Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google were the four leading global brands at the end of 2023, according to consulting firm Interbrand. They’re are also four of the world’s five most valuable companies.

The other is Nvidia, which for a time this week, surpassed Microsoft to become the largest company in the world by market cap.

But despite its $3.1 trillion valuation (it reached $3.3 trillion before a two-day slide), Nvidia doesn’t even crack the top 100 most iconic names on Interbrand’s most recent list, which is populated by such companies as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Disney and Netflix.

Nvidia’s historic rise in valuation — the stock has climbed almost ninefold since the end of 2022 — has been driven almost entirely by demand for its graphics processing units (GPUs) that are at the heart of the boom in generative artificial intelligence and, more broadly, by the hype over AI. Nvidia has over 80% of the market for chips used to train and deploy AI software like ChatGPT. A handful of huge tech companies are the primary buyers of its chips.

The speed of Nvidia’s ascent and its relative lack of contact with consumers along the way combines to put the 31-year-old company’s brand recognition on Main Street far behind its allure on Wall Street. No. 100 on Interbrand’s list for 2023 is Japanese camera maker Canon, with Dutch brewer Heineken at No. 99.

“As a product company recently moving onto a global stage, Nvidia has not had time, nor has it dedicated resources, to change its role of brand and strengthen its brand to protect future revenue,” Greg Silverman, Interbrand’s global director of brand economics, said in an email. The risk for Nvidia, Silverman added, is that its “weak brand strength will limit how valuable it will be, despite its market cap heights.”

A spokesperson for Nvidia declined to comment.

Nvidia’s annual revenue growth has exceeded 200% in each of the past three quarters. For fiscal 2025, revenue is expected to almost double from a year earlier to over $120 billion, according to LSEG.

The company’s data center GPUs, which made up 85% of sales in the most recent quarter, are installed in massive facilities, and typically require a team of expensive data science and supercomputing experts to configure them to efficiently create AI software.

By contrast, Apple, ranked No. 1 by Interbrand, makes the vast majority of its money by selling iPhones and other devices to consumers across the globe. Microsoft, ranked second, is an enterprise sales giant, but is ubiquitously known for its Windows and Office software. Third-ranked Amazon strives to be consumers’ everything store, and No. 4 Google is, for many people, the front door to the internet.

Rounding out Interbrand’s top 10 are South Korean electronics giant Samsung, along with three car companies (Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and BMW), Coca-Cola and Nike.

Further down the list, at No. 24, is Nvidia rival Intel, which is best known for making the processor at the heart of laptops and PCs and for its long-running “Intel Inside” advertising campaign. Even Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a company that builds servers, made the list at No. 91.

However, a competing survey shows that Nvidia’s brand value is catching up to that of its peers.

In a ranking of the 100 most valuable global brands published this month by Kantar BrandZ, Nvidia landed at No. 6, leaping 18 places from its prior survey. The brand’s overall valued jumped 178% in a year to an estimate of about $202 billion. Kantar surveys enterprise buyers to evaluate brands that primarily sell to other businesses to come up with a total estimate of brand value.

“Nvidia is pound for pound as relevant and meaningful to that B2B buyer that’s looking to make big, large purchases in-house for their company as Apple is to the consumer who’s buying an iPad or a Mac,” Marc Glovsky, senior brand strategist at Kantar, told CNBC.

And while Nvidia may not be a name known to your parents — or your kids — it does have resonance in a particular corner of the consumer world. Just ask your hard-core gaming buddy.

When Nvidia was founded in 1991, AI was a nascent field. The company’s primary focus was on designing chips that could draw digital triangles quickly, a basic capability that led to a huge expansion in 3D games.

For years, Nvidia, and its GeForce brand and green logo were well known to the type of people who tweaked their computers to run the most advanced games. Nvidia provides the chips for the Nintendo Switch console, which has shipped over 140 million units around the world.

