Good morning, techies. If you’re living somewhere in between New York City and San Francisco (both geographically and size-wise), you may see a massive shift in how you get paid — especially if you’re a tech worker.
Writing to you from New York, I’m Jordan Parker Erb. Let’s get into it.
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Tyler Le/Insider
1. A seismic shift is changing how Americans get paid. Geography has long played a role in how workers are compensated: If you lived in Dallas or Minneapolis, you’d never earn the kind of paychecks offered in big cities like San Francisco or New York. But now, that’s changing.
As companies continue to fill remote roles in towns far beyond their headquarters, white-collar salaries nationwide are getting tantalizingly close to those in major tech hubs.The phenomenon is strongest in tech, which has embraced remote work more than any other industry — and salaries at tech startups in Boston, Denver, and other cities are now within 10% of those in San Francisco.And in Washington, DC, where salaries used to be 15% lower than those in San Francisco, pay is now virtually on par with the Bay Area.
Welcome to the Great Salary Convergence.
In other news:
Britta Pedersen/Getty Images; Twitter; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
2. Elon Musk said his $44 billion Twitter takeover could still happen. Musk said that the deal could go ahead if the platform disclosed how it tracks fake accounts, and challenged Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to a public debate. Get the full rundown here.
3. The hot market for tech employees is ending, giving the power back to companies. For the average tech worker, the good times of multiple offers, big grants of restricted stock units, and generous merit raises, are likely over — sending the pendulum back to Big Tech firms like Meta and Google to set and reduce pay. What tech workers need to look out for.
4. A poll shows people’s interest in superhero movies is dropping. Both Marvel and DC have suggested many more superhero films are on the way in the coming years — but new survey results show the public is growing fatigued. Why the results should worry Disney.
5. Fresh layoffs hit Popshop Live as it struggles to attract new funding. Employees who were laid off from the livestream-shopping platform described a company that was “burning through money like no one’s business” before it laid off an additional 25% of staff. Behind the scenes of the layoffs insiders dubbed “the Red Wedding.”
6. The crypto winter has come for Block. Jack Dorsey’s company, formerly known as Square, posted a decline in overall revenue and attributed the dip to the crypto downturn. What’s happening at Dorsey’s Block.
7. Weeks before layoffs, Shopify funded team getaways to a French castle and other far-flung locales. One former Shopify employee said he was shocked by the layoffs, which came right after a trip to France, and that the company showed few signs of “dread or negativity.” Inside the layoffs at Shopify.
8. Meta’s latest AI chatbot has mixed feelings about CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Unveiled Friday, the chatbot gave differing responses when asked about Zuckerberg, ranging from “I think he is a great guy” to “He’s too creepy and manipulative.” What we know about the bot.
Odds and ends:
The Tesla pool at the Supercharger station in Hilden, Germany.
YouTube
9. A solar-powered Tesla pool just opened at a German charging station. Tesla drivers in Germany can now go for a swim while they wait for their cars to charge. Why Tesla built a pool.
10. The perks of traveling with an Apple AirTag. An Insider reporter used one of the $29 tracking tags to track her luggage on two buses and a plane. She explains why she’ll never travel without one again.
What we’re watching today:
Take-Two Interactive Software, Palantir, Groupon, and others are reporting earnings. Keep up with earnings here.Microsoft 365 EduCon kicks off in Dallas. The TechMentor conference for IT professionals is happening at the Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, WA.SIGGRAPH 2022, a conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, starts today.
Keep updated with the latest tech news throughout your day by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief from the Insider newsroom. Listen here.
Curated by Jordan Parker Erb in New York. (Feedback or tips? Email jerb@insider.com or tweet @jordanparkererb.) Edited by Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London.