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Time of India
4 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Walmart Layoffs: Who is Suresh Kumar, the Indian-origin CTO in news amid latest job cuts
ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Earlier this week, Walmart announced plans to lay off 1,500 employees at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as it looks to cut costs and weather economic uncertainties, affecting the global technology team, ecommerce fulfillment in US stores and advertising business, Walmart job cuts are meant to accelerate decision-making and reduce complexities, a memo by chief technology officer (CTO) Suresh Kumar and Walmart US chief executive officer (CEO) John Furner read, as reviewed by Bloomberg News. While eliminating some roles, Walmart is also creating new positions, they latest round of layoffs has drawn criticism from US tech workers. One user on X claimed the vacancies in the Walmart tech team will be filled by H-1B visa holders. One post with Kumar's image claimed without proof that 40% of Walmart's IT department comprises H-1B visa holders from three decades of his experience, Bengaluru-born Kumar has worked with Microsoft Google and Amazon in various leading capacities. He has been working with Walmart for nearly six years, currently serving as global CTO and chief development officer. In this role, he leads Walmart's technologists across its global businesses, including Walmart US, Sam's Club, and Walmart International. He also oversees global shared services, data, cloud, infrastructure, and information security organisations for the retail joining Walmart, Kumar was the vice president and general manager at Google. In this role, he oversaw display, video, app advertising, and analytics, managing the advertising revenue and bottomline across platforms like the Google Play Store, Gmail, and YouTube. He led product and engineering teams for key advertising and analytics products including AdSense, AdMob, DV360, AdManager, and Google Analytics (both standard and 360). During his tenure, he drove business growth, introduced new product features, and significantly cut infrastructure and traffic acquisition joining Google, Kumar held a senior role at Microsoft as corporate vice president of cloud infrastructure and operations. He led the global planning, delivery, and management of Microsoft's physical cloud infrastructure, including data centres, networks, servers, supply chains, and automation systems. Under his leadership, Microsoft doubled its global cloud footprint and tripled capacity. He also transformed the company's cloud supply chain and operations to enhance scalability, agility, and safety through to Microsoft, Kumar spent 15 years at Amazon in multiple leadership roles. As vice president of technology for retail systems and operations, he played a key role in scaling Amazon's retail business tenfold by automating functions like forecasting, pricing, merchandising, and vendor management. He also oversaw Amazon's retail operations, catalog management, and competitive analysis. Earlier, he led Amazon's retail supply chain and inventory began his career at IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center, where he worked on collaborative supply chain planning and shock protection technologies for portable hard holds a PhD in engineering from Princeton University. He completed his BTech in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in earned $15.98 million last year at Walmart, according to a regulatory filing. This included base salary of $1.1 million and stock awards worth $12 this month, US President Donald Trump lashed out at Walmart , accusing the retail giant of using tariffs as an excuse to raise prices and urging the company to absorb the cost increases instead of passing them on to American consumers.'Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Time of India
4 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Who is Suresh Kumar, the Indian-origin Walmart CTO in news amid latest job cuts
Earlier this week, Walmart announced plans to lay off 1,500 employees at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as it looks to cut costs and weather economic uncertainties, affecting the global technology team, ecommerce fulfillment in US stores and advertising business, Walmart Connect. The job cuts are meant to accelerate decision-making and reduce complexities, a memo by chief technology officer (CTO) Suresh Kumar and Walmart US chief executive officer (CEO) John Furner read, as reviewed by Bloomberg News. While eliminating some roles, Walmart is also creating new positions, they said. The latest round of layoffs has drawn criticism from US tech workers. One user on X claimed the vacancies in the Walmart tech team will be filled by H-1B visa holders. One post with Kumar's image claimed without proof that 40% of Walmart's IT department comprises H-1B visa holders from India. