Jeff Bezos makes wild prediction about data centers as energy demand grows

Amazon founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos predicted on Friday gigawatt-scale data centers will be built in space within the next 10 to 20 years and that continuously available solar energy meant they would eventually outperform those based on Earth.

Speaking at the Italian Tech Week in Turin, Bezos also compared the surge in artificial intelligence to the internet boom of the early 2000s, urging optimism despite the risk of speculative bubbles. READ MORE

Are we in a recession? Yes — if you live in one of these 22 states.

The U.S. economy is very close to falling into a damaging contraction — and many states are already experiencing a recession, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.

Zandi estimates that 22 states plus the District of Columbia are now experiencing persistent economic weakness and job losses that are likely to continue. Another 13 states are treading water, he noted. READ MORE

5 strategies to help close the AI readiness gap

While AI is figuring prominently into executives’ strategic plans, new global research has found a significant AI readiness gap, as workers report being ill-prepared to use and work alongside the technology.

According to the report, Learning Reinvented from Accenture, 84% of leaders surveyed expect regular human-AI collaboration within three years; yet, only 26% of workers say they have received training on how to collaborate with AI. READ MORE

Tariff ‘drag’ will slow GDP growth to 1.6% this year

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday flagged the softening labor market after policymakers trimmed the benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to a range between 4% and 4.25%. Citing weakness in the job market, they forecast two more quarter-point cuts this year.

“Payroll job gains have slowed significantly to a pace of just 29,000 per month over the past three months,” Powell said at a press conference after the Fed policy decision. READ MORE

Jamie Dimon says economy is 'weakening,' warns of uncertain outlook

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is urging caution about the outlook for the U.S. economy amid persistent uncertainty over the impact of tariffs as well as geopolitical headwinds.

"I think you better be careful on that one [on the economic impact on the U.S.], because some of these things have long cycles. So we don't know yet. People are expecting these things to happen right away. But actually, a lot of them haven't happened," Dimon said in an interview on the "Office Hours: Business Edition" podcast released Wednesday morning.  READ MORE

The Job Market Is Hell

Harris started looking for his first real job months before his graduation from UC Davis this spring. He had a solid résumé, he thought: a paid internship at a civic-consulting firm, years of volunteering at environmental-defense organizations, experience working on farms and in parks as well as in offices, a close-to-perfect GPA, strong letters of recommendation. He would move anywhere on the West Coast, living out of his car if he had to. He would accept a temporary, part-time, or seasonal gig, not just a full-time position. He would do anything—filing paperwork, digging trenches—to build his dream career protecting California’s wildlife and public lands.

He applied to 200 jobs. He got rejected 200 times. Actually, he clarified, he “didn’t get rejected 200 times.” A lot of businesses never responded. READ MORE

Governance Matters: Don’t Overlook Board Oversight

Most conversations around proxy voting focus on shareholder proposals and executive compensation. Meanwhile, the most significant votes tend to fly under the radar: director elections. Boards of directors play a vital role in representing shareholder interests by overseeing a company’s strategic direction, monitoring management and ensuring accountability for the creation of long-term value.

Director-election votes can be a powerful tool for weighing in on material governance issues. Increasingly, investors are doing just that. In the 2024 proxy season, directors who chaired their board’s nominating and governance committees received 5% more dissenting votes on average, reflecting investors’ willingness to hold specific directors accountable for board composition and broad governance concerns. READ MORE

In defense of managers: Why good managers are essential to great leadership

All too often, good leadership is viewed as a more enticing and important topic than good management. People aspire to be leaders; they are trained to be managers. Many don’t even want to be referred to as a manager because the word itself has a bit of a PR problem.

And who can blame them? After all, leaders cast vision and point to the future. Managers review performance and point out problems. Leaders inspire. Managers inspect. Leaders throw great parties. Managers throw out non-reimbursable charges from an expense account. READ MORE

How to reclaim the strategic altitude your company needs

In my work advising high-growth companies, I often see founders hit an invisible wall, typically around the $25 million ARR mark, where the very instincts that made them successful begin to stifle their company’s growth. 

A recent example illustrates this “Operator’s Trap”: the CEO, a brilliant leader, was still approving every proposal and personally reviewing customer tickets. While from the outside the business looked strong, the problem crystallized when a competitor made a strategic move no one on his team saw coming. And the reason became painfully clear—the leader responsible for scanning the horizon was buried so deep in the day-to-day that he could no longer see beyond it. READ MORE

Stanford researchers tracked millions of jobs. Here’s who is losing to AI

The debate over AI’s impact on the workplace has moved from speculation to reality, as evidence of jobs lost to AI emerges. New research from Stanford University analyzing millions of payroll records through July 2025 reveals that generative AI is already creating significant employment disruptions. 

This research represents one of the first large-scale, real-time analyses of AI’s impact on employment, according to report co-author Erik Brynjolfsson. Titled Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence, the study used comprehensive payroll data from ADP, covering millions of workers across tens of thousands of firms. READ MORE

Fed primed for rate cut as hiring slumps, unemployment inches up to 4.3%

The newest data showing labor market weakness puts at loggerheads both sides of the Fed’s dual mandate to maintain stable prices and ensure maximum employment.

The U.S. has expanded payrolls by just 598,000 in 2025, the slowest increase of any year since the pandemic. Meanwhile, inflation, as measured by the personal consumption expenditures price index minus food and energy prices, edged up in July to 2.9%, well above the Fed’s 2% inflation target. READ MORE

Streaming and texting on the Moon: Nokia and NASA are taking 4G into space

Texting on the Moon? Streaming on Mars? It may not be as far away as you think.

That’s the shared vision of NASA and Nokia, who have partnered to set up a cellular network on the Moon to help lay the building blocks for long-term human presence on other planets.

A SpaceX rocket is due to launch this year — the exact date has yet to be confirmed — carrying a simple 4G network to the Moon. The lander will install the system at the Moon’s south pole and then it will be remotely controlled from Earth. READ MORE

Most economists see inflation persisting above 2% through 2026

Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday, while voicing concern about tariff-induced inflation, flagged signs of job market weakness and signaled that the central bank at its next policy meeting on Sept. 16-17 may need to trim the main interest rate for the first time this year.

“Downside risks to employment are rising,” Powell said in a speech. “If those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment.” READ MORE

Hate your job? How to have more fun at work - from ‘thin-slicing’ your joy to expressing your personality

Who would say work was fun? Your job might be rewarding (some of the time). You may get on with your colleagues (some of them). But fun? It seems simultaneously too grand an ambition and too small.

After the work-centric “hustle culture” of the 2010s, then the backlash and widespread burnout brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the general feeling around work right now could be described as ambivalent at best. At worst, it’s openly combative, as evinced by frequent references to the “battle” over working from home. Managers want employees back in the office; employees want flexibility, and to limit work’s impact on their lives. READ MORE