employees

Your employees pay that bill every morning

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For decades, commuting to work in large Spanish cities had a clear logic: workers lived on the outskirts of large cities and They traveled every morning towards the center to their jobs. It was a fairly stable urban model, reinforced by transportation networks designed to take workers to the large office districts of the urban area. However, in recent years this pattern has been changing as the price of land in the center has skyrocketed and companies have also had to move to the periphery. As and as it portrays The Countrythe problem is that cities are not designed to move from periphery to periphery, and that movement has become in a daily mousetrap for millions of employees. Not even the companies can bear the prices of the center. In recent years, many companies have chosen to move their offices to peripheral areas where land is cheaper and there is space to build. large office complexes. This movement has made it possible to build huge business campuses that would be unviable in the urban centers of large cities with high demand for land such as Madrid or Barcelona. In Madrid, the north of the city has become one of the main destinations for this type of projects. An example is the Telephone Districtlocated in Las Tablas, which occupies about 22 hectares and concentrates more than 12,000 workers in a single business complex. The records of the Residence-Work Mobility Atlas of the Community of Madrid show that districts such as Fuencarral-El Pardo (where the Telefónica District is located) are already among the areas with the highest concentration of employment in the region. Barcelona experienced a similar process with the development of 22@ technological district in Poblenou, where numerous technology companies and corporate headquarters have been setting up shop in the last two decades. The transformation of this old industrial neighborhood created a new employment center outside the historic center of the city. Employment is moving, but so are prices. The problem with this migration of companies to the periphery of urban centers is that when thousands of workers begin to concentrate in a specific area, the real estate market usually reacts quickly. Proximity to work centers increases the value of nearby neighborhoods, which ends up raising rental and housing prices. This increase, in turn, forces employees to move to municipalities even further away from the city center and the offices where they work. The result is a constant increase in daily trips within the metropolitan area. In Madrid this phenomenon is reflected in the labor mobility figures. According to the recorded data According to the Mobility Atlas of the Community of Madrid, every day 1.2 million people enter the capital from other municipalities to work, compared to the 790,000 who did so in 2016. Something similar is happening in the city of Barcelona, which after the growth of 22@ has attracted workers from numerous municipalities in the metropolitan area, congesting the northern and southern access roads and the city’s ring roads due to the traffic generated by these employees at peak times, such as and how collect traffic congestion report of Inrix of 2025. Transportation takes you to the center, not to the periphery. All these congestion problems have their origin in the fact that the large transport infrastructures (metros, trams, Cercanías, bus lines, etc.) of the large Spanish cities have been designed for decades with a radial structure. They were planned to connect the peripheral neighborhoods with the city center, which was where most of the employment was concentrated. When new business centers began to grow outside the center, that structure began to show its limitations. Many workers no longer need to go to the urban area, but rather travel between peripheral areas that are not directly connected by public transport. This requires long journeys or several transfers, something that often makes the car faster. Even if it means getting stuck every day on the way to work. Furthermore, public transportation in many cities has become a lottery with constant delays and breakdownswhich generates uncertainty when considering alternatives to the private car. The price: hundreds of hours lost. The increase in long trips to work and dependence on the car is clearly reflected in traffic data. According to the TomTom Traffic IndexMadrid registered an average congestion level of 38% in 2025, which is 3.6 percentage points more than the previous year. That level of traffic means that traveling 10 kilometers during rush hour can take about 34 and a half minutes, with average speeds close to 17.5 km/h. The report also estimates that Madrid drivers lose around 98 hours a year in traffic jams during rush hour. When daily journeys are long, the accumulated time can multiply and reach up to 500 hours per year per person lost in traffic jams. Barcelona faces a similar situationwith a level of congestion in its urban center and access roads of 41.1%, which is one of the highest figures in Europe. In Xataka | The worst traffic jam in history: two weeks, more than 100 kilometers and thousands of cars detained in China Image | Unsplash (Kathy)

In 1985 the most valuable company in the world had 400,000 employees. In 2026 the most valuable company in the world will have 40,000 employees

