Amy Scott

In the world of startups, unicorns are companies that are said to possess a rare kind of entrepreneurial magic. They're privately held ventures worth $1 billion or more. Uber and Spotify were unicorns. DoorDash and Airbnb are still described that way.

But as investment in Silicon Valley has boomed in recent years, there are far more $1 billion-plus startups than ever. So the question arises: Has the term unicorn lost its special meaning?

Updated at 3:42 p.m. ET

Battered by a drop in sales and dive in profits, Nissan says it plans to cut 12,500 jobs around the world — including more than 1,400 in the United States — after posting a big drop in profits for the first quarter.

The cuts — due to come over the next four years — are the latest sign of tumultuous times for the car industry as automakers scramble to retool their factories to focus on electric vehicles and driverless technology.

Updated at 5:15 p.m. ET

Does Google have bias?

It's the question that's at the center of a hearing Tuesday by a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

The hearing is probing into Google's search engine and whether it censors conservative media and bloggers out of the top search results.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the subcommittee chairman, called the hearing after Google failed to attend an April hearing on the topic. Facebook and Twitter attended.

Amazon employees who are filling boxes in warehouses may be the industry's next engineers.

The company announced Thursday that it will spend more than $700 million to train 100,000 employees for higher-skilled jobs over the next six years.

Instagram is rolling out a feature that will urge users to think twice before posting hateful comments, in an effort to minimize cyberbullying on the massive social media platform.

The new feature uses artificial intelligence to screen content and notify users if their post may be harmful or offensive. Users will see a message: "Are you sure you want to post this?" They will then have the option to remove or change the comment before anyone else is able to see it.

Walmart is expanding a program that allows for online orders of groceries to be picked up and paid for with food stamps at more than 2,500 locations.

It's the latest move by a major retailer to give low-income shoppers more options for using food stamps in the modern era of online shopping. Walmart, one of the world's largest retailers, began piloting the use of food stamps for online grocery pickup service in 2017 in a few locations.

It's gotten a lot harder for first-time homebuyers to nab that dream house. The pool of smaller, affordable starter houses is low. And increasingly, first-time homebuyers are competing with investors who are buying up these homes.

Last year, investors accounted for 1 in 5 starter-priced homes, according to data released by CoreLogic on Thursday. The rate of investor purchases of starter homes has been rising and has nearly doubled since 1999.

Updated at 4:24 p.m. ET Thursday

In just five years, Slack has grown to have more than 10 million users and has become a verb in the process. "I'll Slack you" is shorthand for sending a message via the workplace chat platform.