Too busy to check your daily Betabeat? Here are the highlights from last week, as selected by the editors.

REQUIRED READING: The Full Story Behind BuyWithMe’s Big Layoffs: Debts Come Due For Daily Deal Industry

Betabeat has been covering the layoffs at BuyWithMe since Wednesday, when more than half the staff--at least 100 people--were laid off without warning or severance. There has been almost no word from the company or its management. What happened?

REQUIRED READING: Beta Test! New York Startups Think Occupy Wall Street Has a Bad Pitch

New York startups compete fiercely with the finance sector for programmers and MBAs–and while they can’t match Goldman’s salaries, they do make the social argument. Knewton wants to transform education, Sulia wants to reinvent news, and the mobile payments app Venmo wants to replace credit cards. Meetup is “starting a local community revolution”; Etsy’s mission is to “empower people to change the way the global economy works.” The lofty talk of startups is not unlike the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who are advocating–albeit vaguely–the most radical agenda of any political movement in recent memory.

REQUIRED VIEWING: The Pitch, Episode 2: Don't I Know You?

Betabeat's new web TV series about how to make it in Silicon Alley. We sifted through hundreds of eager applicants to find some of New York’s top prospects. This series profiles them and captures the process as they pitch Lerer Ventures face-to-face.

VITAMINS:

-Cornell Partners With Israel’s Technion and Unlike Stanford and CCNY, This Collabo’s 50/50
-Layoffs at TheLadders: Jobs Site Lets Go of About 30 Staffers

MILK AND COOKIES:

-Owner of Occupy.com Selling It for Six Figures
-Randi Zuckerberg Is Crunk: Facebook Founder Sister Gets Snub, Wonderfully Passive-Aggressive Times Treatment
-Rumors & Acquisitions: Public Relations Edition

RECYCLED:

-Night at the Hatchery, an American Idol for Startups (March 24, 2011)

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