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David Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox, presents at the Roblox Developer Conference on August 10, 2019 in Burlingame, California.

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Roblox employees who don’t want to work at the gaming company’s physical office at least three days a week will need find a job elsewhere.

David Baszucki, Roblox’s founder and CEO, told employees in a memo on Tuesday that remote workers have until mid-January to decide whether they want to starting coming into the office from Tuesday through Thursday, adding that relocation expenses will be provided if needed.

“We did not make this decision lightly, as we understand that the decision to move is significant, both for our employees and for their families and loved ones,” Baszucki wrote in the memo, which he posted as a blog titled, “The Future of How We Work Together at Roblox.”

Baszucki said the company will be contacting a number of remote employees — though he didn’t specify how many — and asking them to report to work in the company’s headquarters in San Mateo, California, by next summer.

Roblox, which went public in 2021 after seeing its business boom from kids stuck at home during the Covid pandemic, joins a growing list of companies, including Google, JPMorgan Chase and law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell that have instituted strict return-to-office mandates.

Tuesday’s announcement marks an about-face for Roblox, which told employees in May of last year that it was giving “employees the option to either come to the office regularly a few days a week, or to primarily work remotely,” coming in for “quarterly get-togethers.”

“We’ve put together a new work model powered by personal responsibility that gives teams and leaders the flexibility to decide how they work best given their goals,” Barbara Messing, the company’s chief marketing officer, wrote at the time.

Baszucki said in the latest post that he “personally hoped” for Roblox to “imagine a heavily hybrid remote culture,” extending past the pandemic. Ultimately, however, he said working in an office strengthens the company culture and results in more innovative and productive employees.

“A three-hour Group Review in person is much less exhausting than over video and brainstorming sessions are more fluid and creative,” Baszucki wrote. “While I’m confident we will get to a point where virtual workspaces are as engaging, collaborative, and productive as physical spaces, we aren’t there yet.”

Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki on Q2 results: We're showing continuing, accelerating growth

As of Dec. 31, Roblox had over 2,100 full-time employees.

Those opting not to come back to the office can take a severance package “based on their individual level and term of service, along with six months of healthcare coverage for everyone on their policies,” Baszucki wrote. They will also have an extra three months, lasting until mid-April, to “transition out of their roles as full time employees,” he added.

“This means all employees, regardless of whether or not they chose to relocate, will receive both the November and February quarterly vestings, in addition to any other vestings they have during that time,” he said.

Roblox will still employ some remote employees with roles that require them to be offsite, such as data center operators, content moderators and call center workers.

Additionally, Roblox will let some “individuals who have niche skill sets or significant institutional knowledge” also continue to work remotely, Baszuki said. The company will not extend new offers to remote employees, except for those who work in off-site positions or have particular skills.

“This is an extremely difficult decision because where we live is a personal choice and it affects all aspects of our lives,” Baszucki wrote. “We have done everything we can to make this process as systematic and fair as possible. Unfortunately, I know that some employees will decide not to join us at headquarters.”

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Google’s $85 billion capital spend spurred by cloud, AI demand

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Google's  billion capital spend spurred by cloud, AI demand

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc., during Stanford’s 2024 Business, Government, and Society forum in Stanford, California, April 3, 2024.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Google is going to spend $10 billion more this year than it previously expected due to the growing demand for cloud services, which has created a backlog, executives said Wednesday.

As part of its second quarter earnings, the company increased its forecast for capital expenditures in 2025 to $85 billion due to “strong and growing demand for our Cloud products and services” as it continues to expand infrastructure to power more AI services that use its cloud technology. That’s up from the $75 billion projection that Google provided in February, which was already above the $58.84 billion that Wall Street expected at the time.

The increased forecast comes as demand for cloud services surges across the tech industry as AI services increase in popularity. As a result, companies are doubling down on infrastructure to keep pace with demand and are planning multi‑year buildouts of data centers.

In its second quarter earnings, Google reported that cloud revenues increased by 32% to $13.6 billion in the period. The demand is so high for Google’s cloud services that it now amounts to a $106 billion backlog, Alphabet finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said during the company’s post-earnings conference call.

“It’s a tight supply environment,” she said.

The vast majority of Alphabet’s capital spend was invested in technical infrastructure during the second quarter, with approximately two-thirds of investments going to servers and one-third in data center and networking equipment, Ashkenazi said.

She added that the updated outlook reflects additional investment in servers, the timing of delivery of servers and “an acceleration in the pace of data center construction, primarily to meet Cloud customer demand.”

