the power of people through new skills to work. We’ll have some announcements at COP about that, so I’m excited about that. They will be building on the sustainability skills report we put out yesterday and highlight the importance of technology innovation.

Kate Brandt, chief sustainability officer at Google

COP27 is taking place against a backdrop of intersecting crises in the global economy including economic uncertainty, an energy crisis in Europe, and climate change impacts globally, but we cannot slow our progress. This is why collaboration, implementation, and innovation will be essential over the next decade, and the discussions and outcomes over the next two weeks will be key in driving progress.

One of the most powerful things Google can do is drive technology innovation that allows us, our partners, and individuals around the world to take more meaningful action. Our aim is to share ideas, forge new partnerships, and inspire individual action to help the world achieve 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Suzanne DiBianca, EVP and chief impact officer at Salesforce

A key goal for Salesforce is to raise business ambition and inspire others to accelerate climate action. We want this message to come across loud and clear to global leaders, companies, customers, and all stakeholders: Don't wait to take action on climate, the time to get started is now. This is a crucial moment to show progress on our climate commitments. Salesforce is committed to advancing climate policy and climate justice; enabling customers and community partners to participate in and mobilize the climate action movement; and demonstrating the importance of digital transformation to help address climate change and reach net zero — with an ultimate goal of a 1.5-degree-Celsius future. Everyone has a role to play in building a sustainable future because the climate crisis demands action from every angle.

Jamie Beck Alexander, director at Drawdown Labs

What do I think this moment requires of the biggest and most innovative companies in the world, in the wealthiest economy in the world? Despite big promises and good intentions, we’re still going in the wrong direction. Our efforts have been only playing at the edges of the much deeper change that’s required.

The tech sector exists to see around the bend. Given this foresight, industry leaders know that we will all one day soon wake up and realize that we have to make impossibly hard changes in our economy on impossible time horizons. That certain sectors of our economy and certain parts of our businesses are simply incompatible with thriving life on our planet and must be phased out, while others — like equitable climate solutions — need massive investment and rapid deployment of labor. Ultimately, our ability to see around the bend shows us that growth for growth’s sake is unsustainable. I’d like to see tech leaders offer an invitation to the business community at large to have a serious conversation about growth.

Christian Kroll, venture partner at World Fund, founder and CEO of Ecosia

One of the main sponsors of COP27 is Coca-Cola. I’m afraid that these big corporations are hijacking the agenda and making it less ambitious. I’ve seen that happen over the last year, and it’s painful to see big companies that could be doing so much more getting away with unambitious sustainability targets, like going carbon neutral by 2050, when it’s way too late. Companies also put a lot of pressure on politicians to set their targets too low as well.

I hope that rich countries are not just responsible for reaching net zero, but also for helping other countries get to net zero. There isn’t a clear mechanism for that yet. But for rich countries like Germany where I come from, our goal should go way beyond being carbon neutral. Our goal should be doing the maximum that Germany can do to solve this crisis, looking further than our own national borders.

Help (urgently) wanted: Green workers

Green jobs and corporate climate pledges are everywhere these days. What’s missing, though, are enough skilled sustainability professionals. A new report from Microsoft and the Boston Consulting Group shows where ”the sustainability skills gap” is — and how to fill it.

There’s a dearth of climate-trained tech workers despite the growing need. The tech industry is a leader when it comes to creating climate plans. But turning those pledges into action is a challenge due to the relatively small and inexperienced sustainability workforce.

• The report found that 57% of sustainability professionals lacked a sustainability-related degree.
• Not only that: More than 40% had no more than three years of sustainability experience.
• More than two-thirds of sustainability leaders were internal hires. Of the 10 most commonly held jobs prior to becoming sustainability managers, the report found four were completely unrelated to sustainability.
• For major tech companies trying to measure and cut Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, invest in nascent tech like carbon removal, and more, that’s a bit of an issue.

The green jobs field is expanding at a rapid clip. It’s not just the tech industry trying to implement its climate plans. Climate workers are needed to install heat pumps, maintain wind turbines, and assess climate risks.

