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☆ Read the memo Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent staff about the third round of layoffs since June
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Read the email Robert Reffkin, Compass' CEO, sent to staff announcing the layoffs Thursday morning. Robert Reffkin, the CEO of Compass, told staff on Thursday that the brokerage would be laying off more people. In an early-morning email, he said that the latest staff reduction comes amid "difficult economic times." The size of the layoff appears to amount to around 350 workers, or roughly 10% of the company's remaining staff, though Compass would not confirm a specific number. RobertRobert Reffkin | Founder & CEO

☆ Layoffs at Amazon and Salesforce point to why January is often the worst month for job cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Shana Lebowitz | Rebecca Knight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Amazon just told staff it's cutting 18,000 roles, the largest layoff in the company's history. Compass has cut staff three times in eight months, but it's best to avoid multiple rounds of layoffs. For all the layoffs that swept corporate America in the final months of 2022, this month is poised to bring even more. January is historically the worst month for layoffs, according to data from the US government. Already, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has told staff that the company would broaden its job cuts to 18,000 employees, the largest layoff in the company's history.

☆ Here’s what to expect in the housing market this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Anna Bahney | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Washington, DC CNN —Last year was a wild ride in the US housing market. So what’s in store for the housing market this year? “Mortgage rates are really critical to the path of the housing market in the year ahead,” said Jeff Tucker, senior economist at Zillow. “Yes, things have cooled way down in the housing market, but we don’t have a glut of homes for sale,” said Tucker. A plain, boring, vanilla year in the housing market would be a wonderful surprise.”

☆ Compass is laying off more staff as it races to cut expenses to cope with a cooling housing market
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Compass is laying off more people after two rounds of job cuts in the past eight months. The firm, which went public at an $8 billion valuation in 2021, now has a $1 billion market cap. The real-estate brokerage Compass told its staff on Thursday that it would be conducting another round of layoffs, with the money-losing firm seeking to further cut costs amid a weakening housing market. These layoffs follow rounds in June and OctoberAt the end of 2021, Compass had about 4,500 employees. In June, Compass let go of 450 employees across corporate departments, including administrative, marketing, and other support staff.

☆ Real estate broker Compass to cut more jobs to deal with housing downturn
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Jan 5 (Reuters) - Real estate broker Compass Inc (COMP.N) said on Thursday it would cut more jobs to deal with a downturn in the housing market as it set a target of becoming free cash flow positive by the end of the second quarter. Home sellers looking for buyers gave concessions in nearly 42% of home sales in the fourth quarter — the highest share in any three-month period, real estate broker Redfin said, citing its records in a report on Thursday. Compass did not specify the number of job cuts in its latest round of workforce reduction. Compass said it is aiming to reduce its annualized non-GAAP operating expenses to between $850 million and $950 million. "Workforce reduction does not impact the U.S. technology engineering team and the company continues to prioritize its technology platform," Compass said in a regulatory filing.

William Rick Singer, the mastermind of a nationwide college admissions cheating scheme, will be sentenced in a federal courtroom in Boston Wednesday. His sentencing is scheduled for 2:30 p.m.Singer, 62, had pleaded guilty in March 2019 to charges including racketeering conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy in connection with the scandal, dubbed Operation Varsity Blues. The operation involved bribes, cheating on entrance exams, and fraudulently getting unqualified applicants into schools as elite recruited athletes. The cheating scheme ensnared Hollywood with actors Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman charged in the case. “For most of my life, if not all of it, I have thrived on winning at all costs,” he wrote.

☆ The 4 best success tips CEOs shared this year—from Tim Cook to Delta’s Ed Bastian
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Natasha Piñon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Here are some of the best success tips that top CEOs shared this year. And magic to be found in the service of others.”Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, the CEO of Feeding America, knows the importance of giving back. Beth Ford, Land O'Lakes CEO Land O'Lakes CEO Beth Ford is no stranger to success. “Often, we think, ‘Nobody is going to see the good job I’ve done,’ or we’re scared to ask for help. Yet, if you do ask someone for help, or ask for what you want, people will reach out and give it to you.”

☆ College admission scandal mastermind says he now lives in a trailer park and can't get a job because of the scheme
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

In documents submitted to the court on Wednesday, prosecutors asked the judge to give Singer six years, which would be by far the longest sentence in the case. Defense attorneys asked for a year of home confinement, or a maximum of six months behind bars. “For most of my life, if not all of it, I have thrived on winning at all costs,” Singer wrote in a letter included in his defense’s sentencing memorandum. “Staggering in scope, Singer’s scheme was also breathtaking in its audacity and the levels of deception it involved,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum. Prosecutors also asked for three years of probation, nearly $11 million in restitution to the IRS, and forfeiture of about $8.7 million.

