Latest news with #JakeEpstein
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Breaking down the true cost of AI data centers' rapid growth across America
This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter. You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here. Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. BI's Jake Epstein spent the night aboard a US Navy destroyer traveling from England to France. He said the space was tight, as he got a taste of what daily life is like. By the way, you can get the latest on modern warfare, defense tech innovations, and more with BI's new Defense Flash delivered to your inbox every week. Sign up here! On the agenda today: Inside Silicon Valley's $100 million salary divide. It's the age of the "Zillow Ban." Here's what homeowners should do. Amazon rolls out a stricter performance review process, BI exclusively reports. Wall Streeters told BI the hottest restaurants, bars, and clubs in the Hamptons. But first: BI has the receipts on the impact of AI data. If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here. To fulfill the promise of AI, data centers have sprung up around the country, using water, land, and electricity to deliver computing power for the booming tech. A team of BI reporters and editors sought to quantify the spread of these centers and show the impact on their surroundings. I chatted with two lead reporters on the project, Hannah Beckler and Dakin Campbell, about their takeaways. Hannah, Dakin, in a nutshell, how many data centers are there in the United States, and how fast is the boom happening? There are 1,240 data centers either built or approved for construction in the United States. That's four times as many as there were in 2010. What is the biggest worry with the spread of data centers — the green space they use, the water, the electricity? And if these concerns are urgent, why aren't towns pushing back? Electricity and water use are large concerns because they are limited resources. But data centers often bring tax revenue, which towns use to build roads, schools, and fire stations. Public officials have been caught in the middle, with some towns pushing back and others openly welcoming the industry with tax breaks. Are there benefits to data centers, both for nearby property owners and for the promise of AI? AI could usher in tremendous benefits, from business savings to life-saving science. Many also argue that a leading AI industry bolsters national security. For nearby property owners, the benefits are typically the tax revenue their towns collect, short-term jobs in construction (which can also bring road congestion), and perhaps a few dozen longer-term tech jobs in their community. For the future, what are the most important issues about data centers that people should be watching? The largest tech firms understand that public opinion is mixed about their use of resources like power and water, and they are taking steps to improve their efficiency. It will be critical to see whether they will find ways to use less water and more renewable energy. In Silicon Valley, companies like Meta and OpenAI are offering eye-popping pay packages to technical hires to secure the best talent in the AI race. At the same time, however, rank-and-file tech workers are being laid off by the thousands. The result is an uneven shift that's going all-in on AI while squeezing other areas of innovation. The great salary divide. Also read: In Silicon Valley, it is the summer of comp FOMO as Meta and OpenAI offer tens of millions of dollars to lure top AI talent Mira Murati's secretive new startup is dangling $500,000 salaries for top talent Zillow's new policy blacklists any homes that are shared publicly by an agent without being posted to the local databases that inform the rest of the real estate industry. It's part of Zillow's ongoing battle against big brokerages to crack down on "exclusive inventory" — home listings that are shared in some places but not others. The fight leaves homebuyers and sellers in a weird spot, but not a powerless one. The rules of the game are changing, and consumers should know exactly what they're getting from their agents and how much they'll be paying them, writes BI's James Rodriguez. What homebuyers should do. How do you measure culture? That's a question Amazon managers will now have to deal with, thanks to a new performance review process the Big Tech company is instituting. Starting this mid-year review cycle, Amazon managers will use a three-tier system to rank how employees demonstrate the company's core values, which it calls Leadership Principles, in their work, per an internal memo seen by BI's Eugene Kim. It's the first time company culture is formally part of reviews. The Hamptons have long been a favorite summer outpost for Wall Street's bankers and traders. BI spoke to current and former finance industry professionals, as well as some Hamptons locals and business proprietors, to find the buzziest spots out east. Montauk's Surf Lodge was the most mentioned, but insiders also named scene-y restaurants like Le Bilboquet and low-key sites like Shinnecock, an ultra-exclusive golf club. See the list. This week's quote: "You are in a job interview for the whole internship." — Wendy Lewis, managing partner of KPMG's Richmond, Virginia office, on her advice for Big Four summer interns looking to stand out. More of this week's top reads: Everyone is saying AI will reshape banking. A new report forecasts exactly how much. 4 signs the economy is in worse shape than we thought. What Diddy's guilty verdict and civil suits mean for his net worth, music catalog, and brands. Generative AI is making running an online business a nightmare. Most Americans aren't paying attention to a key part of retirement that has nothing to do with investing. Leaked docs show how Meta is training its chatbots to message you first, remember your chats, and keep you talking. 4 ways Trump's 'big beautiful' tax bill could affect your wallet. ChatGPT has entered the group text. The BI Today team: Jamie Heller, editor in chief, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Read the original article on Business Insider Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
