Axios

From January through November of this year, 1,991 CEOs announced their departures. https://trib.al/JRrqw71

Party City is planning to close all of its stores. Corporate employees were told that the company was "winding down" operations immediately and that today would be their last day of employment.

Zelle's operator and three major bank co-owners — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo — aren't protecting consumers from fraud on the platform, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged in a lawsuit Friday. The suit claims that customers of the three banks have collectively lost more than $870 million since Zelle launched in 2017. Spokespeople for both JPMorgan Chase and BoA called the suit "political" in statements to Axios, vehemently denying the claims. The CFPB "is now overreaching its authority by making banks accountable for criminals, even including romance scammers," JPMorgan said. More here for Axios:

Donald Trump wasn't physically present at the Amazon workers' strike Thursday, but he's part of the reason the union can flex its muscles with a work stoppage mere days before Christmas. https://trib.al/elDPJNQ

The last Axios Communicators of 2024 just landed. We highlight the best of the year, plus what's to come in 2025 like... — Corporate activism reaches a crossroads, with some expecting employees to be more vocal once Trump takes office — The art of building a cult and the need for brands to go niche — A spotlight on Meridith Webster of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. — and an explanation for why Blackstone president (and LinkedIn-fluencer) Jon Gray is riding a bull in the company's new holiday video. Read: https://lnkd.in/dVM9igyr

At the Axios AI+ Summit this week Ina Fried talked to chief product officer Mike Krieger about why he came to Anthropic (after founding Instagram and Artifact). "Things that would've taken me months to build were done in an afternoon," he said. But we're not there yet! Krieger said one of the biggest problems with current AI chatbots is how tough it is for users to learn to write prompts. In the future, he hopes, average users won't have to learn to become skilled prompt engineers; instead, the models will get better at understanding what users want. https://lnkd.in/dG8VTMzn

OpenAI introduced a new way to talk to ChatGPT by dialing 1-800-CHATGPT or messaging the viral chatbot on WhatsApp. The chatbot will respond to questions that users ask and can handle tasks such as translating a language, explaining a topic and asking for directions.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear oral arguments on Jan. 10 over whether the law to force a sale of TikTok from its parent company or face a ban is constitutional.

Disaffection and despair, especially among young men, are on the rise, and economic factors play an important role in that phenomenon. https://trib.al/lWsJi3l

Axios AI+ SF Summit 2024 Axios' AI+ Summit returns to San Francisco featuring conversations with top innovators exploring the future of AI.