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36,000 employees. Is the approximate number of the template of what, today, is the most valuable company in the world: NVIDIA. It may seem like a lot of employees, but the figure takes on another dimension when we compare it to what was the most valuable company in the world, IBM, which once had a whopping 400,000 employees on its payroll in 1985. More inhabitants than many cities The IBM of the 80s needed a veritable army of employees to function. It reached its peak in 1985, with a total of 405,000 employees hired all over the world, a figure that exceeds the population of cities such as Alicante, Bilbao or Córdoba. Currently, large technology companies have enormous staff, but all of them are very far from what IBM was (except for Amazon which due to its global retail business, has a much larger staff). According to bullfincher datathis is the number of employees of the big tech: Alphabet (Google): 190,000 Microsoft: 228,000 Apple: 166,000 Goal: 78,000 NVIDIA: 36,000 The case of NVIDIA draws attention, which with only 36,000 employees stands out as the most valuable company of the moment. Right now its market capitalization is 4 trillion dollarsalthough reached 5 billion at the end of last year. And what about the money? But let’s get to the important thing: How much money did IBM generate with that workforce? They count in The Chip Letter that, in 1985, IBM brought in 50,000 million dollars, which adjusted for inflation it would be about 150 billion dollars. Let’s see how it looks compared to what big technology companies entered in 2025: Alphabet: 402.8 billion Microsoft: 281.7 billion Apple: 416,000 million Goal: 200,000 million NVIDIA: 130 billion (2024) IBM was a true giant in its time, but even adjusting for inflation, its income pales compared to what big technology companies earn today. The only exception is NVIDIA, which has not yet reported its results for 2025, so the figure is that of 2024. Still, if we compare the volume of employees, NVIDIA makes each employee much more profitable. We talk about $3.61 million per employee compared to $370,000 per employee in the case of IBM, almost ten times more profitable. Productivity has skyrocketed How have companies managed to maximize profitability per employee? The key is in digitalization and how it has boosted productivity. Already in 2013 there was talk that technology had made Productivity will increase by 480% since the 70s. If we go to the specific case of IBM and NVIDIA, the first was mainly dedicated to the manufacture of mainframe computers or mainframesa process that in itself was much more laborious, at a time when manufacturing more meant having more employees on production lines. NVIDIA is a company fablessmeaning that those who manufacture their GPUs are other companies like TSMC, and they also do it with much faster and more efficient automated processes. This leaves its 36,000 employees “free” to focus on chip design and architecture, allowing them to scale faster and with much less labor. However, there is something in which no technology company manages to surpass what IBM once was: its degree of transversal dominance. He kept around the 70% market share mainframes, But it was also a leader in minicomputers, microcomputers and the software that accompanied them, from databases to compilers. Image | Apple (edited with Gemini) In Xataka | Company CEOs say AI is saving them a day of work a week. Employees say otherwise

A Chinese station has trained its employees to save 2 seconds on their task. Now they have 30,000 more passengers

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Think of an activity that you repeat daily. Think about how much time it takes you and what it would mean to spend two seconds less. What would you do with that time? That is what the workers and technicians at the Guangzhou South Train Station (China) have asked themselves. And the result has been spectacular: 48 more trains in motion and 30,000 more passengers on the tracks. 2 seconds. It is the time that the Chinese workers and technicians employed at the Guangzhou South Train Station (China) had in mind. It was the great objective. For more than a month, they have all been working with one goal in mind: reducing the time it takes to clean and prepare trains passing through the station by two seconds. Zhong Miao, comprehensive control service officer of Guangzhou South Railway Station, explains to the Chinese media that after a month and a half they managed to reduce the time of this task from 58 to 56 seconds. The final intention, of course, was for the train to be stopped for less time. The result. With the changes introduced, station operators were able to make way for 48 more trains in a single day. The two seconds that may seem insignificant allowed the number of passengers to increase by more than 30,000 people. To achieve this, they point out in the local mediathe operators worked with an enormous amount of data collected through numerous cameras. This station alone has a control room with 208 screens. With them they analyzed how much time passengers spent at the station and it has been possible to reduce the travel time of travelers by 17% compared to the figure collected three years ago. Guangzhou South Railway Station. For a train, two seconds was nothing short of marginal. For a station where more than half a million people pass through every day, it’s a whole world. And the new way of acting has been launched taking advantage of the Spring Festival, days in which the routes multiply taking advantage of the Chinese New Year. If the forecasts are met, on average, 530,000 passengers on Chinese high-speed trains will pass through this station every day. It is estimated that a new record was broken in October of last year when the million passengers passed through the station. It is not even the busiest station in China, its 28 platforms do not represent any record either. But to give us an idea of ​​the hustle and bustle that goes on inside, On February 13, 1,200 trains were operated in a single day as a result of the movements of the aforementioned Spring Festival. To give us an idea, during travel peaks such as Easter, 270 trains pass through Atochain which high speed is added but also long and medium distance. The longest high-speed line in the world. The station is located at a key point, near Shenzhen and Hong Kong and serves as a transit station for all travelers arriving from Southeast China to large cities such as Chongqing, Beijing or Shanghai, with which the station is connected. In fact, the Guangzhou-Beijing line is one of the crown jewels of Chinese railway service. And it is that since 2012 it is the longest high-speed line in the worldwith 2,298 kilometers. During its inauguration, it was hoped that the train would take less than eight hours to cross a distance comparable to traveling from Algeciras to Amsterdam. Today, This journey can be completed in 7 hours and 17 minutes. if you take the fastest bullet train. Photo | Tauno Tohk and Yang In Xataka | China has not only created the most extensive high-speed network in the world: it wants to operate it at 1,000 km/h and has taken a new step

