DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

Tim Cook has delivered at least seven commencement addresses since becoming the chief executive of Apple. The superstar Taylor Swift, whose concerts have been credited with lifting local economies, addressed New York University’s graduation ceremony in 2022. Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Jamie Dimon — they’ve all given graduation speeches more than once. The appeal of being a commencement speaker, however, seems to be waning. Just three Fortune 50 chief executives appear to be commencement speakers this year, as colleges have faced campus protests over the war in Gaza, student arrests and wealthy alumni threatening to break ties with their alma maters over antisemitism.

Persons: Tim Cook, Taylor Swift, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Jamie Dimon —, They’re, ”, David Murray Organizations: Apple, Fortune, Professional Speechwriters Association Locations: New, Gaza

☆ Melinda French Gates is resigning from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-13 | by ( David Goldman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Melinda French Gates said Monday she would resign as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that she has helped lead since 2000. As part of her separation agreement from former husband Bill Gates, French Gates said she will receive an additional $12.5 billion for her charitable work. Bill Gates and French Gates announced their divorce in May 2021. Gates will remain in control and, essentially, buy French Gates out of the foundation, Suzman said at the time. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Persons: Melinda French Gates, Melinda Gates, Bill Gates, French Gates, Gates, “, Mark Suzman, Melinda, ”, Suzman, ” Suzman Organizations: New, New York CNN, Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates Foundation, Ventures Locations: New York, Gates, United States

☆ Rising temperatures and floods leave cities with hefty bills. Startups are working to help them adapt to climate risks.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

All of this has given rise to climate adaptation, a sector that aims to mitigate against and adapt to the risks associated with climate change. For James Brennan and Navjit Sagoo, two of the scientists behind climate risk analytics startup Climate X, it is imperative that adaption efforts go hand in hand with those working to curb rising temperatures. Indeed, Bank of America analysts predicted the climate adaptation industry would be worth $2 trillion a year by 2026. Climate X made its calculations based on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's RCP8.5 scenario, which has been deemed to be a "very high" baseline for emissions. Mike Segar/ReutersAll hands on deckThe need for climate adaptation is clear but often overlooked until an extreme weather event occurs, according to Landesman and Chaudhury.

Persons: —, James Brennan, Navjit Sagoo, Abrar Chaudhury, Autarc, Bill Gates, Tucker Landesman, Helge Jørgensen, Mike Segar, Brennan, Sagoo Organizations: Service, Business, Bank of America, Climate, X, Deloitte, University of Oxford's, Business School, New York Times, New, London, Fabian Society, Tech, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Goldman Sachs, Management, Air, International Institute for Environment, Development Locations: London, New York City, New York, California, Autarc , Massachusetts, Medellin, Colombia, Europe, PitchBook, Mamaroneck, Westchester County , New York, U.S

☆ Microsoft is hiring a nuclear energy expert to help power its AI and cloud data centers
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-25 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Artificial intelligence takes a lot of compute power, and Microsoft is putting together a road map for powering that computation with small nuclear reactors. However, Microsoft has publicly committed to pursuing nuclear energy from an innovator in the fusion space. In May, Microsoft announced it signed a power purchase agreement with Helion, a nuclear fusion startup, to buy electricity from it in 2028. Interest in nuclear energy has increased alongside concerns about climate change in recent years, as nuclear reactors generate electricity without releasing virtually any carbon dioxide emissions. Nuclear energy also makes up 47% of America's carbon-free electricity in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Persons: Satya Nadella, ChatGPT, Bill Gates, Microsoft's, Sam Altman, they're Organizations: Microsoft, Modular Reactor, CNBC, Helion, U.S . Energy Information Administration, U.S . Department of Energy Locations: Redmond , Washington, OpenAI, Helion, U.S

☆ Warren Buffett's wife Astrid is overheard complaining about a $4 cup of coffee at 'summer camp for billionaires' in Sun Valley, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-14 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Astrid Buffett was heard at "summer camp for billionaires" complaining about $4 coffee, the New York Post reports. US coffee shops charge an average of nearly $5 per cup of coffee, according to a previous Insider report. Astrid's husband, Warren Buffett, is known to be frugal. At the so-called "summer camp for billionaires," 77-year-old Astrid Buffett was heard complaining about having to pay $4 for a cup of coffee, the Post said. Warren Buffett and his second wife, Astrid, have been married since 2006.

