Housing, jobs and free calls: How businesses are supporting Afghan refugees

Published

3 years ago

August 27, 2021

admin

In this article

ABNB

Afghan refugees are led to a bus taking them to a refugee processing center upon arrival at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia August 25, 2021.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

Businesses are rushing to support the thousands of refugees that have been evacuated from Afghanistan in recent days who are now faced with the difficult task of building a new life in an unfamiliar country.

Airbnb, Verizon, Walmart and Texas Medical Technology are among those who have offered to help the 100,000 plus people to have fled the country to the U.S. after Kabul fell to the Taliban on Aug. 15.

On Tuesday, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said the company is planning to temporarily house 20,000 refugees around the world free of charge.

Refugees will be housed in properties listed on Airbnb’s platform and the stays will be funded by Airbnb, Chesky said on Twitter, without specifying exactly how much the company plans to spend on the commitment or how long refugees will be housed for.

Airbnb on Thursday invited non-hosts to help through its dedicated website for emergency housing that allows property owners to offer up any available space for free or at a discount. Airbnb is urging those that don’t have any available space to donate money to support housing efforts.

While access to housing is essential, many refugees will need to find jobs in their new countries to become financially independent.

Texas Medical Technology, a supplier and distributor of medical equipment, said it plans to hire 100 Afghan refugees within a year at a 144,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Houston.

It hopes to have employed 10 Afghan refugees by the end of the month.

Free calls to Afghanistan

Then there’s keeping in contact with friends and family who are still in Afghanistan, which will be of vital importance to some in the immediate future.

Verizon on Tuesday said it plans to waive charges for calls from its consumer, business and residential landline customers to Afghanistan up until Sep. 6.

“During this time of need, customers need to stay connected with loved ones in Afghanistan,” said Ronan Dunne, executive vice president and CEO of Verizon Consumer Group for Verizon. “Waiving these kinds of calling charges will help them focus on what matters: communicating with family and friends.”

The telco is also inviting customers to donate $10 to the International Rescue Committee by texting RESCUE to 25383.

Mental health support

The mental health toll on Afghan refugees could be huge.

Hims & Hers, a telehealth platform that connects people to licensed healthcare professionals, said Wednesday that it is planning to do 10,000 mental health calls with Afghan refugees.

“With a mission to provide access to high-quality, convenient and affordable medical care and personalized treatment plans and solutions, we feel a moral responsibility to act — and fast,” the company said in a blog post on the Hims & Hers website.

Dental kits

Byte said it is planning to donate at least 25,000 oral care kits to Afghan refugees being resettled in the U.S. and elsewhere. Neeraj Gunsagar, the company’s CEO, said he believes it’s a moral obligation and in the national interest of the U.S. to help the refugees in this crisis.

Instead of offering direct support, some firms are donating money to charities. Discount retailer Walmart, for example, is donating $1 million to groups helping Afghan refugees in the U.S. through its philanthropic arm.

Thousands are still trying to flee Afghanistan ahead of President Joe Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline, and there are concerns many who want to leave the country won’t be able to.

The Pentagon on Sunday said it called up 18 civilian aircraft from United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, among others, to help carry those stationed at temporary locations after they landed on flights from Afghanistan.

Technology

Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

Published

3 hours ago

November 21, 2024

admin

Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi speaks at the opening night of the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2024.

Rodin Eckenroth | Filmmagic | Getty Images

Intuit shares fell 6% in extended trading Thursday after the finance software maker issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.

Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:

Earnings per share: $2.50 adjusted vs. $2.35 expected
Revenue: $3.28 billion vs. $3.14 billion

Revenue increased 10% year over year in the quarter, which ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income fell to $197 million, or 70 cents per share, from $241 million, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.

While results for the fiscal first quarter topped estimates, second-quarter guidance was light. Intuit said it anticipates a single-digit decline in revenue from the consumer segment because of promotional changes for the TurboTax desktop software in retail environments. While that will affect revenue timing, it won’t have any impact on the full 2025 fiscal year.

Intuit called for second-quarter earnings of $2.55 to $2.61 per share, with $3.81 billion to $3.85 billion in revenue. The consensus from LSEG was $3.20 per share and $3.87 billion in revenue.

For the full year, Intuit expects $19.16 to $19.36 in adjusted earnings per share on $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion in revenue. That implies revenue growth of between 12% and 13%. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $19.33 in adjusted earnings per share and $18.26 billion in revenue.

