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Business Insider
25-05-2025
- Automotive
- Business Insider
Tesla is going all in to finish first in the robotaxi race
Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. This week, BI's Polly Thompson took an inside look at how artificial intelligence is set to upend a pillar of the white-collar world: the Big Four. Many millennials face a cursed inheritance with their parents' homes. Internal memos reveal how an ex-Facebook exec leads Microsoft's new AI unit. Losing faith in the ROI of college, Gen Z is pivoting to blue-collar jobs. Wall Street bigwigs are questioning the safety of government bonds. Now what? But first: Tesla's robotaxis are taking the wheel. If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here. This week's dispatch Tesla's big bet I remain in awe of self-driving cars. I took my first Waymo earlier this year in San Francisco. Like any newbie, I immediately pulled out my phone, recorded the ride, and then gleefully shared videos with friends and family. The market for robotaxis is well beyond the shock and awe phase. For Tesla, the stakes are high to get it right. The EV maker's long-awaited autonomous ride-hailing service is expected to debut next month in Austin. It will join Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, which is already entrenched in San Francisco and expanding into other cities. My BI colleagues Lloyd Lee and Alistair Barr tried to see which company offers the better self-driving experience: Tesla or Waymo. They test drove both, expecting the results of their not-so-scientific test to come down to minute details. (They couldn't compare the robotaxi services because Tesla hasn't launched its yet). The results surprised them. While the rides were mostly similar, the differentiator was Tesla running a red light at a complex intersection. It was an error too big to overlook. Waymo won the test. Lloyd and Alistair's story ricocheted around the internet and social media. On Tuesday, CNBC's David Faber pressed Tesla CEO Elon Musk about it, particularly the Tesla running a red light. Musk didn't address specific details in BI's reporting. Instead, he said Tesla's robotaxis will be "geo-fenced" — meaning they will avoid some intersections and certain parts of Austin. Waymo already uses geo-fencing. Its car avoided the intersection where the Tesla ran the red light, instead taking a route that was farther away and less time-efficient but perhaps safer to navigate, according to the BI story. Tesla's robotaxi plans come at a critical time for a brand that's taken a hit from Musk's work with the Trump administration. Overseas competition is also ramping up, and prices for used Teslas, including Cybertrucks, are falling. The excitement around the robotaxis is helping, though. Tesla's stock has risen about 40% since Musk talked up the robotaxi last month and signaled he was re-committing to Tesla and stepping back from DOGE. We'll stay all over this coverage for you, including the big debut. The new millennial home dilemma Millennials are set to benefit from a massive wealth transfer from their boomer parents, most of which is held up in real estate. But because boomers tend to stay in their homes for decades, many children will inherit properties in need of some serious TLC. There's an entire industry designed to help. Microsoft's "age of AI agents" CEO Satya Nadella recently tapped Jay Parikh, formerly Facebook's global head of engineering, to spearhead Microsoft's new AI unit, CoreAI. BI viewed internal memos to get a glimpse of Parikh's vision and progress. Parikh is focusing on cultural shifts, operational improvements, and customer experience as he leads Microsoft into a new era. He has plans for an AI "agent factory." From PowerPoint to plumbing AI is decimating jobs, and the cost of college is ever-rising. Gen Zers are losing faith in the ROI of a degree, but they've got another option: the trades. White-collar jobs are stagnating, but fields like plumbing, construction, and electrical work are projected to grow. Blue-collar jobs offer a work-life balance and a path to becoming your own boss. Plus, some of them pay six figures. The shaky bond market Bonds have always been viewed as a safe haven, especially ones backed by the US government. But concerns over the growing deficit are changing investors' perspective on the asset. KKR has cast doubt over bonds, and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been vocal about US credit being a "bad risk." Here's what investors have to think about amid the turmoil. Not so safe and sound. This week's quote: "But if you want one of these jobs, you've got to play the game." — A recent graduate who moved to New York City early to be in a good position for the private-equity recruiting process. More of this week's top reads: Duolingo drama underscores the new corporate balancing act on AI hype. Elon Musk went on a media blitz. Here are five takeaways from his interviews. See inside the luxurious Boeing 747 Qatar is giving to Trump to serve as Air Force One. Instagram head Adam Mosseri on the " paradigm shift" from posting in public to sharing in private. Four reasons Walmart is raising prices and Home Depot isn't. Please, Jony Ive, I beg you not to make a voice device. Meet the Yale student and hacker moonlighting as a cybersecurity watchdog. Inside the little-known perks that come from a stock exchange "bake-off."
