Here is a rundown of Cheddar News' top market stories of the day.
TECH LAYOFFS
Multiple outlets are reporting that Microsoft will begin a series of planned layoffs on Wednesday that could cut around 5 percent of its workforce, or 10,000 employees. CEO Satya Nadella warned the cuts were coming, and said the next couple of years were likely to be challenging, as the tech sector contracts after a decade plus of rapid growth. Amazon is also set to move ahead with plans to cut 6 percent of its 350,000 corporate employees.
ADOBE'S DATA DEBACLE
Adobe is facing backlash from customers who are concerned the software company is using personal images and video to train artificial intelligence models such as OpenAI’s Dall-E. Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky denied the accusations in an interview with Bloomberg, saying: "We have never, ever used anything in our storage to train a generative AI model."
UNITED AIRLINES EARNINGS
United Airlines' fourth quarter earnings beat Wall Street estimates on the heels of a rebound in travel demand. The company reported a 31 percent increase from the same period before the pandemic. The gains were made despite the airline flying 9 percent fewer trips and a litany of other challenges, from winter storms to labor shortages to supply chain disruptions.
UNIVERSITY BANS TIKTOK
The University of Texas at Austin is blocking access to TikTok on its Wi-Fi and wired networks. The move is a response to Gov. Greg Abbott's requirement that all state agencies delete the app from government-issued devices. The administration said it is also seeking to eliminate risks to information on the university's networks. University of Texas at Dallas and Texas A&M University System have since implemented similar restrictions.
November is National Entrepreneurship Month. Sam Johnson, EY Americas Vice Chair of Markets and Accounts, joins Cheddar to discuss the winner for EY's National Entrepreneur of The Year award, why entrepreneurship is so important to the U.S. economy, and how entrepreneurs can contribute to the growth and success of Fortun 500 companies.
Jill and Carlo cover the latest with the infrastructure bill, the growing state rebellion over boosters, Trump's dereliction of duty on the pandemic, Taylor Swift's reign of cultural domination and more.
2021 has been the year of many things, and one of them is the NFT or non-fungible token. We've seen NFTs come about for so many different things.
Digital artists have used them to sell their artwork in a more traditional art transaction than the internet had previously allowed. We've seen specific NFT campaigns like the pudgy penguins amass large followings. And now we're seeing them expand into horror films just in time for spooky season.
The iconic horror movie franchise "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" has launched its debut NFT line entitled "Leatherfaces." the illustrations are designed by Skinner in partnership with Ultra Rare to reveal a total of over 10,000 Leatherface avatars. The collection gives fans, NFT fiends and blockchain fanatics access to a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre metaverse unlike any that has been seen before.
Richie Hobson, co-founder of Ultra Rare, joins None of the Above to discuss.
As labor unrest continues to sweep the U.S. with strikes still underway in various industries and millions of workers quitting in September, Starbucks workers in Buffalo, N.Y., are close to voting on potentially unionizing their own workplaces. President of Northern Virginia AFL-CIO Virginia Diamond spoke to Cheddar's News Wrap about what the organizing workers are looking for from the coffee chain in terms of benefits and protections.
Ballots have been sent to workers at three different Starbucks locations in Buffalo, NY to decide whether they will unionize for the first time ever. Wilma Liebman, former Chair of the National Labor Relations Board and Michelle Eisen from the Starbucks Workers United Organization, which is behind this vote, joined Cheddar to discuss.
With transportation-based companies generating plenty of buzz recently, Cheddar News spoke with Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields about his company relisting on the Nasdaq, WheelsUp CEO Kenny Dichter about his company's historic Q3 earnings report, and Lime CEO Wayne Ting about his company's plans to go public.