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Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet are the five largest corporations by market cap, with the value of their combined shares totaling more than $16 trillion. These firms each pull in multiple billions of dollars in profit annually, and so pay tens of billions of dollars in annual taxes, too. But like other corporate giants in the S&P 500, the companies are also spending massive amounts on shareholder payouts, funneling trillions of dollars to wealthy shareholders through stock buybacks and shareholder dividends. Over the past five years, those five largest companies spent more than $1 trillion on stock buybacks and dividends, according to a new analysis from Oxfammore than five times what they paid in federal taxes over the same time period. Looking at the entire S&P 500, the largest U.S. companies spent nearly $1.6 trillion combined on stock buybacks and dividends in 2024 alone. Thats triple the income of the poorest 27 million U.S. households combined, which totals $498 billion. ‘Unprecedented’ shareholder payouts Theres been an unprecedented level of shareholder payouts in recent years, says Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic justice at Oxfam. That includes both dividends paid out to shareholders and also stock buybacks, which is when companies buy their own stocks, thereby making their stock price go up. (Since many executives also have stock-based compensation packages, this also increases their pay.) Oxfams latest analysis provides a snapshot of those payouts, and the way corporations are spending their cash. To Oxfam, money spent on shareholder payouts are funds that could have gone to other internal investments, like raising worker wages or making a company more sustainable. The nonprofit also wants to highlight the disparity between these payments and how much companies pay in taxes. Corporate taxes have been on the decline since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed during President Trumps first term. Under that law, the effective tax rates for large corporations fell from an average of 22% to an average of 12.8%, thanks to a lower overall rate and a range of tax loopholes. If those five companies had paid pre-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act rates, Oxfam calculated that they would have paid an additional $168 billion in taxes over the past five years. Trumps recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act continues this trend, making permanent the TCJA tax cuts that were set to expire and bringing the effective corporate tax rate to as low as 12%, the lowest rate in U.S. history, per Morgan Stanley. The OBBBA also gives the biggest corporations nearly $1 trillion in new tax breaks. A possibility for change Theres a misconception, Riddell says, that shareholder payouts are a rising tide that will lift all boats in our economy. In reality, these actions overwhelmingly benefit the top 1% and wealthy executives, she says. “The bottom half of the United States owns just 1% of the stock market and very little of the overall retirement pie. And when it comes to tax breaks, theres an idea that when corporations save this money, they invest it elsewhere, like in workers or R&D. In reality, tax breaks fuel those enormous shareholder payouts. “Corporate tax savings aren’t being passed on to workers or consumers, she says. They’re being funneled to wealthy shareholders and executives.” Along with tax rates and stock buybacks, the Oxfam analysis also highlights the issue of enormous CEO pay: Over the past five years, the CEOs of the five largest U.S. companies made an average of $52 million annuallymore than 1,000 times what a typical worker earns in a year. These actions are fueling the growing inequality in our country, and theyre a direct result of policy, Riddell says. Theyre also occurring at a time when millions of Americans will soon lose their healthcare and access to food assistance because of funding cuts. But that means policymakers could take action to change these trends, too. That includes taxing or banning buybacks, capping dividends, supporting worker ownership, and adjusting the corporate tax code. (President Biden proposed tripling the tax that companies pay on stock buybacks, but the measure didn’t advance.) “What this analysis shows is that the corporations can drive inequality by enriching wealthy shareholders and directly through their compensation,” Riddell says. “But also it shows that there is a possibility for change.”
