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☆ Meta's CFO Susan Li says some projects and teams will 'wind down' as part of ongoing efficiency push
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Susan Li said work to streamline Meta's operations and management structure is "ongoing." Projects and teams that don't fit the bill face being shut down, the CFO said. Apps across Meta and its metaverse division will see some internal projects shuttered and teams dissolved as executives at the company abide by Mark Zuckerberg's new efficiency mantra. Mark Zuckerberg last month declared 2023 Meta's "year of efficiency" and said he wanted to flatten layers of management. "This is going to result in us making some tough decisions to wind down projects in some places and shift resources away from some teams," Li added.

☆ Facebook's top exec Tom Alison breaks down his top priorities for 2023 and his pitch to creators
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Sydney Bradley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Tom Alison, head of Facebook, wants the platform to be a more welcoming home to creators. Insider spoke with Alison about Facebook's priorities as uncertainty around Meta layoffs mounts. "We want Meta to be a great home for creators," Alison said. "You layer in some monetization tools on top of that and they can use Facebook to extend their income," Alison said. "We're going to be integrating and embracing more messaging functionality within Facebook," Alison said.

☆ A business coach who quit her 9-to-5 and now makes $1 million in profit a year shares her pricing and marketing strategy
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Pauleanna Reid | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Jereshia Hawk is the founder of Leverage, an online coaching business for women of color. With the answers to those questions, Hawk founded Leverage, an online coaching business for service-based women of color working as entrepreneurs and coaches. Within 14 months her business revenue exceeded her corporate income, and she quit her job in July 2017. Hawk's marketing content is designed to reach prospects at different phases of awareness of her brand. Using video to draw in clientsAttracting clients who are able and eager to spend $15,000 on a coaching program requires careful and intentional marketing.

Brands will account for 70% of that spend, with most of the rest coming from so-called collectives, alumni groups that funnel money to athletes, according to Opendorse. Female athletes and meme starsGiven the wide-open field, brands’ strategies with NIL deals vary widely. Jill Cress, chief marketing and experience officer of H&R Block in a 2018 picture. Favorability ratings from both Gen Z consumers and parents of college students rose after the campaign, according to Ms. Cress. Bigger deals aheadNIL deals will likely evolve to often include intellectual property agreements with the schools in question, said Mr. Schwab.

☆ Aster DM Healthcare shortlists two bidders for stake in Gulf business -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Hadeel Al Sayegh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

DUBAI, March 3 (Reuters) - Dubai-based Aster DM Healthcare (ATRD.NS) is looking to sell a majority stake in its Gulf-based business and has short-listed buyers for the sale, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Aster, which operates hospitals, clinics and pharmacies in the Gulf and India, is looking to sell a stake of more than 50% in its business in the region, said the sources, declining to be named as the matter is not public. Private equity firm Fajr Capital and Dubai financial services firm Gulf Islamic Investments have been shortlisted in the process, the sources said. Fajr declined to comment, while Gulf Islamic Investments did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by Reuters on Friday. Mumbai-listed Aster began a sales process at the end of last year to demerge the Gulf business to help investors and analysts better understand the company, one of the sources said.

☆ I got a job on Netflix's 'Next in Fashion' by DMing a producer on Instagram. Here's what my job is like as a stylist
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Eboni Boykin-Patterson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

She landed a stylist job on season 2 of 'Next in Fashion' after dropping out of fashion school. I wouldn't have been able to land my first major stylist job at New York Fashion Week if I had been at school. Three days later, he called and said he was on the New York Fashion Week calendar, and asked if I would style his show. These are a few models I styled for Nicholas Raefski’s Fall/Winter 2022 presentation at New York Fashion Week. I was allowed to make TikTok content on the Netflix set, as long as I didn't give away anything creatively.

☆ Uber drivers reveal the 5 worst things passengers can do during a ride. You could be guilty of doing them without even realizing.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Five Uber drivers told Insider about the worst types of passengers they pick up. You may not like it, but you could be an Uber driver's worst nightmare. They pick up all sorts of people during their shift, and five told Insider how unpleasant some passengers can be. Five drivers told Insider about the worst things passengers do during a trip. Unlike traditional cabs, Uber drivers have to wait two minutes until they can start getting paid for a trip.

Managers are being told to expect demotions, putting them in "direct competition" with reports. A current employee told Insider that, in recent weeks many managers at Facebook have been told they will have their teams taken away. "Folks with years of management experience are being told they have to train on a position they haven't done in years," the person told Insider. Yet the photo-sharing app remained "less bloated" than Facebook, as one former employee told Insider, with roughly 20,000 employees. Facebook currently operates according to a "matrix model," one person familiar with the structure told Insider.