06-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Breaking down the true cost of AI data centers' rapid growth across America
Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. BI's Jake Epstein spent the night aboard a US Navy destroyer traveling from England to France. He said the space was tight, as he got a taste of what daily life is like. By the way, you can get the latest on modern warfare, defense tech innovations, and more with BI's new Defense Flash delivered to your inbox every week. Sign up here! On the agenda today: Inside Silicon Valley's $100 million salary divide. It's the age of the "Zillow Ban." Here's what homeowners should do. Amazon rolls out a stricter performance review process, BI exclusively reports. Wall Streeters told BI the hottest restaurants, bars, and clubs in the Hamptons. But first: BI has the receipts on the impact of AI data. If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here. This week's dispatch John-David Richardson for BI Tallying the full costs of AI To fulfill the promise of AI, data centers have sprung up around the country, using water, land, and electricity to deliver computing power for the booming tech. A team of BI reporters and editors sought to quantify the spread of these centers and show the impact on their surroundings. I chatted with two lead reporters on the project, Hannah Beckler and Dakin Campbell, about their takeaways. Hannah, Dakin, in a nutshell, how many data centers are there in the United States, and how fast is the boom happening? There are 1,240 data centers either built or approved for construction in the United States. That's four times as many as there were in 2010. What is the biggest worry with the spread of data centers — the green space they use, the water, the electricity? And if these concerns are urgent, why aren't towns pushing back? Electricity and water use are large concerns because they are limited resources. But data centers often bring tax revenue, which towns use to build roads, schools, and fire stations. Public officials have been caught in the middle, with some towns pushing back and others openly welcoming the industry with tax breaks. AI could usher in tremendous benefits, from business savings to life-saving science. Many also argue that a leading AI industry bolsters national security. For nearby property owners, the benefits are typically the tax revenue their towns collect, short-term jobs in construction (which can also bring road congestion), and perhaps a few dozen longer-term tech jobs in their community. For the future, what are the most important issues about data centers that people should be watching? The largest tech firms understand that public opinion is mixed about their use of resources like power and water, and they are taking steps to improve their efficiency. It will be critical to see whether they will find ways to use less water and more renewable energy. Big Tech's winner-take-all era In Silicon Valley, companies like Meta and OpenAI are offering eye-popping pay packages to technical hires to secure the best talent in the AI race. At the same time, however, rank-and-file tech workers are being laid off by the thousands. The result is an uneven shift that's going all-in on AI while squeezing other areas of innovation. The great salary divide. The "Zillow Ban" is here Zillow's new policy blacklists any homes that are shared publicly by an agent without being posted to the local databases that inform the rest of the real estate industry. It's part of Zillow's ongoing battle against big brokerages to crack down on "exclusive inventory" — home listings that are shared in some places but not others. The fight leaves homebuyers and sellers in a weird spot, but not a powerless one. The rules of the game are changing, and consumers should know exactly what they're getting from their agents and how much they'll be paying them, writes BI's James Rodriguez. What homebuyers should do. Amazon toughens up reviews How do you measure culture? That's a question Amazon managers will now have to deal with, thanks to a new performance review process the Big Tech company is instituting. Starting this mid-year review cycle, Amazon managers will use a three-tier system to rank how employees demonstrate the company's core values, which it calls Leadership Principles, in their work, per an internal memo seen by BI's Eugene Kim. It's the first time company culture is formally part of reviews. Hot spots in the Hamptons The Hamptons have long been a favorite summer outpost for Wall Street's bankers and traders. BI spoke to current and former finance industry professionals, as well as some Hamptons locals and business proprietors, to find the buzziest spots out east. Montauk's Surf Lodge was the most mentioned, but insiders also named scene-y restaurants like Le Bilboquet and low-key sites like Shinnecock, an ultra-exclusive golf club. See the list. This week's quote: "You are in a job interview for the whole internship." — Wendy Lewis, managing partner of KPMG's Richmond, Virginia office, on her advice for Big Four summer interns looking to stand out. More of this week's top reads: Everyone is saying AI will reshape banking. A new report forecasts exactly how much. 4 signs the economy is in worse shape than we thought. What Diddy's guilty verdict and civil suits mean for his net worth, music catalog, and brands. Generative AI is making running an online business a nightmare. Most Americans aren't paying attention to a key part of retirement that has nothing to do with investing. Leaked docs show how Meta is training its chatbots to message you first, remember your chats, and keep you talking. 4 ways Trump's 'big beautiful' tax bill could affect your wallet.
Yahoo
22-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy came clean about AI's impact on white-collar jobs. That might be a good thing.