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E-Commerce
People remember many things about Windows 95, which turned 30 a couple of months ago. There were its signature new features, such as the Start Button, taskbar, and long file names. The launch eventhosted by Jay Lenoat Microsofts campus. The TV commercials with the Rolling Stones Start Me Up. The crowds of PC users so eager to get their hands on the upgrade that they descended on computer stores at midnight. Heres a fact about Windows 95 that isnt exactly iconic: It was the first voice-enabled version of Microsofts operating system. A collection of technologies known as the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) provided support for speech recognition and synthesis, letting developers create apps that could speak and be spoken to. But SAPI didnt go on to revolutionize how people used Microsoft products. Neither did any of the numerous other voice-centric technologies it has developed over the decades, such as its 1990s Auto PC car platform and the ill-fated Siri counterpart Cortana. It’s kind of amazing to think about it, really, muses Microsoft executive VP and consumer CMO Yusuf Mehdi. It’s probably been 30, 40 years since there was a new input mechanism for your PC. We had the keyboard, and then we introduced the mouse. There has not been another input mechanism. Like many of the people presently charting a future for Windows, Mehdi has seen much of that history firsthand as a Microsoft employee34 years of it, in his case. And though hes glossing over touchscreens and stylusesboth of which are part of Microsofts own Surface line and have their devoteeshis overarching point stands. For all the ways Windows has evolved, the basic means of interacting with it have remained enduringly resistant to change. Microsoft executive VP and consumer CMO Yusuf Mehdi [Photo: Courtesy of Microsoft] Once again, Microsoft is trying to overcome that. The company is announcing a Windows 11 update that lets you seek help from its Copilot AI by talking to it, with the response also coming in spoken form. Known as Copilot Voice, the feature leverages Copilot Vision, a technologyfirst previewed a year agothat can scan the contents of your screen to suss out what youre working on, whether youre perusing a social media feed in your browser, crafting a business proposal in Word, or studying for an exam. If voice input and output provide the interface for this new Windows experience, Copilot Vision is the glue that holds it together. It doesn’t require Copilot to have programmatic understanding of every app in the world, says Pavan Davuluri, Microsofts president of Windows + Devices, who will soon mark his 25th anniversary at the company. It just sees what you allow it to see and infers the world. It helps you with the task that you’re probably engaged in at that point in time. Generative AIincluding technologies Microsoft gets from its partner OpenAImakes that possible. As corporate VP of Windows experiences (and 24-year Microsoft veteransee a pattern here?) Navjot Virk puts it, The point is not just that you can talk to your PC, the point is that the PC now understands you. But making AI make sense in Windows is only partially about the technology performing as promised. In a world full of AI features that can feel like needy, uninvited distractions, Microsoft wanted this one to be welcome. Users must explicitly opt into Copilot Voice and Copilot Vision and use the wake word Hey Copilot to summon them. And even then, theyre designed to be unobtrusive complements to the familiar keyboard-and-mouse experience. [Image: Courtesy of Microsoft] People know what they want to do, says Virk. We should make sure we get out of their way, but give them the tools that they will use. Thats a sharply different vision from the one Microsoft rolled out at a May 2024 event with the lofty tagline A new AI era begins. The era in question involved a new class of laptop, called Copilot+ PCs, that packed powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon chips. Yet they were short on AI-related features compelling enough to justify buying a new computer. This time, Microsoft is concentrating on making AI available and appealing to all Windows 11 users, regardless of the machine theyve got. The question the company asked itself, Mehdi says, is What does a real AI PC look like in this next phase? In some ways, its answers are utterly straightforward. Even so, putting the real in real AI PC will keep it busy for years. The ultimate AI proving ground For all its mundane workaday ubiquity, Windows is a demanding proving ground for AI. According to Microsoft, the operating system is currently running on 1.6 billion devices, a figure that includes both Windows 11 and the theoretically moribund Windows 10. Sure, some of its users are early adopters eager to be wowed by the latest technology, even in imperfect form. But many more just want Windows to be a reliable, surprise-free tool to accomplish daily tasks. Their bar for finding AI palatable isnt lower than that of the enthusiastsits higher. Those 1.6 billion devices also reflect an endless array of manufacturers, models, and configurationsa formidable challenge when it comes to deploying a voice interface that consistently works well. Not that long ago, PC-based voice-controlled assistants tended to interrupt themselves and otherwise fail to engage with the world in ways that were fluid and natural, notes Microsoft technical fellow Stevie Bathiche (26 years at the company). That’s because [they] didn’t have a high-quality audio pipeline, he says. Now that’s solved. Microsoft president of