To get a roundup of australiabusinessblog.com’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3PM PDT, register here.

It is the most beautiful tiiiiiiiime of the yeeeaaar. Today we’ve got some work done to explore the weirdest subgenres of holiday music. Trap Christmas is one thing. Christopher Lee (yes Which Christopher Lee, Saruman in “Lord of the Rings”) a heavy metal Christmas albumwhich is really awful. Spinal Tap also did a holiday song, what I mean. And we are not upset about it disco christmas or this one goats sing “We wish you a merry Christmas” or…

Anyway . . . what are your favorite out-of-left-field holiday songs? Answers on an e-postcard, plz! — Christine and Hey

The australiabusinessblog.com Top 3

• Extra, extra, read all about it: British newspaper The Guardian confirmed that it had been hit by ransomware after some strange incidents that the newspaper started noticing in its IT infrastructure. Carly has more.
• Children, ask permission from your parents: If you’re a kid of the ’80s, you may remember that we were constantly reminded to “ask your parents for permission to…” Well, Google has now instituted something similar for Google Play, allowing children send purchase requests to their guardians, Ivan writes.
• Some reading material for the new year: Anna and Alex she collected and now shares some of the books startup founders and venture capitalists couldn’t put down this year. Enjoy reading!

Startups and VC

Carl Eschenbach, a veteran enterprise software manager who joined Sequoia Capital in 2016 and went on to lead a number of lucrative deals for the venture firm, returns to an operational role, Connie reports. As the new co-CEO of Workday, Eschenbach will lead the enterprise cloud applications giant along with his co-CEO, co-founder and company chairman Aneel Bhusri along with his co-CEO, company co-founder and chairman Aneel Bhusri.

You know what? We have a few more:

How to get the most out of your investor relationships in 2023

Image Credits: anise priyadi (Opens in a new window) /Getty Images

As Santa goes through his list of who’s been naughty and nice, it’s also a great time for startup founders to take stock of their investor relations.

Vidya Raman, a partner at Sorenson Ventures, has written a TC+ article with dos and don’ts for upcoming board meetings and offers his thoughts on which communication channels are best for different requests for help, as well as specific data points to bring up in your discussions.

“Be ruthless about how you spend your time,” he advises, “especially with your investors.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

australiabusinessblog.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams lead the way. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

In July, the Federal Trade Commission sued Meta over its proposed acquisition of VR company Within. This week it was Mark Zuckerberg’s turn in the stands, and Amanda has the details.

Now to Tesla, where Darrell reports that the automaker may face another round of layoffs next quarter. That’s not the only problem the company is in. It also has a bit of a stock price problem. Rebekah writes that Tesla stock has fallen to its lowest level in two years, partly due to all the Twitter drama and the loss of sales in China.

Here are four more for you: