Fortune 500

Four #Global500 covers are better than one. Which one is your favorite? The corporations on our annual list of the world’s 500 largest companies posted near-flat, but still record-breaking aggregate revenues of $41 trillion in 2023. The top five include: 1. 🇺🇸 Walmart 2. 🇺🇸 Amazon 3. 🇨🇳 State Grid 4. 🇸🇦 Saudi Aramco 5. 🇨🇳 Sinopec 🔗 See the full #Global500 list: https://lnkd.in/e3e_pTZD

Volkswagen is struggling with a slow EV transition and falling consumer demand in Europe. bit.ly/47fcUkN Since last year, the carmaker has been on a €10 billion cost-cutting drive, which included a 20% reduction in “administrative personnel costs.” Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume blamed the plight of the German manufacturing industry, which has been fighting negative growth for the last couple of years. “The economic environment has become even tougher and new players are pushing into Europe,” Blume said in a statement on Monday. “Germany in particular as a manufacturing location is falling further behind in terms of competitiveness. Read more: bit.ly/47fcUkN

Volkswagen is struggling with a slow EV transition and falling consumer demand in Europe. bit.ly/47fcUkN Since last year, the carmaker has been on a €10 billion cost-cutting drive, which included a 20% reduction in “administrative personnel costs.” Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume blamed the plight of the German manufacturing industry, which has been fighting negative growth for the last couple of years. “The economic environment has become even tougher and new players are pushing into Europe,” Blume said in a statement on Monday. “Germany in particular as a manufacturing location is falling further behind in terms of competitiveness. Read more: bit.ly/47fcUkN

Goldman Sachs plans to dismiss a few hundred employees in coming weeks as part of the firm’s annual cull of low-performing staff. bit.ly/3X5QBJQ The fresh round of firings would bring total cuts in 2024 to about 3% to 4% of the bank’s workforce, with most of those reductions made earlier this year. That’s in line with the bank’s typical approach as it seeks to keep a lid on costs and make room to enlist new talent. The annual exercise was briefly suspended in the middle of the Covid pandemic and was near the lower end of its typical 1% to 5% range last year. Read more: bit.ly/3X5QBJQ

Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi became a business icon in her roughly 12 years leading the global behemoth. As one of the very few women of color to run a Fortune 500 company, Nooyi has offered her advice to others over the years who aim to rise through the ranks of corporate America. She’s shared that wisdom in multiple books and, in 2022, debuted a series of lessons on the platform MasterClass. In her class, Nooyi shared some of her most basic tips—like identifying your core competencies—and more advanced guidance, like pinpointing the mega-trends that will shape an industry for a decade or more. Read more here: bit.ly/4dJyUqp

X employees now know the day the company’s San Francisco headquarters will shut its doors for good. bit.ly/3Xntg7U In a brief note to staff on Thursday, the company formerly known as Twitter announced that its longtime office and global headquarters in San Francisco will close in two weeks, on Friday, Sept. 13. The portentous closing date adds a darkly ironic twist to the company’s San Francisco story. Twitter took over the building to much fanfare in 2012, garnering a controversial tax break from the city in the process. Read more: bit.ly/3Xntg7U

Brian Chesky, cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, has spent the past 17 years disrupting the lodging and temporary rental space. bit.ly/4g9zTSK But it wasn’t always easy to learn how to be a leader, he said at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference back in 2013. “The problem is that there’s no appreciation for learning how to be a CEO,” Chesky said. “Your employees have needs, and you need to deliver.” That’s why he assembled what he called a “CEO council,” something that he recommends to all founders who are actively running their own company. Read more: bit.ly/4g9zTSK

Warren Buffett turns 94 years old today, but says he has the diet of a six-year-old. “If I eat 2,700 calories a day, a quarter of that is Coca-Cola. I do it every day," he famously told Fortune in 2015. Fellow billionaire Bill Gates has seen the investor’s child-like eating habits up close. “He mostly eats hamburgers, ice cream, and Coke,” Gates wrote in a 2017 AMA Reddit post. So, how does “The Oracle of Omaha,” now just six years shy of 100, stay sharp and manage a vast empire while (over)indulging in junk food? The answer may lie in his other daily habits. Read more: bit.ly/3Z5XFZz

Volkswagen is stuck in a massive cost clearout as it seeks to calm investors amid fears of falling EV demand. bit.ly/3Z0BfsJ The German auto giant agreed last year to reduce its costs by €10 billion as fears mounted over a slowdown in EV uptake and new competition from cheap Chinese rivals. The German publication Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung reports that the automaker is offering lucrative packages to employees no longer needed as part of a push to reduce personnel costs. Between April and June, the group reportedly offered staffers a special bonus of €50,000 if they agreed to take severance. Alongside typical incentives, the publication says this saw some employees receive up to €450,000 if they departed the company. Read more: bit.ly/3Z0BfsJ

"You want to be doing something you would do if you didn't need the money." bit.ly/4e1JcSI Today, Warren Buffett celebrates his 94th birthday. In an interview at the 2015 Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO shared his #1 piece of advice for young job seekers. "I would rather do this than anything in the world," he said. Read more here: bit.ly/4e1JcSI