Unlike Intel, Nvidia never put its name in front of consumers with flashy ad campaigns. And gaming is now just a nice side business for chipmaker. In the latest quarter, it accounted for $2.6 billion of revenue, or 10% of total sales, rising 18% year over year.

When it comes to Nvidia’s most important products, companies and institutions vying for its AI chips have to go through an extensive quoting and sales process, often through a computer-equipment company, like Dell or HPE. Those vendors sell complete systems, including memory, a central processor and other parts. Even experts who want to train AI models are more likely to rent Nvidia access through a cloud provider than build their own server clusters.

Still, Nvidia’s name recognition is rapidly increasing. Among retail investors, Nvidia has emerged as the most widely held stock, according to data collected and published last month by Vanda Research.

And while the name didn’t make Interbrand’s top 100 list for 2023, the firm’s data shows its brand awareness quadrupled in the past 12 months, which will help when it’s time for the next ranking, Silverman said.

Maybe by then people will know how to say its name, a topic that’d been the source of debate on obscure gaming forums. The company pronounces it en-VID-ia.

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Starbucks fired Alexis Rizzo, the employee responsible for igniting the Starbucks Workers United campaign, just days after the company’s former CEO Howard Schultz testified at Capitol Hill about the coffee chain’s alleged union busting.

Rizzo worked as a shift supervisor at Starbucks for seven years and served as a union leader at the Genesee St. store. in Buffalo, New York, which was one of the first two stores in the country to win the union campaign.

Starbucks Workers United announced Rizzo’s termination in a tweet on Saturday and said on the corresponding GoFundMe page that “this is revenge at its worst.”

“I am absolutely devastated. It wasn’t just a job for me. It was like my family,” Rizzo said in an interview with CNBC. “It was like losing everything. I’ve been there since I was 17. It’s like my whole support system, and I think they knew that.”

Rizzo said her store managers fired her after she finished her shift on Friday. She said she was told she was late four times – two of which were instances where she was a minute late.

Starbucks told CNBC that Rizzo missed more than four hours of work over the course of these cases and that she was repeatedly issued tardiness notices.

Starbucks spokeswoman Rachel Wall said the separation at the company was only after clear policy violations. In this case, she said there were multiple attendance violations that affected other baristas at that store location.

“We appreciate that our partners at Genesee St. provided the Starbucks experience to each other and to our customers this morning, and that area stores continue to serve customers without interruption this weekend,” she said in a statement to CNBC.

Rizzo said she suspects she was let go as a result of Wednesday’s Senate hearing.

Schultz faced a barrage of tough questions from Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday about Starbucks’ labor and union practices. Sanders, an independent union representing Vermont, has been pressuring Starbucks for more than a year to recognize the union and negotiate contracts with unionized coffee shops.

Sanders chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which held the panel.

During the hearing, Sanders said Starbucks had engaged in “the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in our country’s modern history.” He also accused the company of being late on collective bargaining agreements, betting that workers would quit and leave the coffee chain.

Schultz defended Starbucks’ approach to its negotiations, maintaining that dealing directly with workers was best for the company. He has also repeatedly denied the company ever violated federal labor law and said his focus during his time as interim CEO was 99 percent on operations, not on fighting the union.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two days after Howard Schultz hurt his ego the way he did, he started lashing out at Buffalo,” Rizzo said. She added that two other employees were also fired on Friday.

Nearly 300 Starbucks coffee shops have voted to unionize under Starbucks Workers United, according to data from the National Labor Relations Board. In total, the union has filed more than 500 unfair labor practice complaints related to Starbucks with the federal labor board. Starbucks has filed about 100 complaints of its own against the union. Judges found the company violated federal labor law 130 times.

None of the merged stores has yet signed a deal with Starbucks.

Rizzo said he is still “in shock” over the firing, but that he plans to fight for his position.

“We’re going to keep fighting to make things right,” she said. “I will fight to get my job back and be reinstated.”

— CNBC’s Amelia Lucas contributed to this report.

