Technologies
Verizon Replaces CEO Vestberg With Former PayPal Chief Schulman
The carrier gets a new CEO and board chairman on the same day, fueling speculation: Why now?
Verizon announced today that CEO Hans Vestberg will be replaced «effective immediately» by former PayPal CEO and longtime telecom veteran Dan Schulman.
Vestberg’s new role will be as special advisor through Oct. 4, 2026, «during which time he will be focused on ensuring a smooth transition, including the integration with Frontier Communications,» expected in the first quarter of 2026, according to Verizon’s announcement. He will remain on the board of directors until its next annual meeting, likely happening in May 2026. At the same time, Verizon named Mark Bertolini as the new board chairman.
Schulman has been on Verizon’s board since 2018. His most recent post was CEO of PayPal from 2014 to 2023. Previously, his telecom experience included positions at AT&T, Virgin Mobile and Sprint Nextel.
This leadership change is the second major wireless CEO shuffle in two weeks. T-Mobile named former Chief Operating Officer Srini Gopalan its new CEO on Sept. 22, taking over from Mike Sievert. However, Sievert is still CEO until Nov. 1, when Gopalan assumes the role. Sievert will continue with T-Mobile as vice chairman and serve on its board of directors.
It’s unclear why Verizon is making this abrupt move now, just after the end of the third financial quarter of 2025 and three weeks before it releases earnings for the company. Vestberg is not quoted in the press release announcing his succession, leaving newly named chairman Bertolini the traditional task of praising the outgoing executive’s record in the announcement.
Verizon did not respond to a request for comment.
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In June, I spoke with Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO of Verizon’s consumer group (who would seem to be the expected replacement for the top role), about the company’s new Gemini AI-based customer service initiative. I asked him about the first quarter of 2025, when the company lost nearly 300,000 wireless customers, and he credited the fluctuation to «the seasonality of the business.»
In the second quarter of 2025, Verizon seemed to balance those numbers, but in different areas. It lost 51,000 wireless postpaid customers, added 50,000 wireless prepaid customers and 278,000 broadband customers.
In an email to CNET, Jason Leigh, senior research manager of 5G and mobility research at IDC, said, «2025 is shaping up to be an epically weird year for the wireless industry with tariffs, government cuts, yo-yoing labor market, and general economic malaise.»
Verizon is also in the middle of acquiring Frontier Communications, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026. The Federal Communications Commission approved the purchase in May 2025, but only after Verizon agreed to end its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Schulman has a record of standing up for policies not favored by the Trump administration, for example, when PayPal in 2016 stopped a planned expansion in North Carolina after the state passed a law requiring government buildings to make bathrooms single-sex only. In 2020, he spoke to CNET following the killing of George Floyd by police.
Leigh speculated that Verizon’s move could be the first building blocks toward developing 6G technologies. «Everyone is still hunting for that transformative strategy that is going to realize the innovative and financial promise of the billions invested in 5G,» he said, adding, «before the crowbar goes into the wallet to start funding 6G deployments.»
Technologies
Google’s New AI Features Are Trying to Make Data Entry a Thing of the Past
More Gemini AI features will come to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.
The latest batch of Google updates to its workspace tools highlights AI’s promise to automate mundanity in the workplace. Google Docs, Slides, Sheets and Drive all have new AI-powered features, the company announced Tuesday. The one thing all these updates have in common? Gemini is using your files, emails and chats to give you relevant information, not random answers gleaned from the web.
These updates come as AI is playing a bigger role in our work lives, for better or worse. Agentic tools like Claude Cowork and coding assistants like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex are more capable than chatbots and able to handle tasks announced independently. AI tools are also becoming more customized, with Google’s personalized intelligence rolling out across its platforms to help refine AI outputs to things that are relevant and useful for you. Google continues that trend with this new batch of Workspace updates.
New Gemini AI features in Google Workspace apps will cite their sources after each query. For example, if you ask Gemini in Google Docs to fill out an itinerary template, it will pull the information from your email, chats and files. The «sources» tab in the Gemini side panel will show you where it found the information it used, like your flight confirmation email and chats discussing dinner plans. Seeing where Gemini pulled its answers from is also how you’ll double-check Gemini’s work.
The most impressive new features are in Sheets, where AI can fill in the holes in your spreadsheets. You can describe what you want the AI to do with a simple prompt and avoid writing an exact formula. You can click on an empty cell, select the pop-up that says «Drag to fill with Gemini,» then highlight the cells you want Gemini to fill in. That deploys an AI agent to search the web to fill each cell with the necessary information.
For example, if you have a spreadsheet of the contact info for local companies, you can have Gemini search the web to fill in a the location, CEO and other publicly available information of each company. The tool aims to dramatically reduce the time needed for manual data entry. Gemini can also summarize, categorize and create charts with prompts alone.
You can also chat with Gemini in Sheets and have it scour your raw data to make custom reports and charts. No need for pivot tables if they confound you as much as they baffle me. One of the biggest uses of AI at work is helping create presentations.
In Google Slides, you can now tell Gemini in natural language what you want to appear on a slide, and it will create it, matching the style of your existing slides. You can also ask Gemini to edit your slides if you don’t want to waste time painstakingly moving design elements around the slide. The AI should fill the slides with relevant information based on your instructions and the work files it has access to, so you shouldn’t need to replace a bunch of filler text.
If you use Docs, Sheets and Slides through the Workspace account of your company, then you won’t be able to turn off AI features individually. The managing company is in control of AI access for users. Personal users can tweak their settings to limit Gemini. The new features are rolling out in beta now, in English only, to Google AI Ultra and Pro subscribers in the US, as well as some Google Workspace customers who are part of the Gemini Alpha testing program.
For more, check out the new cowork feature in Copilot and how to use Perplexity AI for deep research.
Tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump were struck down by the Supreme Court last month. Companies that were subjected to those fees, such as FedEx and Dollar General, have since sued the federal government, and Nintendo wants a piece of the action.
Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the US Court of International Trade on Friday, as first spotted by Aftermath. The complaint seeks refunds of tariffs Nintendo paid, plus interest, and asks the court to declare the tariffs unlawful and stop the government from collecting them going forward.
«Since February 1, 2025, President Trump has executed the unlawful Executive Orders, imposing tariffs on imports from a vast swath of countries,» Nintendo said in the complaint.
When reached for comment, Nintendo of America confirmed the lawsuit.
«We can confirm that we filed a request. We have nothing else to share on this topic,» Nintendo of America said in an emailed statement on Friday, March 6.
It’s unclear how much Nintendo paid in tariffs, and it did not state an amount in the lawsuit. While the Switch 2 was priced at $450 when it launched last year, and has stayed at that amount, Nintendo did increase the price of the original Switch and accessories for both consoles. Microsoft and Sony also increased the prices of their hardware and accessories last year due to tariffs.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Feb. 20, the Supreme Court ruled by a vote of 6 to 3 that the sweeping tariffs Trump instituted last year exceeded his executive powers. Following the ruling, on the same day, Trump announced a new set of tariffs of 10% on imported goods that would last for 150 days, starting Feb. 24.
The decision on what to do with the collected tariffs — a reported $166 billion — has been left to the US Court of International Trade. Judge Richard Eaton told the US Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday, March 4, to refund the importers that were forced to pay tariffs, which is more than 330,000. On Friday, the CBP said it couldn’t easily issue tariff refunds because its system requires duties to be recalculated and refunds processed entry by entry. This process would involve tens of millions of transactions. The agency said it’s updating its systems and could start providing refunds by late April.
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