Telefónica sought to dismiss 4,525 employees with its ERE. Now you have a problem called 5,124 volunteers

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Telefónica has closed the first phase of your ERE in Spain with more employees wanting to leave the company than places available in the ERE. 5,124 workers from the different subsidiaries of the operator presented themselves as candidates to benefit from the ERE. Of these volunteers to leave the company, 352 candidates have been left out because the maximum number of dismissals agreed with the unions has been exceeded. This excess of volunteers worries union representatives. Volunteers to be fired. At the end of December, the company and unions signed the conditions for the Employment Regulation File that will affect seven subsidiaries of the Telefónica group: Telefónica de España, Telefónica Móviles, Telefónica Soluciones, Telefónica Global Solutions, Telefónica Innovación Digital, Telefónica SA and Movistar+. There A minimum of 4,525 departures was set for the entire group, reducing the number of layoffs by 25.6% from the 6,088 that the company planned at the beginning. This implies a reduction of 26.2% of the 17,248 employees of those seven companies. The bulk of the layoffs he was going to concentrate on the matrix and its two main subsidiaries. That is, Telefónica España, Telefónica Móviles and Telefónica Soluciones for which a minimum of 3,765 departures and a maximum of 5,040 were marked. According to pointed Digital EconomyIn these three subsidiaries, 3,995 volunteers have been registered in Telefónica de España, 990 in Móviles and 179 in Solutions, adding up to a total of 5,124 requests to join the ERE. 84 more than the maximum limit provided for them. How many applications are accepted. Of the requests presented for these three subsidiaries, Telefónica has accepted a total of 4,772 exits, which are distributed as follows: 3,649 exits in Telefónica de España, 960 in Mobile and 163 in Solutions, reaching 100% of the objective. That leaves 352 rejected, distributed as follows: 306 in Telefónica de España, 30 in Mobile and 16 in Solutions. It is not the first time that there are more applications for membership than departure places. A similar phenomenon also occurred in the company’s previous ERE. In fact, the unions are asking that priority be given to those employees who were rejected in the previous ERE of 2024reinforcing the voluntary nature of the measure and avoiding forced dismissals. Unions are concerned about the excess. In a statementCCOO insists that the ERE is voluntary and agreed upon, but the excess of applications submitted to the company’s headquarters has them worried. The union insists on analyzing the background that has led so many employees to express their desire to leave the company. “The large number of requests also shows discontent and the need to leave Telefónica, a worrying issue because it indicates a clear dissatisfaction of the staff in the exercise of their professional development,” the union interpreted. What remains to be decided. With the three majority subsidiaries of the Related Companies Agreement already almost closed, it is time to analyze the applications from Telefónica Global Solutions, Telefónica SA, Telefónica Innovación Digital and Movistar+. For these three subsidiaries Global Solutions, Telefónica SA and Telefónica Innovación Digital, 416 volunteers have presented themselves for the 585 planned departures (109 in Global Solutions, 182 in Innovación Digital and 294 in Telefónica SA). This accession leaves these subsidiaries with coverage of 71.11% of the total, forcing the company to look for new candidates and opt for forced dismissals. Something that unions want to avoid at all costs. In other words, while in the group’s headquarters some employees want to leave and cannot, in the smaller subsidiaries they will have to fire employees who want to stay. No news from Movistar+. The Movistar+ TV platform It is the big unknown at the moment, since the numbers of applications to benefit from the ERE, which will affect 175 employees of this division, which represents 20% of its workforce, have not yet been made public. In Xataka | Severance compensation: when there is the right to collect it according to the type of dismissal and how it is calculated Image | Telephone

