Uber reported its first full year of profit as a public company on Wednesday, marking the end of a time of heavy venture capital subsidies and growth-at-all-costs mantra.
“2023 was an inflection point for Uber, proving that we can continue to generate strong, profitable growth at scale,” CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings release. The rideshare and food delivery giant expects continued growth in the first quarter of 2024.
The Biden administration on Wednesday named a top White House aide as the director of the newly established safety institute for artificial intelligence.
Elizabeth Kelly will lead the AI Safety Institute at the National Institute for Standards and Technology, which is part of the Commerce Department. Currently an economic policy adviser for President Joe Biden, Kelly played an integral role in drafting the executive order signed at the end of October that establi
Snap investors are in a world of hurt this morning after a few whirlwind days that saw the company lay off 10% of its workforce and report worse-than-expected Q4 financial results. As of the time of this writing, shares in Snapchat’s parent company are down over 32% to $11.74 in premarket trading. Just yesterday, SNAP stock was trading at $17.45 per share.
The catalyst for Snap’s massive stock pummeling was the company’s disappointing Q4 results, which were repo
You’re reading Plugged In, Fast Company’s weekly tech newsletter. I’m global technology editor Harry McCracken, and I’m certainly happy you stopped by. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to you—or you’re reading it on FastCompany.com—you can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Wednesday morning. Your email—comments, ideas, random musings about tech—are always welcome: Shoot me a message at h
Apple’s first spatial computer, the Vision Pro, hit the market this month. It’s a device that has the potential to change the way we communicate, play, and work. That is, unless the people strapping the $3,500 computer to their faces don’t become pariahs in the eyes of the public first. In the brief time since the Vision Pro’s launch, social media, especially TikTok, has been full of videos of people using their Vision Pros in . . . how can I say this? . . . Glassh
One undeniable truth about the current stock-market boom is that a big chunk of the market’s rise has been the result of outsized gains in a very small number of stocks, including most notably the so-called Magnificent Seven mega-cap growth companies (Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Tesla). Those companies collectively account for almost 30% of the market capitalization of the S&P 500, and that concentration shows no sign of diminishing: Last week, after it report
Spotify’s posts subscriber growth: Spotify reported a 23% rise in monthly active users in the fourth quarter, which now total 602 million, just ahead of analysts’ expectations of 601.33 million. The rise, announced Tuesday, comes after the company raised subscriber prices and cut thousands of employees in a series of layoffs. Spotify previously said it plans to reach one billion users by 2030. Full story.
Boeing faces new pressures from workers: The aircraft manufactur
When it comes to artificial intelligence in 2024, two things are undeniably true:
- AI is incredibly exciting right now, and companies are cooking up some mind-bogglingly futuristic concepts.
- AI is also almost comically overhyped, and many of the “innovations” of the moment are about using a trendy buzzword more than offering anything with actual real-world value.
It’s impossible to follow tech news and not feel the push and pull of th
For the first time since 1972, NASA is putting science experiments on the moon in 2024. And thanks to new technologies and public-private partnerships, these projects will open up new realms of scientific possibility. As parts of several projects launching this year, teams of scientists, including myself, will conduct radio astronomy from the South Pole and the far side of the moon.
NASA’s commercial lunar payload services program, or CLPS, will use uncrewed landers
A federal judge has decided that a group of some 100 million Apple account holders have standing to sue over high App Store prices, setting the groundwork for a lawsuit with one of the largest plaintiff classes ever.
For years, Apple has been hammered for what critics call the “Apple tax” structure that eats up 30% of the revenue generated by in-app purchases. Until now, it has only been big app developers like Epic Games fighting back in court—and thus far, not