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:00 Loaded : 0% 0:00 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 1x Playback Rate Chapters Chapters Descriptions descriptions off , selected Captions captions settings , opens captions settings dialog captions off , selected Audio Track default , selected Picture-in-Picture Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Who is Suresh Kumar Over three decades of his experience, Bengaluru-born Kumar has worked with Microsoft , Google and Amazon in various leading capacities. He has been working with Walmart for nearly six years, currently serving as global CTO and chief development officer. In this role, he leads Walmart's technologists across its global businesses, including Walmart US, Sam's Club, and Walmart International. He also oversees global shared services, data, cloud, infrastructure, and information security organisations for the retail major. Before joining Walmart, Kumar was the vice president and general manager at Google. In this role, he oversaw display, video, app advertising, and analytics, managing the advertising revenue and bottomline across platforms like the Google Play Store, Gmail, and YouTube. He led product and engineering teams for key advertising and analytics products including AdSense, AdMob, DV360, AdManager, and Google Analytics (both standard and 360). During his tenure, he drove business growth, introduced new product features, and significantly cut infrastructure and traffic acquisition costs. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories Before joining Google, Kumar held a senior role at Microsoft as corporate vice president of cloud infrastructure and operations. He led the global planning, delivery, and management of Microsoft's physical cloud infrastructure, including data centres, networks, servers, supply chains, and automation systems. Under his leadership, Microsoft doubled its global cloud footprint and tripled capacity. He also transformed the company's cloud supply chain and operations to enhance scalability, agility, and safety through automation. Prior to Microsoft, Kumar spent 15 years at Amazon in multiple leadership roles. As vice president of technology for retail systems and operations, he played a key role in scaling Amazon's retail business tenfold by automating functions like forecasting, pricing, merchandising, and vendor management. He also oversaw Amazon's retail operations, catalog management, and competitive analysis. Earlier, he led Amazon's retail supply chain and inventory systems. Kumar began his career at IBM's Thomas J Watson Research Center, where he worked on collaborative supply chain planning and shock protection technologies for portable hard drives. Kumar holds a PhD in engineering from Princeton University. He completed his BTech in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1987. Suresh Kumar salary Kumar earned $15.98 million last year at Walmart, according to a regulatory filing. This included base salary of $1.1 million and stock awards worth $12 million. Walmart's tariff troubles Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump lashed out at Walmart , accusing the retail giant of using tariffs as an excuse to raise prices and urging the company to absorb the cost increases instead of passing them on to American consumers. 'Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Google is reportedly showing ads in chats with some third-party AI chatbots
Google's AdSense advertising network started supporting ads inside users' chats with some third-party AI chatbots earlier this year, Bloomberg reported. The company is rolling out the feature following tests with AI search startups iAsk and Liner, the report said, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. 'AdSense for Search is available for websites that want to show relevant ads in their conversational AI experiences,' Bloomberg cited a Google spokesperson as saying. The search and advertising giant is ostensibly seeking to capitalize on — and offset the potential threat of — the burgeoning trend of users increasingly using AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Perplexity to search the web and answer common queries. Google has invested heavily in AI tools and products, with a slate of large language models and frequent updates to its Gemini AI apps and models. The company late last year started showing ads in AI Overviews, the AI-generated summaries it supplies for certain Search queries. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
In the $250B influencer industry, being a hater can be the only way to rein in bad behavior
Since 2020, content creator Remi Bader had accumulated millions of TikTok followers by offering her opinions on the fits of popular clothing brands as a plus-size woman. In 2023, however, Bader appeared noticeably thinner. When some fans asked her whether she'd undergone a procedure, she blocked them. Later that year, she announced that she would no longer be posting about her body. Enter snark subreddits. On Reddit, these forums exist for the sole purpose of calling out internet celebrities, whether they're devoted to dinging the late-night antics of self-described 'hot mess' Alix Earle or venting over Savannah and Cole LaBrant, a family vlogging couple who misleadingly implied that their daughter had cancer. While the internet is synonymous with fan culture, snark subreddits aren't for