Starbucks raised its long-term financial forecast on Tuesday after outlining a series of changes coming to the coffee shops as part of a reimagining plan.

The Seattle-based company forecasts earnings per share growth of 15% to 20% annually over the next three years, up from its previous long-term outlook given at the end of 2020. Global and U.S. same-store sales are expected to grow 7 % to 9% per annum.

Shares of Starbucks rose more than 2% in extended trading.

Earlier on Tuesday, the company outlined plans to expand its loyalty program and speed up operations at its cafes, in part with new coffee-making equipment and automation. The changes are meant to respond to how Starbucks’ business has transformed in recent years. Its menu has expanded and cold coffee drinks, which often include additives, now account for 60% of orders throughout the year. Instead of going to the counter, more customers go through the drive-thru or use its mobile app.

Despite record demand in the U.S. and abroad, outgoing CEO Howard Schultz said the company was making “self-inflicted mistakes” and lost its way.

As it executes its reinvention strategy, Starbucks said it also plans to build about 2,000 new stores in the U.S. between fiscal 2023 and 2025, accelerating its growth strategy. By the end of fiscal 2025, it plans to have 45,000 locations worldwide.

Starbucks will also begin buying back shares at the start of the next fiscal year, which begins in October. Schultz suspended the buyback program in April, instead using those funds to invest back into the business.

The company’s previous long-term forecast called for adjusted earnings per share growth of 10% to 12%, revenue growth of 8% to 10% and global same-store sales growth of 4% to 5% for 2023 and 2024. In May, Starbucks suspended its forecast for fiscal 2022, citing a lockdown in China, investment in its U.S. employees and high inflation.

In its 2023 fiscal year, Starbucks plans to invest about $450 million to upgrade its coffee shops with new equipment that will simplify operations and speed up service.

“Our brick-and-mortar stores were built for a different era, and we need to modernize to meet that moment,” outgoing COO John Culver told investors.

With its new cold beverage system, for example, baristas will no longer have to scoop ice, pour milk from a gallon jug, or bend over for whipped cream when making drinks. The new system uses dispensers and cuts the time to create a Mocha Frappuccino from 86 seconds to 35 seconds. It has been tested in a store and a second test is planned for January after improvements are made based on feedback.

Starbucks also streamlined its process for making iced coffee, which is now worth $1.2 billion in business for the company. The current process requires more than 20 hours of brewing, with more than 20 steps. The new process automatically grinds and presses the coffee beans and reduces waste by 15%.

And instead of baristas making hot coffee every half hour, a machine will be launched next year that grinds and brews a cup in 30 seconds. Although cold drinks are taking over, the company sees 15 million customers each month ordering brewed coffee.

Food preparation is also changing. Items like pre-made Starbucks sandwiches and egg nogs will now be made in batches and placed in packages that retain moisture.

Automated ordering will also roll out to U.S. stores in the next few years, according to Culver. The company said the move to automation aims to give employees more time to interact with customers and free them from the more mundane parts of the job.

A quarter of Starbucks’ transactions now come from mobile app ordering, driven by the company’s loyalty program. The U.S. version of Starbucks Rewards has 27.4 million active members as of July 3, and they account for more than half of the company’s orders.

To continue growing its loyal customer base, Starbucks has expanded its loyalty program technology to licensed coffee shops that include airport locations and retailers such as Barnes & Noble. Roughly 20 percent of its roughly 7,000 licensed stores in the U.S. already use the technology.

In addition, Starbucks will link its rewards program to external loyalty programs, such as those for airlines and retailers. Users will be able to earn “stars” by shopping elsewhere or converting their reward points into airline miles.

Chief Marketing Officer Brady Brewer said the company will announce the first US-based partnership in October.

This fall also marks the start date for incoming CEO Laxman Narasimhan. He will join the company in October and learn more about its operations before officially taking over from Schultz in April.

