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July 20, 2023

Personality-driven business capsules you can only get here. Our weekly dispatch gets you ready for what people are thinking before they talk about it— the hitters you know and want to know across Wall Street, Washington, and Silicon Valley.

Linda Yaccarino says Twitter is preparing new safety features in bid to win back advertisers

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino is preparing to unveil new safety features in the coming weeks to address advertiser's concerns about hate speech, On The Money has learned – but her boss Elon Musk hasn't been making things easy.

The new features – Yaccarino's key focus since her surprise move to Twitter from NBCUniversal last month, according to sources – will give advertisers advanced controls to decide what kinds of content their ads appear next to, sources said.

The so-called "adjacency controls", which beef up Twitter's Brand Safety and Suitability Capabilities, also will enable advertisers to sift through an inventory of content and select what they find most suitable, according to the sources. These people add that none of the controls being introduced existed before Yaccarino joined, and that Twitter is hoping they'll be more effective than humans.

Nevertheless, some advertisers remain rattled as Musk – who bought Twitter for $44 billion in October – has failed to curb his notoriously unpredictable tweeting habits of late.

One Equity boss Dick Cashin faces legal battle with fired top deputy

One Equity Partners boss Dick Cashin is not only facing a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation – but also a lawsuit with an executive recently fired by the prominent buyout firm, On The Money has learned.

The WSJ was first to report that OEP — which used to serve as JPMorgan's private-equity arm — was being investigated by the SEC over "communications with investors about its past and future performance violated rules."

The report adds that OEP is in settlement discussions with the SEC and could be fined as much as $5 million. The probe has focused on whether the firm's president shared material non-public information with outside individuals — although there is no evidence of insider trading.

The probe has added to mounting tensions between OEP's president Cashin – a 70-year-old buyout baron who spun off the fund from JPMorgan in 2015 — and one of his former top deputies, sources told On The Money.

Retro 'a good long shot' bet to avoid fate of doomed social media apps

Your chances of creating a new, blockbuster social-media app may be slim, but the chances that your idea – whatever it might be – will raise cash from venture capital investors aren't necessarily bad.

Retro – a new app that's focuses on connecting users with their family and closest friends – has bagged an investment from Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital – as well as an obligatory signup from his supermodel wife, Karlie Kloss.

Kushner's record with social media is formidable. He famously turbocharged his career when he bought a major slug of Instagram right before it was scooped up by Facebook for $1 billion.

Nevertheless, some tech investors noted that Retro is also looking to avoid a graveyard of similar "close family and friends" apps that briefly gained popularity before quickly flaming out. Among them: BeReal, Locket, BestFriendsNetwork, BlueSky, Spill, Lemon8 and Plurk.

"To be fair these things are always long shots," one venture capitalist told On The Money. "BeReal was a good long shot that didn't work out. Retro seems like a good long shot as well."

Trans ex-Goldman Sachs exec Maeve DuVally feared having secret exposed: memoir

A longtime Goldman Sachs executive who transitioned to a woman while working at the Wall Street giant revealed that she lived in fear of having her secret exposed in an upcoming tell-all.

Maeve DuVally spent nearly two decades as the company's communications manager — most of them as Michael DuValley before she completed her transition in April 2019.

In her upcoming memoir "Maeve Rising: Coming Out Trans in Corporate America," the now 62-year-old DuVally revealed going to extraordinary lengths to conceal her transition in the months leading up to her announcement to colleagues.

"As I continued my transition, I'd go to two different bathrooms as I was leaving work — first on the 29th floor and then I went to the bathroom downstairs near the exit to finish changing," she told On The Money. "I was worried I'd run into someone I knew if I put on too much makeup on the floor I worked."

Know why they're on our radar? The names of the week to know.

Francesca Bellettini... Jean-Marc Duplaix... Jens Grede... Paula Hurd... Len Blavatnik... Greg Golub... Doug Leone... Ted Sarandos... Greta Gerwig... Shiran Holtzman-Erel... Oran Holtzman...

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