Connect with us

Published

on

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., speaks during the virtual Meta Connect event in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Over the weekend, Alex Gorlick experienced what he called the worst Facebook glitch he’s seen in the decade he’s worked in digital advertising.

Gorlick, the CEO of marketing agency Intensify, checked in on one of his client’s accounts on Sunday, and noticed that it had spent 90% of its daily Facebook ad budget by 9 a.m. That meant it had only 10% left for the remaining 15 hours of the day.

He then found that the problem was widespread, spanning his entire customer base. Gorlick said that all those advertisers had essentially just wasted most of their money for the day, spending roughly triple the amount they normally would to acquire a customer.

“The results were horrendous,” Gorlick told CNBC. “It’s the biggest malfunction I’ve ever seen on Facebook ads.”

For brands that are already lowering ad costs to manage through a sluggish economy and a mobile ad market that no longer allows for targeting based on user data, Facebook’s miscue is more than just an unfortunate blip. In low-margin industries, where every dollar counts, it can turn a profitable weekend into a big loser, while also raising further questions about the reliability of Facebook’s ad systems.

A spokesperson for Facebook parent Meta acknowledged there was an ad glitch but declined to provide details or an explanation as to why it happened.

“A technical issue that has now been resolved caused ad delivery issues for some advertisers,” the spokesperson said.

How Facebook ad auctions work

In a typical Facebook online ad auction, a company can allocate a certain amount of money to run ads on the social media service over the course of a day to maximize how many eyeballs see the promotion. It appears that on Sunday the Facebook ad system bundled many more ads than normal into the morning hours, resulting in a highly inefficient day.

Data analytics and marketing firm Varos provided data showing that, of the more than 3,000 ecommerce and direct-to-consumer companies that use its technology, the software bug caused a majority of them to experience a rise in cost per thousand impressions, or what those in the industry call CPMs.

About 36% of companies were “very significantly impacted” by the bug, meaning their CPMs at least doubled, Varos said. Varos CEO Yarden Shaked said another third of companies experienced “significant increases but not like bonkers.”

Shaked said the glitch resulted in a “bidding war for nothing.” He compared it to Costco selling a random toaster that suddenly garnered so much demand that the price spiked way beyond market value.

“Everyone came in in the middle of the night for some reason and started a bidding war over that old toaster,” Shaked said. “You know, it’s completely ridiculous.”

Data about the glitch provided by the advertising technology firm Proxima on 108 companies also revealed that these firms spent their “entire day’s budget in the first few hours of the day,” the company said.

Companies that implemented cost caps, or limits on their advertising campaigns, were not impacted by the glitch, Proxima noted. When companies turned off their ad campaigns because of the bug, some bigger brands took advantage and were able to run successful Facebook ad campaigns throughout the day because of a lack of competition.

Additionally, the Facebook ad bug impacted companies running ads tied to Earth Day.

“The fact that it was Earth Day on Saturday, April 22nd meant that brands running sales for Earth Day were the most impacted like organic, eco-friendly brands focused on Earth Day as a key selling period,” the company said.

Barry Hott, a performance marketing consultant, said that at the time of the bug, the situation for companies running Facebook ads seemed “pretty massive, very painful.”

In retrospect, however, Hott believes the overall impact of the ad error might be “pretty small,” considering in the grand scheme of things, companies occasionally deal with big Meta ad errors that impact their campaigns.

Hott noted that Facebook experienced a major ad glitch a day before Black Friday in 2020 as well as another similar bug earlier that summer.

Refunds?

The main issue for advertisers will be whether they get refunds from Meta because of the glitch, industry experts said.

The Meta spokesperson said the company is “conducting a detailed analysis that assesses opportunities for refunds.”

“We have more information on the refunds process here,” the spokesperson added in a statement.

Because of the glitch, “a bunch of advertisers and business owners had a really s—y day,” Hott said, adding that they will have a “crappy week” as they wonder if they will get refunds and if they do, will it be the full amount they believe they should be owed or chump change.

He recommends that if advertisers have access to a Meta customer support representative — a part of Meta that has been hit by layoffs — they need to ask frequently about refunds, or risk being ignored. Because retailers often make business decisions like how many products they should order or sell based on their online advertisements, the software glitch could also impact other areas in a company’s business than just merely an increase to their CPMs.

“Basically, no one at the company is going to care about this problem if nobody’s saying anything about it, so they kind of count on advertisers to forget about this in a week or two weeks,” Hott said. “I tell everyone— I’ve had to do this myself — when these issues happen, you know, make a big stink about it.”

Watch: Elon Musk inspired Zuckerberg to reduce Meta’s headcount

Elon Musk inspired Zuckerberg to reduce Meta's headcount, says Deepwater's Gene Munster

Continue Reading

Technology

AMD stock continues rally after OpenAI deal, now up 43% this week so far

Published

on

By

AMD stock continues rally after OpenAI deal, now up 43% this week so far

Lisa Su, chair and chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), during a Bloomberg Television interview in San Francisco, California, US, on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

AMD stock climbed 11% on Wednesday, continuing a massive run since OpenAI announced plans to buy billions of dollars of AI equipment from the chipmaker earlier this week.

On Monday, the ChatGPT maker entered into an agreement to potentially own 10% of AMD, based on its stock price and partnership milestones.

AMD now has a market cap of $380 billion after climbing 4% on Tuesday and 24% on Monday. Shares are up 43% so far this week, on pace for the best weekly gain since April 2016.

