Real-estate reckoning

• They paid up to $8 million for a never-ending cruise. Investors and ex-employees say they’re never going to get it.
• The future of the real-estate industry after a “watershed moment” tied to agent commissions.
• Startup founders are paying $10,000 to attend this California loneliness retreat.
• Meet Goldman Sachs’ newest managing directors.

Amazon has signed up for just over 1.5 million license seats for Microsoft 365, the tech giant’s cloud-based productivity suite. More than 500,000 of those seats will be a higher tier of Microsoft 365 for corporate workers, with 1 million seats for frontline staff.

The five-year deal marks a reset in Amazon and Microsoft’s crosstown rivalry. Amazon Web Services, which remains the dominant cloud provider, competes fiercely with Microsoft Azure and had previously stayed off of Microsoft’s cloud.

And it’s a big win for Microsoft. When Insider first reported details of the deal, Microsoft’s stock popped. Since then, Microsoft has reported strong growth for Azure, with cloud-services sales up 29% year on year, versus a 12% gain at AWS.

Storylines’ first residential cruise ship was initially scheduled to launch in 2019. It promised to travel to six continents over 1,000 days and lengthen residents’ lives through an “antiaging global lifestyle.”

However, the launch has been pushed back to 2026. Nine former employees, consultants, and investors described their time at Storylines as a roller coaster of lofty goals and unfulfilled promises — with some doubting the ship would ever be built.

Read the full story

Also read:

• I spent a night on a new $560 million luxury cruise ship and now I think Explora could dominate the upscale cruise market

A jury determined the National Association of Realtors and brokerages were using the rules of the multiple-listings services, where the vast majority of homes are advertised for sale, to inflate agent commissions paid by sellers. The ruling meant roughly $1.8 billion was awarded to the plaintiffs.

Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, called it “the biggest watershed moment” for real estate in his 30 years covering the industry.

“For nearly a century, the industry has been able to maintain high and uniform commission rates,” Brobeck told Insider. “This decision indicates that it’s going to be much more difficult for them to do that in the future.”

More on the future of the real-estate industry.

Leaders in Tech, the brainchild of the executive coach Carole Robin, is an invite-only retreat meant to help execs open up and cope with the isolation of leading a prominent tech company.

“They don’t have anybody they can be real with,” Robin told Insider, “so they’re always having to spin their image, and spin what they say, and spin how they’re seen.”

Go inside the retreat here.

Money talks among the latest crop of inductees, as 76% came from revenue-generating divisions. Nearly half the class (47%) came out of Goldman’s global banking and markets division, which includes investment banking and trading.

Check out all the names of the newest MDs here.

Also read:

• What it takes to become an MD on Wall Street, and why this year might be fiercer than ever

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The Insider Today Sunday team

Matt Turner, editor in chief of business, in New York City. Dan DeFrancesco, senior editor, in New York City. Diamond Naga Siu, senior reporter, in San Diego. Grace Lett, associate editor, in Chicago. Hallam Bullock, editor, in London. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York City.

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