Business Insider
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Microsoft put an ex-Facebook exec in charge of a new AI unit. Internal memos reveal how it's going.
Microsoft hired ex-Facebook global head of engineering Jay Parikh to lead a new AI unit called CoreAI. Internal memos Parikh has sent to employees reveal the unit's early ambitions and accomplishments. Parikh's initiatives focus on cultural shifts, operational improvements, and customer focus. Microsoft envisions an " age of AI agents," and CEO Satya Nadella recently tapped one of Mark Zuckerberg's former top lieutenants to bring it to reality. In January, Nadella put Jay Parikh in charge of a new AI unit called CoreAI, central to Microsoft's ambition to help developers build digital personal assistants capable of taking over tasks from human workers. Amid Parikh's first Microsoft Build developer conference in this new role, internal memos reveal his goals for the unit, its early accomplishments, and his advice to address what he sees as problems within the company. Microsoft declined to comment. A fresh perspective for the 'next phase of Microsoft' Behind the scenes at Microsoft, Nadella prides himself on hiring outside talent from other big technology companies to add fresh perspective and giving them wide latitude to change how things are done, several people close to the CEO told BI. Those reports include Charlie Bell, who helped build Amazon's cloud from its earliest days before defecting to Microsoft to become its security boss, and AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, an ex-Google executive who joined the company from AI startup Inflection. Parikh joined their ranks in October after running cloud security company Laceworks, acquired in 2024. He previously was vice president and global head of engineering for Meta. Zuckerberg has publicly credited Parikh for many technological achievements during his 11-year tenure at the company. When Nadella announced Parikh's hiring in an email to employees, he wrote that the "next phase of Microsoft" would require "adding exceptional talent" from outside the company. In January, when Microsoft reorganized to create a new organization under Parikh. The group, called CoreAI, combined teams from Parikh's new direct reports like Eric Boyd, a corporate vice president of AI platform; Jason Taylor, a deputy CTO for AI infrastructure; Julia Liuson, president of the developer division; and Tim Bozarth, a corporate vice president of developer infrastructure. Nadella said at the time that Parikh would also work closely with the cloud-and-AI chief Scott Guthrie; the experiences-and-devices leader Rajesh Jha; Bell, the security boss; Suleyman, Microsoft's AI CEO; and Kevin Scott, the company's CTO. A copy of Parikh's latest org chart viewed by Business Insider shows he has nearly 10,000 reports, most of whom (about 7,000) are in the developer division under Liuson. Parikh's 'agent factory' vision Four months in, Parikh has started to make his mark on Microsoft with a vision to create an AI "agent factory." In the early days of Microsoft, cofounders Bill Gates and Paul Allen had ambitions to create the world's first "software factory," a company full of programmers who would build everything from applications to operating systems. Parikh said he met with Gates and discussed his own concept, a production line for AI agents and applications. "Building our vision demands this type of culture — one where Al is embedded in how we think, design, and deliver," Parikh wrote in an April 14 email to his team. "The Agent Factory reflects this shift — not just in what we build, but in how we build it together. If we want every developer (and everyone) to shape the future, we have to get there first." The memos reveal some of the developments at CoreAI since Parikh's arrival. Since January, Foundry — Microsoft's AI platform for developers — has "delivered $337 million of favorable COGS (cost of goods sold) impact year-to-date, with a projected $606 million on an annualized basis," according to one of Parikh's memos. Microsoft won new customers for its AI programming tool GitHub Copilot, deploying "5,000+ Copilot Business seats" for Fidelity with 5,000 more expected, another memo stated. Copilot Business sells for $19 per user per month, which would make the deal worth as much as $2.28 million annually at full price, though customers often get discounts for large deals. Fidelity declined to comment. Startup Harvey AI, meanwhile, has agreed to a two-year $150 million commitment to consume Azure cloud services, according to one of Parikh's memos. Harvey AI declined to comment. Making Microsoft think macro The memos viewed by BI show how Parikh appears to be taking seriously his mandate to introduce a new perspective to the company and fix procedural problems that Microsoft may not be able to see that it has. In a May 10 email to his team, Parikh said shifting the company's culture is "essential" to its future, and outlined progress toward priorities like accelerating the pace at which employees work, breaking down siloes to work better as one team, and making products more reliable and secure. "One of my early observations coming into Microsoft is that we sometimes treat symptoms rather than systems," Parikh wrote in a May 5 email. "We often focus too much on the micro, which results in band-aids and bolt-ons vs taking a broader system view (which may mean thinking beyond what one team directly owns). This often leads to more complexity and operational burden. We'll help each other get better at this." Parikh's plan to get Microsoft to focus on the macro is to create a "learning