Welcome to the Big Tech reckoning
Hi, I'm Matt Turner, the editor in chief of business at Insider. Welcome back to Insider Weekly, a roundup of some of our top stories.
On the agenda today:
- Young Silicon Valley workers are in for a rude awakening.
- Meet 26 standout creative execs at Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon, and more.
- LoveShackFancy built a dreamworld. But the fantasy was impossible to live up to.
- The fate of the global economy may rest on the shoulders of one company.
But first: It's been a tumultuous week for the tech industry, with brutal earnings reports from Meta and Amazon, and billionaire Elon Musk finally closing his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter. Here to fill us in on what went down is deputy editor Shona Ghosh.
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The tech industry has had a wild week
Patrick Pleul/Getty Images; Vicky Leta/Insider
Good news this week if you owned shares in the bird app before Friday, less so if you have money almost anywhere else in tech.
The industry took a beating after Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft reported poorer-than-expected earnings, wiping nearly $1 trillion off their collective market caps.
Wall Street showed particular disdain for Meta and the $10 billion the firm has lost this year trying to bring its virtual-reality moon shot, the metaverse, into being. Brent Thill, an analyst at Jefferies, complained during the earnings call that "there are just too many experimental bets versus proven bets on the core." Zuckerberg's response: Be patient. But that, plus a revenue decline, sent Meta's shares tumbling 24%.
Wild and possibly hubristic bets aside, rivals reported weaker growth even in their core competencies. Microsoft and Amazon reported slower growth in their usually outperforming cloud divisions, with Amazon also warning of slower holiday sales. Google parent Alphabet's earnings miss confirmed a digital-ad slowdown and signaled future pain in the broader economy.
Twitter's stockholders will, on the other hand, be a little bit better off as Elon Musk's deal-slash-joke to buy the firm was finalized Thursday night. He inherits complex problems: revenue growth, balancing censorship with free speech, and product innovation among them. He's already fired the executives responsible for all three.
For more on Musk, check out why Twitter's top execs stand to make more than $50 million from being ousted — and here's the latest on Big Tech's brutal earnings season.
The days of endless Big Tech perks are coming to an end
Stephen Lam/Getty Images
Amid a streak of disappointing financial results, inflation, and global turmoil, companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Google are looking to rein in runaway costs.
For years, Big Tech companies competed on pay and perks to lure workers in a tight labor market. And for some young Silicon Valley workers, it's all they've known. But now, endless hiring and allotments for employee travel, free food, and company swag are being replaced — by budget cuts, new performance mandates, and even layoffs.
Inside this rude awakening for young tech workers.
The rising stars of the entertainment industry
Universal; AMC Networks; NBC Universal; Participant; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
Hollywood is changing faster than ever. Corporate mergers have created enormous conglomerates. Major streamers are battling for subscribers. And technology continues to disrupt the way people find and watch TV and movies.
These changes demand fresh thinking and innovation from talented leaders. Insider has identified 26 standouts who are accomplishing all that and more at the biggest entertainment heavyweights — Netflix, Disney's Lucasfilm, NBCUniversal — as well as independent studios and production companies.
Inside LoveShackFancy's impossible fantasy
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LoveShackFancy; iStock; Rebecca Zisser/Insider
There's something about LoveShackFancy that seems to inspire an all-consuming passion in its shoppers. Rebecca Hessel Cohen founded the brand in 2013, and since then it has cemented its place as a must-have for prep schoolers and Southern sorority sisters.
But as the company grew from trunk shows in the Hamptons to a bona fide fashion empire, Cohen's blind spots became glaring. While LoveShackFancy has recently made efforts to respond to criticisms around diversity, its old-school appeal to "unabashed femininity" still feels like a relic.
Here's what former staffers told us about the brand.
What happens to this chipmaker could change everything
REUTERS/Ann Wang
On a tiny island off the coast of China, one company manufactures a product used across the globe for countless household items as varied as PCs and washing machines.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, is the world's largest chipmaker. But if US-China tensions — and China's standoff with Taiwan — causes the company to go offline, experts warn the production of everything from cars to iPhones could screech to a halt.
One expert says, "That would be the biggest impact we've seen to the global economy — possibly ever."
Here's what to know about this potential crisis.
This week's quote:
"In the white-collar jobs I'd had, there was always an infinite pile of work to do, with no hard cutoff times. In the warehouse, when your shift ends, the entire loading dock could be backed up, and it's not your problem."
- Former Facebook and Microsoft exec Philip Su on his time working in an Amazon warehouse. Read his story here.
More of this week's top reads:
- Overwhelming workloads, back-to-office complaints, and frustrations over pay: Why Merrill Lynch's support staff is leaving.
- The Great People Shortage is coming — and it's going to cause global economic chaos.
- These 15 people are shaping the offices of the future, designing meeting pods, hologram calls, and buildings that actually make workers healthier.
- Social media polarized America by making a big mistake: It introduced us to each other.
- From "labor hoarding" to layoffs: Get ready for a brutal U-turn in the job market.
- After months of taking it easy on the job, quiet quitters are back to working long hours for one simple reason: They're terrified of getting laid off.
- The ridiculous rise of the chief purpose officer — corporate America's half-baked attempt to fix the employee-burnout crisis.
- Inside Manhattan's most expensive office building, which boasts swanky showers, March Madness parties, and views for 40 miles
Plus: Keep updated with the latest business news throughout your weekdays by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief from the Insider newsroom. Listen here tomorrow.
Curated by Matt Turner. Edited by Hallam Bullock, Lisa Ryan, and Shona Ghosh. Sign up for more Insider newsletters here.
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