A tipster tells us that Palm, the troubled smartphone maker, is laying off 10 percent of its staff. I called a spokeswoman at the company, who confirmed the layoffs but not the number of employees affected; Palm, at last count, had about 1,050 employees. She also said the company would make "program cuts" — Valleyspeak for dropping some future products. Palm has been hammered by competition from Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry; it ...

The accompanying chart from TechFlash says it all: Online sales just aren't growing anymore. October's 1 percent growth over October 2007 is the worst performance measured by ComScore since they began tracking stats in 2001. TechFlash quotes Gian Fulgoni, chairman of the research firm: "We can only hope that the recent sharp drop in oil prices will cause a continued easing of inflation and a strengthening in consumer spending as [we] enter the critical holiday ...

Those who fund young, growing companies love to tout their industry's role in job creation. Jobs — we could use some of those now, right? But with venture-capital firms like Sequoia Capital insisting on across-the-board layoffs, it's hard to buy that argument; jobs may be created at startups quickly, but they are just as rapidly destroyed. But startups aren't the only ones being pinched by venture capitalists — they're also taking their investors for a ...

You can buy an iPhone at Best Buy, but more likely you won't buy anything at all this Xmas. The company's revised forecast predicts revenue between now and February may drop by 15 percent. CEO Brad Anderson's official statement is blunt: "Since mid-September, rapid, seismic changes in consumer behavior have created the most difficult climate we've ever seen ... Best Buy simply can't adjust fast enough to maintain our earnings momentum for this year." Cool, ...

Just yesterday, we were hearing gossip about how Condé Nast, the magazine publisher, had spared Wired while slashing Portfolio, its troubled business magazine. Not so: Wired.com is having layoffs due to "unexpected cutbacks," Silicon Alley Insider reports. No details on numbers yet; the publication is having a conference call to discuss the cuts now. Wired.com, which is managed separately from the magazine, had gone on an acquisition spree of late, having bought Reddit, Ars Technica, ...

Current, the cable channel and user-generated-video website backed by Joel Hyatt and Al Gore, is laying people off. "My wife works in the LA office (at least for now!)," emails a tipster. "At least 10 gone from there...." No word from Current's San Francisco headquarters yet, but you know where to send it. Update: A tipster says 32 have been cut from the San Francisco office. "'Bloodbath' is the word being used!" he adds.

Chris Alden, CEO of blog-software maker Six Apart, understands his business so well that he posted his own internal memo before any pesky gossip bloggers could extract it from his loquacious employees. He's also sensible enough to admit that there's more to blame for the layoffs than the economy — like the integration of recent acquisitions. He also snuck in a well-disguised hint that the company is cash-flow positive. Well played, Chris! The company is ...

The world's biggest IT services firm fed the New York Times a copy of a speech CEO Sam Palmisano was scheduled to make today in front of the Council of Foreign Relations in New York City. Sam's proposal is blatant: "A technology-fueled economic recovery plan that calls for public and private investment in more efficient systems for utility grids, traffic management, food distribution, water conservation and health care." Also, free Zipcars for gossip bloggers.

As recently as a year ago, Google was scrambling to get more office space in New York's Chelsea neighborhood. Now, just as swiftly, it's trying to offload it, putting 50,000 square feet up for sublet. The company has cut back on snacks in New York, as elsewhere — but real estate is a far more serious thing to trim. With less room for warm bodies, it suggests Google will soon be shedding staff.

Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, has a promising career as a cult leader. In a blog post, the online shoes-and-clothes retailer's boss acknowledges the layoffs his employees were Twittering about this morning, writing that the company had laid off 8 percent of its workforce. He all but admits the cuts were forced on him by investor Sequoia Capital. The severance packages are generous in comparison to most startups; two months or more of pay, ...

What's the only thing worse than another "Open Letter to Jerry Yang?" A freaking poem to Jerry Yang. Shakespeare was so much better at this, plus he didn't put his vanity site's URL in the final stanza. dear mr. yang, i am double o'trouble you may remember me from the 1.0 bubble you held on to me then despite all the chaos please spare me from the 2.0 layoff even though times call for you ...

You would think an online print-on-demand bookstore would be able to print books on demand. But you'd be wrong! A reader reports that he wasn't able to finish checking out a book on Lulu, a print-on-demand startup. (Red Hat founder Bob Young, shown here, was inspired to start the company after he ended up with boxes of unsold copies of his Linux nonthriller, Under the Radar.) A customer-support rep said that the company had known ...

LinkedIn, the richly funded business-networking website, is indeed laying employees off today. (No numbers available yet; if you know more details, please send them in.) But we know of at least one person who's skipping the cuts: Reid Hoffman, the company's chairman and cofounder. He's in Japan, speaking at a conference. A convenient absence. Hoffman is described by his underlings as generous and kind, but we hear he didn't oppose the layoffs. We also notice ...

LinkedIn, the richly funded business-networking website, is indeed laying employees off today. (No numbers available yet; if you know more details, please send them in.) But we know of at least one person who's skipping sticking around for the cuts: Reid Hoffman, the company's chairman and cofounder. He's in Japan, speaking at a conference. A convenient absence. Hoffman is described by his underlings as generous and kind, but we hear he didn't oppose the layoffs. ...

A tipster reports that Linden Lab, the maker of virtual world Second Life, is laying off its business-development department, which had cultivated ties with software makers. The move affects "9 or 10" employees," he says. A wise move, if tardy: Don't you need to have a business worth developing before hiring someone in business development?

In tough times, overcommunicate, says Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, doing an inadvertent impression of so-sharey-he's-scary videoblogger Robert Scoble. One Kleiner portfolio company has gotten the message: Google! Kim Scott, the company's director of online sales and operations for AdSense, the company's system for placing ads on other websites, has sent a mass email to Web publishers who use the product. The letter refers to "recent economic turmoil" and reassures publishers that the company is ...

Gideon Yu is flying back from Dubai today, we hear. His coworkers at Facebook are surely anxious to know what gifts he's bringing back — and we don't mean the duty-free kind. TechCrunch reports he was there on a fundraising mission. The Persian Gulf's sovereign wealth funds are swollen with petrodollars. But Yu's assignment was tough. Maintaining the $15 billion valuation Facebook obtained from Microsoft and Hong Kong investor Li Ka-Shing in the face of ...

Tesla Motors, the automaker which is Silicon Valley's best hope to build an electric-car industry, will run out of cash in three months if it does not raise new financing. CEO Elon Musk has confirmed Valleywag's report that it has spent most of its customers' deposits and is running low on cash. In an interview with Reuters, CEO Elon Musk conceded that the company only has $9 million in the bank, as a concerned Tesla ...

Brian Sugar, cofounder of San Francisco-based blog network Sugar Inc., sent two ominous Twitters this afternoon: "Sad day." "First rain, will last for 5 months." Was he just talking about the weather? Less than an hour later, he'd gathered his staff into a conference room and told them he was laying off nine employees, mostly in editorial — 11 percent of the company's 80-person staff. What's worse: More layoffs could come over the next two ...

Brian Sugar, cofounder of San Francisco-based blog network Sugar Inc., sent two ominous Twitters this afternoon: "Sad day." "First rain, will last for 5 months." Was he just talking about the weather? Less than an hour later, he'd gathered his staff into a conference room and told them he was laying off nine employees, mostly in editorial — 11 percent of the company's 80-person staff. What's worse: More layoffs could come over the next two ...