Insider Finance - Business - CEOs warn 2023 is going to suck

Nicholas Carlson October 21, 2022

Welcome to Friday. Insider picked up its first Pulitzer Prize last night for illustrated reporting. We told the story of Zumrat Dawut, who was imprisoned in an internment camp for Uyghurs in China. Unlike many, she was able to escape both the camp and the country along with her family. We had the honor of having Zumrat and her husband Imran Muhammad as our guests at the ceremony last night. We are so grateful she allowed us to share her story with the world. You can watch our team accepting the Pulitzer here, and I hope you take the time to check out our award-winning illustrated report. And now, the news.

The latest

• Boris Johnson might be eyeing an unlikely comeback. Here’s the latest.

• Trump's yearslong crusade against Ukraine has finally come home to roost as Republicans call for abandoning Kyiv. More on that here.

• Taylor Swift's new album “Midnights” has dropped. Here's that "chaotic surprise" explained.

The big story

Yichuan Cao/NurPhoto via Getty Images (right) / MICHEL EULER/POOL/AFP via Getty Images (left)

Everyone who's anyone is trying to figure out what's going on with the US economy — especially as the new year approaches. 

By and large, things aren't too bad at the moment. But a lot of smart people are saying: just wait. Things are really going to suck in 2023.

Ninety-one percent of CEOs in the US anticipate there will be recession in the next 12 months, per a KPMG survey. Elon Musk, the world's richest man, told Tesla execs earlier this year that he had a "super bad feeling" about the economy. FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam told CNBC last month that we're barreling toward a "worldwide recession." 

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is perhaps the loudest of the recession soothsayers. He recently predicted that the downturn will be much softer than the economic "hurricane" he originally forewarned. But in his company’s most recent earnings, he noted that people's savings are up in comparison to this time last year — but the “extra money … in their checking accounts will deplete probably by sometime mid-year next year."

See what else 10 top CEOs are saying about 2023.

Top reads

Anna Kim/Insider

• “I listed ‘sex work’ on LinkedIn.” Arielle Egozi went viral when she posted that she was leaving an “in-house job with fancy benefits” where she felt disrespected — and that she was able to do so because of her online sex work side-hustle. In a new opinion piece, she says this is the last time she’ll defend that choice.

• Elon Musk has a new nemesis: the Federal Reserve. The Tesla CEO has slammed the US central bank for soldiering on with interest-rate hikes, despite what he considers growing signs the inflation threat is fading. See what else Musk’s been saying.

• A pre-built tiny house pays this woman's mortgage. The owner of an Austin real estate brokerage bought a fully finished tiny house for an $18,000 down payment. She set it up in her yard, and now rents it out for $79 - $200 a night. Here's how she does it.

• “I was a writer on ‘The Office’ but ended up selling shirts at Macy’s.” Showrunner and producer Anthony Q. Farrell said landing another TV writing job after the hit show was shockingly hard — and that his race was a factor. Read his story.

• Oracle's recent personnel shake-up goes deeper than layoffs. Insider has learned that hiring managers across the company have been asked to push back start dates, and that hiring has been slashed or significantly slowed across several units. Go inside the tech firm here.

Today’s sound bite

“People who study personality change did not expect to see a population scale change like that, especially in a unified direction.”

Senior tech correspondent Adam Rogers, on how the pandemic changed core parts of our personalities.

Watch this

Liz Truss became the shortest serving prime minister in UK history yesterday. Here's a look at her resignation speech.

Today's team

Nicholas Carlson (@nichcarlson), Hallam Bullock (@hallam_bullock), and Lisa Ryan (@lisarya).

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