74% of employees have felt more productive when using AI. Almost half have ended up correcting the result

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Artificial intelligence is already part of the daily life of the employees of many Spanish companies and helps them complete tasks faster. At least that is what emerges from a recent study by the AI ​​consultancy Workday, in which it is estimated that three out of four workers feel more productive thanks to AI. Behind that data there is a growing adoption of AI tools and a change in perception among professionals. However, this reality also implies a less visible one: part of that time gained you are missing out on reviewingcorrect and fine-tune what AI systems generate. Everyday use of AI in Spain. According to the data collected in the report “Beyond productivity: measuring the real value of AI” prepared by Workday, 74% of workers in Spain indicate they feel more productive thanks to AI, with 28% using it daily or 58% claiming to use it very often during their work week. That frequency of use of AIHowever, it is well below the global average which reflects a daily use of 46%. In any case, the increase in the use of AI translates into an average of time savings of between one and three hours per week for repetitive and administrative tasks, such as writing reports, analyzing or searching for data. ​These data coincide with the photo that the study of Indicators of use of Artificial Intelligence in Spain of 2024 prepared by ONTSI (National Observatory of Technology and Society), although in that case the perception is positive, only 11.4% of Spanish companies with 10 or more employees used AI technologies, which is revealed by a very limited business implementation. In any case, 85% of the users consulted report savings of between 1 and 7 hours per week. ​The problem of constant revisions. Satisfaction with the use of AI has the counterpart that 42% of Spanish workers dedicate up to one hour per week to review, correct or reformulate the result produced by AI, known as what has been called a “hidden tax“which stops part of the benefits. Adolfo Pellicer, Country Manager at Workday confirms that the use of these tools requires review and supervision of the results. “There is a hidden impact of AI at work. The report shows us that almost 40% of the time saved with the use of AI it ends up being lost in correctingreview and redo what the information that AI gives us,” said Pellicer. in statements to Computer World. AI digital natives. The youngest employees, between 25 and 34 years old, account for 46% of the cases with the highest review burden, since they use AI more frequently. 77% of these users verify AI results more rigorously than human-generated work. This generates additional exhaustion in these profiles. In departments such as human resources, 38% of employees need to review AI results due to the high number of errors reported. For its part, in the technical and IT departments, with a 32% increase in the use of AI, the tool has been better integrated, generating better results and content that requires fewer and fewer modifications. ​Training in companies: the pending signature. Although 66% of global leaders cite skills training as a top priority for leveraging AI, only 37% of employees who regularly use it admit to having access to these training programs. According to the report data From ONTSI, in Spain, this disconnection is worsened because 78% of workers demand more digital tools and training to use them, but adoption remains low: only 11.4% of companies with 10 or more employees used AI in 2024. In Xataka | Firing a worker because an AI “does its job” sounds very tempting. China wants to make it inappropriate Image | Unsplash (ThisisEngineering)

AI promised to free senior employees from tedious work. In reality it is loading them with more tasks

