Latest news with #Collison
Hans India
5 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
Sundar Pichai Delivers on Stripe Co-founder's Wish: Google Calendar Adds Drag-to-Duplicate Shortcut
A lighthearted social media exchange between two tech giants has resulted in a small yet time-saving feature for millions of Google Calendar users. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that the platform now allows events to be duplicated instantly with a simple drag-and-drop gesture—a suggestion first made by Stripe co-founder John Collison just over a month ago. The story began on July 5, when Collison posted on X (formerly Twitter) asking for a shortcut to copy events in Google Calendar. He referenced similar tools in Microsoft Outlook and proposed a 'Ctrl-click' option that would instantly duplicate a meeting or appointment. Collison tagged Pichai directly, ensuring the idea landed in the right inbox—virtually speaking. Such user requests often get lost in the social media shuffle, but this one struck a chord. On Wednesday, Pichai responded publicly to Collison's original post: 'This feature is now live for everyone on Google Calendar on the web, thanks for the suggestion!' The newly added shortcut works on the web version of Google Calendar. Users can simply hold down the Ctrl key (or Cmd on Mac) and drag an event to a new time slot in the Day, Week, or Month view. The action instantly creates a duplicate of the original event, making it much faster to schedule recurring or similar meetings without opening any menus. Previously, duplicating an event was a multi-step process—users had to open the event, click the three-dot menu, and then select the duplicate option. The new feature trims this down to a single, fluid motion, saving both time and clicks. However, the drag-to-duplicate shortcut isn't available in every Calendar layout. It currently works only in views that allow direct event manipulation—Day, Week, and Month. Users in Schedule or Year view won't see the feature in action because those layouts don't support drag-and-drop editing. The playful back-and-forth on X didn't stop with Pichai's reply. Box CEO Aaron Levie chimed in, humorously asking Collison to leverage his 'tech leader influence' to get Waymo's self-driving cars to improve services on El Camino Real, a famously congested road in Silicon Valley. While the new shortcut might not be revolutionary in the grand scheme of productivity tools, it's a welcome tweak for heavy calendar users. For professionals juggling multiple meetings, events, and appointments, a few seconds saved per scheduling task can add up over weeks and months. In the end, this update shows that even a casual suggestion from a prominent voice in tech can lead to meaningful changes—especially when it lands in front of the right person. And for Google Calendar users, that means less clicking, less menu-hunting, and a smoother path to keeping their schedules in order.
India Today
5 days ago
- Business
- India Today
Sundar Pichai grants this co-founder's calendar wish, now everyone can copy-paste meetings
A light-hearted exchange on social media between two well-known tech leaders has led to a useful new feature in Google Calendar. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has confirmed that the platform now supports a quick way to duplicate events, an idea first floated by Stripe co-founder John Collison just over a month story began on July 5, when Collison took to X (formerly Twitter) to make a simple request. He asked if Google Calendar could offer a shortcut to copy existing events, similar to features already available in other calendar tools such as Microsoft Outlook. Specifically, he suggested a Ctrl-click option that would instantly duplicate a meeting or appointment. Collison tagged Pichai in the post, hoping the request would reach the right like these often disappear into the noise of social media, but this one was different. On Wednesday, Pichai replied to Collison's original post, announcing that the shortcut had been added to Google Calendar's web version. "This feature is now live for everyone on Google Calendar on the web, thanks for the suggestion!" Pichai wrote. The new method allows users to hold down the Ctrl key (or Cmd on Mac) and drag an event to another time slot in the Day, Week, or Month view, instantly creating a copy. This makes scheduling recurring or similar meetings faster and more duplicating an event required opening it, navigating to the three-dot menu, and selecting the duplicate option, a process that involved multiple clicks. By comparison, the new shortcut can be done in seconds without opening any the feature is not available in all Calendar views. Users in Schedule or Year view will not be able to use the drag-and-duplicate function because those layouts do not allow direct manipulation of events. For now, the shortcut works only in views where events can be moved or resized successful request quickly became a talking point on X, with other tech figures joining in on the fun. Box CEO Aaron Levie jokingly asked him to use his influence to get Waymo's self-driving cars to improve services on El Camino Real, a busy stretch in Silicon Valley notorious for traffic jams. For regular Google Calendar users, the new shortcut may not be groundbreaking, but it's a small change that can save time and make scheduling a little smoother.- Ends
Business Insider
16-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Stripe's CEO says he loves asking AI questions — but it falls short in another area