loop" with a debrief after every product launch, incident, customer meeting, internal meeting, or decision. He's started new processes to make this happen, according to the memos. Parikh has an "Ops Review" series, going team by team to make specific improvements but also to "find common patterns of engineering pain that need broader improvements," he wrote. The reviews, he explained, focus on longer-term operational metrics to help with strategy. "We are zooming out and taking a more end-to-end view of a team's operational setup, creating space for an open discussion around what's working and what's not." The reviews began in April with the App Services team. Also among Parikh's mandates: more customer focus. His organization is required to conduct reviews of major incidents, like outages, that could impact customers, and chart how quickly the teams identified the problem and deployed a fix. He also started "get well plans" for unhappy customers after he "encountered a couple of fairly unhappy customers" in recent meetings, according to an April 26 email. His solution? Weekly reviews to "understand where we went off track, identify solutions, and execute the recovery plan," tracking progress until the accounts "get well again." What Parikh thinks Microsoft should change so far In the May 5 email, Parikh shared "several recurring themes and insights" within Microsoft that he believes the company should seek to change or simplify. First, he encouraged his organization to engage engineers from outside their direct team because "different perspectives help." In his view, Microsoft also takes too long and the process is too hard to deprecate, or discourage use of, old versions of software. "Supporting too many versions is unattainable," Parikh wrote. "We are following up with C+Al (the Cloud + AI organization, under Scott Guthrie) to brainstorm how we can modernize and streamline this." Incident reviews are overloaded with metrics that don't have enough value, Parikh wrote, and Microsoft sends out too many alerts, which creates noise. "It's important to periodically zoom out and audit how your monitoring is running and to simplify if you are overloaded on alerts and metrics. Use Al to help triage complex alerting situations," he urged. Parikh encouraged his teams to "see the forest for the trees on scalability," and to organize brainstorming sessions when faced with a traffic load they can't support to see what it would take to support five or 10 times as much traffic. "You may be stuck in a local maxima with incremental improvements, and it might be time to brainstorm how you can get a step function more scale," he wrote. He also recommended employees seek to address classes of problems, not just one-offs. "Quick fixes lead to complexity," Parikh wrote. "Instead of band-aids, we should aim for broader system improvements that solve whole categories of issues and boost long-term efficiency." "We're building muscle in spotting patterns, not just patching symptoms," Parikh wrote. "And that's a big deal."
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta whistleblower details Zuckerberg's fixation on China 'profits'
Following the explosive response to her tell-all memoir, an ex-Facebook director-turned-whistleblower testified before Congress alleging Facebook's close relationship with China poses serious risks to US national security, a charge parent company Meta denies. In "Careless People," published last month, Sarah Wynn-Williams, a lawyer, former diplomat and ex-director of global public policy, who worked at Facebook for seven years starting in 2011, describes misconduct and harassment at the hands of Meta executives, including accusations that the company has lied about its relationship to China. In her book, Wynn-Williams alleges sexual harassment at the hands of top executives. Meta has previously said her statements are "misleading" and "unfound." She was fired in 2017, according to reports, for "poor performance." In the book, she also accuses Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of lying during a 2018 Senate hearing and downplaying his relationship with the Chinese government. Within a week of its publication, the book made it to the New York Times' bestseller list not long before Meta hit Wynn-Williams with a gag order banning her from promoting the memoir, alleging it violated a nondisparagement contract she had signed. Attorneys representing the former executive said Meta is threatening her with a $50,000 fine each time she makes disparaging comments about the company. Despite this, the former executive still agreed to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism on Wednesday afternoon. She has requested an investigation into the company's potentially illegal activities. "Sarah Wynn-Williams is facing down the barrel of a gun," said US Senate Pro Tempore and committee Chair Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, ahead of her testimony. In her opening remarks, which were made public ahead of the hearing, Wynn-Williams said she worked closely with Zuckerberg and, during her tenure, had a first-row glimpse into the company's relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. During that time, she said, she witnessed Meta work "hand in glove" with Chinese officials. Part of that relationship, she testified, included a "secret mission" to get Facebook into China. In 2015, she said, Meta and its executives began briefing China on critical emerging technologies, including AI, with the goal to "help China outcompete American companies." She also said, during her tenure, the company was creating censorship tools and