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Imagine a young recent graduate in finance, eager to join a large consulting firm. He dreams of learning the trade from below. That inexorably involves preparing reports, researching markets, creating presentations, etc. But along comes AI and suddenly those routine tasks are automated. He produce more and faster, but all that torrent of documents lands on the desk of the person in charge of supervising him, a senior manager who is now passing hours checking errors that have been overlooked. This scenario is what reveals a study prepared by the consulting firm UpSlide and its conclusion leaves an unexpected twist: artificial intelligence not only removes the access ladder for new workers, but also burdens the most veteran workers.​​ AI takes away opportunities for recent graduates. According to the data that they are being collected In different studies on the impact of AI on recent graduates, job offers for entry-level positions have been reduced between 11% and 20% in the last year. The reason: AI now takes over the basic administrative tasks that before these young people did. Furthermore, a elaborate study by researchers from the University of Navarra and IESE Business School, based on data from 138 million workers in the United States, reveals that in companies exposed to generative AI, average salaries fall by 4.5% compared to those not exposed. In the most affected, the salary drop reaches 7.7%, with the initial salaries of juniors decreasing by 6.3%, while those of seniors remain stable or increase slightly.​ Juniors produce more, seniors review more. The UpSlide report indicates that younger employees use the AI ​​tools their companies have implemented to improve their efficiency in distribution (24%) and research (22%) tasks. On the other hand, the use of AI for senior profiles implies an increase in the review and quality control tasks of their work. According to the authors of the study, while juniors have stepped on the accelerator producing more content and documentation with AI, seniors have had no choice but to dedicate more time in their day to review all that new AI generated content. “Rather than reducing workload, AI is displacing: it places more pressure on senior professionals, who must now review, validate and correct a growing volume of AI-generated content. This bottleneck is especially critical in high-value operations, where the margins of error are minimal,” the study’s authors underline. AI overloads seniors. The data indicates that 41% of the seniors participating in the study dedicate more than 11 hours per week to reviews, such as checking errors in the figures of financial presentations or formats. 83% of them recognize greater pressure on seniors for quality reviews, and 82% see more risk of those errors finally reaching the client. “While the technology is very impressive, it just doesn’t beat the professional touch. That’s why we’re making sure to create review checkpoints with humans in the workflow,” said Joshua Stolarz, Managing Director at KPMG in the study.​​ A model that makes the revision more expensive. Yes, as they point out the evidenceAI automates training tasks for junior profiles, concentrating review on seniors, one of the arguments used by the main CEOs of technology companies that the use of AI would allow the most senior profiles to free yourself from administrative tasks to focus on giving value to the products. By leaving them with the burden of reviewing AI-generated content, you actually bury them in more administrative work. If the trend pointed out by the study is consolidated, companies could opt for more veteran profiles in their hiring, which would reverse the dynamics of fire these employees when the cuts come. However, these more experienced profiles also they earn better salariesso many companies could rethink implementing AI if it means increasing your labor costs. In Xataka | Jensen Huang is clear: at this point no one should learn to program, AI will do it for us Image | Unsplash (Omid Ajorlo)

Broadcom CEO’s message to his employees before firing half

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Silicon Valley is immersed in a profound transformation in which it has happened to have offices full of slidesarcade machines and free food at all hours, to force their engineers to work 92 hour work week and fire them when the financial results are not what investors expected. In this transformation, an executive has emerged as an example of efficiency for the elite of Silicon Valley startup founders and CEOs: Hock Tan, CEO of Broadcom. Hock Tan and efficiency capitalism. As and how did he count The InformationBroadcom has radically changed its strategy under Hock Tan. According to Kenneth Hao, Silver Lake CEO and director of Broadcom, Tan’s management success comes from his “focus on basic principles that do not come from conventional wisdom. Not copying others.” His management has become synonymous with extreme efficiency and obsession with profitabilityto the point of eliminating any company welfare policy if it does not provide financial value to the company. The most notable example is what happened after the acquisition of VMware in late 2023. The first meeting already set the tone. Just as I collected The Information in his article, shortly after close the purchase of VMware for about $69 billion in December 2023, Tan organized a meeting with his new employees to explain his plans. When asked if they would maintain staff benefits offered by VMWare, such as daycare, couples therapy services, wellness bonuses of up to $1,000, or all-day coffee and meal service, Tan responded bluntly: “Why would I do something like that? I’m not your dad.” That response was not a simple comment, it was the first warning that the management philosophy was going to completely change under Broadcom. Layoffs and downsizing. Just like collected Business Insiderthe cuts began almost immediately. In the first days after the acquisition, about 1,300 workers were laid off in California alone, and over time VMware’s workforce went from about 38,000 initial people to about 16,000 employees. Broadcom has defined these layoffs as part of its strategy to eliminate duplication, reduce intermediate layers and focus on the areas of greatest financial impact. Furthermore, among their demands was also that of return to the offices. Only the turtles were saved from the campus. A similar fate befell the VMware campus in Palo Alto, a space famous for its gardens, open areas, ponds with turtles, outdoor amphitheaters and services designed for the daily well-being of employees. After the arrival of Broadcom, most of those spaces disappeared. Of the 18 buildings that made up it, all but five were sold, all garden surfaces, all additional services and even cafeterias were eliminated. Tan has skyrocketed profitability…and his bonus. After the purchase of VMWare, Broadcom’s revenues skyrocketed because the reorganization was not limited to personnel. Broadcom too modified the product catalog and VMware prices, which is reflected in an increase in 20% on company income. Since 2018, Broadcom’s share price has increased by 1,800%. This commitment to efficiency in its annual turnover has a very well-defined reason for Tan. Its good financial results have led it to achieve some of the biggest bonuses that have been paid to a CEO, receiving 161.74 million dollars in 2023. In September, the board of directors In addition, part of Tan’s salary is given in the form of shareswith which the manager already accumulates more than 1.2 million shares of Broadcom with a value of approximately 492 million dollars. In Xataka | We knew that the CEOs of large companies were very well paid. What we didn’t know was how much their salary had been raised. Image | VMware, Wikimedia Commons (Greg Bezat)

