Insider Finance - Business - My famous boss chewed me out

December 10, 2023 • 4 min read

with Matt Turner

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, a roundup of some of our top stories.

On the agenda today:

But first: From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, there’s an epidemic of loneliness.

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Holly Stapleton for Business Insider

Dispatch

Modern loneliness

On June 27, my colleague Joi-Marie McKenzie Lewis and I sent an email to the Business Insider newsroom.

“At any given moment, one in two Americans is facing measurable levels of loneliness, with some of the highest rates among young adults,” we said.

“This is one of the social and health stories of our time, and there’s strong reader interest in this topic. We’re inviting pitches from across the Business Insider newsroom to tackle this topic in creative, original, hopeful, and eye-catching ways.”

The response was overwhelming. That email led to our series on modern loneliness, which delves into the complexities of isolation, explores its causes and effects, and examines how people are navigating it. 

For example, a software engineer said that a move to a high-paying job in Seattle turned into the loneliest time of his life. The CEO of Lyft, David Risher, wrote that Big Tech made America lonelier but had an opportunity to redeem itself. Venture capitalists, meanwhile, are betting on startups that could help address the crisis.

On Wall Street, junior bankers are saying they feel disconnected from their colleagues. Some Gen Zers are spending thousands of dollars trying to make friends through gym memberships and social clubs. Others are turning to youth sports, the library, or the office.  

Business Insider’s reporters also shared their personal stories. Blake Dodge described how moving to West Virginia after a breakup left her lonelier than ever. Talia Lakritz attended a group singing event she found on TikTok and documented it for us. And we’ll have more stories in the coming weeks.

I’d love to hear from you if any of these stories resonate with you. And let me know what you think we missed: insidertoday@insider.com.

Lou Dobbs and Henry Blodget.  Robert Rosamilio/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Image; James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images

This week's top reads

Chewed out by my famous boss

Early in his career, Henry Blodget got an internship at CNN Business News — but he hadn’t done his homework. 

Blodget, who went on to cofound Business Insider, said he did a “lousy” job: sleeping through his alarm, scrolling a teleprompter at the wrong speeds, and doing something that caused anchors to tell viewers inaccurate information.

This all came to a head when the famous anchor Lou Dobbs gave him a chewing out he’d never forget.

Read what happened — and what Henry learned.

Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI

AI’s good news for bad workers

If you suck at your job, you should be embracing artificial intelligence with open arms.

A series of studies by economists examining the value of AI in the workplace suggests the boost from the tech isn’t equal. People who are good at their jobs aren’t seeing much of a difference from using AI. But underperformers are getting a huge leg up in everything from creative writing to coding. 

In short, AI is doing what decades of education failed to do: equalizing the American workplace. 

More on how AI is becoming the great equalizer in the office.

Read more:

• How Sam Altman's OpenAI drama highlighted the debate splitting Silicon Valley: Are you an e/acc or decel?

   

• OpenAI employees really, really did not want to go work for Microsoft

• OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever has become invisible at the company, with his future uncertain, insiders say

Jeremy Grantham. Boston Globe/Getty Images

A bearish outlook for 2024

Jeremy Grantham, the veteran investor who cofounded the asset-management firm GMO, isn’t feeling great about next year.

Almost two years removed from predicting that a bubble would burst in the S&P 500, Grantham is standing by his bearish take. "Sometimes they take their time," he said, referring to deflating market bubbles. "This is two years of a complicated, drawn-out ebbing and flowing of the stock market."

Grantham knows a bubble when he sees one. He called both the dot-com crash and the 2008 financial crisis.

That’s not to say he doesn’t see any value in the market: He sees opportunities in emerging markets, among other areas.

More on Grantham’s recession warning.

Also read:

• Goldman Sachs analyzed 1,216 hedge and mutual funds with a combined $5.2 trillion in holdings. Here are the 10 stocks they're both buying.

Frederic J. Brown/Ronen Tivony/Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/Business Insider

Chaos at public universities

Elite universities have been in the spotlight over their handling of students’ response to the Hamas attacks, but schools across the country are in the same situation.

Emails obtained by Business Insider via public-record requests show staff at public universities struggling to appease students and alumni on both sides of the conflict. 

The emails, which are from seven colleges, provide an inside look at how university heads navigated the demands of Israeli and Palestinian supporters.

How staff at seven public colleges navigated their response.

Read more:

• Penn president Elizabeth Magill resigns after a week of intense backlash

   

• Harvard president explains why and how she screwed up in front of Congress

This week's quote

"The first and most important thing to do is breathe, or at least not act rashly."

— Chris Williams, a former VP of HR at Microsoft, on what to do in the first 48 hours after getting laid off.

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, deputy 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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