☆ Facebook is becoming more like Instagram as Mark Zuckerberg whittles down manager ranks and further layoffs loom
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Kali Hays | Sydney Bradley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Facebook is expected to see layoffs amid Mark Zuckerberg's new mandate to "flatten" the company. Facebook, founded by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg twenty years ago, is in the process of being further streamlined, two people familiar with the company told Insider. The company's goal is to have Facebook's structure more closely resemble that of Instagram, the people said, as Zuckerberg looks to cut costs and declares 2023 to be the "year of efficiency." "It's not surprising," another person familiar with the company said of plans to change the structure at Facebook. The current organizational structure at Facebook is essentially what's known as "a matrix" model, one of the people familiar said.

☆ A business class airline passenger who ordered vegan food says it was insulting to be served one banana along with a pair of chopsticks
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A passenger on a Japan Airlines flight ordered vegan food but was disappointed to be given a banana. Japan Airlines apologized for not meeting expectations for its vegan offering. Kris Chari told Insider he booked to fly business class on Tuesday from Jakarta in Indonesia to Tokyo in Japan. A spokesperson from Japan Airlines told Insider: "We apologize for not being able to meet expectations." Chari said the second vegan meal he received was spaghetti.

☆ Elon Musk faces upwards of $130 million in legal costs to fight laid off Twitter workers over severance pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk last month offered thousands of laid off Twitter workers a limited severance deal. The former workers, laid off in November, say they were promised much better severance than what Musk finally offered them last month. In addition, laid off Twitter employees also filed a handful of class action lawsuits in federal court. It also effectively prohibits them from ever speaking about Musk, Twitter, or their experience at the company. Even those relatively few Twitter workers who signed off on Musk's severance agreement could speak freely about the company going forward.

☆ Some Starlink customers say they're nervous that SpaceX will continue hiking prices after their subscription cost jumped to $120 a month
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

It's the second time SpaceX has increased Starlink prices in a year. Some customers said they were worried SpaceX would increase prices further. It's the second time in a year that SpaceX has hiked Starlink service prices. Multiple Starlink customers who were notified about the price increase this week told Insider they weren't happy about paying more for the service. The company's email to customers said the company was launching more satellites to increase Starlink capacity and frequently updating the network to improve the service.

☆ Elon Musk faces upward of $130 million in legal costs to fight laid-off Twitter workers over severance pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk last month offered thousands of laid-off Twitter workers a limited severance deal. In addition, laid-off Twitter employees also filed a handful of class-action lawsuits in federal court. Instead, Musk is offering laid-off workers one month of base pay as severance. It also effectively prohibits them from ever speaking about Musk, Twitter, or their experience at the company. Even those relatively few Twitter workers who signed off on Musk's severance agreement could speak freely about the company going forward.

☆ Meta could bring in nearly $2 billion this year from new Instagram and Facebook verification subscriptions, analysts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Meta rolled out a new subscription offering for Instagram and Facebook. Meta is rolling out a new paid version of verification on Instagram and Facebook that could prove valuable to the company in a short amount of time. As the monthly subscription costs $11.99 for web or $14.99 for mobile, that could mean $1.7 billion in additional yearly revenue, the analysts said. "In addition to Meta Verified, we think there are opportunities for content and commerce subscriptions to help Meta diversify its revenue base over time," Bank of America analysts wrote. While Meta's core business is and very likely always will be ads, influencers have been "under monetized" at the company, Shmulik said.

☆ See the second car Tesla made: an orange-striped Roadster with 'Mr. Tesla' plates that may be worth more than $200,000
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard owns three Teslas, including a Roadster he drives every day. Eberhard said he owns the second Tesla Roadster ever made. "I've been driving my Roadster continuously since I bought it," Eberhard told Insider in an interview. He also sent another Tesla Roadster into space on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The Tesla cofounder said he occasionally takes the Roadster out for car shows, including the annual Roadster Rally.

☆ Tesla's first CEO says Elon Musk never replied to a congratulatory note he sent — and hasn't spoken to him in 14 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Martin Eberhard said he sent Elon Musk a note after SpaceX's first rocket launched into orbit. The Tesla cofounder said he never heard back from Musk and hasn't spoken to him in about 14 years. "I actually sent him a congratulatory note when his first rocket successfully made it to space, but I got no reply." The Tesla cofounder has said Musk forced him out of the company and had Tesla's board vote him out as CEO behind his back in 2007. About two years later, after Musk started calling himself a Tesla founder, Eberhard sued Musk, alleging libel and slander.

