Data Sheet–Why China’s Ant Financial Raised a Staggering $14 Billion of New Capital
Changing of the guard. Telecom giant Verizon said CEO Lowell McAdam will step down on August 1, seven years after he took over, and become chairman of the board. Moving into McAdam’s corner office will be Hans Vestberg, the former CEO of Ericsson who joined Verizon last year to oversee its 5G efforts. On McAdam’s watch, Verizon bought out its wireless partner, Vodafone, for $ 130 billion and started to get into the digital publishing business by buying AOL and Yahoo for about $ 9 billion. Vestberg left Ericsson, where he had worked for 25 years, amid a sharp drop in revenue and profit margins at the telecom equipment maker.
Won’t hurt a bit. After stirring controversy inside and out, Google released a set of principles to govern its work in artificial intelligence. Among the list of promises, Google said it would not design or deploy AI that is likely to cause overall harm or be used for surveillance “violating internationally accepted norms.” Meanwhile lawmakers continue to keep the company in their sights. Some senators plan to criticize the company for its work with Chinese phone maker Huawei.
Smashing success. Shares of newly-public cybersecurity firm Zscaler jumped on Thursday after it said quarterly revenue increased 49% to $ 49 million and projected total fiscal 2018 revenue of $ 185 million, both better than Wall Street expected. After going public in March at $ 16, the shares closed at $ 37.79 on Thursday.
Unbelievers. Two well known bitcoin skeptics reiterated their skepticism on Thursday. In a joint interview on CNBC, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon were asked who hates bitcoin more. “I set a high standard,” Buffett answered. “I don’t know whether Jamie can top me or not.” “I don’t want to be a Bitcoin spokesman,” Dimon added. “Just beware.”
Another one. Scandal du jure for Facebook? A software bug switched the default privacy settings for 14 millions users to “public” for all new posts. “We have fixed this issue and starting today we are letting everyone affected know and asking them to review any posts they made during that time,” chief privacy officer Erin Egan said.
Talk to me. With the audience of cord cutters growing more rapidly than ever, Amazon introduced a revamped video streaming box, dubbed the Fire TV Cube, that also integrates the company’s popular Alexa digital assistant. The 4K-capable device goes on sale June 21 for $ 120, or $ 90 for Prime members.
Nailed. The crazy fast, almost impossible microprocessor demo by Intel earlier this week wasn’t quite what it seemed. Intel did not disclose that its 28-core, 5 GHz chip was overclocked to run at a speed much faster than it will run typically, thanks to the use of a massive (and hidden off stage) water cooling device, the web site Tom’s Hardware reported. Intel blamed an accidental oversight for the failure to disclose the overclocking.
