Business

Barely two months into the pandemic, Airbnb laid off a quarter of its employees — 1,900 people. The company, which ended the year with an IPO, had lost about 80% of its business to the pandemic, says CEO Brian Chesky wealth in conversation on Wednesday. “We didn’t know when [the business] came back,” he says. Layoffs have never been terrible.…

Welcome to This Week in the Metaverse, where wealth summarizes the most interesting news from the world of NFTs, culture and virtual worlds. E-mail [email protected] with tips. As recently as three years ago, Metaverse trademark filings were essentially non-existent, but in 2022 that’s about to change for many companies, according to trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis. “Now it’s just part of…

A group of 30 agencies that provide water to homes and businesses in the western United States have pledged to rip up lots of ornamental grass to hold the water in the flooded Colorado River. The agreement, signed Tuesday by water authorities in Southern California, Phoenix and Salt Lake City and elsewhere, shows an accelerating shift in the American West…

The Biden administration says the high office of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman should shield him from a lawsuit over his role in the assassination of a US-based journalist and reverse Joe Biden’s passionate campaign denunciations of the prince over the brutal assassination . The government has backed a claim for legal immunity from Prince Mohammed – Saudi Arabia’s…

Research consistently shows that a strong organizational culture creates better business outcomes. But getting organizations to understand a company’s culture—and what values ​​and goals drive it—can be a more difficult task. “Sometimes we define [culture] how things work here and how it makes you feel,” Sabrina Clark, managing partner of consulting firm SYPartners, told attendees wealth‘s Most Powerful Women Next…

According to billionaire investor Ray Dalio, the influence of eurozone countries on the global stage is slowly waning, thanks largely to the way Europeans work. Dalio, who founded Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, shared his view on Twitter Thursday that the collective position of the 19-state cohort was at risk. Using a computer-generated measurement of the region’s power…

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has accused disgraced crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried of being a dangerous lunatic for threatening to leak information that could harm the billionaire exchange’s co-founder known as CZ. “Only a psychopath could write that tweet,” Zhao responded to a question from a moderator at an investment summit sponsored by the Milken Institute on Thursday. CZ alluded to…

When lockdown rules were in full force early in the pandemic, little thought was given to how the humidity of the spaces we were locked in affected transmission of COVID-19. But new research from MIT now suggests that relative humidity — or the percentage of moisture in the air compared to the maximum water the air can hold at a…

Elon Musk’s Twitter is being sued by disabled workers who say his recent demand for “hardcore” work forced them to quit. The billionaire Twitter owner has laid off at least half of the company’s 7,500 employees since buying the company in late October. In an ultimatum to the remaining employees this week, Musk said those who wanted to stay would…

Employee burnout is real and can be exacerbated by inefficient work processes. And as talent hiring and retention remains a top concern for CFOs, some are working to lower their team members’ stress levels — by also limiting daily video meetings. This week, Gina Mastantuono, CFO of software company ServiceNow, shared a LinkedIn post with her thoughts on brainwave activity…