Amazon announced on Friday it is putting a temporary hold on breaking ground for phase two of its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The company has planned to spend $2.5B on the project through 2030 and bring more than 25,000 jobs to the region. Amazon said it is still committed to the area. More: - Amazon had planned to begin the project's second phase in Q1 2023.
- The second phase is supposed to include three 22-story office buildings.
- The company said the project's first phase, which includes two office towers, is near completion.
- Amazon plans to move employees to the new first-phase buildings this June.
- The company already has more than 8,000 employees in the area.
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Apple’s primary manufacturer, Foxconn, is planning a significant expansion in India. The company is considering assembling more iPhones in India and setting up new production sites there. Foxconn has been looking to diversify its production outside China as U.S.-China tensions grow. More: - Foxconn plans to increase its iPhone production at its plant in southern India to about 20 million units a year by 2024.
- The company currently produces about 6 million units a year at the plant.
- Foxconn also plans to build a new production site in the southern city of Hyderabad, India.
- The company also plans to build a silicon carbide fabrication plant and packaging facility for its semiconductor business in India.
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 A message from DESIGNINDC How Can Businesses Adopt Holistic Design Practices? It’s increasingly clear that our economy is unstable. In unstable times, businesses need to become less fragile. It takes adopting a new holistic design approach to your business to be less fragile. Whether it’s a brick-and-mortar or digital business, both types need to understand what holistic design practices are. - Holistic design practices result from thinking about many different customer journeys, experiences, and behaviors.
- In this guide, our team at Design In DC will take you through the process of becoming more holistically minded and less fragile through the eyes of a creative agency.
- Ideally you’ll walk away from this article more informed about how to adopt holistic design practices in your business.
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AI chatbot startup Character.ai has raised more than $200M in venture funding valuing the company at about $1B. The funding round was led by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. Character.ai uses large language models to generate conversation in the style of various characters. More: - Character.ai was founded less than six months ago.
- The company was founded by Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who previously built Google’s conversational model, LaMDA.
- The investment comes amid recent interest in generative AI technology.
- Earlier this year, Microsoft announced a $10B investment in OpenAI’s AI tool, ChatGPT.
- Andreessen Horowitz manages $35B worth of assets across its various funds.
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Volkswagen plans to build two new plants in North America to boost its electric vehicle production. The German carmaker intends to open a new plant in Columbia, South Carolina, to produce its revived brand, Scout. VW is searching for a location for a new battery factory. More: - VW plans to invest $2B in South Carolina and is expected to create about 4,000 jobs in the region.
- It joins a growing list of foreign automakers that have agreed to produce EVs or batteries in North America to qualify for the subsidies provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.
- The Inflation Reduction Act requires EVs to be made in the U.S. and exclude materials from certain countries, including China, to qualify for subsidies.
- VW is the fourth-largest EV seller in the U.S.
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 A message from ROLLWORKS We want it all, and we want it now—Leads that is! With pressure on the rise to prove value AND generate results fast, marketers can no longer rely on just quantity. While the goal remains to maximize the volume of leads, the bigger focus now is on the quality of leads (your best-fit accounts!) Quality leads are best-fit accounts for your business that are ready to buy based on high fit scores, levels of intent, spikes in engagement, data, and more! Trust us, we know this shift in focus can make it hard to get leadership on board (let alone your marketing team), so we’ve created this guide to help cover the balancing act of moving from quantity to quality in 4 easy steps! Get the guide
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Meta Platforms has cut the price of some of its Quest VR headsets, including its high-end mixed reality device. According to the sources, the cuts were due to demand for the products being weaker than projected. More: - Meta’s Quest Pro, the headset unveiled last fall aimed at corporate users, was cut from $1,500 to $1,000.
- The company also cut the price of its Meta Quest 2 from $500 to $430.
- In a post on Instagram, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the price cut was to get more people to try virtual reality.
- Meta shares closed at $185.25 on Friday, up more than 6% for the day.
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Airbnb plans to cut recruiting roles across its workforce as it expects to slow its hiring pace in 2023. The company plans to increase its headcount by 2% to 4% this year after growing it by 11% in 2022. Airbnb did not provide details on how many recruiting roles will be cut. More: - Airbnb said the restructuring does not indicate widespread layoffs, signaling the job cuts would focus primarily on the company’s recruiting team.
- Last month the company reported its first-ever annual profit in 2022.
- At the end of 2022, Airbnb had 6,811 employees globally.
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- President Joe Biden had a cancerous skin lesion removed from his chest last month during his regularly scheduled annual check-up. A biopsy found the lesion was basal cell carcinoma.
- Shares of crypto bank Silvergate fell more than 50% on Thursday after the lender revealed it is considering its ability to survive. The crypto firm said it would miss the March 16 deadline to file its annual report with the SEC.
- Tencent founder Pony Ma was excluded from the list of delegates to China’s annual National People’s Congress. Tencent is China’s most valuable company, with a market cap of about $452B.
- Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences on Friday for the murder of his wife and son. A jury convicted Murdaugh of killing his wife and son in June 2021.
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 |  | Vanessa Omeokachie writes the daily Inside Business newsletter. Her interests include finance, technology, and entrepreneurship. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, attending concerts and music festivals, traveling, and exploring. Connect with her on Twitter @VanessaOmeo or on LinkedIn. |   | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 and 1972 Fords. | |
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