Staff at plants owned by General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis are going on strike over pay and benefits. In solidarity, I will also not be working for the next two days. See you on Monday.

The lowdown

• 🪧 Workers at the Big Three automakers go on strike after a deadline passes with no agreement.

• 🐭 Media mogul Byron Allen makes a $10 billion offer to buy Disney TV networks including ABC, National Geographic, and FX.

• 🇨🇳 China's economy shows signs of stabilizing after factory output and retail sales grew at a faster pace in August.

Featured story

Salesforce to hire 3,300 people after layoffs earlier this year

The revolving door at Salesforce HQ has had a lot of use lately.

During the pandemic, the customer relationship management software company was hiring like crazy. At the start of this year, it realized it might have overdone it a bit. Salesforce said it would cut its staff by 10%, affecting more than 7,000 employees. But now the flavor of the day is jobs, jobs, jobs. Salesforce is hiring another 3,300 people, according to Bloomberg.

It’s all about cutting expenses, boosting profit, and reviving revenue growth. CEO Marc Benioff doesn’t care that a lot of his new hires will have worked for Salesforce before. In fact, he’s encouraging people to come back. Attracting so-called “boomerang employees” is now a key metric and Salesforce is holding alumni events to coax back former employees.

What do investors think of all this? Shares are up 65% this year. Not too shabby.

The content we're consuming today

• Insider: 'Corporate goths' are wearing their fishnets and eyeliner to work — and they're not apologizing for expressing themselves

• Bloomberg: SoftBank left millions on the table to engineer a win for Masayoshi Son ($)

• FT: WhatsApp explores ads in chat app as Meta seeks revenue boost ($)

Off-balance sheet items

• Would you get up at 4.30am, take 100 pills, and bathe in LED light every day if it meant you could live forever? That’s what Bryan Johnson does, and he wants you to join him.

The bottom line