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Yesterday, customers of Verizon Communications across the country picked up their phones only to discover that they had no service. Calls, texts, and the internet simply didn’t work. Verizon now says the underlying issue has been resolved. But just what caused it, and will Verizon compensate customers for the outage? Here’s what you need to know. What happened? On Wednesday, a little after noon ET, customers around the country began taking to social media to report that they had lost Verizon service on their phones. Calls and texts could not be made or received, and internet access was nonexistent. Many iPhone owners on Verizon’s network saw the “SOS” ico…

Verizon just announced that its current CEO, Hans Vestberg, is stepping down—and the wireless carrier is pulling another seasoned leader out of retirement to take its helm. In a press release published on October 6, Verizon announced that former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman will be leading the company, effective immediately. In the meantime, Vestberg (who has held the title since 2018) will stay on as a special adviser at the company until October 4, 2026. Schulman has served on Verizon’s board of directors since 2018, and was elected lead independent director in December 2024. “Dan is a seasoned and decisive leader with a unique set of experiences, and a proven re…

Verizon is planning to cut about 15,000 jobs in the telecommunications company’s largest-ever layoffs as part of a restructuring under its new CEO, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The layoffs, affecting about 15% of its workforce, are set to take place as soon as next week, the person said. Verizon’s shares rose about 1.4% on the news. They have largely stagnated over the last three years, with a gain of 8% compared with the S&P 500’s near-70% rise. A Verizon spokesperson declined to comment. The cuts, following the appointment of former PayPal boss Dan Schulman as CEO in early October, are aimed at its non-union management …

Is cable television truly dead? The markets are about to test the hypothesis. Shares of Versant Media Group began trading on the Nasdaq Monday under the ticker symbol VSNT, effectively completing Versant’s spinoff from parent company Comcast Corporation. Versant comprises a bundle of cable television networks and similar digital businesses, with notable properties including MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), CNBC, USA Network, Golf Channel, Oxygen, E!, and SYFY. It also includes online platforms such as Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine. Peacock, the popular streaming service owned by NBCUniversal, will remain under the Comcast umbrell…

Hello, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. “Programming, as it turns out, is just typing.” Talking at Cisco’s AI Summit in San Francisco on February 3, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made that pithy observation to sum up the phenomenon of people using AI coding tools to simply describe in plain language software they want to exist, with an algorithm doing the heavy lifting. The comment came during a wild, wide-ranging riff on how AI is changing the world, and Huang kept joking that his chatter might have been influenced by several glasses of wine. (Hey, he was the after-dinner speaker.) But even if alcohol-fueled poetic license was involved, the sentiment capt…

I teach AI to editorial and PR teams for a living, and if there’s one thing that excites and engages them more than any other, it’s vibe coding. The highly visual and interactive projects my students create with vibe-coding tools often turn me into the person taking notes. Vibe coding is definitely having a moment. It’s arguably the most impactful thing to come out of the field of generative AI in the past year, at least as far as applied AI goes. Broadly, vibe coding is the practice of using AI to create not just “content,” but webpages, apps, and experiences—software people can actually do things with. And you don’t need to know a lick of code: The AI will take your…

Vietnam is revising its energy plans to focus more on large solar farms and less on reliance on coal and natural gas. The fast-growing economy now aims to get 16% of its energy from the sun — more than triple its earlier target of just 5%. A draft of the new policy outline, likely to be finalized in coming weeks, scraps plans to build offshore wind turbines, instead building more onshore wind capacity, rooftop solar and energy storage. Offshore wind and new gas projects have proven expensive and difficult. Large solar farms are cheaper and easier to build. But Vietnam also is emphasizing expansion of large solar farms to meet soaring demand for power generation. It for…

Bui Van Phong faced a choice when the Vietnam War ended 50 years ago: stay in his small village, helping his parents carry on the family’s centuries-old tradition of making fish sauce, or join the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing his country for a better life. Phong chose to stay behind and nurtured a business making the beloved condiment, known as nuoc mam in Vietnam, that is now in its fourth generation with his son, Bui Van Phu, 41, at the helm. Fish sauce from the village has been recognized by Vietnam as an indelible part of the country’s heritage and the younger Bui is acutely aware of what that means. “It isn’t just the quality of fish sauce. It is a…

The Nancy Guthrie investigation is now in its third week, which means it was only a matter of time before the case piqued the interest of online armchair detectives. Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing on Feb. 1. In the weeks since, the street outside her home in Tucson, Arizona, has become a destination for true-crime livestreamers. Online sleuths have dissected the publicly available details of the ongoing case while spreading far-fetched conspiracy theories. Some have filmed themselves driving through Guthrie’s neighborhood. The hashtag #nancyguthrie currently has more than 16,000 posts on TikTok, where users an…

