Business Insider
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February 15, 2026
This is a condensed version of Business Insider Today, a newsletter that gives you a look at the week’s top stories. Sign up here to get the full Business Insider Today in your inbox every day for the top stories in markets, tech, and business.
Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. For seven years, Andie Mercer was loyal to a boutique PR and communications firm, where she worked her way from intern to vice president. When she left, she said she had debt, no 401(k), and a restrictive non-compete clause. Mercer told BI she regrets it.
On the agenda today:
- One New Jersey deli, two university endowments, and the inside story of a $100 million fraud.
- What Zillow’s big win in the real estate listing wars means for homebuyers.
- Inside the internal outrage over Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s ICE joke.
- Amazon’s internal guidelines prevent its employees from using Claude Code. That’s an annoying predicament for the staff who have to sell it.
Scam on rye
If a company’s only asset is a deli with less than $36,000 in revenue, why does it have a market cap of $113 million? Hedge fund manager David Einhorn raised that question about Your Hometown Deli, a New Jersey operation owned by two former high school wrestling pals.
The answer — revealed in full after a two-year investigation and interviews with key players — is complicated. It involves two university endowments, stock manipulation, and other crimes in one of the most bizarre Wall Street capers in decades.
The ‘Zillow ban’ lives
Zillow just got an early victory in its ongoing legal battle with brokerage Compass. That’s great for Zillow, but it may be too little too late.
The triumph of the “Zillow ban” means it’s allowed to keep blacklisting certain homes from its site. That means homebuyers are still subject to a messy search process.
Benioff’s blunder
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s jokes about ICE at a recent companywide event outraged some employees. It even led some fellow executives to distance themselves from the comments.
The entire saga is also happening at a critical juncture for Salesforce. The company’s stock has dropped more than 40% over the past year as AI threatens its business model.
More on the internal outrage at Salesforce.
Amazon’s Claude Code disconnect
The e-commerce giant is one of Anthropic’s largest investors, tasked with selling its AI models and products, like Claude Code. However, Amazon employees aren’t allowed to use Claude Code for production code or live products without formal approval.
Last fall, Amazon rolled out internal guidance steering teams toward using Kiro, its in-house coding assistant, according to internal messages from that period viewed by BI. The policy has prompted employee criticism across internal Amazon forums, and puts the engineers who have to sell Claude Code in an especially awkward predicament.
Friend, foe, or somewhere in between?
More of this week’s top reads:
- Exclusive: Creator-economy unicorn LTK lays off staff as it doubles down on its new marketing platform for brands.
- Troops are mocking Air Force gate guards over a new rule: “You sound like a Walmart greeter.”
- The Epstein files reveal plans to remake his private islands, with a “ladies’ residence,” “funhouse,” and master retreat.
- Exclusive: Google offers buyouts to staff in its business unit who aren’t “all in.”
- Meet Molly O’Shea, the VC-turned-podcaster who gets execs like Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey talking.
- Exclusive: Death isn’t the end: Meta patented an AI that lets you keep posting from beyond the grave.
- Gary Marcus calls out viral AI essay as alarmist “hype.”
- Here’s what smart people are saying about China’s push to cut holdings of US Treasury debt.
- Get the side of guac: Goldman Sachs ups its late-night dinner budget for bankers to $35.
- If you assumed your AI chats couldn’t be used against you in court, think again.
Curated by Jamie Heller and edited by Lisa Ryan, Akin Oyedele, Grace Lett, and Amanda Yen.
This is a shorter version of our flagship newsletter, which brings you in-depth analysis and summaries of the top stories from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.