Your employees are going to mobilize to claim part of those benefits

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Black Friday has become one of the most important sales days for global trade, and a unique opportunity for employees to give visibility to your claims pressing with mobilizations on one of the days with the highest sales volume of the year. On November 28, coinciding with the start of Black Friday, unions and representatives of the staff that make up the Inditex group throughout Europe, have called for different coordinated mobilizations in front of emblematic stores of the company in countries such as Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, France, Italy and Spain. These actions aim to take advantage of the moment of maximum commercial visibility to put the distribution of profits and the recovery of an extraordinary bonus linked to the group’s economic results at the center of the debate. Non-strike mobilizations. The unions and representatives of the Inditex European Works Council propose these mobilizations as another step after years of putting on the table the need for economic recognition for the collective efforts of the workforce. In their communications They point out that they have tried to sit down and negotiate with Inditex through other means, such as letters to management and requests at each meeting, but the company has not responded to their demands. As confirmed by Rosa Galán, representative of CCOO at Inditex, it is important to point out that this is not a strike, but rather protest concentrations at the doors of the main stores in the center of large cities to give visibility to their demands that come “after exhausting other avenues” and as one more step in their efforts to sit down to negotiate. They ask for the return of a bonus that disappeared. In Galán’s words, until 2020, Inditex employees throughout Europe received a variable bonus linked to the annual company profitsas a way of recognizing the contribution of the staff to the good financial results of the group. This incentive was closely linked to strong sales campaigns, such as Black Friday for its great impactso that a part of the commercial success also reached directly into the pockets of those who run the stores and support the day-to-day running of the company. However, after the pandemic that bonus was eliminated and has not been implemented again until this year, when has done so by limiting its application to the managers who form your shareholders meeting. A pat is not enough. Despite the good words and recognition that the board of directors dedicates to the group’s global workforce, the Inditex European Works Committee wants this recognition to materialize in the recovery of that bonus linked to profits in a context of good results financial like the current one. “We are asking once again that a company that has enormous profits, which are the result of the work of its staff, distribute those profits fairly,” stated Galan to Reuters. A context of growth. In the last exercises, the textile empire founded by Amancio Ortega has achieved record profits. In fiscal year 2024, closed on January 31, 2025, the brand recorded 5,866 million euros of net profit. This represents a growth of 9% compared to the previous year, thus adding its third consecutive year of historical results. The consolidated data of the first quarter of 2025 mark a continuing trend with an increase in net profit of 0.8%, up to 2,791 million euros. Inditex has not responded to our requests for information, although declared to the EFE news agency that “for the moment” is not going to issue any comment on the union announcement. In Xataka | A few weeks ago Amancio Ortega collected 1,552 million from Inditex: he just invested them in the second largest purchase in its history Image | Unsplash (Praswin Prakashan)