deleted the account of a Chinese dissident living in America at the request of Beijing, before allegedly lying about it to Congress. "We are engaged in a high-stakes AI arms race against China," she said, alleging that China is now Meta's second-biggest market. "During my time at Meta, company executives lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public." Wynn-Williams testified that Zuckerberg was fixated on earning profits, and she referenced corporate filings that add up to what she says is an $18.3 billion business the company has in China. She also alleged that Zuckerberg was so invested in the company's relationship with China that he "learned Mandarin," "had weekly Mandarin sessions with employees" and "traveled to China more than any other country." Other allegations brought to light included details around tactics used by Meta to exploit its younger users. Wynn-Williams testified that during her time there, Facebook would target 13- to 17-year-olds and could "identify when they were feeling worthless or helpless or like a failure" and would share it with advertisers. "Advertisers understand that when people don't feel good about themselves, it's often a good time to pitch a product," she said. Meta has maintained as of Wednesday that it does not operate its business in China. "Sarah Wynn-Williams' testimony is divorced from reality and riddled with false claims," a Meta spokesperson wrote in a statement to SFGATE. "While Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest in offering our services in China and details were widely reported beginning over a decade ago, the fact is this: We do not operate our services in China today." Asked by Sen. Josh Hawley, the Republican from Missouri who chairs the subcommittee, why Meta was "so obsessed" with breaking into the Chinese market, she said that it boiled down to profits. She said Zuckerberg was aiding China with AI development during a time when China was trying to "rapidly" increase its own technological capabilities. Meta's social media platforms are still banned in China due to censorship policies. "It's incredibly valuable to have the brightest minds in the world show you how that technology works," she said. "Mark Zuckerberg sold out America to China," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, during opening remarks. He continued, addressing Wynn-Williams, "You have your integrity. Mark Zuckerberg has lost his."
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta Draws Congress' Scrutiny Over Ex-Worker's China Claims
(Bloomberg) -- US lawmakers are probing a claim made by a former Facebook employee that Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg lied to Congress about the company's efforts to launch its social network in China. Housing Agency Aims to Relocate Its DC Headquarters This Skinny Mexico City Tower Is Just 14 Feet Wide on One Side The Irish Hot Press Is the Low-Tech Laundry Trick the World Needs Boston Mayor Wu Embraces Trump Resistance as Campaign Heats Up Trump Order on CDFI Fund Risks Aid for Small Businesses, Housing Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, is leading the charge on examining allegations made by ex-Facebook staffer Sarah Wynn-Williams in her recently published memoir, Careless People, which spotlights the company's desires to break into the Chinese market in the mid-2010s. Facebook never succeeded in launching its social network in China, and the service is still banned there over censorship issues. Hawley joined a bipartisan cohort of lawmakers in early April to investigate the company, now called Meta Platforms Inc., for what the Senators described as alleged work to censor content and provide artificial intelligence tools, including surveillance software, to the Chinese Communist Party. The censorship efforts on behalf of the CCP 'allegedly extended to dissidents outside of China, including in the United States,' they wrote, citing internal documents. Hawley also chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, which invited Wynn-Williams to testify later this week. The New York Post first reported news of the Congressional hearing. 'We do not operate our services in China today,' Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in an emailed statement. 'It is no secret we were once interested in doing so as part of Facebook's effort to connect the world. This was widely reported beginning a decade ago. We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we'd explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019.' AI Coding Assistant Cursor Draws a Million Users Without Even Trying How One MBA Grad Blew the Whistle on a $2 Billion Deal With Shake Shack in First Class, Airline Food Is No Longer a Joke India's Destination Weddings Fuel a New Tourist Economy China Tells Kids to Study Manufacturing to Fill Factory Jobs ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
Bloomberg
07-04-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Meta Draws Congressional Scrutiny Over Ex-Employee Claims
US lawmakers are probing a claim made by a former Facebook employee that Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg lied to Congress about the company's efforts to launch its social network in China. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, is leading the charge on examining allegations made by ex-Facebook staffer Sarah Wynn-Williams in her recently published memoir, Careless People, which spotlights the company's desires to break into the Chinese market in the mid-2010s. Facebook never succeeded in launching its social network in China, and the service is still banned there over censorship issues.
