TikTok Owner ByteDance Is Tech Darling Again With $400 Billion-Plus Valuation
At least three of Bytedance Ltd. 's major investors have marked up the TikTok-owner's valuation to more than $400 billion, a sharp rebound for a Chinese social video leader that has been threatened with a US shutdown.
SoftBank Group Corp. 's Vision Fund revalued the company to north of $400 billion in December, factoring in potential for its artificial-intelligence business Doubao, according to people familiar with the matter. Investing giants Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. have also marked up ByteDance, valuing it at above $410 billion and $450 billion, respectively, according to Bloomberg calculations based on November filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
New grads are struggling to find jobs and they're being locked out of the labor market because of 3 key factors
A new class of young graduates is getting ready to enter the workforce this summer, but they're likely to face a chilly reception. In one social media post after another, entry-level workers are bemoaning the state of the labor market and how hard it is to find a job. 'It feels more likely to win the lottery right now than get a job,' said one young TikTok poster. 'This is not what I expected,' said another young woman on Instagram as she held a stack of resumes and wiped tears from her eyes. 'But I can't be delusional anymore, I literally need to make money.' The current labor market appears strong on the surface—unemployment is still low at 4.2%, wage growth is steady, and the U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May. But those numbers don't tell the whole story. A deeper look beneath the surface reveals a much different jobs market for entry-level workers. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates aged 22-27 was 5.8% as of March, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And a May report from Oxford Economics found that 85% of unemployment since the middle of 2023 could be attributed to people just entering the workforce. 'Top-line job openings and unemployment statistics aren't, in practice, reflecting the experience of new grads entering the workforce,' Mischa Fisher, an economist at Udemy, a provider of online training courses, tells Fortune. 'Because entry-level roles are in short supply.' It's no surprise, then, that employee confidence amongst entry-level workers just hit an all-time low, according to a recent report from Glassdoor. And more than half (56%) of this year's college graduates feel pessimistic about starting their careers in the current economy, according to another survey from jobs platform Handshake. A few different factors are likely contributing to such a tough job market for young people right now. Experts tell Fortune that a combination of factors including a cooling labor market, a hiring pullback prompted by shifting tariff policies, and the long-promised of integration of AI into the workforce, are all creating massive problems for a new generation of job seekers. 'There are now clear trends in the data,' not just vague whisperings, that more and more people are getting left behind, says Cory Stahle, an economist at hiring platform Indeed's Hiring Lab. The COVID pandemic kicked off a major workforce reshuffling, unofficially dubbed the 'Great Resignation,' during which workers were successfully able to switch jobs for higher wages. But that era is long gone. The labor market has become more stagnant, and quit rates fell from 3% in March of 2022, the highest in over two decades, to around 2% as of April 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Workers who switch roles are also less likely to make more money if they do so. People who stay in their jobs are seeing an average of 4.4% wage growth, while those who leave are getting just 4.3% more, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That lack of turnover means that there are fewer opportunities for entry level workers to nab a role. 'We're seeing the labor market's version of the housing market's 'lock-in' effect, where employees are too nervous to make moves,' says Fisher. 'This freeze is blocking normal opportunity flow, so early career workers can't break in, experienced workers can't move up, and burned-out employees are staying put.' Trump's tariff policy changes, and their subsequent impact on the economy, is also creating problems for entry-level workers in the labor market. With an uncertain economic outlook thanks to on-again-off-again levies for major U.S. trading partners, many companies have pulled back on hiring until they get further clarity on what kind of economy will take shape in 2025. Around 30% of small and mid-size business owners say tariffs are directly impacting their organizations in a negative way, and 42% say they plan to pull back on hiring as a result, according to a May survey from coaching and advisory firm Vistage, in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. 'Business leaders are uncertain and when that happens they don't do as much hiring because they don't know what the next week is going to look like, let alone the next month,' says Allison Shrivastava, a labor economist also at Indeed's Hiring Lab. 'They're going to wait, especially for those jobs in what we think of as, traditionally, white collar sectors, which are often difficult and costly to hire for.' The promise of AI has been a looming threat to human workers for years, but there are now signs that companies are using the new tech to take over work previously done by entry-level employees. Many of the tasks that used to serve as a training ground for junior employees, like data entry, research, and handling basic customer or employee requests, are already being delegated to AI. Technical fields like computer science and finance are getting hit especially hard. While employment for people older than 27 in computer science and mathematical occupations has grown a modest 0.8% since 2022, employment for those aged 22-27, or recent graduates, has declined by 8%, according to a May report from labor market research firm Oxford Economics. That's compared to college graduates in all other occupations, who saw 2% employment gains. 