Insider Finance - Business - Insider Today: EV breaking point

October 29, 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: The auto industry went too big on EVs too soon.

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Lukas Schulze/Getty Images

Dispatch

Auto execs come clean

Big automakers are pumping the breaks on their EV ambitions. 

Ford is postponing $12 billion in planned spending on electric-vehicle production, with the CFO saying the pace of EV adoption has been slower than expected. GM abandoned its plans to build 100,000 EVs in the second half of the year. Honda ditched plans to work with GM on an affordable EV. 

The sharp slowdown comes as dealers turn EVs away as their lots get jammed with unsold cars. Many EVs are selling for below sticker price as dealers try to unload them. Surveys show that most Americans don’t plan to make their next car an EV. 

And yet about 50 new EV models are expected to hit the market in the next three years.

"The customer and the dealer started to say, 'Can you turn off the faucet or can you at least slow these things down?',” Cameron Johnson, the CEO of a Virginia dealership group selling mostly domestic brands, told my colleagues. “Because they're coming so fast, we're not able to fill all the seats.” 

Even Elon Musk has warned that economic and geopolitical concerns could put a dent in EV sales. But whereas Tesla has built a profitable business, the traditional automakers have been losing huge sums on their EVs plans. 

"This is a pretty brutal space," the CFO of Mercedes-Benz said on a recent call. "I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody.”

Carta CEO Henry Ward. Arantza Pena Popo/Insider

This week's top reads

A startup’s erratic and vindictive CEO

Carta, a startup that helps fellow startups manage their cap table, built itself on a vision of being a force for good that would bring transparency to Silicon Valley.

But court documents, complaint filings, and interviews with current and former employees depict Carta as fraught with harassment and discrimination.  

At the center of it all is CEO Henry Ward, who multiple employees say demanded loyalty above all else.

Read the report here.

Also read:

• GoStudent, the $3 billion edtech darling, scaled fast and partied hard. The result was a mess.

Goldman CEO David Solomon. Paul Morigi/Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/Insider

Goldman Sachs partner exits, by the numbers

How many Goldman Sachs partners have left under CEO David Solomon?

Insider did an exhaustive search to find out, identifying more than 200 executives who left high-profile roles during Solomon’s tenure. 

To better understand the current departure rate of partners at the bank, Insider also calculated how often the executives left during the 14 years before Solomon took over. 

The full breakdown of the partners who left.

Also read:

• How Morgan Stanley exec Ted Pick rose from 'rough-edged' deal junkie to CEO

• Meet Morgan Stanley's new power trio and the challenges they face

AMC CEO Adam Aron. Matt Winkelmeyer / Stringer/ Getty, 5nikolas5/Getty Ljupco/Getty, Tyler Le/Insider

Inside the extortion plot against AMC’s CEO

When AMC CEO Adam Aron got a text from an unknown number in March 2022, he thought it was a former ballerina fling. In reality, it was the start of a monthslong extortion plot attempting to get hundreds of thousands of dollars out of him.

Five months after the first text was sent, Sakoya Blackwood, the mastermind of the blackmail scheme, was indicted by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

Here’s how it all went down.

iStock; Rebecca Zisser/Insider

The dark side of Utah’s Silicon Slopes

Utah is the fastest-growing state for tech jobs, with affordable housing and an outdoorsy lifestyle. But Silicon Slopes has a not-so-hidden difficult side for women.

Insider spoke with 22 women who’ve worked at Utah tech companies, several of whom said they experienced unequal treatment at their jobs or witnessed other women treated unequally. Some reported traumatic work experiences and spoke of facing discrimination and harassment.

“Stereotypes of gender norms are extremely heavy here. There’s the expectation you should be at home,” one CEO said.

Read our full report here.

This week's quote

“All of the skills that you develop doing fitness are replicable to what you develop working on startups.”

— Wilson Kriegel, a cofounder and the CEO of Buildstock, in our report on rucking, the newest fitness trend taking Silicon Valley by storm. 

More of this week’s top reads:

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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