This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter. You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here. Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. The world took a turn last night. President Donald Trump said US warplanes executed airstrikes that "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities. Trump also warned additional attacks against Iran could follow if "peace does not come quickly." Business Insider jumped into action, with warfare pro Jake Epstein joining with Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert to give you a definitive roundup of the news. We've since gathered business leaders' reactions and will keep adding as they come. We're working on more for you, including a deep look at the "bunker-buster bombs" that the US reportedly dropped. The Pentagon is set to hold a press conference on Sunday at 8 a.m. ET. We'll keep you posted on all things related to business as well as warfare strategy. On the agenda today: Gen X is already living millennials' real-estate nightmare. Two status symbol credit cards are getting upgrades this year. BI visited three Target stores across the US to understand why it's struggling. Steve Schwarzman has a message for Blackstone's newest intern class. But first: Rip the Band-Aid off. If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here. One way to think about Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's AI warning: It's better to hear it sooner than later. In a note to staffers last week that rocked the corporate world, Jassy said AI "should change the way our work is done," and he expects the technology will eventually lead to fewer white-collar jobs at Amazon. He isn't the first CEO to warn about AI's impact on jobs, but he is the most high-profile leader to do so. (Amazon, with about 1.5 million workers, is the second-largest private employer in the US.) As my BI colleague Tim Paradis reported, there's an upside to hearing Jassy's forthrightness about AI. "If I were an employee, I would be very frustrated with my leader saying, 'No, we're still not sure if this is going to have an impact,'" Christopher Myers, the faculty director of the Center for Innovative Leadership at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, told Paradis. He said it's better for executives to acknowledge that AI "almost certainly" will change roles and perhaps impact entire org charts. Jassy joins a list of CEOs who have recently offered AI warnings, including companies tied to the tech's success like OpenAI's Sam Altman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, and Nvidia's Jensen Huang. To be sure, a former Amazon developer told BI that Jassy's memo didn't surprise him. He doesn't think engineers should worry about their jobs, as he thought the memo was more about showing shareholders that Amazon was serious about the technology. Overall, workers have mixed feelings about these AI warnings. Elaine Ryan, a psychologist with two decades of experience, told BI that she thinks people who have anxiety over AI feel disoriented by the sheer scale of the technology. They don't just worry about losing their jobs but also about losing relevance or their sense of identity. Amid the warnings and anxiety, there is plenty of advice about what workers can do in the current environment. Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn has said it's important to respond to AI with curiosity, not fear. "The sooner we learn how to use it and use it responsibly, the better off we will be in the long run," he said. Jassy said Amazon employees who show a willingness to embrace AI "will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company." And Ryan, the psychologist, said that while AI might be new, the way we respond to the uncertainty surrounding it isn't. "The goal isn't to compete with the machine. It's to reclaim the human part— the experience, the depth, the emotional intelligence — that still matters more than we think," she said. Many Gen Xers are in a financial bind. They're managing the real-estate assets of their aging parents while also helping pay rent for their adult children — two cohorts that, for different reasons, can't quite support themselves on their own. That pressure has left some Gen Xers emotionally exhausted and wondering if they'll even be able to afford retirement. Still, they're not giving up. New perks and updates are coming to two of the most popular credit cards. American Express said updates are coming to its Platinum Card later this year. JPMorgan Chase also announced a revamp to its Sapphire Reserve Card. Cardholders will see new spending perks in categories like travel, dining, and lifestyle. But it's getting a price hike. Here's what $795 a year will get you. In recent years, Target has fallen behind. The retailer has struggled to grow its sales as competitors Costco and Walmart have posted strong gains. Analysts and some customers on social media say the general state of Target's stores is a key issue. BI visited three Target locations across the US — Madison, Wisconsin, Ventura, California, and Washington, DC — to find out why the retailer is struggling. Each store offered a different experience. Here's what BI saw. Also read: Wait, is Walmart cool again? Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman greeted the firm's 170 summer interns with some choice advice: If you want to succeed in private equity, learn to go with the flow. It's an industry where "nothing ever stays the same," Schwarzman said, according to a Blackstone spokesperson. "So if you have a mind and a curiosity that fits with that kind of world — constant new things, new learning — then you've come to the right place." Change is the constant. Also read: Goldman's coffee culture decoded: A guide for interns This week's quote: "The index is going nowhere." — Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman gave BI his outlook on the stock market. More of this week's top reads: AI and sports were hot topics at the ad industry's Cannes Lions bash. Just don't mention "brand safety." Ambitious Gen Zers are struggling to get jobs despite having college degrees. The Big Stay is finally paying off: Quitting to job-switch is worse for wage growth than sticking it out. Private equity took Jamie Dimon's warnings to heart. Here's why. Job search going nowhere? Try this. Will AI kill TV or make it smarter? Media execs share five key ways the industry is transforming. The 25 most innovative CMOs of 2025. An ex-Harvard professor says his AI could prevent the next world war. Critics say it could start one. "Copilot" this, "Copilot" that. A watchdog wants Microsoft to change its confusing AI advertising. Get ready for WhatsApp ads. Meta's Scale AI deal has clients like Google and OpenAI halting projects. The BI Today team: Steve Russolillo, chief news editor, in New York. Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Forbes
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Gjelina And Opto Are Serving Some Of The Liveliest Food In New York
A selection of starters and pastas at Opto in New York's Flatiron District. When celebrated Venice, California restaurant Gjelina arrived in New York late in 2022, it was one of the biggest openings of the year with lines out the door onto Bond Street. The closing came quickly, however: a month later due to a fire and 10,000 gallons of water from the Fire Department to put it out. Two years and massive rebuilding later, though, it officially reopened in December serving vibrant dishes to a lively (especially on expansive restaurant's second floor) crowd. A selection of dishes at Gjelina. The focus, as ever, is local produce which as various critics have pointed out gives the Venice version an advantage during the winter. But New York's head chef Jake Epstein doesn't agree. 'We remain committed to creativity, regardless of the season's bounty,' he explains. 'In New York, the winter months often mean working with farms that rely on longer-storing vegetables like celery root, storage beets and carrots, cabbages, and cultivated mushrooms. Working with farms as true partners means standing by them through the more scarce months, just as much as we enjoy the abundance of spring, which we can currently say is a breath of fresh air. And yes, when the moment felt right, we couldn't resist bringing in a bit of California citrus to brighten things up.' A selection of pizzas at Gjelina. That means diners who go in now will find vivid dishes such as with Sugar Snap Peas with Kalamata Olive, Fennel and Mint; Asparagus with Romesco, Pecorino and Lemon and Brussel Sprouts with Chili Lime Vinaigrette, Walnut and Cilantro in the sizeable vegetable portion of the menu. Elsewhere on the menu are spirited dishes such as Kampachi with Pomegranate Aguachile, Crispy Garlic, Fresno Chili and Scallion from the Raw Bar; pizza variations such as Lamb Sausage, Asiago, Confit Tomato, Rapini, Pecorino Romano, Mint and Mixed Mushroom, Rosemary, Confit Garlic and Olive Oil. Even a dish that sounds less surprising such as Bangs Island Mussels with Countneck Clams, Tomatillo, Chili Oil and Grilled Bread is so delicious that more grilled bread must be ordered to sop up every last bit of the oil. It is, simply, a very addictive dish. King Salmon Crudo at Opto. Over in the Flatiron District. in the location that housed the longtime Greek favorite Periyali, co-owner Nicola Kotsoni has now transformed it into the wider ranging Mediterranean spot Opto; there chef Alex Tubero's passion for zesty preparations and high level imported ingredients is on full display. Starters such as King Salmon Crudo get an extra kick from the North African red chile pasta harissa, lime and sesame; Grilled Spanish Octopus from mint and aged Sherry; the popular Gem Lettuce Salad from Dill, Scallion, Cucumber and Sesame-Anchovy Vinaigrette. One holdover from Periyali that regulars from that restaurant always order: the handmade stuffed grape leaves Dolmades that literally do melt in one's mouth. Rocky Mountain Lamb Chops with the Moroccan spice mix Ras el Hanout and Mint Chermoula, Pastas roam around the region from the Spanish Fideuà de Catalana with Red Shrimp, Monkfish, Clams and Saffron, similar to paella but with short pasta instead of rice, and Tagliolini al Amalfi Limone with Cultured Butter and Parmigiano Reggiano blending in with the lemon to elicit the feeling of a sunny afternoon on the Amalfi Coast. Main courses from land include Filet Mignon Shish with the spicy cilantro sauce Zhoug, Spring Onion and Blistered Tomato and Rocky Mountain Lamb Chops with the Moroccan spice mix Ras el Hanout and Mint Chermoula, the North African herb sauce. The Canary Islands Branzino at Opto. Even with a range of other options, though, the star of the menu is likely the Branzino flown in three times a week from the Canary Islands that adds a very crisp skin to the moist, deeply flavorful fish without drying it out. Tubero claims it's the fish's quality not his preparation since this branzino has an added layer of fat under the skin. Another branzino elsewhere will undoubtedly taste pretty ordinary after this one. Opto's Chocolate Mousse. At the end of the menu, the Lemon Torte Caprese is a pretty luscious, appropriate finish. But if you look around the tables (and photos on social media), the incredibly rich chocolate mousse under a cloud of whipped cream is being shared by other diners on friends' dinners out. Selfishly, though, you'll want to keep it all to yourself.