Narasimhan made a brief surprise appearance during the investor day, talking about his upbringing, his love of writing poetry and what drew him to Starbucks. He told investors he uses the name “Laks” when ordering coffee from Starbucks to avoid spelling mistakes.

Changes in customers’ ordering habits have led to additional stress for employees. Turnover rates peaked in 2021, according to Frank Britt, chief strategy and transformation officer at Starbucks.

Over the past year, Starbucks baristas have unionized and expressed displeasure over employee pay, understaffed stores and other working conditions. More than 230 company-owned Starbucks locations in the U.S. have voted to unionize since Monday, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

Starbucks tried to limit union pressure by offering better wages and benefits to non-union workers. Those improvements have also helped turnover over the past five months, Britt said.

As the company met with employees to craft its new strategy, Britt said he was looking to adjust the barista experience through the lens of product management.

“You assess user needs, you segment user needs, you do a test and learn program to find out which of the things you think might work,” he told CNBC.

Starbucks Chief Technology Officer Deb Hall Lefebvre said the company is working on an app for baristas that will allow them to manage their schedules and pay, as well as encourage two-way communication with the company and help with career growth.

The upcoming changes for American baristas are just the “first phase” of a multi-year plan, according to Britt. The company is also looking to improve the barista experience overseas and for the employees who harvest its coffee beans, work in the supply chain and provide customer support.

DETROIT – The United Auto Workers union accuses General Motors’ new joint venture of denying workers access to a preliminary organizational vote.

UAW Vice President Terry Dietz, in a letter to union leaders on Tuesday from CNBC, said leaders of the GM-LG joint venture called Ultium Cells had “flatly rejected” the union’s proposal for a “verification agreement”. cards “organize.

Dites said the agreement would allow union employees to enter the Ohio joint venture’s battery plant to collect organization cards as one of the first steps in establishing UAW representation at the facility.

“This process has been accepted by many employers for the smooth and peaceful recognition of the UAW,” the Dittes letter said. “Ultium categorically rejected these simple basic features of card check recognition that we have proposed.”

UAW did not respond immediately to comment. GM asked a spokesman for Ultium, who confirmed that the company had talked to the UAW about the process, but no agreement had been reached.

“UAW has expressed interest in being part of Ultium Cells’ workforce and we have had initial discussions about a neutrality agreement that could allow a card verification process at our facility in Warren, Ohio,” Ultium spokesman Brooke Wade said in a statement. “We are and have always been in support of the process that allows our people to determine their own status of representation, which is a matter of personal choice.”

The controversy comes amid broader efforts to organize unions across the country as workers from large corporations such as Starbucks and Amazon seek to establish representation.

GM leaders said at the plant’s announcement in 2019 that any organization at the company’s joint venture would depend on workers voting. GM CEO Mary Barra said the positions are expected to pay lower than the highest wages in the carmaker’s plants, but will be “very well paid jobs”.

Ultium Cells announced three facilities in the United States, although none have started. The $ 2.3 billion Lordstown plant is expected to begin production in August. It is expected to create 1,100 jobs in Northeast Ohio. GM closed its nearby assembly plant in Lordstown in 2019, eliminating 1,700 jobs per hour represented by the UAW.

Dites said in a letter to members that the union had begun organizing the facility, but further details “could not be disclosed or made public”.

“We will represent the employees there and at all future Ultium sites that are currently under construction,” Dites said. “We will not be delayed in organizing workers who want to join our union!”

Rechargeable battery facilities for joint ventures are seen as crucial for the union to grow and add members, with carmakers such as GM switching to electric vehicles. The union’s organizational efforts come ahead of the decisive election this summer, as well as next year’s collective bargaining talks with GM, Ford Motor and Stellantis.

After years of dwindling influence, unions are reviving. Employees of companies across the country are increasingly organizing as a means to demand more compensation, pay and security from their employers.

Between October 2021 and March this year, union petitions filed with the NLRB increased by 57% over the same period a year ago, according to the latest figures from the US National Labor Council. Unfair payroll fees increased by 14% over the same period.