Persons: Astrid Buffett, Warren Buffett, Buffett's, Berkshire Hathaway, Bill Gates, Buffett, Astrid, Astrid Menks, Warren Organizations: New York Post, Allen, Berkshire, Oracle, Post, NPD Group, US Bureau of Labor Statistics Locations: Sun Valley , Idaho, griping, Omaha, Sun Valley, Sun

☆ One of the 'godfathers' of AI says concerns the technology could pose a threat to humanity are 'preposterously ridiculous'
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Yann LeCun says concerns that AI could pose a threat to humanity are "preposterously ridiculous." He was part of a team that won the Turing Award in 2018 for breakthroughs in machine learning. An AI expert has said concerns that the technology could pose a threat to humanity are "preposterously ridiculous." Marc Andreessen warned against "full-blown moral panic about AI" and said that people have a "moral obligation" to encourage its development. He added that concerns about AI were overstated and if people realized the technology wasn't safe they shouldn't build it, per BBC News.

Persons: Yann LeCun, Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, LeCun, Bing, DALL, Bengio, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Marc Andreessen Organizations: BBC News, BBC, Apple, Center, AI Safety, Yale's, Leadership Institute, CNN Locations: Paris

☆ Elon Musk says he's upped his sleep to 6 hours per night—and that his old routine hurt his brain
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk says his days of trying to sleep less and work more are over — at least, relatively speaking. "And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours [of sleep per night]." Now he gets at least seven hours of sleep, he wrote in a 2019 blog post. Musk often works seven days per week and only takes "two or three" truly workless vacation days per year, he said on Tuesday. "I work seven days a week, but I'm not expecting others to do that."

☆ The stock market rally in 2023 has added $213 billion to the wealth of the world's top 10 billionaires
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Matthew Fox | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A strong start to the stock market this year has helped reverse some of the big losses billionaires saw in 2022. So far this year, the world's top 10 billionaires added a collective $213 billion to their net worth. MARTIN BUREAU/AFP via Getty ImagesNet Worth: $92.8 billion2023 Gain: $21.3 billionSource of Wealth: L'Oreal9. Elon MuskElon Musk Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC ImagesNet Worth: $180 billion2023 Gain: $43.2 billionSource of Wealth: Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter1. Bernard ArnaultEric Piermont/Getty ImagesNet Worth: $210 billion2023 Gain: $47.8 billionSource of Wealth: LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton

☆ Elon Musk wants to pause 'dangerous' AI development. Bill Gates disagrees—and he's not the only one
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Tom Huddleston Jr. | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

AI developers, prominent AI ethicists and even Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates have spent the past week defending their work. "I don't think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges," Gates told Reuters on Monday. A pause would be difficult to enforce across a global industry, Gates added — though he agreed that the industry needs more research to "identify the tricky areas." That's what makes the debate interesting, experts say: The open letter may cite some legitimate concerns, but its proposed solution seems impossible to achieve. It noted in its blog post that future AI systems could become "much more powerful" over the next decade, and building guardrails now could "help reduce risks" down the road.

☆ Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth says Elon Musk's call to pause AI development is 'unrealistic'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Sarah Jackson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

More than 1,000 people, including Elon Musk, recently signed a letter calling for a pause on AI development. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said: "Not only is it unrealistic, I don't think it would be effective." "I think it's very important to invest in responsible development," Bosworth told the outlet, "and we do that kind of investment all the time. And so I think, not only is it unrealistic, I don't think it would be effective." "Shutting down AI development for six months gives the bad guys six more months to catch up," he said.

☆ Big tech companies continue cost cutting
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Paayal Zaveri | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Tech companies have chased short-term fads in a desperate attempt to win the favor of Wall Street investors — and it's making the online experience worse. As tech companies continue to focus on efficiency, it's clear that one metric is the most important: revenue per employee. After years of over-hiring, tech companies are now looking to squeeze the most efficient performance from each worker, my colleague Hasan Chowdhury reports. But it's another sign that tech companies are drifting away from pro-remote work policies. Google, Meta, and Microsoft have all failed to make their AR and VR devices into mainstream successes.