☆ Ex-Tesla CEO says the company's culture might be 'nicer' if he had stuck around: 'I'm not into random firings'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard said the carmaker's company culture might be "nicer" if he'd stayed. He said he's not into "random firings," a practice Musk has denied engaging in in the past. "I'm a believer of treating employees with respect and I'm not into random firings and things like that," Eberhard told Insider in an interview. Eberhard previously told Insider that Musk and Tesla's board had met behind his back and had voted to replace him as CEO. Musk became Tesla's CEO in 2008 and has become virtually synonymous with the brand's image in recent years.

☆ Tesla cofounder's advice to EV startups: Don't try to be Tesla
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard says EV companies shouldn't try to compete head-on with Tesla. He said EV startups should try to find their own market and avoid launching Tesla-like models. "My advice to anybody who wants to get into the EV space now is don't try to compete head-on with Tesla," Eberhard told Insider in an interview. Lucid confirmed that Eberhard worked at the startup for a short period in 2015 but declined to comment on his departure. After leaving Tesla, Eberhard served for about two years as the director of EV development at Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory.

☆ Tesla cofounder calls Autopilot and FSD software 'crap' that could risk the carmaker's future
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard said he's "not a big fan" of autonomous cars. The Tesla cofounder said it's a "mistake to think of a car as a software platform." The Lotus Elise was a two-seater convertible that the British car company Lotus Cars first sold in 1996. The Tesla cofounder said that while he appreciates "safety-oriented systems" like driver-assist features, he's "not a big fan" of autonomous driving. Last year, the billionaire said the carmaker's self-driving software is the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and Tesla being worth almost nothing.

☆ Tesla cofounder says he was 'basically unemployable' and out of money for 2 years after being ousted from the company
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A Tesla cofounder said he was out of money and "basically unemployable" after he left the carmaker. Martin Eberhard was ousted as CEO of Tesla by Elon Musk and left the company in 2007. "After I left Tesla, I was basically unemployable for about two years because of the intellectual-property agreement I had with Tesla and with Tesla being as litigious as they are," Eberhard told Insider. The Tesla cofounder lost his role as CEO of Tesla about three years after Elon Musk began investing in the electric-car maker. Eberhard previously told Insider that Musk and Tesla's board had met behind his back and voted to replace him as CEO.

☆ Elon Musk used to scream if he wasn't mentioned in an article about Tesla, the company's first CEO says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard said Elon Musk used to "scream" if he was not cited in Tesla stories. Musk didn't return requests for comment. In an interview with Insider, Eberhard said he and Musk were "congenial" until his last few months at the company. "His behavior changed dramatically as soon as we started having press about Tesla," Eberhard told Insider in an interview. He previously told Insider that Musk and Tesla's board met behind his back and voted to replace him as CEO.

☆ Ousted Tesla cofounder Martin Eberhard sounds off on Elon Musk, how the company has changed, and the EV wars
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +17 min

But Eberhard and Musk butted heads, and Musk ousted Eberhard from his CEO role in 2007. Musk said that Eberhard was holding up production of Tesla's first car, the Roadster, and that Eberhard was responsible for other operational issues. And the proof is for the first time ever in decades we built a car company successfully. "His behavior changed dramatically as soon as we started having press about Tesla," Eberhard said. Musk has said the company "is as much a software company as it is a hardware company."

☆ Snap is cutting back spending on Google and Amazon for cloud services, a huge expense for tech companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Other companies like Twitter are also moving to cut back on cloud costs. The Snapchat owner uses both Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services to operate. When Snap went public in 2017, it disclosed Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services as cloud providers. It said it had agreed to pay Google $2 billion for cloud services over the next five years, purchasing at least $400 million per year in services. Cloud services have for the last several years become a major source of revenue for companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

☆ Elon Musk's mood and intensity at Twitter are 'worse' than during Tesla's existential crisis 5 years ago, staff says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

People who have worked for him at Tesla and now Twitter think recent months have proved worse. There's a new refrain among some Tesla employees who continue to work out of Twitter's San Francisco headquarters: "worse than 2018." Still, there is "zero talk" inside Twitter of a new CEO coming in to replace Musk, this person added. There are some similarities between Musk at Tesla then and him at Twitter now. Musk's overall mood at Twitter seemed to start deteriorating toward the end of last year, two of the people familiar said.

☆ Tesla workers reportedly say the company tracks their keystrokes to make sure they're actively working, the latest complaint of workplace monitoring
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Grace Kay | Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Tesla workers in New York say their keystrokes are monitored to ensure they're actively working, Bloomberg reported. The workers emailed Elon Musk to inform him they were campaigning for a union, the publication said. Insider reported last year that Tesla began tracking workers' office attendance using an automated system to track when staff badged in or out of its offices. Last year, The New York Times reported that about eight out of the ten largest private US employers track staff productivity. Do you work for Tesla or have some insight to share?

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