'We concluded that a high adoption rate by information companies along with the sheer employment declines in these roles since 2022 suggested some displacement effect from AI,' the report reads. LinkedIn's chief economic opportunity officer Aneesh Raman, echoed that thought in a recent New York Times op-ed. 'In tech, advanced coding tools are creeping into the tasks of writing simple code and debugging—the ways junior developers gain experience,' he wrote. Companies are under pressure from investors to show that they can do more with less because of AI, says Sam Kuhn, an economist at Appcast, a job advertising company. Cutting jobs, or freezing hiring, are ways to do that. 'We are starting to see the ripple effects of companies that have invested a lot of money into artificial intelligence, wanting to show that they're actually getting something out of it,' he says. Meta reportedly plans to use AI to review the platform's privacy and societal risks instead of human staffers. At Microsoft, CEO Satya Nadella said in April that around 30% of code is now written by AI, a reality that likely factored into recent layoffs. And the CEO of payments platform Klarna has openly admitted last month that AI helped the company cut its workforce by around 40%. AI company founders are also getting more candid; Dario Amondei, the CEO of leading AI company Anthropic, has said outright that the technology could wipe out roughly 50% of all entry-level white-collar jobs. 'It sounds crazy, and people just don't believe it,' he said. 'We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming.' New job seekers can comfort themselves with the knowledge that it's not just their imagination—the hiring landscape really is tougher for them than it was a few years ago. That means they need to be more resourceful than their predecessors when it comes to outsmarting the labor market. That might include things like pivoting their job search to consider other industries or roles outside of what they studied in school. They also need to work harder to show employers that the skills they learned in college are a perfect fit for a given role. 'In the current labor market, new graduates need to find additional signals of skill beyond just a degree,' says Fisher. 'From certificates to demonstrated soft skills like communication, the candidates who stand out show they're already bridging the gap between school and skills acquisition.' Because the hiring process skews towards Zoom interviews and AI-driven recruiting, young people also need to take the initiative and reach out to hiring managers on their own, whether that's on LinkedIn, at a local job fair, or tapping into an alumni network. 'There are fewer opportunities now to engage on a human level with employers up front,' says Steve Rakas, executive director of the Masters Career Center at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. There remains, however, a reason for young people to hold out hope. Labor market trends are cyclical, and there are still opportunities out there for young people who want them, notes Rakas—even if they're not ideal. 'We're coaching them to think about not just plan A, but also plan B, C and D,' he says.'To be pragmatic, and also to pivot.' This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
US says China's Huawei can't make more than 200,000 AI chips in 2025
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -China's Huawei Technologies is capable of producing no more than 200,000 advanced artificial intelligence chips in 2025, a top U.S. exports controls official told lawmakers on Thursday, warning that though the number is below the company's demand, China is quickly catching up to U.S. capabilities. Since 2019, a slew of U.S. export rules aimed at curbing China's technological and military advancements have limited access by Huawei and other Chinese firms to high-end U.S. chips and the equipment needed to produce them. The issue has become a flashpoint in U.S.-China relations. Facing those restrictions, Huawei aims to ship its Ascend 910C AI chips to Chinese customers as an alternative to those made by the United States' Nvidia, the global leader. "Our assessment is that Huawei Ascend chip production capacity for 2025 will be at or below 200,000 and we project that most or all of that will be delivered to companies within China," Jeffrey Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security at the Commerce Department, told a congressional hearing. Kessler said that the U.S. should not take comfort in the figure. "China is investing huge amounts to increase its AI chip production, as well as the capabilities of the chips that it produces. So, it's critical for us not to have a false sense of security, to understand that China is catching up quickly," he told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs South and Central Asia subcommittee. White House AI Czar David Sacks said on Tuesday that China was only 3-6 months behind the U.S. in AI. The White House later said he was referring to China's AI models, adding that Chinese AI chips are one to two years behind their U.S. counterparts. Huawei's CEO Ren Zhengfei told Chinese state media on Tuesday that the company's chips were a generation behind those of U.S. competitors, but that it invests more than $25 billion annually to improve performance. Nvidia's AI chips are more powerful than Huawei's but Washington's export controls on its most sophisticated chips have caused it to lose market share. The U.S. and China reached a tentative trade truce at talks in London this week after a previous agreement faltered over China's continued curbs on minerals exports. That prompted the Trump administration to apply additional export controls on shipments of semiconductor design software, jet engines for Chinese-made planes and other goods. Democratic Representative Greg Meeks expressed concern that the Trump administration had conflated U.S. exports controls with broader discussions on trade. "What I will say is export controls have been strong and I'm confident that they will remain strong," Kessler said. Kessler said he was not planning any immediate new restrictions on U.S. semiconductors sold to China, but that the Commerce Department will "remain active in this space." "It's a constantly evolving landscape, and we need to make sure that our controls remain effective," he said.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Uncertainty abounds at Epic Charter School after cuts, resignations