Visa announced a new platform designed to stimulate small businesses through a variety of tools and network opportunities on Thursday in advance of major sporting events this year. The program, Visa & Main, identifies and is built around helping address what Visa calls the most pressing challenges that entrepreneurs face: access to capital, reaching customers, and adopting modern business tools. That starts with a $100 million partnership with small business lender Lendistry, with Visa saying it would continue to provide “additional grants and financial support programs” as part of Visa & Main. Additionally, Visa & Main connects Visa’s small …

At Visa’s ETA Transact event on April 3, the payments giant introduced three new products designed to simplify and secure payment acceptance. These innovations—Authorize.net 2.0, Unified Checkout, and the ARIC Risk Hub—all aim to enhance efficiency and fraud protection for businesses navigating an increasingly complex commercial landscape. By integrating the three new tools, Visa seeks to service businesses end to end—from integrating with existing platforms to accepting more payments, reducing checkout friction, and managing risk efficiently. “Visa is looking to wherever appropriate to invest in next-generation technologies and uplift our products,” says Rob Cam…

E-commerce continues to eat up ever-increasing share of the U.S. retail market: Americans bought more than $3.3 billion of items online every day in the second quarter of last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Online retail’s share of spending is increasing with every year that passes. Traditionally, that’s meant typing a term or phrase into a search bar and clicking through to a shopping basket. But the AI revolution is poised to swamp online retail, too, with agentic AI set to shop on behalf of customers. The e-commerce sector is rapidly preparing for what’s about to come—an influx of non-human customers acting on behalf of humans. “We avoid hype aroun…

Are you ready to hand over your wallet to AI and let it do your shopping for you? Maybe not—but the technology to do it is hitting the market. On Wednesday, Visa announced Visa Intelligent Commerce, which effectively allows AI agents to find and buy goods or services on behalf of consumers. While Visa itself doesn’t create the AI agents, what it’s done is create the e-commerce backbone to allow it to happen. Consumers could use AI tools to track down potential purchases, but then those platforms would hand control back over to the human to complete the transaction. The big change with Visa’s technology is that, with the proper permissions enabled, AI agents can co…

Just before Friday’s draw for the FIFA men’s World Cup 2026 group stage, Visa is launching an artistic update to its sponsorship of the tournament. The brand just announced a new partnership with Pharrell Williams’ Joopiter auction and e-commerce platform, on a new World Cup-themed art collection, featuring 20 different artists from six continents. The collection aims to show how creativity drives commerce—and how artists are the entrepreneurs shaping communities and culture around the world. Visa has unveiled the first five pieces in the collection at an exclusive Miami showcase called “The Art of the Draw,” hosted by multidisciplinary creator KidSuper. The showcase …

Feeling the impact of eggflation? As egg prices have soared, and the avian flu continues to wipe out millions of birds, many egg producers are struggling, but Vital Farms has managed to keep growing. CEO Russell Diez-Canseco shares how the brand’s relationship with farmers and transparency with customers have allowed the company to turn crisis into opportunity. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Ra…

Why does uncertainty make us less rational with money? And who should we trust for financial advice online? Vivian Tu, financial educator and CEO of Your Rich BFF, breaks down today’s personal finance risks and opportunities, from “lifestyle inflation” and the most common money mistakes smart people make to how Gen Z is navigating 2026 volatility and a shifting job market. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subs…

This jacket grows on trees. Vollebak, a London-based experimental clothing lab, has released a prototype garment made out of timber panels overlaid on a fabric interior. The long-sleeve hooded men’s Wooden Jacket is a feat of fashion design, turning a stiff material into pliable and stylish outerwear. Once it becomes available, the jacket will sell for $3,295. For now, there’s a waiting list “while we grow them,” Vollebak says. [Photo: Sun Lee/Vollebak] The jacket is par for the course for Vollebak, which experiments with sustainable materials to make its unlikely apparel. The company has also designed an antiviral jacket made from copper, a decomposable ho…

A voluntary layoff? In this economy? The mass layoff meat grinder is out in full force this week. In just the past couple of days, thousands of workers have fallen victim to job cuts at Amazon, Target, Paramount, CBS, and other large companies. YouTube has also quietly introduced voluntary exit packages for employees who are willing to be laid off with severance benefits, according to an internal memo first reported by Alex Heath’s Sources AI newsletter. Adding words like “opt in” or “voluntary” in front of separation, retirement, and severance packages is the new way to soft-launch layoffs, in the hope of making the idea of losing one’s job slightly more pal…