Technology

Etsy shares pop on revenue beat, rosy guidance

Published

3 years ago

November 2, 2022

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Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Etsy shares surged as much as 10% in extended trading Wednesday after the online marketplace’s third-quarter revenue and earnings outperformed expectations. The company also posted upbeat guidance for the current period.

Here’s how the company did:

Earnings: 58 cents per share, adjusted, vs. 36 cents per share, as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
Revenue: $594.5 million vs. $565 million as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

For the fourth quarter, Etsy said it expects to report revenue between $700 million and $780 million, and gross merchandise sales of $3.6 billion to $4 billion. Wall Street was projecting fourth-quarter sales of $743 million, and GMS of $3.9 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Etsy reported a net loss of $963.1 million during the third quarter that included a goodwill impairment charge of $1.04 billion to write down the value of its acquisitions of fashion resale app Depop and Brazil-based marketplace Elo7, which it purchased for $1.62 billion and $217 million, respectively. Excluding the impairment charge, Etsy earnings were 58 cents per share, adjusted.

Third-quarter revenue grew 11.7% from the year-ago period, boosted by Etsy’s transaction fee hike. The company announced last April it would raise the transaction fees it charges sellers to 6.5% from 5%, which spurred backlash from merchants, including a weeklong strike.

Investors have been closely watching e-commerce companies’ forecasts for the fourth quarter as a barometer for inflation-weary consumers’ willingness to spend during the holidays. The latest warning came from Amazon last week when it guided for fourth-quarter revenue growth of 2% to 8%, missing Wall Street’s expectations.

Analysts are expecting a lackluster holiday shopping season, with online sales in November and December projected to grow just 2.5% from the prior year, according to Adobe.

“We don’t know whether consumers will spend more or less on gift giving, or whether they’ll do more shopping online or in the mall,” Etsy CEO Josh Silverman said in the earnings release. “But the good news is our business – with differentiated inventory across our House of Brands and a variable cost model – doesn’t depend upon us taking big bets on these questions in the same ways most other retailers or e-tailers must.”

“So we are doing all we can to help make sure Etsy sellers have the best holiday season they can – particularly in the face of continued economic uncertainty,” he added.

WATCH: Inflation weighs on holiday gifting budgets

Technology

Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup’s robots could ‘fracture a human skull’

Published

5 hours ago

November 21, 2025

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$Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup's robots could 'fracture a human skull'$

Startup Figure AI is developing general-purpose humanoid robots.

Figure AI

Figure AI, an Nvidia-backed developer of humanoid robots, was sued by the startup’s former head of product safety who alleged that he was wrongfully terminated after warning top executives that the company’s robots “were powerful enough to fracture a human skull.”

Robert Gruendel, a principal robotic safety engineer, is the plaintiff in the suit filed Friday in a federal court in the Northern District of California. Gruendel’s attorneys describe their client as a whistleblower who was fired in September, days after lodging his “most direct and documented safety complaints.”

The suit lands two months after Figure was valued at $39 billion in a funding round led by Parkway Venture Capital. That’s a 15-fold increase in valuation from early 2024, when the company raised a round from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

In the complaint, Gruendel’s lawyers say the plaintiff warned Figure CEO Brett Adcock and Kyle Edelberg, chief engineer, about the robot’s lethal capabilities, and said one “had already carved a ¼-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door during a malfunction.”

The complaint also says Gruendel warned company leaders not to “downgrade” a “safety road map” that he had been asked to present to two prospective investors who ended up funding the company.

Gruendel worried that a “product safety plan which contributed to their decision to invest” had been “gutted” the same month Figure closed the investment round, a move that “could be interpreted as fraudulent,” the suit says.

The plaintiff’s concerns were “treated as obstacles, not obligations,” and the company cited a “vague ‘change in business direction’ as the pretext” for his termination, according to the suit.

Gruendel is seeking economic, compensatory and punitive damages and demanding a jury trial.

Figure didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did attorneys for Gruendel.

The humanoid robot market remains nascent today, with companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics pursuing futuristic offerings, alongside Figure, while China’s Unitree Robotics is preparing for an IPO. Morgan Stanley said in a report in May that adoption is “likely to accelerate in the 2030s” and could top $5 trillion by 2050.

Read the filing here: