#technology

Was this a Fiserv conversion? Just saw that there’s an issue with customers not being able to access their money until Tuesday.

Fidelity is a very successful profitable, but I do not think it is a very well-managed company.

People see trillions of dollars in assets, huge revenues, a prominent brand, and decades of survival and assume that the people running it must be exceptionally capable or the business is well wrong. That conclusion is wrong.

Of course Fidelity has enormous structural advantages. It has scale, customer relationships, brand recognition, distribution, infrastructure, regulatory barriers, and the economics that come from operating at enormous scale. Those advantages create a substantial moat. But while a moat protects helps protect a business, it t does not prove that the people inside the business are intelligent, creative, or competent.

In fact, Fidelity has a serious problem with managerial mediocrity. This starts with the head, Abby, who if you've interacted with her you notice isnt the brightest.

Nevertheless Fidelity proves that a firm can make enormous amounts of money while still having weak decision-making, bureaucratic processes, mediocre technology management, and an excessive dependence on H1B1 labor.

Fidelity's senior leadership is surrounded by consultants who make this problem worse. Large companies are constantly sold fashionable management ideas wrapped in impressive language: “digital transformation,” “Agile transformation,” “AI-enabled operating models,” etc.

Consultants can take a straightforward problem, invent a complicated framework around it, give the framework a name, and convince executives that they have received sophisticated strategic insight.

That is not necessarily deception in the Executives start believing that because they are discussing sophisticated terminology, they are doing sophisticated management.

Fidelity's technology organization is where I find things especially troubling. Outsourcing software development is not inherently stupid. The problem is becoming dependent on contractors and third-party organizations for core technical capabilities. If the company does not maintain deep internal engineering expertise, its executives can end up depending on H1B1 to explain their own systems to them. That creates exactly the kind of agency and information problems that organizational theory warns about. You cannot effectively manage technology that you do not understand.

Returning to leadership: My assessment of Abigail Johnson is that she does not demonstrate the creative or strategic imagination I would expect from the leader of an institution of this size. I regard her leadership as fundamentally unremarkable. Calling her a “mo--n” is obviously an opinion rather than a measurable fact, but it captures the level of intellectual confidence I have in the leadership.

Fidelity is what i would call a wealthy mediocrity: an organization with enormous resources that does not appear to use those resources with corresponding intelligence. That model can work for a very long time.

But that does not mean the model is sustainable forever.

In fact I think Fidelity is sc--wed.

(More on this later)

First Oracle is requiring everyone to use an Oracle provided laptop. This means no more BYOD computers of any kind. Furthermore Oracle is going to require everyone to signup with identity scanning AI company own by Palantir. Upload your passport and full face scan. The next big step will be required face scan checks every 15 minutes. This will be an automatic process that will require you to not cover your camera. You will not be notified of this. If your camera is covered you will be locked out. This is where Oracle security is going.

https://www.theregister.com/virtualization/2026/09/01/if-hardware-price-squeezes-make-you-sad-vmware-says-it-will-all-end-in-tiers/5293575

https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/oracle-cutting-3-000-india-122511543.html

Oracle always had a reputation of being ruthless in regards to job security. Is IBM now worse than Oracle? I know the technology companies are all ruthless including Microsoft, AWS, Google, Salesforce and Oracle. Better job security in general is to work for a customer. No guarantees anywhere of course. But everyone I talked to in the past said Oracle was among the worst. My kids in the past have asked me about working for IBM and I had to be honest about what they might be getting into.

Nothing like replacing an ordering system that worked fine - opus, and then replacing it with salesforce. But hey, it's ok, everyone is using salesforce now, as so should we. Watching the 17 screens of salesforce flash, redirect, load, bouncing ba--s - hang on were almost there - gives us all time to figure out what we are doing for lunch that day. Or hey, look at that butterfly on the window. You took a transaction that could be handled in just a few minutes and you destroyed the customer experience - all by using salesforce. After all, slowing down employees and hindering them is the object here. Houston we have a problem here - the sales reps are operating in an efficient manner - we have got to slow them down. Roger that, salesforce launching in full force - this will ki-l their numbers. But hey, everyone is using it and so should you, just gimme 9 more boosters while your at it.

This was quietly just reported from Indian news sources:

TIAA Global Capabilities, an Indian subsidiary and strategic global delivery centre for TIAA (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America), has leased 255,713 square feet of office space in Pune.

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According to lease-related documents accessed via Propstack, a real estate data analytics firm, TIAA Global Capabilities has leased the space for 10 years at Panchshil Vantage in Wagholi, with the contractual rent over the 10-year term estimated at around ₹320 crore.
 
