Netflix is replacing content chief Bela Bajaria with former Disney TV executive Peter Rice. Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images for Netflix; Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Netflix is replacing its content chief after laying off about 1,000 employees. Former Disney and Fox executive Peter Rice will take the role from departing Bela Bajaria. Netflix has gone through a bruising period as Wall Street questions its long-term direction. Netflix has hired a new content chief after a stock slump and struggles to grow its viewership. Peter Rice, a former Fox and Disney executive, will oversee Netflix's $20 billion budget for movies and shows starting on October 26, the company announced on Thursday. Rice will replace Bela Bajaria, who's leaving the company after almost a decade. Bajaria took the top content job in 2023 and memorably described the ideal Netflix show as a "gourmet cheeseburger." The exec shake-up came a day after the streaming giant laid off about 1,000 employees, its biggest round of layoffs in four years. Netflix has had a tough year. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said at a Bloomberg media event last month that Netflix is "not growing as fast as I want us to, and we're working on making that move faster." Shares are down nearly 40% in the past 12 months as investors increasingly worry about slower viewership growth and the company's long-term direction. Netflix's attempt to buy Warner Bros. — which was ultimately stymied by David Ellison's Paramount — soured the Wall Street narrative about the company's future. Rice was previously the head of Disney's TV arm, where he ran Hulu and networks like ABC, Disney Channel, and FX. He was fired from the Mouse House in 2022 by former Disney CEO Bob Chapek and replaced by Dana Walden, who's now Disney's creative chief. "Peter is one of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry," Sarandos said in a statement. The co-CEO added that Rice's "business acumen is sharp, his talent relationships are exceptionally strong, and his experience across TV and film is deep and broad." Bajaria "led enormous changes at Netflix," Sarandos said, crediting her for helping the streamer broaden its content mix to live events and sports. Under Bajaria, Netflix had hits like "KPop Demon Hunters" — its biggest movie ever — as well as breakout shows like "Wednesday" and Emmy Award winner "Adolescence." However, Netflix's engagement growth was only 2% in the first half of 2026, and the company has faced increased competition from free streamers like YouTube and Tubi. YouTube is now well ahead of Netflix as the most-watched service on US TV screens. Netflix, which had more than 325 million subscribers as of its last disclosure in January, remains the clear leader among paid streaming services. That said, Rice will have to figure out the right content mix to fend off both its Hollywood rivals and social-media competitors like Instagram and TikTok. Read the original article on Business Insider

A construction project can be on schedule in one system and heading over budget in another. The difficulty is often connecting those signals quickly enough for someone to act. Access Construction, a division of The Access Group, is addressing that problem with the latest generation of Access Evo, an agentic AI layer spanning its estimating, project management, and enterprise resource planning software. Announced on October 15, the release adds construction-specific assistants, research…

At Databricks, we continuously develop and evaluate new AI research techniques to...

