Name-dropping: The number of babies named Alexa is dropping quickly

11/20/22 7:00PM

Last week Amazon commenced its layoffs, with 10,000 employees set to lose their jobs — the largest cuts in the company’s history.

‍Name-dropping

‍The cuts hit the Alexa voice assistant division especially hard. One employee in Alexa’s AI division reported that 60% of her team were being cut, with a 15-minute videoconference informing them of their unemployment.

Amazon are not the only ones scaling back on Alexa — parents are too. Last year only 698 baby girls were named Alexa in the US, the lowest figure since 1986. The name exploded in popularity in the 90s and early 2000s, but lost steam during the last decade, particularly after Amazon released its voice assistant in 2014-15.

‍Alexa, what should I call my startup?

‍Though Amazon Echo is technically the actual device, the naming of Alexa is interesting. Asking a device to play music, set a timer or call mom becomes much more natural when the device is anthropomorphized with a human name — and it’s not only Amazon that uses this technique. Goldman Sachs' consumer arm is named Marcus, there's mattress companies Emma &Casper, an AI copywriting tool called Jasper, an insurance startup named Oscar, Mona is a personal shopping assistant and Billie is a buy-now-pay-later company for the B2B market.

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Starbucks sells control of China business for $4 billion

Starbucks disclosed on Monday evening in a regulatory filing that it will sell control of its ailing China business to Boyu Capital for about $4 billion.

Under the agreement, Boyu will own a 60% stake in the China segment, which will become a joint venture between Boyu and Starbucks. The coffee chain will retain a 40% interest in the entity and will continue to own and license the brand and intellectual property.

Bloomberg reported earlier this year that the company was looking to sell its China segment. The American coffee giant has struggled to succeed in China, its second-largest market after the US.

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This month’s 137,000-barrel-a-day boost is a little more modest than some expected.

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China, the world’s largest carbon polluter, has pledged to cut emissions for the first time

President Xi Jinping has announced that China is aiming to slash carbon emissions by up to 10% in the next decade.

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John Wayne Airport in Orange County tops the list of North America’s favorite airports

Despite a record year of passenger numbers, flight cancellations, and delays, a new survey has revealed that flyers have been increasingly satisfied about their experiences in North American airports.

According to this year’s North America Airport Satisfaction Study from data analysts at J.D. Power, overall passenger satisfaction scores were up 10 points (on a 1,000-point scale), largely from “improvements in food, beverage and retail and ease of travel through the airport.” The annual survey measures overall traveler satisfaction across the region’s airports in seven categories (in order of importance): ease of travel, level of trust, terminal facilities, airport staff, airport departure experience, food and retail, and airport arrival experience.

Here are the region’s favorites:

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More than 40% of American adults now report being online “almost constantly”

While a new survey showed Japan has the greatest share of perpetually online people, there was a significant number reporting not using the internet at all.

Name-dropping: The number of babies named Alexa is dropping quickly

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