BI Today: Understanding retirees' regrets

• This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
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Hi! I'm Jamie Heller, Business Insider's Editor in Chief and the new host of the Sunday edition. I joined BI in September from The Wall Street Journal, where I was an editor for more than twenty years. I've been so impressed with the BI staff as I've watched this team in action.

In addition to highlighting some of our top stories from the past week, I'll use this space to share with you more about who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

On the agenda today:

• The big takeaways from Justin Baldoni's libel suit against The New York Times.
• Americans love the economy again, but the economy has nothing to do with it.
• Dmitry Balyasny tells BI why he overhauled the hedge fund's equities team.
• It's 2025. These are the new rules for job searching.

But first: Sometimes you wish you could say something to your younger self.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here. Download Business Insider's app here.

Retirement regrets

In my first month at Business Insider, I found myself riveted by a piece we did on people's regrets in retirement. Our reporter had posted a reader survey that drew over 1,000 responses. Their regrets spanned myriad categories — investments, tactics with Social Security withdrawals, career moves, and more.

That October article featured personal details about readers' setbacks as well as data that provided context for what these individuals were experiencing.

After that article, readers kept responding to our survey. And our economy team kept reporting.

The reporter on that first story, Noah Sheidlower, teamed with colleague Allie Kelly to mine these reader surveys to write more stories on people's retirement regrets — common career regrets, parenting regrets, regrets navigating a medical diagnosis or a spouse's death. The more these two reporters wrote, the more readers wrote in.

Ultimately, we heard from more than 4,000 BI readers.

Along the way, our econ squad reached out to our crackerjack video team to pitch a video. The result, published on New Year's Eve, is a sad and also hopeful story of six people discussing their best decisions alongside their dashed dreams. They shared what they would tell their younger selves.

Most rewarding for Noah about this project? How many people the series touched. "We continue to get really nice and fascinating emails from people," he said. Says Allie: "People are recognizing that they are not alone."

In the end, BI produced 17 articles covering the topic from various angles, and the video. But it's not really the end. As this new year begins, we want to hear from readers about how Trump administration policies affect their financial lives, from careers and investments to taxes and healthcare to everyday expenses.

You can email Noah and Allie. And please let me know what you'd like us to report more about, less about — I'd love to hear it all!

It's an important year, and we intend to be there for you.

Breaking down Justin Baldoni's NYT suit

The "It Ends With Us" star recently sued The New York Times over its coverage on costar Blake Lively's sexual-harassment claims, saying the paper relied "almost entirely" on Lively's narrative.

The libel suit, reviewed by BI, said Baldoni and his fellow plaintiffs — including publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel, and producers Jamey Heath and Steve Sarowitz — suffered damages that amounted to at least $250 million. A spokesperson for The Times defended the story saying it was "meticulously and responsibly reported."

Here are the five biggest takeaways.

Why Americans' economic outlook is warped

There's been a recent shift in how Americans feel about the economy, even though the economy itself hasn't changed much. Turns out, people's economic gloom was fueled by something far thornier than inflation: political feelings.

Americans aren't just responding to the election's outcome, said Jennifer Hsu, the director of consumer surveys at the University of Michigan. It's more about the policies people believe are on the horizon.

The vibecession wasn't fake, after all.

A Balyasny rebuild

When Balyasny's equities team started to drag down the hedge fund's performance in 2023, its founder decided on a course correction.

"People were trading too much and not investing enough," Dmitry Balyasny told BI. The manager now wants its equities teams to focus on deep research, not short-term trading. That means a refocus on ideas, research, and longer timelines, not trying to make money on every market twitch.

And the revamp paid off.

Also read:

• Here are the 10 hedge funds to watch in 2025

New year, new job search playbook

Looking for work has gotten weird. Like, really weird. As if a white-collar recession wasn't bad enough, applying for a job now includes oversimplified tech and too many candidates for too few jobs.

To help navigate this unprecedented job market, BI's Aki Ito spoke to two dozen experts in fields including HR, hiring, career coaching, and résumé writing. Their advice offers a concrete guide for navigating the chaos of today's job market.

Rules for job searching.

This week's quote:

"You've got to give the people with whom you're contending your understanding — not your agreement but your understanding."

— Former President Jimmy Carter describing the need to respect people you're negotiating with during a 1998 interview. More lessons on leadership, mistakes, and success from Carter.

More of this week's top reads:

• A palm oil company, a group of US financiers, and the destruction of Peru's rainforest.
• A cybersecurity executive was pardoned by Donald Trump. His crime was a mystery.
• Millennials are celebrated for their pared-back living. Turns out it was all a lie.
• Big Tech's AI bets are driving a nuclear renaissance. Not everyone is buying the hype.
• Millions of workers in 21 states are set to get a raise at the start of 2025.
• Elon Musk is clashing with Trump's base over skilled immigration. Here's what economics gurus are saying.

• 2024 was a rough year for celebrity production companies and their private-equity backers.

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  The BI Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, associate editor, in New York. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.