Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

More than a decade of federal oversight of special education in New Orleans charter schools has ended, following a Tuesday (March 31) decision by U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey to terminate a sweeping consent judgment, which went into effect in early 2015. That consent judgment resulted from a class-action lawsuit filed by parents of charter school students against the Louisiana Department of Education. In the years after Hurricane Katrina, the state took over the majority of the city’s schools, converting them from traditional, district-run schools to quasi-autonomous charters, whose day-to-day operations are managed by private, nonprofit groups. The Orleans Parish…

OpenAI wants to control the narrative. Literally. Loading audio narration… The AI giant bought TBPN, the tech industry’s hottest talk show, in a deal so shocking that one of its hosts joked it wasn’t a belated April Fool’s joke.A good chunk of you might be asking, “TBP what?” You’re not wrong for wondering. As popular as the weekday, three-hour show is, it’s also intensely focused on tech. (That’s on purpose. John Coogan, one of the cohosts, recently talked about TBPN being intentionally niche.)Within that specific group, it is huge. Dubbed “SportsCenter” for Silicon Valley, it’s basically a must-watch for tech…

Microsoft has released three AI models created in-house, in a move that signals a push toward greater independence from its longtime partner, OpenAI. Loading audio narration… MAI-Transcribe-1, MAI-Voice-1, and MAI-Image-2 — which are designed for transcription, voice generation, and image creation — are exclusively available on Microsoft’s Foundry platform, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday.Microsoft Foundry is a platform within Microsoft Azure, which allows developers and businesses to purchase, build, and customize AI applications using a range of models.The models are available to enterprise customers, putting them in direct competition with similar tools from OpenAI.OpenAI offers Whisper for…

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Efforts to quickly and quietly oust the president of the University of Wisconsin system drew fire Friday from a Republican legislative leader who said he was “troubled” that the board of regents is threatening to remove Jay Rothman without any explanation.Rothman has been president of the multicampus 165,000-student university system since 2022. He said in letters to regents first obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday that they were trying to force him to resign or face being fired without explanation. The letters were the first public indication that Rothman’s job was in jeopardy and took…

The iTunes Store reshaped Apple and the music industry, laying the groundwork for its booming services business. Loading audio narration… Eddy Cue, the senior vice president of services at Apple, joined daily tech talk show TBPN on Wednesday to look back on his 38 years at the company. Cue oversees Apple’s services, including its subscription-based platforms Apple Music and Apple TV, among others. Before there was Apple Music, there was the iTunes Store, which started out selling songs and albums. Cue said it was a real game changer for Apple when it launched in 2003.”It truly revolutionized music, and it…

For consulting firms, shredding season is coming: It’s time to take AI and cut the fat. Loading audio narration… As companies embed AI agents into their workflows, consultants are exploring how it can be used to flatten management layers — helping leaders oversee increasingly wider teams.McKinsey & Company senior partner Alexis Krivkovich said there’s “real hope” that AI can help companies streamline their organizational structures during a recent episode of “The McKinsey Podcast.”AI has equipped leaders with “more of a superhuman capacity to manage across bigger scopes, which would allow companies to flatten their structure and get faster in the…

A former Amazon vice president says getting a bad manager removed is rarely as simple as escalating complaints — and doing so the wrong way can backfire. Loading audio narration… Speaking on “The Peterman Pod,” Ethan Evans said employees often assume that raising concerns to their boss’s manager will automatically trigger action. In reality, he said, higher-ups face incentives to dismiss or downplay those complaints.”If you come to me with a weakness in one of my employees,” Evans said, there’s a “subconsciously” calculated choice: assume the report is overly sensitive, or accept it and create a much bigger problem. If…

Slide decks continue to get a bad rap — and another company is doing away with them. Loading audio narration… On an episode of Sequoia’s “Long Strange Trip” podcast released on Thursday, Block CEO Jack Dorsey said that employees at his fintech company no longer bring slide decks to meetings.”Just two months ago every meeting that we would have, you see a presentation or a Google Doc and we go through it,” Dorsey said. “Now everyone is bringing a prototype that they built, which is pretty amazing.”Dorsey, who cofounded Block in 2009, said the prototypes — built on either simulated or…

Longevity influencer Bryan Johnson, founder of Immortals, and horror movie producer Jason Blum, founder and CEO of Blumhouse, run very different businesses. Loading audio narration… But both are prime examples of leaders who are rethinking strategies and refocusing careers as AI brings wave after wave of change to their industries.And both will be on stage, interviewed by Business Insider journalists, at BI’s first flagship event in San Francisco on April 14.We know from our reporting that navigating the changes tied to AI and the industry shifts it’s driving isn’t easy. The Long Play is a chance to explore what it…

Get ready for a bumper crop of TBPN-style shows. Loading audio narration… OpenAI scooped up the livestream talk-show startup on Thursday for an undisclosed sum.”It is a wild move,” said Jack Westerkamp, cohost of the TBPN-esque show “Breaking and Entering,” which covers the advertising and marketing industries. The deal showcases the “sheer influence” TBPN has had on the tech industry, he added.It also showed why there’s already been a handful of shows, including “Breaking and Entering,” inspired by TBPN.TBPN has popularized — or rather, re-popularized — the live talk show. The show’s split-screen format showcases mic’d-up hosts John Coogan and…