enthusiasts. Instead, snarkers are anti-fans who hone the art of hating. After Bader's refusal to talk about her weight loss, the Remi Bader snark subreddit blew up. Posters weren't upset that Bader had lost weight or had stopped posting about her body size. Instead, they believed Bader the influencer, who'd built her brand on plus-size inclusion in fashion, wasn't being straight with her fans and needed to be taken to account. It worked. During a March 2025 appearance on Khloe Kardashian's podcast, Bader finally revealed that she had, in fact, had weight-loss surgery. Some critics see snarkers as a big problem and understandably denounce their tendency to harass, body shame and try to cancel influencers. But completely dismissing snark glosses over the fact that it can serve a purpose. In our work as social media researchers, we've written about how snark can actually be thought of as a way to call out bad actors in the largely unregulated world of influencing and content creation. Before there were influencers, there were bloggers. While bloggers covered topics that ranged from entertainment to politics to travel, parenting and fashion bloggers probably have the closest connection to today's influencers. After Google introduced AdSense in 2003, bloggers were easily able to run advertising on their websites. Then brands saw an opportunity. Parenting and fashion bloggers had large, loyal followings. Many readers felt an intimate connection to their favorite bloggers, who seemed more like friends than out-of-touch celebrity spokespersons. Brands realized they could send bloggers their products in exchange for a write-up or a feature. Furthermore, advertisers understood that parenting and fashion bloggers didn't have to adhere to the same industry regulations or code of ethics as most news media outlets, such as disclosing payments or conflicts of interest. This changed the dynamic between bloggers and their fans, who wondered whether bloggers could be trusted if they were sometimes being paid to promote certain products. In response, websites emerged in 2009 to critique bloggers. 'Get Off My Internets,' for example, fashioned itself as a 'quality control watchdog' to provide constructive criticism and call out deceptive practices. As Instagram and YouTube became more popular, the subreddit 'r/Blogsnark' launched in 2015 to critique early influencers, in addition to bloggers. Today the influencer industry has a valuation of over US$250 billion in the U.S. alone, and it's on track to be worth over $500 billion by 2027. Yet there are few regulations in place for influencers. A few laws have emerged to protect child influencers, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has established legal guidelines for sponsored content. That said, the influencing industry remains rife with exploitation. It goes both ways: Corporations can exploit influencers. For example, a 2021 study found that Black influencers receive below-market offers compared with white influencers. Likewise, influencers can deceive or exploit their followers. They might use unrealistic body filters to appear thinner than they are. They could hide who's paying them. They may promote health misinformation such as the controversial ParaGuard cleanse, a fake treatment pushed by wellness influencers that claimed to rid its users of parasites. Or, in the case of Remi Bader, they might gain a huge following by promoting body positivity, only to conceal a weight-loss procedure from their fans. For disappointed fans or followers who feel burned, snark can seem like the only regulatory guardrail in an industry that has gone largely unchecked. Think of snark as a Better Business Bureau for the untamable world of influencing – a form of accountability that brings attention to the scammers and hustlers. Todays's snark exists at the intersection of gossip and cancel culture. Though cancel culture certainly has its faults, we approach cancel culture in our writing as a worthy tool that allows audiences to hold the powerful accountable. For example, communities of color have joined forces to call out racists, as they did in 2024 when they exposed lifestyle influencer Brooke Schofield's anti-Black tweets. Influencers build trust with their audiences based on being 'real' and relatable. But there's nothing preventing them from breaking that trust, and snarkers can swoop in to point out bad behavior or hypocrisy. Within the competitive world of family vlogging, snarkers see themselves as doing more than stirring the pot. They're truth-tellers who bring injustices to light, such as abuse and child labor exploitation. Some of this exposure is paying off, with more and more states introducing and passing family vlogger laws that require children to one day receive a portion of their parents' earnings or restrict how often children can appear in their parents' videos. Yes, snark can veer into cyberbullying. But that shouldn't discount its value as a tool for transparency. Influencers are ultimately brands. They sell audiences ideas, lifestyles and products. When people feel as if they've been misled, we think they have every right to call it out. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jessica Maddox, University of Alabama and Jess Rauchberg, Seton Hall University Read more: Gossip is a social skill – not a character flaw US states are finally starting to put in place protections for the kids of family vloggers With the end of the Hollywood writers and actors strikes, the creator economy is the next frontier for organized labor Jess Rauchberg receives funding from Microsoft Research. Jessica Maddox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Forbes
