Hello everyone! Welcome to this weekly roundup of Business Insider stories from executive editor Matt Turner. Please subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every Sunday.
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I want to start by highlighting two stories focused on toxic work environments at Pinterest and CrossFit.
Julie Bort and Taylor Nicole Rogers spoke to 11 former Pinterest employees who said that despite the company's upbeat product, it was a toxic and difficult place to work. From their story:
Multiple Black people who had worked on Pinterest's ad sales team say they were fired or "pushed out" of the company with no real explanation.
Other employees say they were publicly yelled at by managers or dealt with such severe "head games" from managers that they grew stressed and were later hospitalized.
Some employees described CEO Ben Silbermann as a kind person focused on the product and who either didn't know or didn't care how workers were treated.
You can read the story in full here:
Former Pinterest employees describe a traumatic workplace where managers humiliate employees until they cry, Black people feel alienated, and the toxic culture 'eats away at your soul'
For their story on CrossFit, Katie Warren and Gabby Landsverk spoke to more than 30 former HQ employees, and current and former affiliate gym owners and CrossFit athletes. From their story:
Insiders claim the culture of the workplace demeaned women, operated off retribution, and was ruled by a fear of getting on Glassman's bad side.
You can read that story in full here:
A 'frat party' workplace, a tweet that led to the CEO's resignation, and a culture that demeans women: Insiders say this is the reality of working for the cult-following gym CrossFit
Those two stories follow earlier reporting on a toxic culture at companies like Bon Appétit and Reformation. Meanwhile, employees at companies ranging from Adidas to Red Bull are expressing concern about their employer's response to the Black Lives Matter movement, protesting systemic racism, and demanding change. For example:
* Adidas employees are protesting 'systemic racism' in the US division, and they say indifferent German leadership is impeding efforts to tackle the problem
* More than 300 Red Bull employees signed a letter expressing 'concern' about the company's response to Black Lives Matter and asking for 'internal action.' Read their note to executives.
* In a leaked document, Amazon employees shared stories of racism and gender discrimination while calling for a new leadership principle on 'inclusion'
* Employees at Omnicom Group-owned ad and public relations agency GMMB asked for a conversation about 'systemic racism and inequity' at the firm and shared a list of 34 proposed reforms
As Weng Cheong and Caroline Hroncich report, US companies spend $8 billion annually on diversity and inclusion initiatives, yet research shows that they're actually more segregated now than they were 40 years ago. From their story:
Experts told Business Insider that a major reason D&I efforts are ineffective is that companies continue to invest in one-off trainings, instead of complementing them with company-wide diversity initiatives.
To dismantle systemic racism in the office, employers need to promote people of color internally, listen to stories about discrimination, and collect workforce data, among many other things.
Read their story in full here:
'Diversity' and 'inclusion' are the emptiest words in corporate America. Here's what we really need to dismantle systemic racism in the office.
100 days that changed Microsoft
"On March 6, Microsoft employees began inexplicably returning to the company's Redmond, Washington headquarters, just 48 hours after the company enacted a remote work policy in response to the coronavirus."
So starts a story from Ashley Stewart, Jeff Elder, and Patrick Coffee on how CEO Satya Nadella led $1.4 trillion tech giant Microsoft through the coronavirus pandemic. From their story:
"Why are they coming back?" Microsoft chief information security officer Brett Arsenault wondered with concern at the time, as related to Business Insider in a recent interview. "What's going on?"
The employees had left their work computers at their desks as usual — after all, they didn't know when they left that it was the last time they would be at the office for many months. But Microsoft couldn't condone letting them back into their offices, which to this day are deemed unsafe.
The company needed to act fast.
You can read the story in full here:
100 days that changed Microsoft: How Satya Nadella led the $1.4 trillion tech giant through the coronavirus pandemic
Most innovative CMOs
From Tanya Dua:
Global advertising and marketing spend was poised to swell further to $612.6 billion this year — until the coronavirus pandemic came along and upended the advertising business, bringing the forecast down to $563 billion.
The radical transformation of the advertising industry has only been accelerated by the novel coronavirus. Marketers have been forced not only to steer their organizations through challenges like fragmented consumer attention and data-driven marketing but also to slash their spending, tweak their campaigns, and shift their dollars to adjust to a population in crisis.
Here's Business Insider's fifth annual ranking of the CMOs who most stand out in overcoming these challenges:
The 25 most innovative CMOs in the world in 2020 right here
Below are headlines on some of the stories you might have missed from the past week.
— Matt
$2.5 billion Tiger Cub Valinor Management is closing — it's the first multi-billion-dollar hedge fund to wind down since the pandemic started
BANK OF AMERICA: Buy these 13 cheap stocks that have unexpectedly strong finances, making them great bets for the next phase of the rally
How solo entrepreneurs can pay themselves with PPP money or reapply for a bigger loan while making sure they qualify for forgiveness
These 12 artificial intelligence startups are poised for success, particularly in a post-COVID world, according to experts
14 investors and VC firms funding innovative startups built around YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok creators and the influencer industry
Read the memo Facebook is sending to ad agencies as calls for advertisers to boycott the platform in July intensify
Here's the pitch deck Irish grocery delivery startup Buymie used to raise $9 million for UK expansion as coronavirus transforms shopping
Leaked memo reveals JetBlue will lay off workers on October 1, with employees who voluntarily quit getting up to 9 years of free travel
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