Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, speaks at the Google I/O developer conference.
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Google on Tuesday offered buyouts to employees across several of its divisions, including those within its knowledge and information and central engineering units as well as marketing, research and communications teams, CNBC has learned.
Knowledge and information, or K&I, is the unit that houses Google’s search, ads and commerce divisions. The buyouts Tuesday are the company’s latest effort to reduce headcount, which Google has continued to do in waves since laying off 12,000 employees in 2023.
CNBC could not confirm how many employees were impacted by the latest round of buyouts. The Information reported earlier that the company offered buyouts to employees in the search and ads unit.
The “voluntary exit program” applies to U.S.-based employees, and some teams are also mandating office returns for remote workers who live within 50 miles of an office, the company confirmed. They will be expected to assume a hybrid work schedule “in order to bring folks more together in-person.”
“Earlier this year, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance for U.S.-based Googlers, and several more are now offering the program to support our important work ahead,” Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini wrote in an emailed statement to CNBC.
K&I has approximately 20,000 employees. The unit underwent a re-organization in October that resulted in Google executive Nick Fox taking over the helm. Fox sent out a memo on Tuesday saying that employees who are not meeting expectations may want to take the buyout and that those who are excited by their work and doing well to remain with the company.
“I want to be very clear: If you’re excited about your work, energized by the opportunity ahead, and performing well, I really (really!) hope you don’t take this! We have ambitious plans and tons to get done,” Fox wrote, according to the memo which was reviewed by CNBC. “On the other hand, this VEP offers a supportive exit path for those of you who don’t feel aligned with our strategy, don’t feel energized by your work, or are having difficulty meeting the expectations of your role.”
The buyouts come after finance chief Anat Ashkenazi in October said that one of her top priorities would be to drive more cost cutting as Google expands its spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure in 2025.
So far this year, the company’s “Platforms and Devices” unit and “People Operations” have also offered voluntary buyouts. Additionally, Google has demanded that some remote employees return to the office if they want to keep their jobs and avoid being part of broader cost cuts at the company, CNBC reported in April.
Google is also overhauling a popular internal learning platform to focus on teaching employees how to use modern AI tools in their work in a shift away from some of its nice-to-have programs to more business-essential offerings, CNBC reported Tuesday.
Figma co-founder and CEO Dylan Field said Thursday that artificial intelligence doesn’t pose a serious threat to the future of the design software company, which is on the verge of debuting on the public markets.
“We’re in this moment where you might, if you’re singularity-pilled, go, ‘Hey, superintelligence is coming and it’ll be able to do things that no human can do,” Field told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I have a harder time believing that we’re going to approach that really quickly right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of the picture.”
Figma is slated to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “FIG” on Thursday. Last week, the company estimated that it would price shares in the range of $25 to $28, and on Wednesday it priced above that range at $33 a share.
The offering values Figma, which ranked No. 45 on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, at $19.3 billion.
The company was supposed to be acquired by Adobe for $20 billion, but the deal was scrapped in December 2023 after regulators objected.
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So-called “superintelligence,” a type of artificial intelligence that would be more powerful than the human brain, has recently become a growing focus among technology companies.
Field told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that the company’s “complex” graphics engine and other aspects of its technology make it difficult to be replaced by superintelligence.
“I think that’s not stuff that you can learn from looking at code and sort of various places on the internet,” Field said. “It’s not part of the pre-training data mix. I believe that doing that at scale — it’s quite difficult.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been especially vocal about the potential for superintelligence, declaring in a Wednesday memo that the technology will serve as a tool for “individual empowerment” over automation and efficiency.
Meta recently created a lab to pursue superintelligence, and Zuckerberg has poured billions of dollars into building a roster of top AI talent.
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed reporting to this story.
Roblox stock soared 16% Thursday after the company reported second-quarter revenue that beat expectations amid strong user growth.
The gaming platform saw $1.44 billion in net bookings, up 51% over the year prior. Analysts polled by LSEG expected $1.24 billion in net bookings for the quarter.
User and engagement numbers were also strong for the company, with daily active users at 111.8 million, up 41% year-over-year, and hours engaged at 27.4 billion, up 58% year-over-year.
StreetAccount expected 106 million DAUs.
“Our year on year growth this quarter is a reflection of our strategic investments in infrastructure and performance, discovery, and the virtual economy, which continue to create fertile conditions for creators to thrive as part of a healthy, interconnected ecosystem,” said CEO David Baszucki in a release.
Baszucki added that the company is looking to grab 10% of the global gaming content market.
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Roblox raised its booking guidance for the third quarter and now expects between $1.59 billion and $1.64 billion. FactSet expected $1.42 billion in third-quarter bookings.
The gaming platform did report a net loss of $279.38 million, a loss of 41 cents per share. Roblox had a net loss of $205.88 million, a loss of 32 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
The platform rolled out new age verification tools two weeks ago, as the broader gaming industry and app stores have faced regulatory pressure to improve safety for young users and limit access to certain types of content.
Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman said the age-estimation tools will help keep younger users from accessing “something that should be limited to an older audience — 13 and over.”
Kaufman said having more mature content opportunities will help teens and adults stay on Roblox instead of moving to other platforms.
META CEO Mark Zuckerberg (L) and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
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Shares of Meta soared 12% and Microsoft popped 5% on Thursday, after the companies reported better-than-expected earnings that beat on top and bottom lines.
Microsoft topped the $4 trillion market cap benchmark with the move, joining Nvidia in the club.
Both Meta and Microsoft have been investing heavily in artificial intelligence infrastructure in recent years, and the companies said they expect to continue to shell out billions in capital expenditures.
Meta said capital expenditures will range between $66 billion and $72 billion for the full year, raising the low end of the company’s previous estimate of between $64 billion and $72 billion. Microsoft sees over $30 billion in fiscal first quarter capital expenditures and assets acquired through finance leases, while analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha had expected $24.23 billion.
Analysts at Citi said the companies’ increased capital expenditures will likely be a boon for chipmakers. Microsoft makes up roughly 8% of Advanced Micro Devices‘ sales, while Meta makes up about 2% of Broadcom’s sales, the analysts said.
“We believe AVGO and AMD will be the primary beneficiaries of Microsoft’s and Meta’s increased capex,” they wrote in a Thursday note.
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In addition to increased capital expenditures, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on an AI hiring blitz, highlighted by a $14.3 billion investment into the data-labeling startup Scale AI and the launch of its new Meta Superintelligence Labs unit.
Morgan Stanley analysts said they “applaud the effort” and are pleased with the state of Meta’s core business, but they remain a little wary of Zuckerberg’s AI spending.
“On one hand, the core business is so strong that it’s paying for all the new AI talent and infra several times over, but on the other hand the cavalier nature by which Zuckerberg is throwing money around is a bit unnerving, especially if things don’t come together as planned with the new superintelligence team,” the analysts wrote.
Barclays analysts said Microsoft’s generative AI scaling is still playing out, but the strong demand for its data center infrastructure continues to point to ongoing momentum for the quarters ahead. They maintained their overweight rating on the stock.
“With its strong Q4 FY25 results, MSFT confirmed its unique status in the software space and will likely continue to be one of the core holdings by investors,” they wrote in a note Wednesday.
Microsoft reported $76.44 billion in revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter, up 18% year over year. The company said net income increased to $27.23 billion, or $3.65 per share, from $22.04 billion a year ago.
Meta reported $47.52 billion in revenue for its second quarter, up 22% year over year. Its net income rose 36% year over year to $18.34 billion, or $7.14 per share.