Insider Finance - Business - Insider Today: Side hustle snafu

October 1, 2023 • 4 min read

with Matt Turner

Hello! Welcome back to Insider Today’s Sunday edition, a roundup of the week’s top stories. I’m Matt Turner, the editor in chief of business at Insider. 

On the agenda today:

But first: Shopify’s CEO is putting limits on staffers’ side hustles.

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Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Dispatch

Side hustle reversal

Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke isn’t so sure about all of those side hustles. 

Writing on the company’s workplace page, the CEO wrote that he had recently discovered that some Shopify offer letters and internal web pages had been suggesting them to staff. 

“This surprises me because it directly contradicts the countless times I've said Shopify is like a professional sports team that requires our unshared attention,” he wrote. 

A day later, the company sent out further clarification to staff, outlining some side hustles, like opening a Shopify story, that were encouraged, while adding that certain side hustles simply aren’t going to work for the company.

The note surprised many of Shopify’s employees, given the company has said it encourages employees to pursue side projects. It also harkened back to a widely shared memo from May 2021, where he reminded managers that the company was a sports team, not a family. 

Shopify’s reversal comes as many companies roll back some of their more permissive policies of recent years. It’s also cut jobs, sold off businesses, and partnered with Amazon.

Xavier Lalanne-Tauzia for Insider

This week's top reads

LinkedIn has gotten really weird

Divorce, trouble peeing, and stealing hotel food — these are just a few examples of “personal sharing” on LinkedIn.

Having started in 2003 as little more than an online repository for résumés, LinkedIn is now nearing a billion users. And as the number of users has exploded, the nature of posts is transforming, too. Now, you’ll often see people sharing intimate, personal life updates with their professional networks. 

Read more.

Also read:

• You can follow me on LinkedIn here. I promise I won’t overshare. 

Point72; Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/Insider

Point72’s talent incubator

Running money at a $30.6 billion hedge fund like Steve Cohen’s Point72 counts as hitting the big time on Wall Street. 

To help aspiring portfolio managers get there, Point72 created LaunchPoint — a program that sees Cohen grill a group of senior analysts who think they’re ready. If the hunt for hedge-fund talent resembles bidding wars for star athletes, then LaunchPoint is its feeder team. 

Point72's CIO, Harry Schwefel, and Jon Weiner, the head of LaunchPoint, explained how it works.

Read the full story.

Also read: 

• Meet Wall Street's 2023 rising stars

Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media

Yaccarino’s ‘dumpster fire’ Code talk

X CEO Linda Yaccarino appeared rattled during her most high-profile appearance to date.

Yaccarino's appearance at this year's Code Conference was intended to be a splashy coming-out party for the newly minted executive who had been maligned as a puppet for Elon Musk. 

But Yaccarino took the stage shortly after a panel discussion between Kara Swisher and Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety — and outspoken Musk critic. What followed was a “dumpster fire,” as one audience member put it.

Read what happened here.

Getty; Rebecca Zisser/Insider

US consumers are about to crack

Over the summer, it seemed like the US economy was finally in the clear and the country would defeat inflation without a crash thanks to a solid job market and strong consumer spending.

But high gas prices, student-loan payments restarting, and spiking insurance premiums are forcing Americans to close their wallets — and that’s not even factoring in a potential government shutdown. 

All of this spells trouble for the economy. 

Here are the signs we’re starting to see.

Also read:

• Inflation pushed the wealthy to shop at dollar stores. Now even those places are seeing people get tighter with their money.

This week's quote

"Why would I want to read someone's poor interpretation of the story? I was there.”

— Elon Musk's dad, Errol Musk, a central figure in the new biography on his son, told Insider in a new interview.

More of this week’s top reads:

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The Insider Today Sunday team

Matt Turner, editor in chief of business, in New York City. Dan DeFrancesco, senior editor, in New York City. Diamond Naga Siu, senior reporter, in San Diego. Grace Lett, associate editor, in Chicago. Hallam Bullock, editor, in London. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York City.

Get in touch

insidertoday@insider.com

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