Stripe's CEO, Patrick Collison, loves using AI to ask factual questions — just don't ask him to let it write for him. In a conversation with Cursor's CEO, Michael Truell, which was uploaded to Cursor's YouTube channel on Tuesday, Collison said he relies on AI tools like xAI's Grok to answer questions while reading. The CEO of the payments platform said he uses the tools "mainly for answering factual or empirical questions." "I find them terrific for that," he added. Collison said he uses Grok in voice mode, letting it run in the background while he reads so he can ask questions out loud. "The answers are very helpful," he added. But when it comes to writing, Collison draws the line. "I wish they were useful for writing," he said. "But I usually end up dissatisfied with the writing that they produce." What bothers him most is the lack of personal flair, even when he tries prompting the AI not to sound generic. "My personal style differs from the personal style, so to speak, of the models," he said. "In some self-centered way, when I write, I want to use my personal style." His comments reflect a view held by some tech leaders: AI may be great for research and brainstorming, but when it comes to voice and tone, human creativity still wins. LinkedIn's chief operations officer, Dan Shapero, told Business Insider in April that while he turns to AI chatbots for tips on writing and presenting, he doesn't use LinkedIn's AI summary feature to write his own profile — he has lots of practice writing in first person. How CEOs are using AI Tech CEOs have been vocal about how they weave AI into their daily lives. Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, said he uses Copilot to summarize his Outlook and Teams messages. He uses at least 10 custom agents from Copilot Studio to help with meeting prep and research, he said during a Bloomberg interview published in May. He also uploads podcast transcripts to the Copilot app on his phone so he can discuss the content with a voice assistant during his commute. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he used AI "constantly" after welcoming his first child in February. "Clearly, people have been able to take care of babies without ChatGPT for a long time," Altman said in an OpenAI podcast interview published last month. "I don't know how I would have done that." Altman said he now mostly uses ChatGPT to research babies' developmental stages. Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, takes a more educational approach. He said he uses AI programs to learn new concepts. "I use it as a tutor every day," Huang said during the Milken Institute Global Conference in May. "In areas that are fairly new to me, I might say, 'Start by explaining it to me like I'm a 12-year-old,' and then work your way up into a doctorate-level over time."
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stripe Explores Bank Partnerships on Stablecoins as Payments Importance Grows, Says Company President
Payments firm Stripe held early discussions with banks about integrating stablecoins into their core service as digital tokens are gaining traction for global payments, co-founder and president John Collison said in an interview with Bloomberg. "Banks are very interested in how they should be integrated with stablecoins into their product offerings as well," said Collison. "This is not something that banks are just kind of brushing away or treating as a fad." His comments underscore the rising interest among traditional financial firms to explore stablecoins, one of the fastest-growing use cases of crypto. Stablecoins, which have become a $240 billion asset class, are blockchain-based tokens anchored to government-issued currencies, predominantly to the U.S. dollar. They offer cheaper, faster alternative with around-the clock settlements compared to traditional payments channels. PayPal (PYPL) launched its own U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin PYUSD, while French bank Societe Generale issued a euro-backed token EURCV. Visa developed a tokenization platform to help banks issue stablecoins. Stripe is also betting on the growing role of stablecoins in international payments. The firm made headlines earlier this year by acquiring stablecoin tech startup Bridge for $1.1 billion. Since then, Bridge rolled out its own stablecoin USDB while Stripe introduced stablecoin accounts in over 100 countries. "A lot of our future payment volume is going to be in stablecoins," Collison said in the interview. He pointed to costly FX fees and multi-day processing times as pain points that stablecoins could while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Time Magazine
20-05-2025
- Business
- Time Magazine
Patrick Collison
'May the wind be always at your back' is the Irish blessing for a swift journey. It evidently worked for Patrick Collison, whose rise from schoolboy coder in rural Ireland to Silicon Valley tech founder and billionaire philanthropist has been rapid. Collison, now 36, launched his first startup in 2007 at 18, and by 21 had co-founded the business-payments platform Stripe, recently valued at around $91.5 billion. Speed is also the byword for Collison's approach to philanthropy, which is focused on accelerating scientific progress. In 2020 he co-launched Fast Grants, a rapid-funding system for scientists researching solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following year he co-founded the nonprofit Arc Institute, launched with an initial endowment of $650 million from Collison and other donors including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Good Ventures co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna. Arc, collaborating with top universities such as Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley, aims to empower and expedite the work of scientists researching complex diseases by providing them with no-strings-attached, multi-year funding, freeing them from the grind and uncertainty of applying for external grants. In January, Arc announced a partnership with Nvidia to fast-track scientific research by developing and publicly sharing powerful computational models and tools that advance biomedical discovery—including its recently launched open-source model, EVO 2, which combines AI and biology to help researchers uncover potentially life-saving targeted therapies. The goal: 'to accelerate scientific progress, understand the root causes of disease, and narrow the gap between discoveries and impact on patients.'