☆ TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has the internet eating out of his hand
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Hallam Bullock | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Well, court filings have laid bare the company's excessive spending habits on luxury estate, hotels and, of course, a yacht. Shou Zi Chew said the average TikTok user was "an adult well past college age." Wall Street says TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew had a "disaster" day in Congress. Wall Street may have dubbed Chew's testimony a "disaster," but by the end of it, Chew had the internet eating out of his hand. Google Bard is already behind in the AI wars.

☆ UBS' uber-rich clients don't want to share the wealth (managers)
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Among the key things to remember was reopening the steam room at exactly 3:30 p.m. after its cleaning. Hayley has all the details from rich clients as well as industry analysts about why this whole thing could spell disaster. It's still early days, but the UBS-Credit Suisse deal might be the best example of something that makes sense on paper, but doesn't work in reality. Read more about why UBS acquiring Credit Suisse could lead to more headaches than huge wins for the Swiss wealth behemoth. And since we're talking BBQ, I'm required to share the funniest tweet in the history of Twitter.

☆ The US is bleeding tech workers to other countries — it needs to move fast or risk falling behind.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The US is losing tech workers to other countries. And so, many tech workers are opting to move and work there instead of the US. Plus, many of these countries are making their immigration systems easier for tech workers. My teammates Emilia David and Paayal Zaveri break down how the US is on the brink of losing an entire generation of tech workers. And it showed that Boomers and Gen Z both love many of the same cars, including the Toyota RAV4.

☆ Fact Check-Bill Gates was not issued an arrest warrant in the Philippines
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

One tweet said: “An arrest warrant was just issued for BILL GATES? Some users are sharing the claim alongside a March 2 story on NewsPunch that says: “Bill Gates Arrest Warrant Issued in Philippines For ‘Premeditated Murder’ Linked To Vaccine Roll Out” (archive.is/azhdX). A Gates spokesperson told Reuters that a Philippines court had not issued an arrest warrant for Gates due to the COVID-19 vaccine. The NewsPunch story says the Heinous Crimes Court in Manila, Philippines, issued the supposed arrest warrant for Gates. Bill Gates was not issued an international arrest warrant by a Philippine court, a Gates spokesperson told Reuters.

☆ Microsoft pushing you to set Bing and Edge as your defaults to get its new OpenAI-powered search engine faster is giving off big 1990s energy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | Shona Ghosh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft was once king of computing, with more than 90% market share. Microsoft has integrated some OpenAI deep-learning technology into Bing, its ailing competitor to Google, so that the search engine can answer questions in a more nuanced way. And rather than just returning a list of results, Bing will present the information in a more useful way. What is less futuristic is Microsoft's maneuvering to juice its own market share as much as possible. Microsoft is juicing Bing's market share right now Shona Ghosh/InsiderAt present, Bing's share of the search market is a mere 3%, according to data firm Stat Counter.

☆ Tech CEOs screwed up, and it's time to hold them accountable
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

I'm Matt Weinberger, deputy editor of Insider's tech analysis team, filling in for Diamond Naga Siu. Is it time for CEOs to start losing their jobs? Ed Zitron argues for Insider that the thousands of tech workers who lost their jobs in recent months are actually just taking the fall for the real problem in Silicon Valley — CEOs who aren't up to the task of leadership. He praised the CEOs of Apple and Intel for recently taking pay cuts as their companies hit tougher times. Late Friday afternoon, a federal jury officially ruled that the Tesla CEO's infamous "funding secured" tweet didn't harm shareholders, making him not liable for damages.

☆ Fact Check-Bill Gates did not pull out of the 2023 WEF summit
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Posts on Twitter read: “EXCLUSIVE: Bill Gates has also pulled out of the WEF23 meeting in Davos, wonder why?” (here) and (here). Reuters found no evidence that Gates was scheduled to participate at the WEF’s 2023 conference (here). When asked whether Gates pulled out of the conference, a spokesperson for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation told Reuters the claim was false. “Bill was never confirmed to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2023,” the spokesperson added in an emailed statement. Bill Gates was never confirmed to be part of the 2023 conference of the World Economic Forum, a spokesperson for his foundation said.

