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Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. Bill Gates thinks people will be "so much better off" in the future — but that young people need to activate on certain challenges. Gates highlighted four risks, including unchecked AI, that are "very scary things" for younger generations.
On the agenda today:
- How the federal workers who voted for President Trump feel about his overhaul of their workforce.
- Meet the 20 bankers who led last year's M&A rebound.
- If you're looking to lower your rent, you might want to move fast.
- Want to work for a startup? These young companies are your best bet.
But first: Low performer? Who says?
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This week's dispatch
Refusing to stay silent
There are layoffs driven by cost cutting. Then there are job cuts based on performance. What if, in actuality, performance-based cuts are just ordinary layoffs in disguise?
That's essentially what some Meta employees felt this year after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a swath of cuts designed to "raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster." (On Friday we published details about which teams at Meta were hard hit by the cuts.)
Some of the people who were let go spoke with our Meta reporters. They said they had been under the impression their performance was solid, even exceeding expectations.
So what exactly was going on, and what did it mean for people caught in the quandary?
Our chief correspondent and careers writer extraordinaire Aki Ito dug in.
She had suspected people who felt mislabeled or blindsided would keep their frustrations quiet as they ventured back into the job market. In fact, many didn't. They took to LinkedIn to defend themselves against Meta's label.
"This is something we haven't seen before in the professional world: Employees sticking up for themselves in public, and calling out their former employer for misrepresenting their work," Aki wrote.
Aki didn't just recognize the new trend. She did more reporting, asking: Even if venting via social media felt good, was it a smart tactic for job seekers?
For the answer to that question and more, please read Aki's tremendous piece. As always, I welcome your thoughts on our coverage, at [email protected].
Trump-supporting federal workers speak out
As President Trump looks to slim down the federal workforce, many federal employees have expressed outrage over his job-cutting blitz. But what about the ones who voted for him?
Four federal workers who voted for Trump spoke with BI about their feelings. They said they supported Trump cutting governmental waste, but some had concerns over the administration's targeting of federal workers. One worker said it hadn't changed their support of the president.
"It shouldn't have come to this."
Also read:
The bankers fueling M&A's revival
US companies had more than $1.43 trillion in deals last year, the highest since 2021. It's a good sign for Wall Street, signaling a rebound after the M&A freeze that started in 2022.
BI, with the help of MergerLinks, is back with its sixth annual edition of "The Rainmakers." Our list ranks the highest-performing investment bankers by overall transaction volume in the US. This time around, JPMorgan's Anu Aiyengar became the first woman to secure the top spot.
Snag the apartment deals while you can
The rental market has been booming over the past two years. With so many high rises hitting the market, landlords are desperate to fill up the space — and renters have been reaping the rewards.
Enjoy it while you can. The new apartment supply is expected to dwindle as building costs increase and developers cut back on construction plans. It's laying the groundwork for another apartment squeeze that could cause rent to hike up.
The startups to bet your career on
In recent years, cost-cutting and layoffs have dulled some of Silicon Valley's shine. But now AI is fueling a new wave of tech dealmaking. BI put together a list of startups with impressive founding teams and investor dollars that are worth betting your career on.
The lineup covers a lot of ground, ranging from tools that sift through clinical notes to resources that make it easier to develop AI models.
The 43 startups you should want to work for.
This week's quote:
"We have to keep reducing costs so that we can afford the big investments in big new businesses."
— Doug Herrington, Amazon's retail CEO, during an internal all-hands meeting heard by BI.
More of this week's top reads:
- SBA won't try to claw back $155 million in controversial COVID grants to celebrities.
- Trump and Musk froze USAID funding to put Americans first. US citizens are feeling the impact.
- I'm a 44-year-old small-business owner. I've never made $100,000 in a year, and I'm still on track to retire by 50.
- Retail investors tell us how they're navigating the market in 2025.
- The last time America was this bullish on stocks was right before a huge sell-off.
- Marko Elez, who left DOGE amid social media controversy, worked for xAI.
- TikTok is ramping up RTO, and some are balking at the new requirements.
- I spent 10 hours at a real-estate conference with hundreds of investors — and the major takeaway had nothing to do with market trends.
- Forget the Trump trade. The Musk trade is where it's at.
- A hedge funder shares his precise strategy for finding high-upside meme coins, and lays out his bets for 2025.
I helped my mom set up her phone. It could have gone better.
The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York. Elizabeth Casolo, fellow, in Chicago.
