Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. Do you have a little over $520 to spare? That’s enough to buy one plain white T-shirt from Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s luxury brand, The Row. (And that’s one of its most affordable items!) BI’s Madeline Berg dives into why The Row’s white tee costs so much.
On the agenda today:
- Trump is scrambling to prove he really, really cares about affordability.
- Retail traders despise short-sellers — except for Michael Burry.
- Hedge funds cultivated mercenaries. Now they want to buy loyalty.
- Tesla’s AI boss told his teams they’re in for a 2026 at breakneck speed.
But first: Who pays the price?
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This week’s dispatch
No vacancy
I walked by a Sonder property the other night and saw the infamous “notice of closure” sign hanging in the window.
“We sincerely apologize for the disruption and thank you for understanding,” the four-sentence notice concluded in what is, let’s be honest, some of the most bland and generic corporate speak you’ll see.
In reality, the abrupt Marriott-Sonder breakup has been far more dramatic and unfortunate for the many customers caught in the middle of it.
As a quick refresher: It’s been a week since Marriott suddenly ended its licensing agreement with Sonder, a short-term rental firm and onetime Airbnb rival.
Guests staying in Sonder properties were directed to vacate the buildings with very little notice. Many scrambled for new accommodations and pleaded with their credit card companies for refunds. (Here’s what one expert is advising people to do.)
Business Insider reporter Aditi Bharade, who led our coverage on this story, spoke to several guests who described travel chaos, employee mismanagement, and financial fallout from the fiasco.
- A single mom, who was taking her two kids to Europe for the first time, described how the Marriott-Sonder debacle derailed their dream vacation.
- One guy described being kicked out of a Sonder in Montreal the morning after he proposed to his partner.
- A retired tech executive visiting New York City said he had to spend “several thousand dollars more” to rebook at a new property. He said it was “very, very disruptive. They treated us so poorly.”
Sonder employees also described being left in the dark, with some telling BI that they learned of the split from guests and had to deal with panicked customers while they worried about their own jobs. Sonder, which operated 140 properties and about 7,700 apartments, filed for bankruptcy on Friday.
The breakup serves as a reminder that customers often bear the brunt of corporate deals gone bad.
Sonder cofounder Francis Davidson, who stepped down as CEO earlier this year, lamented the news of the past week.
“I’ve poured my heart and soul into building this company, starting as a college student in 2014 and through the pandemic,” Davidson told BI’s Natalie Musumeci in an interview Thursday.
He added: “We all felt good about the positive momentum we were seeing in June when I left, and so to then see that the business has now run into a brick wall, it’s just shocking to me.”
Oops! Still expensive
Trump’s message on inflation during the first few months of his second term was, essentially, deal with it. That message isn’t landing with Americans.
People are tired of the constant sticker shock, and plenty of them blame the guy in the Oval Office. The Trump administration is learning a hard lesson the same way Biden did: You can’t insist your way to a good economy.
Michael Burry’s rizz
Short-sellers like Andrew Left and Gabe Plotkin have long been despised by retail investors. The two crowds are often on opposing sides — with retail traders taking bullish positions on the stocks short-sellers are betting will fall.
“The Big Short” investor is an exception, though. Burry stuck it to the big banks in 2008 when he successfully predicted the market crash. That elevated him to hero status.
Also read:
- Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ fame deregisters hedge fund, teasing ‘much better things’ ahead
- Like Elon Musk and Sam Altman, Michael Burry and Alex Karp are feuding over AI
When a hedge fund wants you
The world’s biggest hedge funds are in the midst of a hiring crunch, but this time, employees are the beneficiaries. Firms are dangling swanky pay packages in an effort to either keep top performers or poach talent.
The billionaires in charge of these firms want something beyond just returns from their traders, and it’s the opposite of many other big companies right now: loyalty.
Tesla’s brutal year ahead
AI teams at Tesla heard it straight from the boss: Next year will be the “hardest year” of their lives.
Ashok Elluswamy, the company’s VP of AI software, delivered the message at an all-hands for Autopilot and Optimus employees. He told staffers they should expect to work more intensely than ever to meet ambitious AI project goals.
This week’s quote:
“I very much believe in the in-person working culture. We’ve been defragmenting our culture and trying to concentrate.”
— Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI CEO, on why he wants his employees back in the office and working at open desks.
Miners risk their lives in one of the world’s saltiest lakes
Lake Retba is a driving force of Senegal’s economy, but extracting salt from the hypersaline lake brings its fair share of risks for local miners.
More of this week’s top reads:
- Donald Trump says he’s ordering DOJ probes into JPMorgan Chase and business leaders’ ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
- Sam Altman’s eye-scanning Orb startup wants to hit a billion users. It’s less than 2% of the way there.
- Exclusive: Amazon plans to absorb Whole Foods’ entire workforce as part of “Project Cremini.”
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Warren Buffett says he’ll keep writing a yearly letter — and plans to “step up” his charitable giving.
The BI Today team: Steve Russolillo, chief news editor, in New York. Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Akin Oyedele, deputy editor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in New York. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The post Beyond Sonder and Marriott’s messy breakup, employees and customers are paying the price appeared first on Business Insider.