☆ Fact Check-Bill Gates turned off replies on his Twitter page in July 2020
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

One Twitter user said: “Elon Musk EXPOSED Bill Gates in the latest twitter files so hard that he has now turned off comments on his Twitter” (here). However, Reuters Fact Check found that Gates disabled tweet replies in July 2020. The last apparent tweet by Gates allowing replies from other Twitter users appears to be on July 2, 2020 (here). A spokesperson for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said allegations that he disabled Twitter replies in response to Musk’s actions are false. Bill Gates’ Twitter account has disabled tweet replies since July 2020, years before the “Twitter Files” were released.

☆ Fact Check-Bill Gates did not say he wants to ‘vaccinate animals to give them better genetics’
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

People on social media saying Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates wants to “vaccinate animals to give them better genetics” are misstating what he said in an interview about initiatives with farm animals. Posts online (here) (here), (here) shows a 37-second video of Gates saying:“The Gates Foundation has partnered with DFID on a great number of things and, among those, are work we do together on livestock. Helping animals survive either by having vaccines or better genetics, helping them be more productive. The posts on social media say, “Bill Gates wants to ‘vaccinate’ animals to give them better genetics” – but in the clip, Gates says “helping animals survive either by having vaccines or better genetics.” He does not say that “better genetics” would be achieved through vaccination. Bill Gates did not say he wants to “vaccinate animals to give them better genetics” in a video circulating online.

☆ The contender for tech's next big boom or bubble is here
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Jake Swearingen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

It's the hunt for big paydays that keeps VC markets a little frothy when new tech like generative AI hits the scene. And a bubble is only a bubble in the rear-view — in the moment, it's just making sure you don't miss out on the future. Generative AI tools can be used to create a variety of texts and images like this one, which was produced by OpenAI's DALL-E 2. But could generative AI be the next bubble in tech? Click here to read whether the next tech bubble is already here.

CNN —Defeated Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has filed suit in Arizona Superior Court challenging the certification of the state’s election. “Accordingly, Lake is entitled to an order setting aside the election in its entirety and ordering a new election,” Lake’s attorneys write in the suit. All four GOP nominees that were at the top of the Arizona ticket had echoed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Arizona was a key 2022 battleground for governor and Senate, and likely will be again for president in 2024. Lake has repeatedly said she would not have certified Joe Biden’s win in Arizona in 2020.

☆ As Amazon's Alexa unit faces layoffs, insiders describe a department in crisis
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Jordan Parker Erb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Today, we're taking a look inside the rise and fall of Amazon's Alexa unit, and detailing more potential layoffs at Twitter, so we're not off to a great start — but let's keep our fingers crossed. Employees took us inside Amazon's floundering Alexa unit. With Amazon's Alexa — and the devices team at large — the prime target of the biggest layoffs in the company's history, Insider's Eugene Kim spoke with more than a dozen employees to understand the current state of the unit. Employees told Insider a combination of low morale, failed monetization attempts, and lack of engagement across users and developers made them feel as though the team was deadlocked over the last few years. Here's everything employees told us.

☆ Degrowth: A dangerous idea or the answer to the world's biggest problems?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-13 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

“An innocent 2 or 3% per year, it’s an enormous amount of growth — cumulative growth, compound growth — over time,” said Giorgos Kallis, a top degrowth scholar based at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Action Press/ShutterstockThe UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently cited degrowth in a major report. Investment bank Jefferies said investors should consider what happens if degrowth gathers steam, noting “climate-anxious” younger generations have different consumer values. She’s criticized “fairy tales about non-existent technological solutions” and “eternal economic growth.” And she’s touched on another point degrowthers raise: Is our current system, which has produced rampant inequality, even working for us? Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who’s prioritized investing in climate innovations, admits that overhauling global energy systems is a Herculean task.

☆ Google's hologram video call booths want to make you 'feel like you're there'—and they might be coming to your office
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-16 | by ( Tom Huddleston Jr. | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

In fact, it might not be long before you're attending a virtual work meeting with lifelike, 3D representations of your colleagues. That's the future Google is working toward: The company says it's expanding testing of its Project Starline, 3D video call booths where you can chat with holographic versions of your friends, family or coworkers. Google has not yet revealed its ultimate plans for the technology, including whether it'll eventually look to sell the 3D video booths to companies, consumers or both. In offices, the booths could theoretically be useful for meetings with remote workers, job candidates or corporate clients in other countries. Bill Gates has predicted that within a few years, "most virtual meetings" could take place in the metaverse, using those types of digital avatars.

Search resuls for: ". Bill Gates"

25 mentions found