20-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Why Creators Are Making More Money Off Social Media Than On It
Sierra Fernald just launched her first course, "The Escape Plan" In 2025, the term 'influencer' no longer tells the full story. According to Kajabi's new State of Creator Commerce report, over half of content creators now identify as entrepreneurs. This is a shift that marks a new era in the creator economy. Unlike the social-first creators who rely solely on brand partnerships or platform bonuses, 'entrepreneurial' creators are building businesses that go beyond the social platforms, tapping into digital products and services to generate real, sustainable income. Not only are these entrepreneurial creators earning more, they're also feeling more confident. Kajabi's data shows that entrepreneurial creators make 25% more than their social-first counterparts and are 20% more likely to report higher self-confidence and self-esteem. With platform volatility on the rise (for example, fears of a TikTok ban or ongoing political concerns around Meta), creators are actively bringing their monetization strategies off-platform and into their own hands. Perhaps one of the most essential aspects of all, you don't need hundreds of thousands of followers to do it. Some of today's most successful creators are thriving with audiences under 20K. Hailey Young made $2,000 in her first weekend selling digital products. When Hailey Young launched her YouTube quilting channel in 2021, she was a stay-at-home mom earning about $500/month through AdSense and affiliate links. 'The idea of needing to double or triple my video output just to increase my income felt impossible,' she says. In 2023, everything changed when she launched her first digital product and ran a flash sale to a long-forgotten email list resulting in an additional $2,000 in one weekend. That single decision unlocked a six-figure business. 'I realized I didn't need to create more content—I needed to build smarter systems,' Young explains. With funnels and flash sales, she built a repeatable revenue stream that gave her financial control outside of the algorithm. 'Digital products felt like flipping on a money faucet,' she says. 'Now I have real control over my income—and a business I can sustain.' Sierra Fernald just launched her first course, "The Escape Plan" Sierra Fernald's journey began with her sharing travel moments online and landing the occasional brand deal. But after years of chasing the algorithm and spending countless hours pitching and negotiating, she realized she needed a better system. 'It was like being in a constant loop of trying to prove my worth,' she says. 'One month I'd land great deals, and the next, crickets.' Now Fernald is shifting away from brand reliance and into entrepreneurship, building her first course, "The Escape Plan", designed to help others build nomadic, sustainable lives. 'It's not necessarily making me more just yet, but the hope is that it creates breathing room—to create from inspiration, not stress.' Her long-term vision is a business that serves her community directly, without relying on whether Instagram decides to show her content to three people—or 30,000. Prasha Dutra has generated $850,000 in total revenue. TEDx speaker and founder of the Believe in Your Brilliance Academy, Prashha Dutra built a coaching business that has generated $850,000 in total revenue, helping more than 600 women secure $200K+ jobs. She's no stranger to the content game—but she's clear about where she places her energy: 'Brand partnerships and content monetization can be unpredictable and often undervalue your expertise,' she says. Instead, Dutra built a service-based business around her deep expertise in career coaching for women in STEM. 'Many content creators make the mistake of diversifying too early,' she explains. 'The deeper I went into my niche, the more valuable my services became.' What began as a podcast evolved into a high-ticket, high-impact business that has outpaced most influencer brand deals and given her full autonomy in the process. Entrepreneurial creators are shifting the narrative away from vanity metrics and toward meaningful income. They're building memberships, launching digital downloads, creating online courses, selling e-books, and generating podcast revenue. With more predictability, more autonomy, and often more alignment with their values, these off-platform ventures are turning creators into business owners. As these creators prove, you don't need a massive audience to pull it off. As these three creators show, success in the creator economy isn't about follower count, it's about building something sustainable, intentional, and truly your own.
