There’s no rhyme or reason as to why so much of what we consume on the internet becomes popular. The internet takes hold of something—thanks to a shared whim or collective need for something meaningless over which to seek connection—and a viral meme is born. In today’s edition: photos of Kevin James.
Several different photos of James have been making the rounds on X over the past few days, many of them promotional shots for his turn-of-the-millennium sitcom The King of Queens. But the one that’s getting the most traction is a photo of him with his hands in his pocket and a cringey-mischievous smirk painted across his face, his legs askew—a la Lin-Manuel Miranda. Why? One X user commented on a post asking that same exact question with the simple explanation, …
Inside the ground-level Staten Island apartment that serves as the operational headquarters of the Amazon Labor Union, Chris Smalls is spitballing about real estate. Wearing immaculate Air Jordans and boxy sunglasses, surrounded by half-empty pasta boxes and a pot of old mac and cheese, the leader of the first successful union drive in Amazon history is talking with Julian Mitchell-Israel, the ALU’s field director. Maybe, Mitchell-Israel muses, the union’s next headquarters could be in a bodega.
Nah, Smalls says, with the smallest shake of his head. “We’re a big union. Not a bodega union.”
By conventional standards, the Amazon Labor Union—just a year old and less than 10,000 members strong—isn’t actually that big. Not when com…
As big fat Indian weddings go, Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani knows how to take it to the next level. This weekend, the billionaire tycoon is hosting pre-wedding festivities for his son, 28-year-old Anant Ambani, in what promises to be a lavish affair with no expense spared. The younger Ambani is set to marry his childhood sweetheart Radhika Merchant, the 29-year-old daughter of another Indian billionaire, Viren Merchant.
While the wedding itself won’t take place until July, a three-day pre-wedding bash kicks off on Friday, Mar. 1 in the family’s refinery township of Jamnagar in the Indian state of Gujarat. Some of the biggest players from Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the entertainment industry are on the guest list.
That includes a performance by global su…
A year ago this week, artificial intelligence vaulted into public consciousness with the release of OpenAI’s instantly viral consumer-facing, conversational interface. AI became one of the biggest stories of 2023. And businesses everywhere (including OpenAI itself, as reflected in its leadership pandemonium earlier this month) are struggling to navigate the potential benefits and risks of the extraordinary technology.
Few have a better window into how all this is unfolding than Lan Guan, Chief AI Officer of Accenture, the consulting juggernaut with more than 700,000 employees, most of the globe’s biggest companies as clients and its own recently announced $3 billion investment in AI. She’s also a member of Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, a prominent center focu…