Ashkenazi said that despite the company’s “improved” pace of getting servers up and running, investors should expect further increase in capital spend in 2026 “due to the demand as well as growth opportunities across the company.” She didn’t specify what those opportunities are but said the company will provide more details on a future earnings call.

“We’re increasing capacity with every quarter that goes by,” Ashkenazi said. 

Due to the increased spend, Google will have to record more expenses over time, which will make profits look smaller, she said.

“Obviously, we’re working hard to bring more capacity online,” Ashkenazi said.

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Nvidia supplier SK Hynix second-quarter profit and revenue hit record highs, topping estimates

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Nvidia supplier SK Hynix second-quarter profit and revenue hit record highs, topping estimates

The SK Hynix Inc. logo is displayed on a glass door at the company’s office in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, Jan. 27, 2014. SK Hynix aims to select a U.S. site for its advanced chip packaging plant and break ground there around the first quarter of next year.

SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

South Korea’s SK Hynix on Thursday posted record operating profit and revenue in the second quarter on sustained demand for its high bandwidth memory technology used in generative AI chipsets. 

Here are SK Hynix’s second-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate: 

  • Revenue: 22.23 trillion won ($16.17 billion) vs. 20.56 trillion won
  • Operating profit: 9.21 trillion won vs. 9 trillion won

Revenue rose about 35% in the June quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, while operating profit rose nearly 69%, year on year.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, revenue rose 26%, while operating profit jumped 24%.

The company said in a statement that it enjoyed strong demand and favorable pricing conditions in the first half of the year. SK Hynix added that there was a low likelihood of sharp demand corrections for the rest of 2025, due to stable customer inventory levels and expected demand from new product launches.

SK Hynix is a leading supplier of dynamic random access memory — a type of semiconductor memory commonly found in PCs, workstations and servers that is used to store data and program code.

Much of the company’s recent success can be credited to its business in high bandwidth memory, or HBM — a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers. 

SK Hynix has established itself as the global leader in HBM, supplying clients such as U.S. AI darling Nvidia. In the first quarter, this had seen the company overtake rival Samsung Electronics in the global DRAM market for the first time, according to Counterpoint Research.

A report from Counterpoint Research earlier this month estimated that SK Hynix had tied Samsung’s combined DRAM and NAND revenues in the second quarter, with both vying for the top position in the global memory market. NAND is a type of flash memory that is commonly used in storage devices. 

Samsung and US.-based memory maker Micron Technology are both seeking to catch up to SK Hynix in the HBM space. However, analysts expect SK Hynix’s dominance to persist in the short-term.

“As of now, I believe SK Hynix still holds its leadership in the HBM race … despite Samsung’s and Micron’s catch‑up efforts,” said Ray Wang, research director of semiconductors, supply chain and emerging technology at The Futurum Group. 

“I expect this edge to persist through the rest of 2025 and extend into 2026,” he added.

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IBM shares drop despite earnings beat

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IBM shares drop despite earnings beat

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna appears at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 16, 2024.

Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images

IBM shares fell as much as 5% in extended trading on Wednesday after the tech conglomerate issued second-quarter results that topped Wall Street projections.

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

  • Earnings per share: $2.80 adjusted vs. $2.64 expected
  • Revenue: $16.98 billion vs. $16.59 billion

IBM’s revenue increased nearly 8% year over year in the quarter, according to a statement. Growth in the first quarter was below 1%. Net income, which includes costs related to acquisitions, rose to $2.19 billion, or $2.31 per share, from $1.83 billion, or $1.96 per share, a year ago.

Software revenue climbed about 10% to $7.39 billion, exceeding the $7.43 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount. Hybrid cloud revenue, including Red Hat, showed 16% growth. The software unit’s gross margin of 83.9% was barely narrower than StreetAccount’s 84.0% consensus.

Revenue from consulting rose almost 3% to $5.31 billion, higher than StreetAccount’s $5.16 billion consensus. Infrastructure revenue went up 14% to $4.14 billion, above the $3.75 billion StreetAccount average estimate.

During the quarter, IBM announced the next-generation z17 mainframe computer and the acquisition of data and artificial intelligence consulting firm Hakkoda.

IBM called for over $13.5 billion in 2025 free cash flow, similar to a projection from April. The company still sees at least 5% revenue growth at constant currency for the year.

As of Wednesday’s close, IBM shares were up 28% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index has gained around 8% in the same period.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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