Google was pummeled by antitrust lawsuits in December. 2024 could be even worse

Today, a federal judge ruled Alphabet’s Google must defend itself against antitrust charges brought by 16 states sooner than it had hoped.

Five days ago, Google settled a separate lawsuit—a $5 billion class-action privacy lawsuit claiming the company had secretly tracked consumers in “incognito” mode.

Ten days before that, Google announced it would pay $700 million to settle a lawsuit in which all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico

Why this coming Sunday will be the biggest day of the year for dating apps

The dating world’s biggest day of the year is imminent.

Dating Sunday, which is named for the first Sunday of the new year, is traditionally the busiest day of the year for dating apps. Singles, past the holiday slump and with fresh eyes for relationships, turn to the apps in hopes of finding romance.

A large part of this is marketing (hello, “Super Bowl of dating apps”), but there’s also some data to back up the power behind the day. The number

The New York Times’s OpenAI lawsuit could put a damper on AI’s 2024 ambitions

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly LinkedIn newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. If a friend or colleague shared this newsletter with you, you can sign up to receive it every week here.

What The New York Times suit against OpenAI could mean for AI

The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft late last month, alleging the companies used its content to train their respective AI mod

Major AI questions await returning California lawmakers

California lawmakers return to work on Wednesday for the start of an election-year legislative session dominated by decisions on artificial intelligence and the state’s struggling budget.

The budget is a big issue every year in California, which is the nation’s most populous state and has an economy larger than that of all but four countries. But this year, lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom will have to figure out how to cover an estimated $68 billion def

Technology is key to improving the healthcare crisis

America’s healthcare system is on the brink. Cracks exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic nearly four years ago have grown and multiplied. Many healthcare systems are operating at a loss, causing hospitals to limit their services or even close, with these lapses in healthcare availability hitting rural and underserved communities the hardest. Healthcare worker staffing shortages are causing declines in care quality and availability nationwide, contributing to an increasing sense of job diss

My 5 big New Year’s tech resolutions for 2024

Happy New Year to you—and thank you for reading Plugged In, Fast Company’s weekly tech newsletter. 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 feedback and ideas are one of the best parts of writing this newsletter: Send them to me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com.

A few Fast Company technology sto

A new complaint claims Starbucks’ app traps customers in a cycle of spending

Dedicated Starbucks customers know that the use of the company’s mobile app and digital payment cards to pay for coffee and other goodies comes with restrictions.

You can only add money to the card in $10 increments and must choose a tip from predetermined choices. That means no loading an exact amount for a single purchase or giving an odd tip amount to get your balance down to zero.

And you can’t split a payment between two cards if one doesn’t have

72 hours into 2024 and Elon Musk is already having a terrible year

Elon Musk’s New Year’s hangover is showing some staying power. While 2024 is not even 48 hours old, the ride has already been a little bumpy for the world’s richest man.

Both Tesla and X/Twitter saw significant blows in the early hours of the year (starting with the final moments of 2023), with one losing its dominant position in its industry and the other being dismissed by one of the leading influencers in social media, just as reports emerged about its shrink

Why scaling yourself and your employees is just as important as the business

In any high-growth company, there comes a point when the founders, CEOs, and other company leaders are required to scale their own roles to support business growth. This effective “self-scaling” usually comes down to three questions: What does the company need? When is it time to let go? Where to next? Here’s how I saw it play out in my career and what I learned along the way.

What does the company need?

When I started at Lucid over

Today’s top business headlines: Tesla dethroned, Apple downgraded, Mickey Mouse goes public

Tesla dethroned: China-based EV maker BYD surpassed Tesla as the world’s top seller of electric cars for the fourth quarter of 2023. The fast-growing company said it sold 525,409 battery-powered vehicles in the quarter, compared to Tesla’s 484,507. Tesla still sold more cars for the year at 1.8 million, although the figure was below earlier projections. Full story.

Mickey goes public: Creatives are already having a field day with their own interpretations of Mickey Mou


Căutare