Windows + Devices Pavan Davuluri [Image: Courtesy of Microsoft] Microsofts solution borrows from work it originally did for Cortana and Teams and involves technologies such as beam forming, which help a PC block out irrelevant ambient noise. That helps even with basic Copilot Voice features that dont sound like huge deals in themselves: the Hey Copilot wake word and ability to say Goodbye to conclude an AI session. But the most challenging part was what came in between: getting the AI to correctly handle everyday tasks as users might phrase them, regardless of their degree of AI savvy. With consumer AI in its typical current form, If you know how to craft that perfect prompt and go into super detail, you can get a lot of bang out of it, says Virk. But how do we make this superpower accessible to every single user of Windows? In several demos, the company showed me Copilot responding to briefly expressed spoken requests. In one, it explained how to disentangle multiple Spotify listeners data so the services year-end Wrapped summary wouldnt be a meaningless mishmash. It also made style suggestions based on a Pinterest feed, defined physics concepts mentioned in class notes, and did the math to adjust the ingredients in a handwritten recipe to produce a larger batch. The closest it got to showing off was when it aided a songwriting example by humming a funk riff in G minor. All of this emphasizes the simple, practical, and broadly applicable. One reason why: The stinging reaction to Windows Recall, a feature Microsoft announced at its May 2024 event. By capturing an ongoing stream of screenshots, Recall gave the operating system a memory. The idea was that users would find value in AI being able to scour their past activity in intimate detail. But the technology was invasive, turned on by default, and unencrypted. After critics called it a privacy nightmare, Microsoft took Recall back to the drawing board and didnt release it for almost a year. Naturally, the company now says it regards the whole kerfuffle as a teachable moment. We have taken those learnings and really applied them and internalized them to everything new that we have, says Virk. First and foremost, the discussion that happens on the team is, How will somebody understand the value of this? Will they be comfortable? Will they feel like they have control? Do they always know what is happening? Transparency is an important core tenet for our experiences. Only some of those experiences are rolling out to all Windows 11 users immediately. Additional ones will be available in test form to users who subscribe to the Windows Insider early-access program. Those include features called Connectors that hook Copilot into apps such as Outlook and OneDrive, giving it far more access to your data than Copilot Vision can divine by analyzing the screen. (Yes, Microsoft says Connectors will be available to third-party developers, too.) Connectors are crucial to Copilot starting to get more agenticable to perform complex tasks on the users behalf with some measure of autonomy. Other purveyors of AI are developing similar technologies. For example, OpenAI already has a ChatGPT agent (known as Agent) and integrations (also called Connectors). By building this sort of AI directly into Windows, which already serves as a hub for so many peoples work, Microsoft has the opportunity to make it particularly powerful. But as AI works more independently and gains access to additional data, the potential for security and privacy issues rises. Chastened by its Recall misfire, Microsoft emphasizes that its agent-related features are opt-in and engineered to receive only the access they need. Even before these features reach general availability, Windows is using multiple AI models in an agentic manner below the surface. As the operating system responds to a users request, The big model creates the plan and the reasoning behind it, explains Bathiche. It says, You do this, do this, do this. The small model is tuned to essentially say, Yeah, let me take that instruction and translate it to what that actually means on the screen. That division of labor hints at a future when Windows, and computing in general, get atomized into bits of software negotiating with each othera scenario thats been predicted for decades and is only now going beyond the theoretical. Windows Insider members will also be the first to gain access to Ask Copilot, a new feature that puts Copilot directly on the taskbar, allowing them to initiate a typed AI session without firing up the existing Copilot app. Like Hey, Copilot, that may not sound like a huge whoop. But its key to Microsofts long-term goal of letting Windows call on AI in whatever way they prefer at any given moment. You can get going with Copilot straight out of the gate, says Davuluri. And it can be chat, it can be voice, it can be vision. It can be any combination of them. The road to Jarvis Ultimately, its impossible to ponder Windows future except in the context of its first 40 years. The graphical computing environmentnot yet a full-blown operating systemshipped in 1985 and struggled at first. Only with 1990s Windows 3.0 did it become a hit. Then new trends, such as multimedia and the web, only strengthened its position. In recent years, Windowsfor all the enormity of its user basehas maintained a low profile. Indeed, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is justly admired for reimagining the company for an age that doesnt revolve around Windows or any other desktop operating system. Had it clung to its past rather than broadened its horizons, it likely wouldnt be the worlds second most