As stocks plummet even further and an economic recession looms, companies are starting to hoard their acorns in anticipation of harsher conditions.

Take Uber. On Sunday, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent a letter to staff explaining how Uber is hunkering down given the rapidly deteriorating macro environment—and what he laid out is probably being mimicked in boardrooms across the country. The takeaways:

The stock market is FUBAR. After meeting with investors, Khosrowshahi noted “the market is experiencing a seismic shift” due to uncertainty and that safer bets are being prioritized over riskier ones.

How do you appear “safer” as an investment? You generate cash. Khosrowshahi said the company would work to achieve profitability on a free cash flow basis rather than its adjusted EBITDA metric, which has been knocked for painting a misleading picture of Uber’s finances. “The goalposts have changed,” Khosrowshahi said.

And so has Uber’s job board. More specifically, it’s getting smaller. Khosrowshahi is now treating hiring as a “privilege” and will be “deliberate” about adding more employees, which may indicate a broader hiring freeze. Uber’s not the only one realizing its org chart needs a trim…

• Meta introduced a hiring freeze across most of its engineering units.
• Amazon execs are worried their warehouses are overstaffed (then again, it did hire 800,000 people in 2020 and 2021).
• Robinhood cut 9% of its staff last month.

Uber is also trimming costs elsewhere. It’s taking a more cautious approach to scaling up certain projects, and it’s pulling back on the least efficient marketing and driver incentive programs. In the CEO’s words, “We will be even more hardcore about costs across the board.”

Big picture: Just as companies adapted to Covid lockdowns in 2020, and to worker shortages and rising inflation in 2021, this year they’ll have to pivot once again to weather an oncoming storm fueled by higher interest rates, slower growth, and market volatility.—NF

A record-breaking sale: An Andy Warhol silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million at Christie’s last night. If that sounds like a lot, it is: It’s the priciest sale of any American artwork at auction, and the most expensive 20th-century artwork to sell at auction. A $450 million Leonardo da Vinci painting remains No. 1 on the all-time list.

🪧 Tensions rise in the fight over abortion rights. A fire that broke out at an anti-abortion group’s office in Wisconsin is being investigated as an arson case. (The building was also vandalized with the message, “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.”) And after pro-choice activists protested outside the houses of two conservative Supreme Court justices last weekend, law enforcement agencies are beefing up security for the judges.

Ukrainian war protests: Channel guides on Russian smart TVs on Monday were altered to display the message, “There is blood on your hands from thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of their murdered children. TV and government are lying- Say No to War.” In Warsaw, Russia’s ambassador to Poland was doused with red paint at an event honoring Soviet World War II soldiers.

Tracking down baby formula in the US right now makes snagging a PS5 look like an Easter egg hunt in an empty parking lot. Almost 40% of formula brands were sold out during the last week of April, a massive jump from the 2%–8% in early 2021, according to Datasembly.

And no, there weren’t that many pandemic babies. Several factors have parents scrambling to feed their babies, including (say it with us) Covid-era supply chain issues and a top manufacturer’s recall in February.

Abbott Nutrition recalled four brands of powdered formula, including Similac, made at a facility in Michigan and paused production after the formulas were connected to the death of two infants. The FDA is still investigating the facility and has yet to give the shutdown an end date.

Big picture: Retailers are capping baby formula sales in response to the severe shortages. Walgreens and CVS have limited shoppers nationwide to three formula products per purchase, while Target is allowing four per online order. Some parents said they’ve had to travel out of state to find formula or have faced 1–2 month wait times on sites like Amazon.—MM

Goldman Sachs is telling SPACs it needs some space. The investment bank, which was the second-biggest underwriter of SPACs last year, is halting its work with most of those companies now that regulators are cracking down on the controversial financial mechanism.

Thx for the memories: While SPACs aren’t a Covid invention, they boomed in popularity early in the pandemic as an alternate way for private companies to hit the stock exchange.

• How they work: A SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) is basically a shell company that goes public, then acquires a private company to take them public in the process.

By opting to SPAC, a company can avoid the oversight required by the traditional IPO process—and celebs found that they could make big $$$ by generating buzz for a SPAC they link up with.

It was all quite sketchy, and regulators weren’t going to let it fly forever. The SEC released a plan in March that laid out more rules for SPACs, depriving them of their charm for underwriters like Goldman, which would face more liability under the new guidelines.

Big picture: The SPAC boom may be over, but don’t expect a complete extinction event. The gay dating app Grindr announced yesterday it will go public via SPAC at a valuation of $2.1 billion.—NF

Stat: Nepalese Sherpa guide Kami Rita summited Mount Everest for the 26th time last weekend, breaking his own record as the person who’s seen the top of the world the most times. Everest has been summited 10,657 times since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first conquered the mountain in 1953.

Quote: “If the office didn’t exist, I like to ask, would we invent it? And if we invented it, what would it be invented for?”

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky was asking the deep questions in an interview with Time. We’re gonna go with a) yes and b) to give everyone a break from their roommates/spouses/kids.

Read: The 2022 Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday. Here’s a complete list of the winners and their work. (Pulitzer Prize Board)

Nice to meet you. Can I eat at your place? In this fascinating new travel podcast, a journalist tries to get invited to a stranger’s house for dinner every week. Listen to Not Lost now.

Art like you’ve never experienced it before. Go behind-the-scenes with a Dutch still-life painting.

This is a video of a train station: Except it was generated by a computer. See it to believe it.

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Brew Mini: Spanx founder Blakely (four letters) is your clue of the day. Play the Mini here.

Get to know your neighbors

We’ll give you two US states, and you have to pick out the one with more states bordering it.

1. California / West Virginia

2. Rhode Island / South Carolina

3. Tennessee / Ohio

4. New York / New Mexico

5. Florida / Maine