☆ The Sam Bankman-Fried-backed crypto Solana has lost nearly all its value this year and is still crashing as key projects bail
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Solana, once praised as a viable rival for Ethereum, has tumbled almost 70% since the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's empire, and is down 94% in 2022. The disgraced crypto founder said over the summer that Solana was the most underrated cryptocurrency. The latest decline comes as more crypto projects bail on the Solana ecosystem. FTX and Alameda had purchased over 50.5 million Solana tokens — now worth about $500 million — that would remain "locked" until 2028. Meanwhile, Solana Compass data cited by Forbes showed that Alameda's liquidators now hold over half a billion dollars worth of the crypto.

☆ Faithless singer Maxi Jazz dies aged 65
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Maxi Jazz, the lead vocalist of British electronic music band Faithless and known as the voice in trance hits such as "God Is a DJ" and "Insomnia", has died aged 65, the band said on Saturday. He gave proper meaning and message to our music," the other two core members of Faithless, Rollo and Sister Bliss, said in a statement on Facebook. The band said on Twitter that Jazz had died peacefully in his sleep. He helped form Faithless in 1995, which then grew into one of the most popular dance bands in Britain and round the world. His words and performances touched so many of us," British DJ MistaJam wrote of Jazz on Twitter.

☆ Aspen Penthouse Fetches Nearly $9 Million More Than It Sold for Last Year
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Libertina Brandt | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Be the first to know about the biggest and best luxury home sales and listings by signing up for our Mansion Deals email alert. A penthouse in downtown Aspen, Colo., has sold for $25.875 million, nearly $9 million more than its most recent sale price last year, according to the seller’s agent, Lane Johnson of Compass.

Known in the legal world as the “death penalty” of child welfare, it can happen in a matter of months. One in 100 U.S. children — disproportionately Black and Native American — experience termination through the child welfare system before they turn 18, the study found. Still, longer timelines can also reflect a stronger focus on family reunification and a willingness to devote greater resources to meet that goal, child welfare experts say. And some child welfare advocates have criticized the law’s focus on narrow initiatives like parenting classes, which they say fail to address poverty and the other root causes of neglect that prompt most child welfare cases. Snodgrass said she never imagined when her child welfare case started that she could lose her rights to her children.

You can get the latest on that and much more from our finance newsletter, 10 Things on Wall Street. It's a snappy weekday read with the biggest stories on the Street, plus the latest on hot-spot restaurants, industry parties, and so much more. On the agenda today:Up first: Senior real-estate correspondent Daniel Geiger is giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the recent turmoil at Compass. With home sales dipping amid rising interest rates, Compass has cut workers and bled cash. In June, it laid off about 450 corporate staff, and in October, it let go of about half its 1,500-person tech team.

☆ Trump asks for — and receives — a 45-day extension for disclosing his personal finances
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Dave Levinthal | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Trump delayed the release of a personal financial disclosure required by law for presidential candidates. A letter from Donald Trump's lawyer to the Federal Election Commission. Federal Election CommissionA letter from the Federal Election Commission to an attorney for Donald Trump. Federal Election CommissionPresidential personal financial disclosures include information about a candidate's income, assets, debt, and royalties. Personal financial disclosures of this sort are different from personal tax returns and, generally, contain fewer details.

☆ A Y Combinator-backed startup just raised $39 million to develop new psychedelic treatments for depression
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Yeji Jesse Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The company is creating psychedelic drugs that work faster and may not have hallucinogenic effects. The company just raised $39 million from investors and plans to start clinical trials next year. One of the treatments in development is called GM-1020 and is similar to ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects that has shown promise in treating depression. GM-2505 will have psychedelic effects, though they're expected to last just an hour. By comparison, some other psychedelic drugs in development — like psilocybin and MDMA — have hallucinatory effects that are expected to last up to 8 hours in the clinic.

☆ VCs slashed proptech investments by nearly 40% this year after steep losses and job cuts showed them the sector wasn't all it was cracked up to be
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Proptech investment is down 38% from 2021, according to a new report. The proptech industry is being hit by slowdowns in both real estate and technology. High interest rates are major inhibitors of both real estate investment and tech investment, which both rely on debt. It reflects waning confidence that proptech companies can continue to give their investors big dollar exits. In 2021, private investors could imagine the path to the public markets.

☆ Tom Petty’s Malibu Beach House Lists for $9.85 Million
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Katherine Clarke | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Be the first to know about the biggest and best luxury home sales and listings by signing up for our Mansion Deals email alert. Tom Petty’s beach house in Malibu, Calif., is coming on the market for $9.85 million, according to listing agent Chris Cortazzo of Compass.

