More American households are opting for solar, but most big companies can’t meet their electricity needs by simply throwing some panels on the roof.

Large corporations seeking to ditch carbon-based electricity have been a significant driving force behind the growth in US solar capacity.

• Companies adding solar to help power their business operations account for ~14% of all solar capacity in the US, according to a November report from the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA).

Who‘s who? Massive tech and retail companies, from Walmart to Apple, have led this push as they take steps to meet their own net-zero goals. Meta was the largest corporate solar user as of June 2022, with nearly 3.6 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity, according to the report.

For Microsoft, the fifth-biggest corporate solar user in the US, according to the report, this is only the beginning, according to Brian Janous, GM of energy and renewables at the company.

Solar makes up a growing portion of Microsoft’s renewable energy purchases, and Janous said he expects it will likely be about half of the company’s energy mix by 2025. Read the full story on Microsoft’s solar strategy here.—GD

When I logged onto Roblox’s platform to take the company’s preselection assessment for entry-level candidates, I was instructed to design a factory workflow that would maximize returns in a toy factory. (For the millennials out there, it was like a high-tech Lemonade Stand.)

As I pulled virtual levers to build cars, robots, and playsets, I watched the returns trend frustratingly down and figured I probably didn’t have the chops to get hired at the video game company. But only probably—it wasn’t entirely clear what skills I was being tested on or how they related to software creation.

Though some employers rely only on coding assessments to evaluate early career candidates for computer science positions, Roblox has taken a different approach.

• Jack Buckley, Roblox’s VP of people science, said it’s designed to test how candidates think, not just what coding languages they know. (Don’t worry—applicants also take a coding test.)
• Applicants’ approach to the factory assessment, for example, gauges their aptitude for systems thinking, one of Roblox’s 15 critical skills.

The gamified test takes a lot of work to create—even for a company like Roblox that’s known for building virtual worlds. Here’s why Roblox went to all the trouble.—SV

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

Apple announcements abound. This week, Apple announced not one but two major hardware updates (the rumor mill also churned vigorously around potential plans for its long-anticipated mixed-reality headsets). The marquee announcement was its updated full-size HomePod, which comes after the company discontinued the original version of the product in 2021 after disappointing sales. A quick HomePod FAQ: The new version is Matter-compatible, will cost $299, and has temperature and humidity sensors.

• The company also opened preorders for a line of Macs that feature its new M2 processors.

Connected compost, here we come. The co-founder of Nest, the smart-home company Google bought in 2014, just announced his latest venture: Mill, a food-waste startup that makes comprehensive, connected at-home compost bins. The company claims the bins can process all manner of food waste by making use of dehydration technology.

• Once the bin fills up, users can mail their dehydrated food scraps to the company, which charges $33 per month for the service. The device also comes with an app that enables users to track their food-waste habits.
• The bins will ship in spring 2023, per its website.

One last thing: If you’re in the market for a new phone this year, The Verge just dropped a big guide to the best smartphones available right now.—DM

Stat: From the annals of Google disruption: According to Morgan Stanley estimates reported by the Financial Times, it’s about seven times more expensive to answer a question with ChatGPT than with a “typical internet search.”

Quote: “If you put any other business metric and said this happened to 98% of organizations last year, and of those 98%, 41% had reputational damage, we would be talking about that nonstop.”—Rubrik Zero Labs Head Steve Stone, to IT Brew, on the alarming frequency of cyberattacks

Read: The potential labor implications of automotive electrification.

Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

• Some Meta managers have reportedly been told that employees who receive a “meets all expectations” performance-review grade are not good enough.
• Drones may be an increasingly popular way to smuggle drugs across the border.
• A startup just raised more than $100 million for…AI-powered car buying?
• A college student is suing a major bank after its fraud-detection algorithm blocked the purchase of 200 cases of beer.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• What’s ahead for the struggling smart-speaker market?
• 2023 could be a big year for small cells
• Why some VCs are taking notes from a niche battery group