valuable company today. Could voice and AI put Windows back in the spotlight? Mehdi doesnt mention Apples recent travails in AI, but hes clear that he sees an opportunity for Microsoft to bound forward more quickly than its eternal competitor. Were going to have an open window, he says. And Apple is not going to be in this window for quite some time. Thinking ahead over the next decade, Mehdi told me, Microsoft would love to turn Copilot into the real-world equivalent of Tony Starks ultracapable AI butler Jarvis. Still, he and the Microsoft executives I talked to mostly kept the hype in check. None of them suggested that voice might totally supersede todays graphical interface in the way Windows once replaced MS-DOSs text-based command line. Microsoft Jarvis, should it come to exist, will likely still support keyboard and mouse inputjust like Windows 1.0. We think this is the next interface because it’s additive, stresses corporate VP of design and research for Windows + Devices Marcus Ash, who has been at Microsoft since 1999 (not counting a brief detour at Stripe) and was part of the team that created Cortana. It gives you more things that you can do. But you can also go back to the way that you use things if that’s comfortable for you. Which is not to say Microsoft wont make every effort to make the case for Windows latest attempt to bake in voice technology. That undertaking will include a TV campaign showing the new features in action. We’ve not advertised Windows in that kind of fashion in a while, says Mehdi. So we do have confidence in what we’ve got here. Once upon a time, Microsoft signaled that a Windows update mattered by rebranding it: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7. Not this time. Four-year-old Windows 11 is still Windows 11additional evidence the company is trying to err on the side of underselling what its created. Historically, weve changed names, says Mehdi. Pavan and I were like, Shoot, should we have [called it] Windows 12 or Windows 20 or something? We didn’t even think about it. We were spending our whole time working on the product. But it has that magnitude. And it’s obviously all with the backdrop of what’s happening in the world of AI. If this new voice-enabled operating system wins hearts, it will be because its benefits speak for themselves.
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E-Commerce
If you have a stressful job, meditation can helpbut its not easy to meditate at work. A new workplace pod is designed to help by giving you a private place to take a break, run through a guided meditation or breath work, and begin to experience benefits like improved focus and reduced burnout. OpenSeed, the startup behind the Iris Pod, launched in 2018 after founder Jonathan Marcoschamer attended a 10-day silent meditation course. He wanted to keep meditating during the day, but was working in an open plan office. I couldnt find anywhere to meditate, he says. He also wanted to help make meditation more accessible for other people. So he started work on a prototype of a pod that could sit in a larger space. [Photo: Héctor Alvizoc/courtesy OpenSeed] The first version was installed at companies like Deloitte and Morgan Stanley, where Marcoschamer says that its used as often as 16 times a day. The new version, in production now for delivery in early 2026, was developed over the last few years with Yves Behars Fuseproject, along with the Mexico City-based design studio Tuux. [Photo: Héctor Alvizoc/courtesy OpenSeed] When you step inside the womb-like pod and close the door, a light outside shows that its occupied. Made from wood and wool felt panels and softly lit, it feels welcoming. At the onset, we asked one question: how do we make an environment that as soon as you stepped in, it made you feel calmer? says Marcoschamer. [Photo: Héctor Alvizoc/courtesy OpenSeed] The panels, with wood sandwiched between two layers of felt fabric, help isolate sound so you don’t hear coworkers when you’re inside. On a tablet, you choose a programa meditation to help boost energy, for example, or to calm you down after a stressful meeting. Music helps guide your breath, synchronized with the lighting. The floor and seat gently vibrate. Lavender and other essential oils offer aromatherapy. The sessions are designed to last around 10 minutes. [Photo: Héctor Alvizoc/courtesy OpenSeed] Fuseproject designed the large pods to ship flat and then be easily assembled on sitedrawing on the teams previous experience with prefab homesrather than delivering the product in a giant crate. Shipping is always such a high cost, both in terms of the final price point of the product and environmental cost, says Behar. The pod can be assembled within a few hours. (Initially, the team also planned to use recycled, 3D-printed wood for the structure, but the new technology wasn’t quite ready for this type of application.) The pods can be used in places beyond offices; one of the newest customers is a cancer treatment center, where OpenSeed plans to study how using the pods reduces stress. Other hospitals already used the first version of the product for doctors and nurses on breaks, but now it will also be used by patients. A correctional facility will provide the pod for police officers. The product is pricey, at $22,500 plus shipping and installation fees, but Marcoschamer argues that in a large office where its frequently used, the cost per use is low. Were seeing so many high-end wellness centers with all these very expensive treatments, he says. We want this to be something that’s accessible.
Category:
E-Commerce
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