2.5 million turnover and 60 employees explain why

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Last Tuesday, November 11, El País confirmed What had been a rumor in Spanish audiovisual circles for months: Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, Los Javis, had ended their romantic relationship after thirteen years together. The news leaves us, beyond the inevitable morbidity of any media breakup, an additional question: what happens when one of the most profitable creative partnerships in Spanish cinema of the last decade breaks? Who are they? The Javis were, in addition to a couple, a brand: a business model that had turned complicity into aesthetics through the romantic narrative of two boys who had met on Facebook in 2010. Both were actors and shared a particular vision, which came to fruition in 2013 with ‘The Call’, a modest musical that began being performed in the hall of the Teatro Lara in Madrid. It ended up becoming a phenomenon with more than 600 performances, 300,000 spectators and a film in 2017 that would gross 2.7 million euros. There they discovered that there was a public hungry for their particular cocktail of kitsch and LGTBIQ+ claim. The takeoff. came with ‘Paquita Salas’. What started in 2016 as a prank video recorded with friends (among them, Brays Efe and Anna Castillo) while watching ‘Big Brother’, became a web series for Flooxer shot in eight days. Netflix saw the potential, signed the series in 2017 and for the second season, the budget multiplied and ‘Paquita Salas’ became a viral product and basic for the penetration of the then young platform in Spain. The definitive consecration was ‘Poison‘ (2020), the miniseries about Cristina Ortiz for Atresplayer Premium that It became the most viewed content in the history of the platformskyrocketing subscriptions from 147,000 to 235,000 in just one month. Its free-to-air premiere on Antena 3 swept 2.5 million viewers and shares of 14.9% and 18.9%, won multiple awards and consolidated Los Javis as creators of international prestige. The Javis SL. In parallel, they built their business empire. First with Suma Latina, its original production company, and then, in 2021, with Suma Contenta strategic evolution that allowed them to encompass non-fiction and entertainment. Since then they have produced hits like ‘The Messiah‘ (her most ambitious project, for Movistar Plus+, also winner of multiple awards at the Forqué and Feroz and with international distribution) or ‘Superstar‘. The core company valuation and its subsidiaries reaches 2.5 million euros, with assets close to 20 million and more than 60 employees. The Javis have gone from creators to brands with success, appearing as a couple on television shows mainstream like ‘Mask Singer’, ‘Operation Triumph‘, or as presenters of the gala of the Goya 2024. One of the two questions. In 2019, the Javis They went to ‘La Resistencia’ and they answered the famous question of how much money they have in the bank. The response was spectacular: each one had 300,000 euros in their personal accounts, in addition to a shared account, to which was added, of course, what they had invested. Six years later, the joint assets have multiplied to become a business and real estate network. For example, his mansion in Pozuelo de Alarcónvalued at 1.5 million euros, acquired in 2024 after moving from Malasaña. Three floors with a swimming pool, garden, barbecue area and a basement conceived as a creative space that includes a private nightclub, cinema and gym. And now what. For all these reasons, the breakup not only implies an emotional risk, but also an economic one. The Los Javis brand implicitly included that narrative of an inseparable couple. But… how much are the platforms willing to pay for “half Javi”? But the truth is that the breakup is not as recent as it seems: apparently They attended the Primavera Sound in Barcelona together in June 2025 and already stayed in different rooms. Social networks also launched warnings when Ambrossi deleted his Instagram accountsomething unusual for someone whose digital presence is a basic part of their brand. Calvo kept his profile active but stopped publishing photographs with his partner. The lace In it ‘La Revuelta’ program dedicated to RosalíaBroncano’s program had a handful of special guests as a “neighborhood’s patio.” Calvo appeared, for the first time, alone. A few hours later, El País confirmed the breakup and, when other media reported the news, some pointed because the real separation had occurred several months ago. And there is an important strategic detail: they have not made the breakup public until they finished filming their new film, ‘The Black Ball’. It is inevitable to think about a strategic decision, and it underlines the extent to which the couple’s brand was essential to their business. And it also explains why, for the moment, the common company remains in place so that they can continue together. Professionally, at least. Header | Wikipedia In Xataka | There are many people who hate Santiago Segura’s films. The problem is that they “save” Spanish cinema every year

