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Summary List PlacementAmazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced on Tuesday that he will be stepping down as the CEO of the online retail empire he founded in 1994 and evolved into one of the world's most valuable technology companies. Andy Jassy, a long time lieutenant of Bezos and CEO of the company's booming cloud business, will replace him in the third quarter of 2021. But...

Summary List PlacementGoogle has reached a deal with the US Department of Labor, requiring it to pay nearly $2.6 million in back wages to thousands of workers over claims that the company's pay and hiring practices illegally disadvantaged women and Asians. Google must also review its pay and hiring practices, conduct a gender pay equity study, and provide updates about its progress toward closing...

Summary List PlacementFacebook and Amazon were the biggest spenders on lobbying in 2020, outspending companies such as AT&T and Boeing, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.  The analysis looks into reports filed by US companies with Congress under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, a federal law that requires companies to disclose such expenditures. Facebook, the social media giant, spent around $20 million in 2020, an...

Summary List PlacementHappy birthday, Jeff Bezos: the Amazon CEO turns 57 on Tuesday.  Bezos, who incorporated the company in 1994, has had a tumultuous 18 months, beginning with a divorce and a leak of his personal messages to the National Enquirer.  But it hasn't been all bad for Bezos: he's jetted across the globe with his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, he's attended the exclusive Met...

Summary List PlacementSacha Baron Cohen has called on YouTube to "do the right thing" and join Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms in banning Donald Trump from its service.  The "Borat" star, who has become a vocal critic of social media platforms over the last year, tagged the CEOs of YouTube and parent company Google, Susan Wojcicki and Sundar Pichai respectively, in a tweet on...

Summary List PlacementGoogle and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to employees on Wednesday addressing the exit of AI ethicist Timnit Gebru, which drew criticism from inside and outside the company over the past week. Timnit Gebru said on December 2 that she had been fired from Google following a dispute over a research paper, but Google insists she resigned. The events have...

Summary List PlacementJust a week ago, Jeffrey Dean might have been the most popular executive at Google. By Friday, he was at the center of a firestorm that has shaken the company. Dean, a senior vice president who oversees Google's AI business, was thrust into the firing line last Wednesday after a prominent Google AI researcher was ousted from the company. In a series...

Summary List Placement Alphabet life sciences company Verily is shutting its Shanghai office in an exit from China, according to sources familiar with the plan. A company spokeswoman confirmed the office closure to Business Insider. Employees in the Shanghai office were informed of the plans earlier today. A spokeswoman refused to say how many employees were affected, but said the number was fewer than...

Summary List Placement Airbnb revealed its initial public offering documents on Monday, and noted Google's push into the travel sector as one of many potential risks to its business. In fact, the company said its search engine rankings had already been "adversely" affected by Google launching its own price comparison tools for travelers. "We believe that our SEO results have been adversely affected by...

Summary List Placement Before he was Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai was best known for turning Chrome into the world's most popular web browser – but the methods Google used to get ahead of its rivals are currently under scrutiny. This week, the House antitrust subcommittee released the findings of an investigation into anti-competitive practices across Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.  The 449-page document accuses...

Summary List Placement From knock-off Rolex watches to fake pharmaceuticals, Google indexes many websites that sell counterfeit products. In June, the company finally began allowing users to request that sites hosting these fake goods be de-indexed from Google's search results – but Incopro, a brand-reputation consultancy, says Google's system is "extremely problematic" for brands. To report fake goods that appear in Google search results,...

Summary List PlacementFacebook was thrust back into the spotlight last week after BuzzFeed News published a leaked memo from a whistleblower who accused the social media network of extensive failures to combat political and electoral misinformation around the world. Amid a steady drumbeat of reports from media and researchers over the past several months, Facebook has repeatedly come under fire for mishandling crises, like...

Summary List Placement Waze, the Google-owned navigation app and carpool service, is laying off 30 employees — more than 5% of its total 555 person workforce — and shutting some offices as it reels from the coronavirus, The Verge reported Wednesday. In a memo to employees, CEO Noam Bardin said that travel restrictions in place around the world had led to a "significant drop"...

Summary List Placement Antitrust seems to be back in fashion as a topic of concern in Washington, DC, particularly after Congress harangued the heads of four leading tech companies earlier this summer about their alleged anticompetitive moves. But any real effort to promote competition and constrain monopolies is going to require a major reassessment — and quite possibly a revamping — of laws, policies,...

Summary List Placement In June, Google CEO Sundar Pichai made a set of commitments to improve diversity and equity across the company, which included promises to boost underrepresented groups in leadership roles and address problems in hiring and retention. Nothing was said on how much would apply to other "bet" companies, many of which operate largely independent of the Google mothership, but LinkedIn data...

Google's product inclusion team works on making the company's products better for more users, but it was born from one of Google's 20% projects. Annie Jean-Baptiste, Google's head of product inclusion, explains how the group came about in a new book. The group has worked on Google products including Pixel smartphones and virtual reality headsets. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Earlier this...

Epic Games sued Apple and Google on Thursday for booting its popular video game "Fortnite" from their app stores, accusing the companies of engaging in monopolistic behavior. It's the latest escalation in a long-running fight between the tech giants and app developers, who claim Apple and Google unfairly wield their control over mobile app marketplaces and operating systems to stifle competition. The lawsuits also...

Companies such as Amazon and Shopify have seen huge tailwinds to their e-commerce businesses during COVID-19. Not so much for Google. One top Wall Street analyst says it's something Google "needs to address" in the coming months. "I don't know if they have to acquire or develop their way back," he said. A recent internal reshuffle along with some changes to the selling process...