BI Today: A remake at Meta

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. No prestigious pedigree? No problem. This one-time Big Tech staffer detailed how he managed to nab jobs at Google and Meta despite being what he describes as lacking a “top tier” résumé. He mapped out four steps that would be useful to most anyone in business.

On the agenda today:

But first: Trump is back.

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A new era

It’s happening.

We’re about to go into a new administration, a new party, a new president.

And Business Insider is going to be there for you.

We already have been.

Here at BI, we’re focused on what politics means for your pocketbook, your taxes, your investments, and your career.

And we’ve already been all over these subjects.

Take Meta. Ahead of the inauguration, and as its CEO celebrates Donald Trump’s election, our team has brought you scoops on Meta’s process for cutting low-performing employees and how the cuts could become an annual tradition.

We also gave you insights into how Meta’s employees feel about the changes, from their thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of intensity” to their reaction to Meta backing off DEI efforts. If you need a recap, check out our piece here on Zuck 3.0.

On taxes, we’re getting ahead on what you need to know depending on what happens with Trump’s tax cuts.

The fate of TikTok has been wrapped up in politics for years, and we’ve brought our readers numerous angles and insights, including Friday’s big Supreme Court news.

This is just a sampling of how we plan to approach Trump coverage this year — what it means for your money, your work, your life.

What do you think? I always want to hear from you. Please email me at eic@businessinsider.com.

I expect to be at the Davos conference all week, unlike some billionaires and CEOs who are jetsetting between Washington and Switzerland. I’ll be joined by Dan DeFrancesco, your weekday anchor, and some of our other fantastic colleagues. We’ll share the Davos dish, what we’re hearing about the new administration, TikTok, AI, and more. Please stay in touch!

Meta is done playing nice

The social media giant internally announced plans to cut 5% of its workforce, focusing on its lowest-performing employees. It’s a more aggressive approach to workforce management but one Amazon has embraced for years.

It also marks a departure from Silicon Valley’s traditional talent retention strategy, where tech companies overpaid workers to steer them away from competition. Now, lean, high-performing teams appear to be the new Big Tech trend as companies like Microsoft and Google look to make similar performance-based job cuts.

A page out of Amazon’s workforce playbook.

Also read:

On Fridays, WFH means OOO

Instead of one last push before the weekend, “quiet Fridays” are becoming a sneaky personal day for some remote workers.

The four-day workweek dream remains out of reach for many, but fed-up remote workers are taking back the day for themselves. Fridays also remain the least popular day to commute, even as office attendance creeps back up.

Three-day weekend, every weekend.

‘If I’m being brutally honest’

Anthony Scaramucci is a vocal Trump critic. The hedge-fund founder, also known for his 11-day stint in Trump’s first administration, hasn’t held back on the former president.

Even so, Scaramucci predicts a sunny economy under the president-elect. He told BI that pro-growth policies like Trump’s tax plan and potential clarity on crypto legislation are boons for the country.

But he’s still worried about some of Trump’s other moves.

The world’s worst career advice

Business Insider’s Alistair Barr was an editor at Bloomberg in 2016 when his reporter Jack Clark told him he was quitting to work at OpenAI. At the time, it was a relatively obscure nonprofit that was less than a year old.

Barr told him it wasn’t a good idea. Clark had a pretty stable job as a reporter on Bloomberg’s Big Tech team and OpenAI didn’t seem to have a clear direction. In the end, Clark ignored him and went to OpenAI anyway.

Now, he’s set to become a billionaire.

This week’s quote:

“People get sick. They change their mind or family circumstances. So even if you thought you knew today, you couldn’t be completely sure.”

— JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon on picking his successor.

More of this week’s top reads:

• Wall Street is booming. Here’s where the hot jobs are now.
• Restaurants and clubs are cashing in on a clientele who is young, sober, and ready to party.
• Newly public FBI records from the 1970s reveal an investigation into Home Depot cofounders over alleged anti-union bribery.
• Gen Z is the loneliest generation — but boomers are feeling good.
• Amazon cuts jobs in its Fashion and Fitness group, according to internal messages.
• One of the world’s biggest oil companies is cutting thousands of jobs.
• Biden warns of a ‘tech industrial complex’ and says America must lead the way on AI, not China, in farewell address.
• Activist short-seller behind Hindenburg Research will disband firm.

• If you want to land a job this year, get good with AI.

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  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.