TIAA Global Capabilities has leased the space from P-one Infrastructure “to carry out its business”, according to the deal-related document.
 
The lease is at ₹92 per square foot per month, translating into an initial monthly rent of about ₹2.35 crore, with a 15 per cent escalation every three years and a security deposit of ₹14.11 crore.
 
TIAA Global Capabilities, the technology and shared-services arm of the New York-based financial services firm TIAA, will take the space in two tranches. It will occupy 187,996 square feet across floors 5-7 from December 2026 and 67,717 square feet on floor 8 from June 2027.

In response to the queries sent by Business Standard, TIAA Global Capabilities said that 2026 marks 10 years of TIAA Global Capabilities’ presence in India, and this expansion reflects the continued growth and strategic importance of our India operations. 
 
“As an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered GC, TIAA Global Capabilities has been scaling its footprint to support increasing demand across technology transformation, including artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, data and analytics, risk management, and client experience functions. This additional space in Pune will allow us to consolidate our teams and better support the range of capabilities we continue to build in the city, with scope for further growth as our operations evolve,” TIAA Global Capabilities noted. 
 
Established in 2016 as TIAA's Global Capability Centre (GCC) in India, TIAA GC supports the organisation's technology, operations, and business-facing functions. 
 
TIAA Global Capabilities already has offices in Mumbai and Pune, which house its 3,500 associates. The firm delivers high-quality global technology, operations and shared services to TIAA's businesses and associates.
 
Earlier, Pune recorded its highest half-yearly gross office space absorption volume in the last decade at 6.4 million square feet (msf) in the first half of calendar year 2026 (H1 2026), up 56 per cent year-on-year (YoY), according to property consultancy firm Savills India.
 
The city emerged as India's second-largest office market after Bengaluru. Leasing activity was primarily driven by IT-BPM, flexible workspaces, and engineering and manufacturing, with the latter replacing the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector among the top three demand drivers, Savills noted.

Genuine question: I joined within the last year and recently interacted with a DE, but honestly didn’t understand much of what they were saying. Do DEs typically write code and have a good understanding of the systems they work with?

I work with GCC tech in India. Bunch of rookies. Can’t get out of their way and work at snails pace. So WHY am I hearing about Sept tech layoffs in US?

Why do all internal websites now take ages to load?

https://x.com/RamMNK/status/2092642709416837126

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_oIQ-tA6M

IBM features prominently in Sabine's new video.

Sam's can be a very strange place at times. They added lidar to most of our forklifts but not all of them to help stop accidents. Just like life, accidents companywide still continue to happen. As a result, they bought several new forklifts that have lidar already installed to have all the lifts use lidar. Lidar is technology that is used to slow the lift down if the Lidar sees an obstacle or something that might be blocking the path of travel. The odd thing is that they never got rid of the old lifts that don't have lidar. If they are so unsafe, why aren't they gone.
The truth is that the lifts were never the problem. It was the person driving the lift and, or the people around the lift not paying attention to is going on. That's how most accidents happen. If you put the wrong person on a lift, it's just a matter of time no matter what tech it has.

https://seekingalpha.com/news/4636198-ibm-unveils-first-dual-architecture-mainframe-processor-with-arm-tech

Verizon cozies up to Google Cloud even more with Gemini integration.

https://www.fierce-network.com/wireless/verizon-cozies-google-cloud-even-more-gemini-integration

Old colleagues who have left have told me they're developing AI agents at their new company that can assess inspection reports and output recommendations that are spot on in minutes. A small team of engineers doing the work that took our BTC months, without all the errors.
Anyone else hearing similar things?

Marvell's stock pops 10% on AI chip deal that lets Google buy up to $12.2 billion in shares

• Marvell Technology stock popped on a deal for Google to buy up to $12.2 billion in shares.
• The deal is part of Google and Marvell's partnership on custom chips and includes products that "attach to the TPU ecosystem."
• Google has largely been working with Broadcom on custom chips

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/19/marvell-google-ai-chips.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/jpmorgan-hiring-bank-americas-david-fishman-head-technology-ma-memo-says-2026-08-21/

The University of New Orleans is officially rejoining the LSU system on July 1, 2026, after a 15-year period within the University of Louisiana System. This transition aims to provide financial stability and address declining enrollment and past budget issues. The university, originally founded as Louisiana State University in New Orleans, experienced significant enrollment drops after Hurricane Katrina. The move is expected to require substantial investment in technology and facilities. Despite past program cuts, the university is also planning to reinstate its marching band.

New Orleans, Louisiana

https://www.axios.com/local/new-orleans/2026/06/30/uno-lsuno-school-university-transition-lsu

“How much less are the salaries in US Bank’s Chennai India technology center vs US based roles?”

