Matt Onofrio quickly made millions as a real-estate influencer. Then he was indicted for bank fraud.
Will Varner/Insider
Hi, I'm Matt Turner, the editor in chief of business at Insider. Welcome back to Insider Today's Sunday edition, a roundup of some of our top stories.
On the agenda today:
- Matt Onofrio made millions helping people invest in real estate. Was it all a scam?
- Meet the average American millennial, who's a parent with a net worth of $128,000.
- Welcome to a choppy new world on Wall Street.
- How online college courses saddle students with mediocre classes and massive debt.
But first: It's becoming clear that AI will hit the mediocre middle of office workers.
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AI's impact on the middle
Macall B. Polay/HBO
"Mediocrity will be automated."
That was the verdict a top tech executive shared with me recently, describing the impact he predicted AI would have on the workforce. And while the phrasing might seem a bit harsh, there's growing evidence that he might be on to something.
More specifically, AI could disproportionately impact the middle class of white-collar workers — the folks who are mid-career, mid-ability, midlevel, and yes, in some cases, mediocre.
Academic research has found that AI tools disproportionately benefit the least experienced workers, helping them close the gap with more experienced colleagues. And it's likely that AI tools will also help lower the barrier to entry for a whole host of more technical professions.
Both of those dynamics are good for those early in their careers or hoping to enter a technical field. But they're likely to be detrimental to the incumbents, who face fresh competition from more junior and less expensive colleagues.
AI's coming for the mediocre middle.
A real-estate con man for the influencer age?
Lance McMillan/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Matt Onofrio had no experience in real estate. Yet, in a few short years, he'd raked in $35 million helping everyday people invest in the industry.
Then he was indicted.
His pitch reached everyone from doctors in California to wannabe entrepreneurs in the Midwest, but his indictment and former clients say his multimillion-dollar empire was built on bank fraud and duping people.
The unfolding situation has the potential to cast Onofrio as a real-estate confidence man for the influencer age.
The average US millennial
Getty Images
Getting older comes with growing pains. While data shows the average American millennial is a parent, a homeowner, and has a net worth of $128,000, they still face hurdles.
Over the past decade — and longer for some — many millennials have encountered the high costs of housing and childcare, staggering student-loan debt, and the Great Recession's impact on the job market.
Welcome to "Millennial World," a project by Insider that explores the state of the generation around the globe.
Meet the average US millennial.
Also read:
- I moved from the US to Sweden after struggling with burnout. Now I have 6 weeks of paid vacation per year and rarely work overtime.
- We're a millennial couple in Singapore, where real-estate prices are skyrocketing. House hunting was surprisingly easy.
Wall Street's new normal
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Remember the stock market's good ol' days? Companies were talking about grand future plans, interest rates were at zero, and the US government was mailing checks everywhere. In that environment, any fool — or anyone on Wall Street — could buy almost any asset, sit back, and watch its value increase. Stocks didn't just go up, they soared.
Wall Street is hoping that — and investing like — we're going back to that era sometime soon. There's only one problem with this hopeful story: It's completely backward.
The reality is that our new inflation era is by no means over, Insider's Linette Lopez writes. Going forward, there will be pain in some pockets of the economy. The stock market will get choppy. And Wall Street's stock pickers may have to sweat a bit to make their clients happy. But that may not be a terrible thing — it's just the start of something new.
The 'new predators in higher education'
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Online college classes boomed during the pandemic, often made possible by online-program-management companies, or OPMs, which partner with schools and provide everything from technical support and software to, in some instances, a curriculum.
In exchange for expanding course availability and bringing in new students, OPMs receive a big chunk of the tuition revenue from the online programs. But while the OPM model may seem like an easy win for colleges, many students find themselves shouldering a huge debt load from a program that turned out to be a pale imitation of the in-person learning experience.
This week's quote:
"It's easy to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. If you present yourself the right way, how are most people supposed to know?"
- A real-estate investor who hosted Matt Onofrio on his podcast in April 2021
More of this week's top reads:
- AI is getting out of control, and it's creating a generational divide, Insider's Spriha Srivastava writes.
- OpenAI won't say what books were used to train ChatGPT. But some data experts have figured it out — and the list is kind of mind-blowing.
- New data shows which US cities are the most expensive for childcare.
- Tech workers are sick of the grind. Some are on the search for low-stress jobs.
- Nicole Miranda made $10,000 a month chatting with guys on dating apps. She said most men just wanted to feel like someone cared.
- Elizabeth Holmes reported to prison — and it'll be a drastic change of lifestyle.
- Disney's decision to scrap its $1 billion campus in Florida could leave many surrounding development projects scrambling.
Curated by Matt Turner. Edited by Hallam Bullock, Bob Bryan, and Hana R. Alberts. Get in touch: insidertoday@insider.com.