illustration by Cheng Xin/Getty Images Apollo is delaying recruiting for its 2028 associate class, Business Insider has learned. This follows last year's delay, which helped slowed down private equity's chaotic recruiting process. Apollo said it wants young bankers to have more experience before making their next career move. Apollo is delaying on-cycle recruiting again this year, after a similar move last year helped push back the recruiting timeline across the private equity industry. The private equity giant told prospective candidates Thursday afternoon that it will not recruit its 2028 associate class this calendar year, according to an email obtained by Business Insider. The memo, signed by David Sambur, co-head of Private Equity, and Antoine G. Munfakh, deputy global head of Private Equity, said the firm will wait until candidates who started their investment banking careers over the summer are "closer to completing one full year of professional experience." The hope, the memo said, is that this will convince others in private equity to delay their process so both candidates and employers can make "better decisions." Last year, after Apollo CEO Marc Rowan said the firm would delay on-cycle recruiting, others, such as General Atlantic also decided to pause. "We were encouraged that others in the industry took similar steps, and we hope more firms will do the same this year," the memo said. On-cycle recruiting — the controversial process through which private equity firms hire junior investment bankers for associate roles a year or even two before they would start — had crept earlier and earlier in the years following the pandemic. Competition among private equity firms to lock up top talent pushed recruiting earlier and made the process notoriously intense. It would kick off with little warning, with junior bankers sometimes calling in sick or interviewing in the middle of the night to avoid jeopardizing their day jobs. JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been a big critic of the process, calling it "unethical." In 2025, amid rumblings that on-cycle recruiting could take place before some students even graduated from college, JPMorgan rolled out a policy that incoming analysts could be terminated for accepting future-dated private equity offers. Apollo then decided to pause its on-cycle recruiting for 2027 associates, setting off a chain reaction that delayed the process well into this year. Questions have swirled if the practice would kick off early again this for the 2028 class, but it appears with this latest move, Apollo is trying to slow down the recruiting timeline across the industry again. Read the full memo below: —- To: Prospective Apollo Associate Candidates, Class of 2028 Subject: Apollo Recruiting, Class of 2028 Congratulations on beginning your career in investment banking. We know how exciting and demanding this period can be, and we hope you are enjoying the experience and learning a great deal. Last June, we wrote to prospective candidates for our Associate Class of 2027 to explain why Apollo would be delaying its recruiting process. We believed then, as we do now, that young professionals should have the opportunity to develop their skills, gain meaningful experience and better understand their interests before making important decisions about their careers. We were encouraged that others in the industry took similar steps, and we hope more firms will do the same this year. Young professionals still deserve more time to gather valuable life and work experience before making important career decisions. We wanted to share with you that for the Associate Class of 2028, we will not participate in on-cycle recruiting this calendar year and intend to wait until candidates are closer to completing one full year of professional experience before engaging in formal recruiting for an Associate position. We believe giving candidates more time and experience before beginning the process leads to better decisions for candidates and employers alike. In the meantime, we will continue to spend time with many of you, introduce you to our platform and share the diverse array of career opportunities available at Apollo. When our formal recruiting process begins, we intend to approach it thoughtfully and give candidates ample time to prepare, interview and consider their offers. None of this changes our enthusiasm for meeting and recruiting exceptional young talent. Quite the opposite. Investing in our people has always been central to Apollo's success, and we remain committed to attracting and developing the next generation of investment professionals. For now, our advice is simple: Focus on the opportunity in front of you. Learn as much as you can. Build relationships, develop your judgment, and take the time to discover what genuinely interests you. There will be plenty of time to make decisions about the next chapter of your career. We look forward to getting to know you and hope many of you will consider building your careers at Apollo. Best, David Sambur Partner, Co-Head of Private Equity and Head of Equity Antoine G. Munfakh Partner, Deputy Global Head of Private Equity Read the original article on Business Insider

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Bluesky expands Attie, its AI tool for building custom feeds, with a “social vibe coding” feature to create sites, games, quizzes, and more on the AT Protocol  —  Open social network Bluesky is once again expanding beyond its flagship app.  At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 on Thursday …

OpenAI introduced the Rosalind Academic Plan on October 15, 2026, giving eligible academic labs at U.S. universities up to 30 complimentary ChatGPT Business Standard seats for up to 12 months, with GPT-Rosalind access contingent on trusted-access approval. The plan bundles the seats, priced at $0 per user per month during the complimentary period, with use of every commercially available frontier OpenAI model within the plan's usage limits. OpenAI says it does not use research data shared…

MSCI Inc. adopted new rules that could ultimately push Strategy Inc. out of its global equity benchmarks, potentially triggering billions of dollars in stock sales and adding fresh pressure to the financing model behind Michael Saylor’s vast Bitcoin holdings.

For the fourth straight year, Stack Overflow’s Developer Survey has found that PostgreSQL tops the list of the database management systems developers prefer — and the favorability ratings even ticked up from last year. If it seems odd that a 40-year-old open-source engine should have such staying power, Phillip Merrick (pictured), co-founder and chief executive […] The post How agents are stoking new interest in a 40-year-old database appeared first on SiliconANGLE.

Discovery data from Plex users will help studios, advertisers.

Reuters: Sources: some Anthropic investors discussed a ~$1.5T valuation for its IPO, down from ~$2T they had expected, after disclosures showed slowing Q3 revenue growth  —  Some current Anthropic investors and prospective investors in its upcoming initial public offering are weighing a lower valuation …

This week on “Uncanny Valley,” we dive into an unexpected Muse feature, shadowy spending from the largest pro-AI super PAC, and men’s tendency to lie about how much they know about AI.

Medical experts explicitly recommend against blanket screenings.

If your business runs on Stripe, your application needs access to Stripe data at...