The partnership with OpenAI, which has historically been closely linked with Nvidia, has bolstered investor confidence that AMD will be a viable competitor to Nvidia in AI chips.

Read more CNBC tech news

AMD CEO Lisa Su told reporters on Monday that the deal was a “win-win” and that its AI chips were good enough to be used in “at-scale deployments,” or very large data centers like the kind OpenAI and cloud providers build.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Wednesday reacted to the deal on CNBC’s Squawk Box, saying it was “surprising.”

“It’s imaginative, it’s unique and surprising, considering they were so excited about their next-generation product,” Huang said. “I’m surprised that they would give away 10% of the company before they even built it. And so anyhow, it’s clever, I guess.”

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

AMD 5-day stock chart.

Continue Reading

Technology

Google adds limits to ‘Work from Anywhere’ policy that began during Covid

Published

on

By

Google adds limits to 'Work from Anywhere' policy that began during Covid

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google is continuing to put restrictions on remote work, this time with a popular policy called “Work from Anywhere” that was established during the Covid pandemic.

The policy has allowed employees to work from a location outside of their main office for up to four weeks per calendar year. According to internal documents viewed by CNBC, working remotely for even a single day will now count for a full week.

“Whether you log 1 WFA day or 5 WFA days in a given standard work week, 1 WFA week will be deducted from your WFA weekly balance,” according to a document that was circulated over the summer, shortly before the change went into effect.

Google isn’t altering its current hybrid schedule, which was also put in place during the pandemic, allowing employees to work from home two days a week. WFA days are distinct from that policy, giving staffers the flexibility to work remotely, but not at home.

“WFA weeks cannot be used to work from home or nearby,” the document says.

Google didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

Tech companies are increasingly forcing employees to spend more time in the office, with the peak of Covid now about five years in the past. Microsoft said last month that employees will be expected to work in an office three days a week starting next year, switching from a policy that allowed most of them to work from home 50% of the time or more with manager approval. Amazon went further, instructing corporate staffers to spend five days a week in the office.

Google began offering some U.S. full-time employees voluntary buyouts at the beginning of 2025, and has notified remote workers from several units their jobs would be considered for layoffs if they didn’t return to offices to work a hybrid schedule.

According to the latest changes, employees can’t work from a Google office in a separate state or country during their WFA time due to “legal and financial implications of cross border work.” If in a different location, employees may be required to work during the business hours that align with that time zone, the rules state.

The WFA update doesn’t apply to all Google staffers and may exclude data center workers, and those who are required to be in physical offices. Violations of the policy will result in disciplinary action or termination, the document says.

The issue came up at a recent all-hands meeting.

A top-rated question that was submitted on Google’s internal system described the update as “confusing.”

“Why does even one day of WFA count as a whole week, and can we reconsider the restriction on using WFA weeks to work from home?” the question said.

John Casey, Google’s vice president of performance and rewards, said at the meeting that WFA “was meant to meet Googlers where they were during the pandemic,” according to audio obtained by CNBC.

“The policy was always intended to be taken in increments of a week and not be used as a substitute for working from home in a regular hybrid work week,” Casey said.

WATCH: Google adds Gemini to Chrome for all users in push to bolster AI search

Google adds Gemini to Chrome for all users in push to bolster AI search

Continue Reading

Technology

Jensen Huang says Trump’s H-1B changes would’ve prevented his family from immigrating

Published

on

By

Jensen Huang says Trump's H-1B changes would've prevented his family from immigrating

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on H-1B visas: My family wouldn't have been able to afford the $100,000 fee

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday that his family’s immigration to the U.S. “would not have been possible” with the Trump administration’s current policy.

President Donald Trump announced in September that employers would have to pay a $100,000 fee for each H-1B visa, a temporary worker visa granted to foreign professionals with specialized skills.

Huang, who was born in Taiwan and later moved Thailand, immigrated to the U.S. at nine years old with his brother. His parents joined them around two years later.

“I don’t think that my family would have been able to afford the $100,000 and and so the opportunity for my, my family and for me to be here … would not have been possible,” Huang told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Trump’s sudden price hike was a shock to the tech sector, which relies heavily on foreign talent, especially from India and China.

Read more CNBC tech news

Amazon was the top employer for H-1B holders in fiscal year 2025, sponsoring over 10,000 applicants according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Tech juggernauts Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google were also among the top H-1B employers, with over 4,000 approvals each.

“Immigration is the foundation of the American dream,” Huang said, “this ideal that anyone can come to America and through hard work and some talent, be able to build a better future for yourself.”

Huang added that his own parents came to the U.S. so that his family could “enjoy the opportunities” and “this incredible country.”

The CEO confirmed that Nvidia, which currently sponsors 1,400 visas, would continue covering H-1B fees for immigrant employees. Huang said that he hopes to see some “enhancements” to the policy so that there’s “still some opportunities for serendipity to happen.”

While his own family’s journey would have been blocked by Trump’s immigration policy, Huang said Trump’s changes will still allow the U.S. “to continue to attract the world’s best talent.”

And other tech executives have expressed support for the changes, with Netflix‘s Reed Hastings calling the fee “a great solution” in a post on X.

“It will mean H1-B is used just for very high value jobs, which will mean no lottery needed, and more certainty for those jobs,” Hastings wrote.

In September, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC’s Jon Fortt that he also backed Trump’s changes.

“We need to get the smartest people in the country, and streamlining that process and also sort of outlining financial incentives seems good to me,” Altman said.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: Want to be part of almost everything Elon Musk is involved in

Continue Reading

Trending