ChatGPT: Quite a bit less. The public Chennai salary data are still sparse and sometimes internally inconsistent, but a reasonable estimate is that U.S. Bank technology labor in Chennai costs roughly 70–85% less in direct salary than comparable U.S.-based technology labor.

For the Cloud program, we hired significantly from JPMorgan Chase and Amazon, largely because members of the leadership team came from those organizations. This contributed to substantial budget consumption.

Now, with the new AI budget, we appear to be seeing a similar pattern within Technology—hiring senior leaders from Discover Financial at GL17 and above, while simultaneously increasing pressure on existing U.S Bank employees

So much for cost savings in technology. Everyone from Europe and NA in May lost their jobs to pad this guy's payroll.

Important change on how you access Webex

Keeping our data and systems secure means evolving how we work, including how we access tools like Webex. With this in mind, Webex will now follow Cisco's Trusted Device Standard and only be accessible from Cisco-trusted devices.

What to expect:
This change will roll out in phases, beginning August 31 and continuing through September. Once it takes effect, you'll be automatically signed out of Webex on all your devices. Simply sign back in on a Cisco-trusted device, such as your Cisco laptop. Going forward, you can only sign in to Webex using a Cisco-trusted device.
If you're using Android, you'll need to use the Webex app in your work profile.

Why this matters:
Adding Webex to our trusted device standard gives us an extra layer of protection for more sensitive data and helps pave the way for new Al capabilities to enhance your Webex experience.

tldr; you wont be able to use Webex on your personal phone without installing Cisco spyware that severely limits your phones usability for security reasons

Visa's recent workforce reduction is not solely an indicator of AI replacing jobs but rather a strategic capital reallocation. The company reported record financial performance concurrently with the layoffs, suggesting a business in growth, not decline. This move highlights a broader trend of companies re-evaluating their workforce in response to evolving technological landscapes. The article posits that AI and tokenization are the primary drivers of change within the financial sector. Ultimately, the focus is on how tasks within jobs are transforming, rather than a wholesale elimination of roles.

https://bizbeat.nus.edu.sg/thought-leadership/article/the-visa-story-is-not-about-layoffs-but-about-two-revolutions/

A German company with a Colorado presence is utilizing satellite technology to improve wildfire detection and tracking. OroraTech provides satellite imagery to fire departments, supplementing existing ground-based camera networks. This space-based monitoring allows for earlier identification of fires, even when traditional cameras are obscured by smoke. The company's constellation of satellites offers more frequent updates than existing systems, focusing on the critical afternoon hours when fires are most active. By combining satellite data with other sensors, OroraTech also generates fire simulations to aid in response strategies.

Colorado Springs, Colorado

https://gazette.com/2026/08/17/german-company-in-colorado-providing-wildfire-detection-and-tracking-from-space-2/

Ours or Warners? Doesn’t it make sense to ingest all the Warner content into P+ and call it good or are we just going scrap everything we’ve built for the past 4 years?

If you don’t know you don’t know. #techiesmattertoo

https://georgenoble.substack.com/p/pov-openai-anthropic-nvidia-and-oracle?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

6-12 months?

What areas are toast first?

Seems like anyone that does repeatable tasks (monthly/quarterly reporting, etc.) can be easily replaced.
We are training AI to update models and model documentation, so eventually we won't need model owners.
Soon we'll be training AI to validate the models, so we won't need model validators.
AI is combing through our data to find improvements (i.e. automation (aka workforce reduction) ).
I've watched demos here at work where AI is writing hundreds of lines of code in real time with some simple prompts for a fraction of the cost of an army of developers.
Even the cafeterias are reducing workers. It's all self checkouts and order kiosks now.

So how long do you think you have until you are replaced?

The stock is up on the AI demand, who do AI Naysayers have to say now?

Come on you doom and gloom brigade...

If I get LR’d, and don’t return my Cisco laptop will they brick it? Has anyone successfully kept their Mac laptop functioning after removing all the Cisco bloat?

Is anyone going in person to the technology all hands going to ask the tough questions?

This deserves its own main thread not buried in comments on various ones. It’s no coincidence why things have been a fu--ing sh-t show circus since he came. I’ve lost trust and respect for this company, it’s truly sad how much damage has been done to moral for everyone in technology.

Most likely future: a hybrid model — towers stay dominant in cities and suburbs, while satellite fills the gaps in rural/remote areas and acts as emergency backup everywhere

Twilio's video and voice APIs along with their voice-based AI features, are proof that this space is very much a growth market.

Cisco had the same assets and the same opportunity. Instead it filed the people building this technology under non-core, non-growth, legacy, and let them go.

The market just told Cisco what it thinks of that call.