Revenue from Intuit’s global business solutions group came in at $2.5 billion in the first quarter. The figure was up 9% and in line with estimates, according to StreetAccount. Formerly known as the small business and self-employed segment, the group includes Mailchimp, QuickBooks, small business financing and merchant payment processing.

“We are seeing good progress serving mid-market customers in MailChimp, but are seeing higher churn from smaller customers,” Sandeep Aujla, Intuit’s finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. “We are addressing this by making product enhancements and driving feature discoverability and adoption to improve first-time use and customer retention.”

Better outcomes are a few quarters away, Aujla said.

CreditKarma revenue came in at $524 million, above StreetAccount’s $430 million consensus.

At Thursday’s close, Intuit shares were up about 9% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 25% in the same period.

On Tuesday Intuit shares slipped 5% after The Washington Post said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” had discussed developing a mobile app for federal income tax filing. But a mobile app for submitting returns from Intuit is “already available to all Americans,” CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.

Goodarzi said on CNBC that he’s personally communicating with leaders of the incoming presidential administration.

On the earnings call, Goodarzi sounded optimistic about the economy.

“Our belief, which is not baked into our guidance, is that we will see an improved environment as we look ahead in 2025, particularly just with some of the things that I mentioned earlier around just interest rates, jobs, the regulatory environment,” he said. “These things have a real burden on businesses. And we believe that a better future is to come.”

WATCH: H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump administration is considering a free tax-filing app

H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump admin considering a free tax-filing app

Technology

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is ‘billionaire proof’

Published

7 hours ago

November 21, 2024

admin

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is 'billionaire proof'

Bluesky has surged in popularity since the presidential election earlier this month, suddenly becoming a competitor to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. But CEO Jay Graber has some cautionary words for potential acquirers: Bluesky is “billionaire proof.”

In an interview on Thursday with CNBC’s “Money Movers,” Graber said Bluesky’s open design is intended to give users the option of leaving the service with all of their followers, which could thwart potential acquisition efforts.

“The billionaire proof is in the way everything is designed, and so if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything is open source,” Graber said. “What happened to Twitter couldn’t happen to us in the same ways, because you would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over.”

Graber was referring to the way millions of users left Twitter, now X, after Musk purchased the company in 2022. Bluesky now has over 21 million users, still dwarfed by X and Threads, which Facebook’s parent debuted in July 2023.

X and Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Threads has roughly 275 million monthly users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates 318 million monthly users as of October.

Bluesky was created in 2019 as an internal Twitter project during Jack Dorsey’s second stint as CEO, and became an independent public benefit corporation in 2022. In May of this year, Dorsey said he is no longer a member of Bluesky’s board.

“In 2019, Jack had a vision for something better for social media, and so that’s why he chose me to build this, and we’re really thankful for him for setting this up, and we’ve continued to carry this out,” said Graber, who previously founded Happening, a social network focused on events. “We’re building an open-source social network that anyone can take into their own hands and build on, and it’s something that is radically different from anything that’s been done in social media before. Nobody’s been this open, this transparent and put this much control in the users hands.”

Part of Bluesky’s business plan involves offering subscriptions that would let users access special features, Graber noted. She also said that Bluesky will add more services for third-party coders as part of the startup’s “developer ecosystem.”

Graber said Bluesky has ruled out the possibility of letting advertisers send algorithmically recommended ads to users.

“There’s a lot on the road map, and I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do for monetization,” Graber said. “We’re not going to build an algorithm that just shoves ads at you, locking users in. That’s not our model.”

Bluesky has previously experienced major growth spurts. In September, it added 2 million users following X’s suspension in Brazil over content moderation policy violations in the country and related legal matters.

In October, Bluesky announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company has raised a total of $36 million, according to Pitchbook.

Technology

Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

Published

7 hours ago

November 21, 2024

admin

Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Alphabet shares slid 6% Thursday, following news that the Department of Justice is calling for Google to divest its Chrome browser to put an end to its search monopoly.

The proposed break-up would, according to the DOJ in its Wednesday filing, “permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet.”

This development is the latest in a years-long, bipartisan antitrust case that found in an August ruling that the search giant held an illegal monopoly in both search and text advertising, violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

The potential break-up would include preventing Google from entering into exclusionary agreements with competitors like Apple and Samsung, part of a set of remedies that would last 10 years.

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.