GMEX Robotics has completed an initial investment in MediaMeta.Ai, taking a 30% fully diluted equity interest in the Singapore-based business as it works to add social intelligence to its robotics platform. The October 14 announcement marks a step toward robots that can respond more appropriately to people, although the relevant robotics capabilities remain in development. According to the transaction announcement, the consideration comprises 15% cash and 85% GMEX common shares, with the shares…

Jenna Miscavige is the niece of David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology. She was raised as a Scientologist and left when she was 22 years old. Founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, Scientology developed into a global religious movement, reportedly reaching over 100,000 members at its peak in the 1990s. Even as its ranks have contracted, Scientology has retained an outsize place in popular culture due in no small part to high-profile members such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Jenna Miscavige speaks to Business Insider about Scientology's secretive reputation, recruitment tactics, finances, allegations of abuse, and celebrity connections. She is the author of "Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape." Jenna also uses social media to speak out against Scientology and inform the public. The Church of Scientology disputes Jenna Miscavige's depiction of the organization, saying in an emailed statement: "What [Jenna] is selling is not a new revelation. It is discredited allegations repackaged for profit. Her bid for notoriety begins and ends with a prominent family name she is desperate to trade on." For more from Jenna: https://www.youtube.com/@JennaMiscavige https://www.instagram.com/therealjennamiscavige https://www.tiktok.com/@jennamiscavige Read the original article on Business Insider

Nieman Lab: Experts say Meta's new terms of use will allow scraping of websites, including news sites, “associated with” business accounts on its platforms, with no opt out  —  Starting October 30, business accounts will consent to Meta scraping their websites if they continue using Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp.

Powerful AI models continue to cause chaos, but their targets aren’t widely seeking justice. Instead, they’re being encouraged to adopt those same tools.

One flagship AI data center in Norway is six months behind schedule, with workers set to be housed in a floating hotel to get it over the finish line.

IBM announced Granite Switch 4.1 on October 15, 2026, releasing two modular language models, at 8 billion and 30 billion parameters, that compose a base model, a general-purpose decision adapter, a safety adapter, and an embedded speech-to-text encoder into a single hosted endpoint. The IBM Granite blog post announcing the release was authored by Kate Soule, Subhajit Chaudhury, Hendrik Strobelt, and Luis A Lastras. The 4.1 Configuration The release comprises Granite-Switch-4.1-8B and…

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images In a new interview, White House press secretary Katie Zacharia didn't deny failing the bar exam. She also defended calling herself a lawyer. "The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China," she said of the bar exam. President Donald Trump's new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia is defending her self-description as a lawyer, while acknowledging that she took the bar exam and considered the results "inconsequential." Zacharia's legal qualifications have faced growing scrutiny since her debut White House media briefing earlier this week, when shortly afterward she was asked which state she passed the bar exam in and replied: "When I moved to China." In an interview Thursday with right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec on Real America's Voice, she did not deny reports that she'd failed to pass the bar. Zacharia, who moved to China after earning her law degree in 2011, told Posobiec she had already preregistered for the bar exam before moving to Beijing, where her husband was working at an American private equity firm. "I didn't want to withdraw from that," Zacharia said of the bar exam. "And we knew we would be moving out to China, and I was obviously incredibly distracted and overwhelmed and excited for finally being married to someone who I had been long-distance from for at least a year." Zacharia said she thought she'd take the bar and "see what happens." "The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China, and we left shortly thereafter," said Zacharia. The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Zacharia failed California's bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University in 2011. A Business Insider review of records for all 50 states and the District of Columbia found no evidence that Zacharia had been admitted to practice law in the US. In China, Zacharia said she took a job in the international practice division of the Zhong Lun law firm, where she said she worked on multimillion-dollar shareholder agreements and cross-border transactions. She said she was one of four associates under a senior partner. "After moving to China, I didn't really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on," Zacharia told Posobiec, adding, "There's no Chinese bar. I had enough credentials, which was my law degree, to be able to do this practice." "I had all the necessary requirements to do that, and I was able to do it effectively and well," she said. She also said that she never retook the bar exam after returning to the US and having the first of four children with her husband within six years. Zacharia said she consulted with people within the legal field "for a very long time" and was told it would be acceptable to call herself a lawyer "and provide legal analysis, not legal advice." "They said absolutely, absolutely across the board — you can call yourself a lawyer, you have a JD, and to buffer that, you have international legal experience in transactional law," Zacharia said. "It's unfortunate that people dub this as some kind of conspiracy," she said. "The truth is, I was very careful how I executed this, and I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law." Zacharia's LinkedIn page says she served as general counsel for Fix California, a political advocacy group, between January 2024 and March 2025. In California, it is a misdemeanor to practice law or to advertise yourself as an attorney without a license. At least two watchdog groups have filed a complaint about Zacharia with the State Bar of California this week. Read the original article on Business Insider