• Green jobs grew 8% per year between 2016 and 2021, according to the LinkedIn Green Jobs report.
• But the talent pool lagged, only growing at 6% over that period.

There could be reinforcements on the way, though. Scientists are leaving academia and engineers are leaving Big Tech in order to work on climate tech. That alone might not be enough to fill the widening gap. But the Microsoft report has some recommendations, including upskilling workers already on the sustainability beat and ensuring that schools are training the next generation to be ready to hit the ground running.

Get the whole story here.

— Allison Levitsky

​Sponsored content from SkyBridge

Valuations have become less hype-driven and more realistic; the amount of time spent on due diligence has increased substantially; and every founder needs to directly, clearly, and concisely answer the question, “Does this project have any real-world utility, and does it create economic value?”

Learn more

Make it rain

Lithium-ion battery recycling company Ascend Elements raised $200 million in series C financing, led by Fifth Wall Climate.

Solugen is a startup creating synthetic versions of petrochemicals in order to clean up that industry. It’s raking in cash to do so, closing a $200 million series D round, co-led by Kennivik, Lowercarbon Capital, and Refactor Capital.

German startup Volocopter is developing vertical takeoff and landing vehicles and is in the testing phase for its air taxi. In its latest funding round, the startup raised $182 million, led by Neom.

AMP Robotics uses artificial intelligence and robotics to techify waste and recycling. The startup raised $91 million in its series C funding round, co-led by Congruent Ventures and Wellington Management.

Australian plastic recycling startup Samsara Eco raised $34.7 million in its series A funding round, with investment from Breakthrough Victoria, Temasek, Assembly Climate Capital, DCVC, and INP Capital.

Starfire Energy, a startup that creates technologies needed to produce carbon-free ammonia, raised $24 million in series B funding, led by Samsung Ventures.

Aro Homes is aiming to build carbon-negative homes, and the startup launched with a $21 million series A round after its incubation with Innovation Endeavors.

More recycling news: Protein Evolution created a process to break down waste and make it cheaper and easier to recycle both textiles and mixed plastics. The company emerged from stealth this week with $20 million in funding, led by Collaborative Fund.

Cruz Foam takes a different approach to reducing plastic use: replacing foam packaging materials with a compostable alternative made of chitin (i.e., the stuff that crustacean shells are made of). The company raked in $18 million in series A funding, led by Helena.

The startup Boston Materials is developing materials using reclaimed carbon, and raised $12 million in its series A2 round, led by Good Growth Capital.

AiDash, which provides disaster management systems powered by artificial intelligence, received a $10 million strategic investment from SE Ventures (Schneider Electric’s corporate venture arm).

Hot links

Wanna ensure your company's emissions data is for real? There’s an app for that. (OK, it’s a platform, but close enough.)

Google is going big on solar. The company is buying 942 megawatts of power from SB Energy Global’s developments in Texas. It’s the tech giant’s biggest solar deal to date.

Rooftop solar: 📈 Fossil fuels: 📉Australia is setting renewable records as more people harness the sun to power their homes.

Big Oil is gaming Google’s ad policy. A new report shows that fossil fuel companies are spending millions to snap up ads to tout their dubious sustainability claims.

Offshore wind is getting pricier. Several utilities are considering pulling plans for major projects that may not be economically viable as costs jump and supply chains remain tangled.

Joe Biden: oil president? Republicans are trying to paint Biden as a radical environmentalist, but his administration has approved more new oil and gas wells than his predecessor. He also wants to raise taxes on Big Oil, so let’s just say: Politics, it’s complicated!

​Sponsored content from SkyBridge

The VC correction is proving once again that valuations are not an indicator of success. While money continues to flow, the crypto winter and VC slowdown have forced even the most committed Web3 venture capitalists (and their investors) to proceed with more caution.

Learn more

Thanks for reading! As ever, you can send any and all feedback to climate@protocol.com. See you next week!