Welcome to the new Sunday edition of Insider Today! I'm Matt Turner, the editor in chief of business at Insider. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox each week.
On the agenda today:
- We're seeing a tidal wave of overinflated job titles.
- There's increasing unrest at the highest levels of Goldman Sachs.
- AI is about to destroy web search as we know it.
- There's a deluge of crappy analysis from so-called Wall Street "experts."
But first: Lara O'Reilly, our senior correspondent covering the advertising industry, looks ahead to the Super Bowl.
Today's "Celebrity Bowl"
Photo by Getty Images
While most of you will be tuning in to Fox Sports later to watch the Eagles take on the Chiefs, I'll be focused on the commercials, Insider's Lara O'Reilly writes.
The Super Bowl is the annual tentpole event for the US ad industry, with advertisers splurging up to $7 million this year to secure 30 seconds of airtime.
The Big Game is usually a fairly good barometer of current culture, economy, and society. And this year, advertisers are … a little nervous.
It's highly unlikely we'll see many experimental spots like Coinbase's floating QR code — not least because there aren't any crypto advertisers this year. Instead, most advertisers are opting for tried-and-true techniques.
What does that mean in practice? Celebrities. Lots of them.
Serena Williams and Brian Cox are repping Michelob Ultra. PopCorners is reviving "Breaking Bad." Snoop Dogg wants to sell you a pair of Skechers. Hellmann's mayo has locked John Hamm and Brie Larson in a fridge, only for Pete Davidson to eat them. You get the picture.
My colleague Tyler Lauletta is predicting the Eagles will win Super Bowl LVII. Whatever the result, if last year's Big Game was the "Crypto Bowl," this year's is the "Celebrity Bowl."
A tidal wave of overinflated job titles
iStock; George Marks, Sellwell, C.J. Burton/Getty images; Robyn Phelps/Insider
Inflation is everywhere these days — even in the workforce. Insider's Aki Ito breaks down why grandiose job titles like "senior executive vice president" are suddenly all the rage.
According to a new study, early-career job titles have changed drastically in the past few years. Tech roles include "lead" in the title three times more now — and the number of "junior" roles has been cut in half.
Why lofty job titles are everywhere you look
Read more:
Unrest at the highest levels in Goldman Sachs
Crains New York
There's been a notable decline in morale at Goldman Sachs — and it's gotten to the point where some partners are so concerned that they've discussed how they might get the board of directors to act on it, four people close to the situation told Insider's Dakin Campbell.
While it's not clear how widespread this discontent is — Goldman has some 400 partners — some partners are already talking about who might replace CEO David Solomon if it comes to that.
Inside the drama at Goldman Sachs
Read more:
Google's Bard is going to destroy online search
Tyler Le/Insider
Google's search engine is about to change. Its chatbot "Bard," the company's answer to the popular AI tool ChatGPT that's powering Microsoft's new Bing, will provide conversational answers in addition to the long list of links you're accustomed to.
But these new chatbots aren't actually intelligent. They lie. They don't understand what they're saying. They can only regurgitate things they've absorbed elsewhere. And sometimes, that stuff is wrong. Conversational answers generated automatically by chatbots may seem appealing, but they also make detecting misinformation and disinformation much more difficult.
How chatbots could obliterate a core element of human understanding
Read more:
Inside Wall Street's gloom-and-doom racket
iStock; Robyn Phelps/Insider
At its best, Wall Street experts can translate the shifting sands of the economy into a useful investment view. But the economist Neil Dutta has noticed more and more analysts relying on prepackaged narratives to drum up fear about the direction of the economy and stock market.
It's true that stocks haven't done well over the past year. But since the onset of the pandemic, Dutta says there's been a rise of alarmist analysts that rely on low-quality data to push people away from steady investments.
How Wall Street "experts" and scaremongers are costing investors money
Read more:
This week's quote:
"I'll have it for the rest of my life. I am taking supergood care of it and my daughter will have it in the future."
- Anastasia Ricci, who spent $5,500 on a Chanel handbag with the money she saved by living with her parents.
More of this week's top reads:
- These are the 43 startups to bet your career on in 2023.
- "I settled the gas-stove debate with a $69.99 induction cooktop from Ikea."
- Inside the tiny-home startup Boxabl: testy customers, an empty factory, and a sketchy tie.
- The once-hot pharmacy startup Medly is officially shutting down. Here's what to know.
- A couple paid off their mortgage and are on track to be millionaires in their 30s. Here's how.
- Tech CEOs screwed up — and laid-off employees are paying the price.
- Salesforce won't allow rank-and-file workers to attend its annual "company kickoff."
- The 13 top VC firms investing in artificial intelligence that you should know.
Curated by Matt Turner. Edited by Dave Smith and Lisa Ryan. Sign up for more Insider newsletters here.