Insider Today: Return of the cubicles

Plus: China's unlikely rebound, and Citadel starts 2024 on top.

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February 5, 2024 • 4 min read with Dan DeFrancesco Welcome back! Before we get into things, an ode to the NYPD’s purgatory-bound subway robot. It’s not goodbye; It’s see you later.  In today’s big story, we’re looking at why employees are calling for a return to cubicles. What's on deck Markets: Hedge funds’ January report cards are in. Here’s how top firms did. Tech: What’s keeping Joe Rogan and Spotify together? Business: It's still hard to find a job, even though unemployment is so low. But first, the case for cubicles.

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iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI The big story Cubicle comeback Nostalgia is all the rage these days, leading to the unlikely reemergence of a Corporate America villain: the cubicle.  Long considered the bane of white-collar workers’ existence, people now view cubicles as a sanctuary instead of a jail cell.  Tired of the open floor plans championed by Silicon Valley for decades, workers want the little walls to come back up, Kelli María Korducki writes. It’s a shocking turn around for something previously viewed as the epitome of how soul-sucking working a 9-to-5 can be. Open-concept offices, it turns out, haven’t been the saving grace some hoped they would be. Research has been inconclusive, Korducki writes, with one study showing open offices lead to a decrease in face-to-face conversations.  The recent years spent working remotely have also played a part. Those returning to the office — or entering one for the first time — grew accustomed to having a quiet, isolated place to get work done. YouTube/Office Space trailer Calling for a return to the cubes might seem odd when so many are pushing to evolve the workplace.  However, bringing back cubicles actually falls in line with the push to establish stronger boundaries for better work-life balance.  Employee-to-employer trust is dropping fast, as neither side feels loyalty to the other. Those relationships are particularly frayed in tech, an industry that pioneered the shift away from cubes.  But after a year-plus of cost-cutting and increased focus on the bottom line, some workers are feeling less like a family and more like a cog in the machine.  So it’s only natural they’d push to bring cubes back. In the transactional world they feel their job has become, a closed-off space for them to get their work done is exactly what they want.   Read Full Story

News brief Your Monday headline catchup A quick recap of the top news from over the weekend: US forces hammered dozens of IRGC and Iran-backed militia targets with 125 bombs in retaliation for the drone attack that killed American troops. Taylor Swift becomes the first artist in Grammy history to win album of the year 4 times. Elon Musk's company directors feel an 'expectation' to use drugs with him to avoid upsetting the billionaire, report says. Stay away from US stocks, expect the AI bubble to burst, and brace for a recession, elite investor Jeremy Grantham says.

3 things in

Markets 🔔 Before the opening bell: US stock futures slip early Monday after a stellar January jobs report dampened investors’ hopes for early interest-rate cuts. REUTERS/Gene Blevins 1. Citadel starts the new year on top. The hedge fund’s flagship Wellington fund had a strong start to January, posting a 1.9% gain. Here’s how other top funds like Point72 and Millennium did last month. 2. Interest rate cuts are coming. Chair Jerome Powell said on Sunday that the Federal Reserve still plans to slash borrowing costs three times in 2024, despite a blowout January jobs report. It comes after Donald Trump slammed the central banker Friday, claiming that rate cuts would “help the Democrats” win elections this year. 3. Buybacks are so back. Meta’s $50 billion stock-buyback plan is the latest example of companies getting in on the trend. Deutsche Bank expects buybacks to jump to $1 trillion this year after a slowdown in 2023.

3 things in

Tech Courtesy of Tammi Jantzen 1. Astarte Medical is shutting down. The venture-backed startup, which sells software to hospitals to improve care for preterm infants, is winding down after eight years. Its CEO told BI the company couldn’t continue fighting strong financial headwinds. 2. The US just overhauled the H-1B visa lottery. The new process is meant to ensure that all individuals have the same chance of being selected in the lottery. The reform is great news for startups. 3. Spotify renewed its deal with Joe Rogan. Both Rogan and Spotify give each other things they can't get anywhere else, BI’s Peter Kafka writes. The result? A new multiyear contract that could reportedly be worth $250 million.

3 things in

Business Gwengoat/Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI 1. Job growth surpassed forecasts last month. New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the US added 353,000 jobs in January, exceeding forecasts for the start of the year. So why does it still feel so hard to get a job? 2. The Baby Boomer "time bomb" is finally upon us. Experts told Business Insider that a wave of retiring Boomers means the generation will soon be at "peak burden" to the economy. The good news, though, is that there’s not another generation that size in the making. 3. China’s balancing act is proving harder and harder to maintain. The world’s second-largest economy doesn’t appear likely to enjoy a post-pandemic rebound that was expected long ago. A real-estate market that has soured, an exodus of foreign investors, and ongoing deflation all pose significant risks to China.

In other news Everything to know about Taylor Swift's new album 'The Tortured Poets Department'. Snap begins a new round of layoffs with staffers expecting more next week. Travis Kalanick's CloudKitchens loses its chief financial officer. Mardi Gras just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Meta warns investors that Mark Zuckerberg's love of extreme sports could kill him. Tim Cook is finally talking about AI on his own terms. Tesla issues recall for most of its cars in the US over warning light issue. Battery swapping is taking off in China — and it could help rescue the EV revolution in the US.

What's happening today Today’s earnings: McDonald's, Caterpillar Inc., and other companies are reporting.

The Insider Today team Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, editor, in London. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. George Glover, reporter, in London. Get in touch insidertoday@insider.com To read unlimited articles, subscribe to Business Insider. Download the Business Insider app Email sent to: vitor@idiot.cloudns.cc Manage your email preferences | Unsubscribe | Terms of service | Privacy policy | Advertise with us © 2024 Insider Inc. 1 Liberty Plaza, New York, NY 10006