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Verizon is planning to cut about 15,000 jobs in the telecommunications company’s largest-ever layoffs as part of a restructuring under its new CEO, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The layoffs, affecting about 15% of its workforce, are set to take place as soon as next week, the person said. Verizon’s shares rose about 1.4% on the news. They have largely stagnated over the last three years, with a gain of 8% compared with the S&P 500’s near-70% rise. A Verizon spokesperson declined to comment. The cuts, following the appointment of former PayPal boss Dan Schulman as CEO in early October, are aimed at its non-union management ranks and are expected to affect more than 20% of that workforce, one source said. Verizon also plans to transition around 180 corporate-owned retail stores into franchised operations, the source added. The Wall Street Journal reported the cuts earlier. Verizon is battling rising competition as subscriber growth slows and cautious consumers are unwilling to buy premium wireless plans. It has faced mounting pressure from rivals AT&T and T-Mobile US as the U.S. wireless market matures. Schulman said last month that Verizon understood it needs aggressive change, including “cost transformation, fundamentally restructuring our expense base.” “We will be a simpler, leaner and scrappier business,” he added. Schulman, a Verizon board member for seven years, has said he does not want to hike prices and seeks to be more customer-focused. “Our financial growth has relied too heavily on price increases. A strategic approach that relies too much on price without subscriber growth is not a sustainable strategy,” he said last month. Verizon had about 100,000 U.S. employees at the end of 2024, after cutting almost 20,000 over three years. Last year, it announced a reduction of 4,800 employees through a voluntary program and took a nearly $2 billion charge. In 2018, Verizon said about 10,400 employees would leave under a prior voluntary exit program. Verizon maintains the highest price points in the sector, a strategy that analysts have said is difficult to sustain amid rising competitive intensity. Craig Moffett, senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, said the new CEO’s first commitment was to stop the bleeding from subscriber churn, which would require subsidizing expensive handsets for a huge number of Verizon’s subscribers to keep them from leaving. “The obvious question was how Verizon planned to pay for that. Now we know,” Moffett said. “What we don’t know is whether these cost reductions will actually help to offset the higher planned costs of retention” of customers. In recent years, Verizon spent $52 billion to acquire key wireless C-band spectrum in a 2021 auction and struck a $20 billion deal to acquire Frontier Communications last year. It also spent $6 billion to acquire prepaid mobile phone provider TracFone Wireless. By David Shepardson and Harshita Mary Varghese, Reuters
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AI can do a lot of things. It can write your emails. It can make your grocery list. It can even interview you for a job. But now, more and more people are depending on AI for things that require real human qualities: life coaching, therapy, even companionship. Scott Galloway, best-selling author and professor of marketing at New York Universitys Stern School of Business, says the real problem with synthetic relationships is what they lack: any kind of struggle or challenge that comes with maintaining real relationships. Leaning on AI In a recent social media post, Galloway calls AI a rabbit hole that is “sequestering us from each otherand while it may mimic human relationships in some ways, it may actually take up space where human beings could be. Or should be. Thats driving us apart, Galloway argues. He says that people are “leaning on” their AI relationships in ways that they used to lean on human beings. That may happen because, sure, other human beings aren’t always readily available. He says AI relationships are easier to maintain . . . but thats the whole point. In a bad way. “You need to be mindful of the fact that these things are not real humans, he says. They are meant to keep you on the screen, and to sometimes be supportive to a fault.” AI gives people exactly what they’re craving. Maybe even too much. What’s still missing Regardless of the comfort it may provide to many, Galloway says that AI is lacking in some key areas. For starters, it can’t show real compassion or empathy. On top of that, it isn’t always honestor at least, not honest enough. The author says there is real danger in bots that tell people what they want to hear, rather than what they may need to hear. According to Galloway, it’s prime territory for getting stuck in a cycle of consuming what he calls “empty calories: Basically, AI acts like a friend, but is a friend that tells you exactly what you want to hear a true friend? Not so much. AI cooperates, where a human being might push back. Galloway says that lack of “friction,” or any sort of real challenge, may be appealing. Who wouldnt want a drama-free echo chamber that validates your own worldview and offers no consistent pushback . . . that is, unless you specifically engineer a prompt for an LLM to do so? That ease is a draw, but Galloway says it also takes away the true essence of a relationship. Because real human relationships are hard. But theyre kind of supposed to be. The greatest reward According to Galloway, it can be totally tempting to make friends with AI because while it’s easy to do, human relationships are exactly the opposite. It takes not just time and energy, but also really learning what other people need, how to respond, and show up for them. Thats the key to making friendships or romantic relationships last. But its a lot of work. “It is difficult to establish the pecking order of friends, and approach people and express friendship.” For some people, its easier to just avoid it altogether. And AI makes it even easier. Still, according to Galloway? Human relationships are essential not in spite of the workbut because of it. It isnt about ease; its about the work, the challenge. And the payoff. In essence, it’s the struggle to maintain relationships that helps people grow, or that makes the relationship worth it. Sending text dumps to ChatGPT just doesnt hit the same. “People are messy, complex,” Galloway says. “And that is why it is so f****** rewarding.”
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E-Commerce
Disney reported $22.46 billion in revenue for the quarter, which just missed analyst expectations and resulted in a 5% drop in premarket trading on Thursday. The entertainment divisionwhich includes the companys streaming, linear networks, and theatrical businesssaw a 6% drop in revenue. Streaming did see some gains: Disney+ and Hulu ended the quarter with 196 million subscriptions, an increase of 12.4 million subscribers from the previous quarter. However, Disneys linear networks dropped 16% to $107 million, compared to this time last year, while operating income fell 21%. The companys theatrical releases also saw declines with both the drop in linear networks and theatrical business driving the mixed results.In a letter to shareholders, the company attributed the decrease in its domestic linear networks to lower advertising fueled by the continued decline in viewership as well as political advertising, which had a $40 million negative impact on results compared to this time last year. For sports, Disney reported a 2% increase in revenue to $4 billion, while operating income of $911 million, a decrease of $18 million compared to the year before with domestic ESPN operating income declining 3%. The company cited that higher marketing and programming and production costs were partially offset by higher advertising and subscription and affiliate revenues. Meanwhile, domestic advertising revenue in sports increased 8%.The overall decline across linear networks continues to fuel the trend of cord-cutting consumers who are migrating to streaming with ad dollars making a shift that way as well. The recent quarterly earnings also come as Disney and Google continue their ongoing carriage dispute which resulted in several of Disneys networks going dark on YouTube TV. Some analysts estimated that a two-week blackout on YouTube could cost Disney about $60 million in revenue. Disney CEO Bob Iger addressed the feud on the earnings call saying that the company is working hard to close the deal: Were hopeful that well be able to do so on a timely enough basis to at least give consumers the opportunity to access our content over their platform.
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