Intuit lays off 215 San Diego employees as it pivots to AI investments
The technology company is laying off about 1,800 workers across North America as it leans into artificial intelligence
By NATALLIE ROCHA | natallie.rocha@sduniontribune.com | The San Diego Union-Tribune
Financial software company Intuit is laying off 1,800 workers across North America, many in San Diego, as it plans to invest more in artificial intelligence.
At the same time, the company said it plans to hire more workers next year that will bolster its AI-driven strategy.
San Diego houses one of Intuit’s best known services, TurboTax, its consumer income tax software. Intuit acquired San Diego’s TurboTax in 1993 for $225 million.
Intuit is cutting 215 San Diego-based and remote jobs at 7535 Torrey Santa Fe Road. The local jobs will be eliminated beginning September 9 and continuing through next year, according to Intuit’s WARN notice filed with the state.
Intuit owns the 11.2-acre campus located in the Del Mar Heights/Carmel Valley area, according to real estate tracker CoStar. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company bought the 466,000 square foot multi-building property for $262.3 million in 2016 from Kilroy Realty.
In a company-wide email on July 10, Intuit’s CEO Sasan Goodarzi said “this is truly an extraordinary time — AI is igniting global innovation at an incredible pace, transforming every industry and company in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Companies that aren’t prepared to take advantage of this AI revolution will fall behind and, over time, will no longer exist.”
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UC San Diego poised to super-size dorms to ease chronic housing shortage
By GARY ROBBINS | The San Diego Union-Tribune and PHILLIP MOLNAR | phillip.molnar@sduniontribune.com | The San Diego Union-Tribune
Once again, thousands of UC San Diego students are on waiting lists for housing for the fall quarter, a shortage driven by explosive enrollment growth that’s expected to last for another decade and a dearth of affordable rentals near campus.
But a bold and pricey new plan might finally put the school on the road to relief.
Chancellor Pradeep Khosla will ask University of California regents Wednesday for preliminary permission to create a towering, $2 billion village on the eastern edge of the main campus that would house up to 6,000 students.
It is among the largest and most expensive housing plans presented to the Board of Regents in at least 20 years. The proposed village also would be more than three times bigger than any market-rate residential complex in San Diego County.
Khosla says his proposal is meant to deal with a hard reality: There will never be a big enough supply of affordable housing in the La Jolla and University City area to help the university meet demand.
Enrollment has grown by about 13,000 over the past decade and is expected to rise by about 7,600 during the next 10 to 15 years, pushing UCSD above 50,000.
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The Golden State burn: Climate’s impact on homeowners and their wealth
By DOUG PAGE/SD METRO Magazine/dpage@sandiegometro.com
California burns, with more than 3,300 wildfires and 150,000 acres charred so far this year, Cal Fire reports, while 1,100 plus tornadoes, says AccuWeather, tore up the landscape from the Central Plains to the Midwest, the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, plus one – for the first time in 20 years – in Alaska.
Along the country’s 3,700-mile eastern seaboard, which includes communities from South Padre Island, Texas, up to Lubec, Maine, meteorologists forecast many destructive events this year: Nearly 33 million homes risk wind damage at the cost of $10.8 billion in what could be one of the country’s stormiest hurricane seasons.
About 8 million of them, reports Irvine, Calif.-based CoreLogic, are threatened by storm surge, ocean water thrust ashore by powerful typhoon winds.
The forecast, from a variety of weather services, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is that this will be an “above normal” year, with eight to 16 hurricanes, and four to eight of them being “major hurricanes,” meaning they’ll likely have wind speeds of least 110 mph, perhaps faster.
In fact, Texas’s Gulf Coast already experienced one – Beryl – which came ashore the Monday after this year’s July 4th holiday as a Category 1 hurricane with top sustained wind speeds as high as 80 mph. Insurance losses from Beryl are expected to be between $750 million to $1.2 billion, Artemis reported.
AccuWeather estimated damage and economic losses higher – between $28 to $32 billion. Most of the damage was in rural areas, early reports said.
As for California’s wildfires, there could be some good news.
“Most of California had near to above normal rainfall this year,” said Matthew Shameson, a Riverside, Calif.-based meteorologist with the U.S. Forest Service. “And normally during wet years, we have below normal significant fires.
“We get about the same number of fires, but the significant ones go down,” he added.
CalFire, however, warns that due to new vegetation growth, “dryness may increase … potentially leading to more small fires, with the chance of larger fires depending on wind conditions.
“While there are no immediate signs of drought or dryness, this could change as temperatures rise and conditions dry out,” the organization said in a statement.
“Tornado Alley,” consisting of a line of states from South Dakota down to Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and parts of Texas, once saw many tornadoes. But they’re no longer the epicenter. Twisters are moving east and are just as likely to strike portions of the Midwest and Southeast.
“People just need to realize that tornadoes can occur outside of these areas, and although the area has shifted in the last 35 years from the Plains to the Southeast, it may shift again,” said AccuWeather Meteorologist Jesse Ferrell in a story posted on the forecaster’s website.
The forecaster also warns that tornadoes can happen anywhere, including California.
The National Weather Service says about 800 tornadoes strike each year, killing about 80 people.
But AccuWeather Meteorologist Paul Pastelok says the annual number of tornadoes is closer to 1,400. In the 21st century, so far, 2004 and 2011 hold the record for the most tornadoes, 1,817 and 1,700, respectively.
While it remains early in the year for tropical storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, hailstorms, thunderstorms, and wildfires, these events – even the threat of them – could make for lasting consequences for homeowners, especially their wealth.
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