the household employees of the ultra-rich who earn more than Pedro Sánchez

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In the month of April we count a trend that was beginning to circulate among that sector of civilization that is capable of having eight or more figures in the bank account. The ultra-rich, after years spending fortunes on home automation of their mansions, had decided to return to analog times by eradicating any trace of technology in homes. But it’s one thing to throw LEDs, and quite another to throw a Picasso. Because they don’t ignore works of art and luxury furniture. In fact, they pay a premium for their care. Even more than a president of the government. The art of cleaning luxury. In the universe of the richest households on the planet, cleaning is no longer a household chore: it is a painstaking science, a highly specialized skill, and a six-figure job. He told it in a extensive Bloomberg report with cases like that of Gina, who with 26 years of experience in domestic service, is today a executive housekeeper in the San Francisco Bay that wins more than $100,000 a year for taking care of mansions where each piece of furniture is a work of art. Her rise from basic cleaning to managing multimillion-dollar residences reflects a global phenomenon: the transformation of luxury cleaning into a skilled profession driven by the sophistication of contemporary design and the shortage of trained staff. In these houseserror is not measured in stains but in thousands of dollars: a miscalculated rub can destroy the original finish of a knob or the shine of a collector’s piece. In this ecosystem, cleaning requires as much technical knowledge as a kind of restorer or even a museum curator. The new frontier of cleaning. All this is understood due to the rise of high-end design, which has raised standards of domestic work at unprecedented levels. In the houses where Gina works, the objects are no longer “furniture”, but investments and fragments of history: tables by Diego Giacometti more expensive than a Ferrarisofas by Jean Royère valued in millions or pieces by François-Xavier Lalanne that reach record numbers at auctions. Cleaning them requires knowing the materials, understanding their chemical reactions and applying precise protocols. Wood, metals, fabrics, glass or rattan become conservation challenges more than hygiene challenges. Common products and tools (such as popular Swiffer) are, according to expertsenemies of conservation: they alter surfaces, remove patinas or introduce chemical residues. The correct thing to do is almost artisanal: moisten your hands, use a cotton cloth and maintain just the right humidity to trap the dust without damaging the material. The border between cleaning and disinfecting, seemingly trivial, is essential: “You cannot disinfect without cleaning first,” repeat the trainers, aware that ignorance can cost more than an annual salary. Shortages and astronomical salaries. The value of these professionals has been triggered. Before the pandemic, a housekeeper with experience maintaining luxury homes earned a few $60,000 annually. Today, that figure easily exceeds the 100,000more benefits and bonuses. In fact, demand has grown at the same pace as extreme wealth and the proliferation of delicate objects. Training companies like that of Charles MacPherson in Toronto they offer five week programs that combine communication with the employer, home security and cleanliness with contemporary design. The lack of qualified personnel has made housekeepers executives in a good scarce and coveted. To give us an idea, they remembered in Bloomberg that some are the subject of “signing” attempts by other millionaires, aware that a good professional can be the difference between preserving or ruining a collection. The competition, Gina explained.is fierce: “There are very few truly professional people in this, and many see it as a minor job.” In reality, luxury has redefined cleaning as a technical discipline where knowledge outweighs strength, and confidence outweighs hierarchy. From home to museum. The cultural change surrounding this new elite of cleaners also reflects a mutation in the relationship of the upper classes with its spaces. Billionaires’ homes have become hybrids between home and gallerywhere maintenance is part of the value of the heritage. Owners not only buy beauty, they buy responsibility: each object requires a conservation regime, and cleaning becomes an extension of curation. Here a mistake can be catastrophic: the case of the housekeeper who, when trying to “reshine” the handles of a door, removed an intentional patina and caused $75,000 damageis already a classic of the sector. In these houses, the hands that clean are not invisible: they are part of the ecosystem that protects the investment and maintains the aesthetics. The paradox is that a historically undervalued profession has become, at the top of the social pyramid, a profession as delicate and exclusive as the objects it touches. Economy of precision. The rise of cleanliness luxury to professional category highlights the contemporary logic of the market: when wealth multiplies and objects become irreplaceable, the care becomes a luxury in itself. In this environment, the shortage of trained personnel raises salaries, but also redefines the prestige of the profession. The professionalization of high-end domestic service marks a new frontier in the care economy: that of maintenance as art. If you like, Gina and her colleagues are no longer cleaners, they are guardians of heritage material of an elite that prefers to pay more than risk a unique piece. Thus, in the meticulous silence of those mansions, where each surface is worth as much as a sports car, the cotton rag has become a symbol of status, precision and trust. Image | Pexels, Pexels In Xataka | Barcelona has surpassed Vienna and Geneva: the rich now prefer to live near the beach, have fiber optics and public healthcare In Xataka | If the question is which is the place in Spain where there are the most millionaires and why, the answer is obvious: in Madrid, of course.

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