☆ Luxury homebuyers are scooping up smaller houses, encouraged by lower mortgages, less maintenance, and fewer family members hanging around
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Zoe Rosenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Wealthy buyers are seeking smaller homes, according to the real-estate brokerage Coldwell Banker. Among them are a desire to have a more efficient and manageable home, and downsizing of family units that grew larger during the coronavirus pandemic, they said. What it all means is that these luxury homebuyers are increasingly competing with regular folks just trying to put a roof over their heads. "That's a lot of people competing with the millennials who delayed homebuying" and their decision to have families, Steinberg said. Though the home is smaller than the one in which they raised their family, they want to downsize again.

☆ US lawmakers want answers on FTX's collapse. Sam Bankman-Fried may not have them.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

But first, we are going to hear more from Sam Bankman-Fried this week, even if you think we've already heard quite enough from him. Sam Bankman-Fried testifies during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee on December 8, 2021 in Washington, DC. Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who said he once considered himself a "model CEO," tweeted last week that he would testify before tomorrow's House Financial Services committee hearing focused on his firm's blowup. FTX's new CEO, John J. Ray III, who oversaw the bankruptcy of Enron, will testify in the first part of the hearing. A private lunch with the billionaire is on the table if you're willing to pony up the cash.

☆ Compass CEO Robert Reffkin's memo on how to dump poor performers was good, but here's how it could have been better
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Shana Lebowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Robert Reffkin, the CEO of Compass, asked his leadership team to help root out underperformers. The message is compelling but doesn't tell leaders what employees must do to succeed at the company. The memo arrived after two rounds of layoffs, in June and October, at Compass, which has been struggling financially. But the Compass memo, while giving strong examples of what workers shouldn't be doing, didn't offer as much guidance about what the company needs from employees right now. But Galinsky said the memo lacked details about what exactly employees need to do in order to succeed at Compass right now.

☆ Compass CEO Robert Reffkin told his leadership team to step up managing out low-performing employees, as the company racks up losses and is forced to cut costs
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent an email to his leadership team on "managing out poor performers." Compass employees were disheartened. "It's also your responsibility to manage out employees who can't, or aren't, performing at that level," Reffkin wrote in the Sunday afternoon message. The full text of the memo was shared with Insider, and a Compass spokesman confirmed Reffkin sent the email. In June, Compass let go of about 450 corporate workers across departments.

☆ Read the memo Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent his leadership team, telling them to crack down on 'managing out poor performers' and quiet quitters
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Compass CEO Robert Reffkin sent a memo to managers Sunday telling them to target poor performers. In the December 4 email, which has the subject line "managing out poor performers," Reffkin said to identify underachieving employees and to "move them out." "If you see evidence that someone doesn't want to stay at Compass and help us weather this storm, say something," Reffkin wrote. Compass needs you to know your employees and their work habits and results. I hold myself and my leadership team to this same standard.

☆ U.S. agency opens safety probes into Honda, Jeep, Ram vehicles
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File PhotoWASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is opening new safety probes into 1.72 million Honda vehicles, 230,000 Jeeps and 390,077 Ram trucks. The largest probe covers reports alleging a loss of power for more than 1.7 million U.S. 2018-2022 model year Honda CR-V and HR-V vehicles. NHTSA is also investigating 390,000 2017-2018 model year Ram 2500-3500 pickup trucks after received 134 reports alleging an intermittent or permanent loss of braking performance. A U.S. spokesman for Stellantis NV (STLA.MI), the parent company of Jeep and Ram, said it was fully cooperating in the investigations. There are no crashes or injuries reported in relation to any of vehicles in the three new investigations to date.

☆ A luxury three-bedroom 3D-printed home project in Tampa has been listed at nearly $600,000 — see what it'll be like to live in
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Brittany Chang | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

And it's not just for aesthetic purposes: The concrete curves and the lack of wood will help make the home hurricane wind, fire, and flood resistant, according to its listing on Compass. CPH-3DSource: Compass

☆ Bidding on a Brooklyn Brownstone, With a Baby on the Way. Which One Did They Buy?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Debra Kamin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Clever was living in a tiny apartment in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, with no furniture aside from a rented Steinway grand. At one of them, Ms. Chen — a native of Zhejiang, China, who had recently arrived to study creative writing — played the piano alongside him. The time had come for a new space — and with Ms. Chen expecting their first child, they would need more of it. “We visited a lot of homes that had been cut up and felt so cramped inside,” Ms. Chen said. All the while, Ms. Chen had an eye on formal living rooms that could accommodate a grand piano.

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