In today’s big story, a Business Insider reporter gives her unique perspective on navigating life as a startup founder’s wife.

• Markets: Inflation cooled in October, leading one market expert to label it a “gamechanger.”
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Long hours, stressful work, and layoffs are commonplace. And for your efforts, you’re more than likely to fail.

Still, tech entrepreneurs know what they’re signing up for. For most, it’s better to fail trying than to just be a cog in the wheel of a corporate giant.

But what about their significant others?

For many founders, there is a spouse or partner by their side. And while it’s not their dream, that doesn’t make navigating the heartache and turmoil any easier.

Business Insider’s Melia Russell knows those challenges all too well. In this fascinating essay, she details her life as a founder’s wife, watching from the sidelines as her husband’s company tries to stay afloat during an unprecedented time for startups.

Melia’s account of her relationship with Kyle and his startup is equal parts entertaining, heartwrenching, and informative. It also provides another perspective on the high-stress world of launching a company.

Imagine spending a good chunk of your workday researching and writing about all the things that can go wrong in an industry the person you love is endlessly pursuing. It’s like an emergency-room doctor marrying a stunt performer.

(To be sure, everything Melia writes isn’t doom and gloom.)

When I asked Melia about the piece, she said it was the hardest thing she’s ever written. But she found the process cathartic.

Working on the story forced her to have difficult but important conversations with Kyle, and address issues head-on she’s long fostered but rarely communicated.

That, in a nutshell, is one of the biggest takeaways Melia said she hopes other founders’ partners will get from the piece: communication is critical. And while that’s true of any relationship, it’s especially pertinent in the volatile startup ecosystem.

Bottling up those emotions to be a spouse’s “relentlessly positive cheerleader” can weigh on a person, Melia told me.

She also recommends finding people in similar situations. Being a founders’ partner is the type of thing that can only be understood by being a founders’ partner.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Melia told me she’s happy to chat. You can ping her here.

🔔 Before the opening bell: US stock futures rise early Wednesday, after the House of Representatives passed a bill to avoid a government shutdown

2. What to expect when you’re expecting… a bonus. We’re a few months away from bonus season, where finance employees find out how big — or little — the discretionary part of their compensation is. One expert predicts another tough year, with exceptions in areas like equity underwriting and wealth management. Here’s a breakdown by division of what to expect.

3. While Wall Street’s titans worry about a world war, the market shrugs. Big names like Ray Dalio and Jamie Dimon have warned about the state of the world following Hamas’ attack on Israel. But the market seems unbothered, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both up since the October 7 attacks.

With expert-built portfolios, automatic rebalancing, and tax-smart tools to name a few, Betterment’s the investing app that puts your money to work and helps put your mind at ease. So you can be the totally chill investor you’ve always wanted to be.

2. Google’s lawyer reportedly “visibly cringed” when a confidential metric was revealed in court. Apple and Google have both been fighting against revealing details of their search-engine agreement. But an expert witness accidentally leaked that Google hands over 36% of its Safari search ad revenue to Apple.

3. AI is going to force millions of workers to train for new jobs. The US has historically been terrible at this — just look at the loss of millions of US manufacturing jobs in the early 2000s. To avoid the same catastrophe, US companies need to make major retraining investments.

2. A Q&A with the chief product officer at Discovery Education. Pete Weir dishes on how they’re testing and using AI. Weir said that the tech isn’t meant to replace teachers — it’s meant to augment them.

3. Meet the typical HENRY. The typical profile of a high earner, not rich yet is a 32-year-old with a college degree, six-figure income, and no kids. They also live in a city but have $80,000 in student-loan debt to pay off.

• The House managed to pass a bill avoiding a government shutdown just days before funding runs out
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• There’s one word missing from the Supreme Court’s new code of conduct that makes the whole thing toothless.
• Here’s how Goldman Sachs is aiming to win more trades from its biggest institutional clients.
• The Dow Jones has seen a dreaded “death cross.” Here’s what it means.
• How to talk to your secretly “overemployed” friends.
• A definitive ranking of the new theme colors on the godawful Slack update.
• Whoopi Goldberg is criticized online for saying Gen Z and millennials can’t afford a house because they ‘only want to work four hours’ a day
• Jeff Bezos’ yacht reportedly cost $500 million and is the largest sailing yacht in the world. Here’s what we know about it.
• CHART OF THE DAY: Investors haven’t been this bullish on bonds since the depths of the Great Financial Crisis.

• The 16th annual Steve Irwin Day at the Australia Zoo is today. It celebrates the Crocodile Hunter’s life — he died in 2006 from a stingray attack.
• Microsoft Ignite, an annual developer and IT professional conference, kicks off today. CEO Satya Nadella is expected to give a keynote related to AI.
• Earnings today: Target, Cisco, and other companies.

Dan DeFrancesco, senior editor and anchor, in New York City. Diamond Naga Siu, senior reporter, in San Diego. Hallam Bullock, editor, in London. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York.

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