Epic Charter School is headquartered at the 50 Penn Place complex in Oklahoma City. The virtual charter school laid off 357 employees this month. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice) OKLAHOMA CITY — Families and educators at Epic Charter School now face a summer of uncertainty as the charter school system downsizes its staff, facilities and course offerings. A leadership change and a state investigation have piled on top of the cuts. The virtual charter school's superintendent, Bart Banfield, resigned Monday, days after Epic laid off 357 teachers and administrators. Its deputy superintendent of finance, Jeanise Wynn, resigned April 11. 'There hasn't been much transparency about why and what are we doing,' Epic teacher and parent Sarah Kitterman said. 'What actions are we taking to make sure this changes and we don't do this again?' Kitterman, of Edmond, said Epic lost programs that were difference-makers for students. Her own children benefited from a now-eliminated ELA+ program that offered bonus reading classes. Students won't get that extra English language arts instruction without the program, she said, and it's unclear how Epic will repeat the 'incredible' learning gains that ELA+ produced. A similar Math+ program has been reduced to grades 6-12 only. The closure of Epic's Blended Learning Centers is a loss, too, Kitterman said. The centers, which offered in-person instruction in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, often had waiting lists. Students with disabilities especially sought a place at the learning centers, said Kitterman, a special education teacher. 'Does that mean that we're going to have an overload of students on our rosters now?' she said. 'We can't serve those students the same way that they were being served. So where do those students go?' Epic announced it would give students from the learning centers priority in another face-to-face instructional option, Comet Academy. Also gone are Epic's options for full-time in-person instruction five days a week, its school meal services, and all of its Chinese and Latin courses. Other services, like Advanced Placement courses, have been outsourced to other entities, some now costing a fee. 'These changes are part of our ongoing reorganization to better serve the 30,000 students statewide who choose Epic for their education, and to position the state's largest public virtual charter school for strength and success in the years to come,' the school told families in an email last week. Members of Epic's school board spoke little of the school's financial situation Thursday in their first meeting since the layoffs and Banfield's departure. The board, which is scheduled to meet again Tuesday, approved a new treasurer, assistant treasurer and encumbrance clerk for Epic, who will join the new chief financial officer, Michael Flory. The school board has yet to approve a budget for the 2025-26 school year, which must be done before the next fiscal year begins on July 1. The Statewide Charter School Board, a state agency that oversees Epic, is now investigating the school's finances. After its enrollment skyrocketed to over 60,000 children in 2020, Epic has steadily lost students and, as a result, state funding. An influx of federal pandemic aid funds also came to an end in September. To make matters worse, Epic administrators significantly miscalculated when crafting their budget for the 2024-25 academic year. Enrollment came in 4,000 students short of what administrators expected, prompting a round of layoffs in October that cost 144 jobs. The cuts continued this month when Epic slashed 83 teaching positions and 274 administrators. Banfield soon followed out the door. 'At Epic, we often say, 'The only constant is change,'' Banfield wrote in his resignation letter, which Oklahoma Voice obtained. 'Over the course of this school year, it has become clear to me that it is time for a new chapter. With deep gratitude, I am formally submitting my resignation. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Board of Education, the Epic staff, and most importantly, the hundreds of thousands of families who have chosen Epic as their school of choice since 2011. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you over the past 11 years. I wish you the very best. Go Comets!' Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Justin Hunt will serve as interim superintendent while the board searches for a candidate to hire permanently. 'I appreciate the trust and respect, and (I'm) looking forward to moving into next school year for the 30,000 kids that need us and choose us as a school option,' Hunt said during Thursday's school board meeting. As for Kitterman, she plans to return for her fourth school year teaching at Epic, and her three children will continue to attend, she said. Until this point, Kitterman has felt like a valued employee, she said, but the lack of transparency around the layoffs and cuts put that sense of value in doubt. 'I plan to stay as long as Epic is open,' Kitterman said. 'We've loved it, so that's my hope. It's just so scary.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
