How to get ahead in 2020, the startups that will boom, and inside Goldman Sachs' first investor day

Hello!

This is Matt Turner, executive editor at Business Insider, back from parental leave and excited to be picking up from where my excellent colleagues left off with this weekly email.

It might already be February, but this past week was my first week of work in 2020. And so in that spirit, I wanted to start this email rounding up some stories that could help you get ahead in the year ahead.

For example, Amazon, which briefly hit a $1 trillion valuation last week, is known for its ruthless interviewing process. Lauren Johnson talked to insiders about how to get a job there.

Or would you rather work at Netflix? Ashley Rodriguez talked to its head of recruiting, former employees, and staffing experts to learn exactly what it takes to get hired in 2020.

If you're more interested in Wall Street than Silicon Valley, Bradley Saacks talked to the head of professional development at Steve Cohen's Point72 about how to climb from fresh college grad to portfolio manager at the $16 billion hedge fund firm,

And Rebecca Ungarino talked to six up-and-coming financial advisers at Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and Merrill Lynch who are managing big money and navigating a cutthroat industry.

If finance isn't your thing, perhaps you want to be a management consultant? Robin Madell put together a guide to getting a job at McKinsey, BCG, Bain, or Accenture, according to three headhunters for the top management consulting firms.

Or if you'd rather be a lawyer, Elizabeth Kiefer has this guide on how to get in to Harvard Law School, according to the chief admissions officer, two students, and two admissions consultants.

If all of that sounds far too corporate, Shoshy Ciment talked to a 19-year-old sneakerhead who says he made $350,000 in sales last year. He shared the budget spreadsheet he uses to maximize his profits at big events like Sneaker Con.

And once you're done working, you might want to retire to somewhere in Europe. Taylor Borden talked to a Utah couple who moved to Portugal in retirement in 2012, and got her hands on a breakdown of how they live on a $2,330 monthly budget.

The recurring theme here of course is that these stories are designed to help you deliver on your dreams. I'd love to hear from you: What else should we be writing about in that vein?

Speaking of big dreams, Julie Bort this week published her annual list of the 72 startups that will boom in 2020, according to VCs.

As Julie explains her story, every year she asks VCs to name two startups: one that they or their firm invested in, and one where they have no financial ties or any other interest, but believe will do well. The result is a list of startups to watch in 2020 from the people who make their livings watching startups.

Elsewhere in the startup space, Yeji Jesse Lee and Jeremy Berke profiled the top 14 venture-capital firms making deals in the cannabis industry, and where they're looking to place their next bets. Benji Jones highlighted the top 21 clean-tech startups to watch that are set to transform the energy industry.

And lastly, Callum Burroughs in London asked nine of the most prominent VC investors in European tech to pick out fintech startups they think will blow up in 2020. Here are the 15 they chose.

That's it for this week. As always, I'd love to hear from you. What would you like to see more of? Let me know.

-- Matt

Finance and Investing

When David Solomon stepped onto the stage at Goldman Sachs' 200 West St. headquarters in New York on Wednesday wearing a dark suit and a silver tie, he looked out at a roomful of expectant analysts, investors, and journalists.

Famed economist David Rosenberg explains why he puts the odds of a recession at 80%. He says the Fed is squarely to blame.

When the Canadian economist David Rosenberg described the odds of the next US recession, a French expression came to mind: "les jeux sont faits."

Tech, Telecoms, and Media

Oyo, the 'jewel' in SoftBank's startup portfolio, just announced more layoffs in the US weeks after cutting thousands of jobs in India and China

Oyo, the Indian budget-hotel startup backed by SoftBank, is laying off a significant number of its sales and support staff in the US, two sources directly familiar with the cuts told Business Insider.

Leaked pitch deck shows how WarnerMedia plans to become the dominant media company by spending on HBO Max and adtech division Xandr

AT&T has made no secret of its desire to lead the increasingly fractured media landscape through its newly acquired WarnerMedia entertainment properties and Xandr adtech division.

Meet the 16 rising stars inside top PR agencies, who know everyone, have great reputations, and can spin anything

PR seems to be more important - and complex - than ever.

Healthcare, Retail, and Transportation

Meet Wheel, the company quietly powering the doctors behind the companies who want to ship prescriptions like Viagra and birth control straight to your door

The way people are going to the doctor is increasingly going online.

Leaked McDonald's marketing bible reveals how seriously the fast-food giant takes its reputation and why you'll never see Ronald in a nightclub

McDonald's takes Ronald McDonald very seriously.

SpaceX hopes to launch 15 million rocket flights a year with a business that could upend commercial aviation

SpaceX is pushing to launch about two dozen missions into space this year. That would break its record of 21 launches in 2018.

Leadership and Entrepreneurship

A retired Navy SEAL commander of one of America's most decorated special ops teams reveals how to have difficult conversations for getting underperforming teams back on track

It would be easy to mistake Jocko Willink as the type of executive coach who would bark orders as if he were in the battlefield, and tear down underperforming employees without mercy.

The 27-year-old cofounder of Museum of Ice Cream turned a viral trend into a $200 million experience-first company. Here's how, and why she's not afraid of copycats.

Museum of Ice Cream - which, according to its website, provides "fun, multi-sensorial expressions of ice cream that cater to the appetites of our generation" - has in total welcomed more than 1.5 million guests to date across all of its locations from Los Angeles to New York.