The Verily website is displayed on a laptop computer in an arranged photograph taken in Arlington, Virginia, on Thursday, May 7, 2020.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
In an email to employees on Wednesday, Verily CEO Stephen Gillett said the company will lay off 15% of its staff in a restructuring move, as it strives for financial independence from parent company Alphabet. The cuts will affect about 240 people, a Verily spokesperson confirmed.
Verily, which specializes in health sciences, is one of Google’s sister companies, operating within Alphabet’s “Other Bets” category.
It’s the first known layoff to hit the Google parent company following a wave of industry layoffs and fears of a recession. Although Google has so far avoided the widespread job cuts that have hit other tech companies like Meta, employees have grown anxious if they could be next, CNBC has reported.
Gillett’s email instructed staff to work from home for the remainder of the week as Verily’s physical offices will be closed on Thursday and Friday. “Those who are in the office the office today can return home now,” it stated, specifying that the instruction also goes for employees who work from Google offices.
Some of Verily’s projects have included a contact lens that can detect diabetes symptoms, which was halted in 2018, and Project Baseline, an effort to aggregate health data with research organizations. It also provided a Covid-19 testing platform, which former President Trump highlighted at the start of the pandemic.
Some of Alphabet’s Other Bets include their own equity structure, CFO Ruth Porat explained in 2019, and Verily has been raising money from outside investors for several years. In 2017, Verily took in $800 million of outside capital from Singapore’s Temasek, and has since raised more than $2 billion in several more equityrounds.
Gillett said the cuts reflect discontinued programs and team “redundancy,” according to the emails, which were viewed by CNBC. It says it will offer severance and outplacement services “in the coming weeks and months” but did not provide details yet.
Gillett’s note stated that it will be “reducing or sunsetting” some parts of the business while increasing investment in others. Specifically, Verily will be discontinuing some early stage products, including “remote patient monitoring for heart failure and micro needles for drug delivery,” the email states. “We cannot do everything and have had to make some difficult choices,” wrote Gillett. The email said the company would hold an all-hands meeting Jan. 18 to explain the changes in more detail.
Gillett’s note also outlines several executive changes and the departure of Jordi Parramon, the president of Verily’s devices businesses who had been with the company “since its early days.”
The note said the company will notify laid off employees with an email sent to their Verily and personal emails entitled “Important Update Regarding Your Role.” Those who still have jobs will receive an email titled “Your Role at Verily.” Those who work out of the U.S. will hear from their business leaders on Wednesday or Thursday, the note stated.
“While communicating via email is not ideal, this was a deliberate decision, enabling us to communicate as efficiently and simultaneously as possible. We’re also taking today and the rest of the week to ensure each impacted Veep has a personal discussion with a leader and HR partner to discuss the details, answer questions, and provide support through the transition,” read the note.
“As we move into Verily’s next chapter, we are doubling down on our purpose, with the goal to ultimately be operating in all areas of precision health,” the note stated. “We will do this by building the data and evidence backbone that closes the gap between research and care. We will also focus on building a financially independent company and a thriving company culture.”
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg plans to visit South Korea, scheduling key meetings during the trip, according to a statement by Meta on Wednesday, which did not provide further details. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is anticipated to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee later this month to discuss AI chip supply and other generative AI issues, as per the South Korean newspaper Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Meta extended its ban on new political ads on Facebook and Instagram past Election Day in the U.S.
The social media giant announced the political ads policy update on Monday, extending its ban on new political ads past Tuesday, the original end date for the restriction period.
Meta did not specify the day it will lift the restriction, saying only that the ad blocking will continue “until later this week.” The company did not say why it extended the political advertising restriction period.
The company announced in August that any political ads that ran at least once before Oct. 29 would still be allowed to run on Meta’s services in the final week before Election Day. Other political ads will not be allowed to run.
Organization with eligible ads will have “limited editing capabilities” while the restriction is still in place, Meta said. Those advertisers will be allowed to make scheduling, budgeting and bidding-related changes to their political ads, Meta said.
Meta enacted the same policy in 2020. The company said the policy is in place because “we recognize there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”
Google-parent Alphabet announced a similar ad policy update last month, saying it would pause ads relating to U.S. elections from running in the U.S. after the last polls close on Tuesday. Alphabet said it would notify advertisers when it lifts the pause.
Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week, with the bulk of the money spent on down-ballot races throughout the U.S., according to data from advertising analytics firm AdImpact.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.
Reuters
Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, has raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed Monday to CNBC.
Investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, a Physical Intelligence spokesperson said. Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are also listed as investors on the company’s website.
Physical Intelligence’s new valuation is about six times that of its March seed round, which reportedly came in at $70 million with a $400 million valuation. Its current roster of employees includes alumni of Tesla, Google DeepMind and X.
The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” per its website, and it aims to do this by developing large-scale artificial intelligence models and algorithms to power robots. The startup spent the past eight months developing a “general-purpose” AI model for robots, the company wrote in a blog post. Physical Intelligence hopes that model will be the first step toward its ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence. AGI is a term used to describe AI technology that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.
Physical Intelligence’s vision is that one day users can “simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models (LLMs) and chatbot assistants,” the startup wrote in the blog post. In case studies, Physical Intelligence details how its tech could allow a robot to do laundry, bus tables or assemble a box.
To Barry Diller, a friend of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the decision for The Washington Post not to endorse a candidate in tomorrow’s presidential election was “absolutely principled” — and poorly timed, he said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
“They made a blunder — it should’ve happened months before, and it didn’t, and that’s the issue with it,” Diller said.
Diller is chairperson of both online travel company Expedia and IAC, which owns media platforms and websites like Dotdash Meredith and Care.com. He and Bezos appear to have been close friends for years, with Diller and his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, hosting Bezos’s engagement party to fiancee Lauren Sanchez.
The decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 race or for future presidential races came directly from Bezos, the paper’s owner, according to an article published by two of the Post’s own reporters.
The move prompted public condemnation from several staff writers, a flood of at least 250,000 digital subscription cancellations and the resignations of at least three editorial board members.
Bezos defended his position in his own op-ed late last month, calling the move a “meaningful step in the right direction” to restore low public trust in media and journalism.
“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos wrote, emphasizing that the decision to not endorse a candidate was made “entirely internally” and without consulting either campaign. “I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it.”
Diller said he spoke to Bezos following the decision.
“I think it was absolutely principled,” Diller said. “The mistake they made — and it was a mistake admitted by him — was timing.”