The 'Great Resignation' may be here to stay

Hi, I'm Matt Turner, the editor in chief of business at Insider. Welcome back to Insider Weekly, a roundup of some of our top stories.

On the agenda today:

• It's not just a phase — the "Great Resignation" may never end.
• Insiders say Google Cloud is becoming a stodgy "SAP 2.0" under Thomas Kurian.
• Growth hedge funds had a disastrous April.
• Y Combinator's head of admissions shares how to nail an application for the accelerator.

Before we get to this week's stories: It's been a big week for Insider. We won our first Pulitzer Prize, for a powerful illustrated report "How I escaped a Chinese internment camp." Walt Hickey, a senior data editor at Insider, gives us an inside look at the award-winning work.

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Behind the scenes of Insider's Pulitzer Prize

I'm Walt, the editor on this project. This has been years in the making, as the team and I have tried to use comics to report stories for a number of years, including the matters that led to Donald Trump's first impeachment, the turmoil in the royal family, and the failed federal response to the pandemic.

Each of these stories were strongest when they used comics to explore places cameras couldn't go. We were all aware of the situation in Xinjiang, but the visuals escaped us. You just can't get a camera into a detention facility.

So we found Zumrat Dawut and listened to her story. While we weren't the first to hear it, we were the first to build a visual narrative that put readers in her perspective. Thanks to original photos and videos, as well as hours of detailed interviews, we were able to get things right. It's a harrowing read, but a necessary one, and I hope you check it out.

I watched the Pulitzer announcement at Insider HQ in New York. I was completely shocked (there's a video going around of it). The best part for me is the attention to the story. I'm so grateful for all the people reading it. Zumrat got in touch, and she's so pleased that more people are seeing what she endured. I've mostly tried to do good, experimental, and cool work with these comics, and to me the victory was being able to make something like this. It's an incredible honor, and I'm grateful to Insider for taking risks and investing in this kind of work.

You can see the full comic here.

Brace yourself for the 'Forever Resignation'

We're a year into the Great Resignation, and positions are still going unfilled, projects are delayed, and recruiting costs and salaries have gone through the roof. Executives across corporate America are staring at their sky-high attrition rates and asking: "When in the world is this going to end?"

But a new study from the research firm Gartner shows that employers may have to brace themselves for a new reality — that the Great Resignation is here to stay.

Read the full story here:

• 'You're going to have more shocks': Get ready for the Forever Resignation

Also read:

• It's time to get rid of managers. All of them.

Inside Thomas Kurian's Google Cloud

Three years ago, Thomas Kurian was hired to make Google Cloud a promising revenue source for Alphabet. So far, it's worked: Last quarter, the unit's revenue grew 44%, to $5.8 billion. But insiders say that success has come with a price.

More than 20 current and former Google Cloud employees say Kurian's leadership has transformed the unit into a straitlaced and "cutthroat" organization, with "no resemblance to what Google has ever been."

Read the full story here:

• Inside Thomas Kurian's 3-year reign at Google Cloud, where employees say growth has come at the cost of making it into a stodgy, cutthroat 'SAP 2.0'

Growth hedge funds' no good, very bad month

Hedge-fund managers focused on growth stocks had a disastrous April: Tiger Global lost billions, and Melvin Capital frustrated investors with a potential reorganization.

And at the end of a frustrating month, Dan Sundheim, D1's founder, uncharacteristically took to Twitter to air his frustrations over Amazon — one of his biggest investments — as his $25 billion fund was hit with losses.

Read the full story here:

• Billions lost, pissed investors, and uncharacteristic tweets: A look at a horrible month for growth hedge funds

How to craft a successful Y Combinator application

Stephanie Simon, Y Combinator's head of admissions, is charged with sifting through thousands of applications for the accelerator's exclusive program — of which about 1% to 2% make the final cut.

Simon sat down with Insider to share the traits that stick out to the admissions team (and the few qualities that could completely disqualify a startup).

Read the full story here:

• Y Combinator's head of admissions reviews over 20,000 startups for its accelerator a year. Here's what she looks for in a successful application.

This week's quote:

"Are all entrepreneurs mentally ill? Hell no. Are some? Definitely. Of course. So are a lot of people. So let's stop stigmatizing it — everywhere, but especially in the business world, where it remains anachronistically verboten for reasons that feel hopelessly outdated."

• Andy Dunn, a Bonobos cofounder, in an essay adapted from his book.

More of this week's top reads:

• Meet Elon Musk's right-hand man, a buttoned-up Mormon whose loyalty has few limits.
• People are ditching big cities like New York to live in these seven towns.
• New studies show that the nicer the car, the worse the driver.
• We broke down how Thrasio went from "hypergrowth" to layoffs in less than two years.
• Shopify appears to be on the losing end of the talent wars.
• Amazon is building an advertising behemoth — and it's coming for Facebook.
• Microsoft is considering widespread pay raises, sources say.

Plus: Keep updated with the latest business news throughout your weekdays by checking out The Refresh from Insider, a dynamic audio news brief from the Insider newsroom. Listen here tomorrow.

Curated by Matt Turner. Edited by Jordan Parker Erb, Hallam Bullock, and Lisa Ryan. Sign up for more Insider newsletters here.