More than 250 Starbucks outlets have petitioned, and after making their first profit late last year, 54 stores owned by the company have officially organized. Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York recently voted to form the first union with the second largest private employer in the United States and join the Amazon Labor Union. Google Fiber executives in Kansas City successfully voted to unite their small office in March, becoming the first contract workers within the one-year Alphabet Workers’ Union.

These efforts resonate with the general public. A Gallup poll last September found that 68 percent of Americans approve of unions, the highest percentage of 71 percent in 1965.

So why are unions becoming popular again?

Experts say the biggest factor is the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The pandemic was a wake-up call or a catalyst that sparked two points: ‘Is there another way to work and live?’ And the relationship between employers and workers,” said Mark Pierce, former NLRB chairman and current Georgetown law professor. “Vulnerable workers – they were not only scared but angry.”

“Covid was everything,” agreed Jason Greer, a labor consultant and former field agent for the NLRB. “Many people said, ‘I see my family members dying and my friends dying, and we suddenly faced our own mortality, but many organizations still expected you to work just as hard or harder.’

As governments and employers impose new restrictions to slow the spread of the pandemic and demand services that allow people to do more than at home, such as e-commerce and food delivery, workers have faced new challenges. Retailers had to wear masks and check their vaccination status. Supply and warehouse staff were concerned that they were not properly equipped with the appropriate safety equipment.

“We saw a tidal wave of activism in the first months of the pandemic,” said Jess Kutch, co-founder and co-executive director of Coworker.org, which is helping workers organize the effort. The group saw more use of its website over a three-month period than all previous years combined. “It was a clear indication that many more people want to speak openly than before.”

Many of these workers communicated about their struggles through digital channels, which became a natural setting for any communication during the Covid blockade. “When you follow Apple’s push, Google’s pressure, I think a lot of it has to do with digital channels like Slack,” Greer said. “It was this perfect storm of people who have more access to each other with tools in such an environment.”

At the same time, huge disruptions in purchasing patterns have led to record profits in companies such as Amazon and Google, which have been equipped to meet the needs of a society suddenly forced to stay at home. As a result, the distance between leadership and order has increased, experts said, adding that in many cases, executive directors ‘salaries increase while employees’ salaries remain the same.

In an example of an insensitive CEO who went viral, Better.com CEO Vishal Garg fired 900 employees, or about 9% of the company’s staff, over a brazen video call on Zoom in early December.

Organizers are also taking advantage of the supportive political environment they have seen for decades.

President Joe Biden has vowed to be “the most pro-union president ever” and has spoken out in support of the PRO Act, which aims to make the syndication process easier and less bureaucratic.

Early in his term, Biden reorganized the National Labor Council by firing former NLRB chief presidential adviser Peter Robber Peter Rob shortly after taking office. Biden then appointed the new chief counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, a former union lawyer who used his law enforcement powers quite widely.

“Significantly, Biden’s first action was to do so because he was sending a message to workers that the NLRB, even with its weaknesses, should not be dismantled from within,” Pierce said.

Biden focused on meetings with captive audiences, a common practice used by companies to repel union efforts. The NLRB’s agreement with Amazon in December sent a message to other companies and unions that the NLRB would be aggressive in imposing violations.

The president met with 39 national labor leaders on Thursday, including Christian Smalls, who heads Amazon’s Labor Union, and Laura Garza, a union leader at Starbucks’ New York City Roastery.

Media attention to the organization of employees – successful or not – also fuels the domino effect, experts said. They don’t even have to be successful, Kutch said.

For example, employees at an Apple store in Georgia told CNBC last month that they were inspired in part by Amazon employees who tried to merge a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. Derrick Bowles, who is on the organizing committee of the Apple Retail Union, said he had “great respect” for what Bessemer employees had done – although the union’s initiative has not yet been successful.

In Seattle, Starbucks organizer Sarah Papin, 31, said she had been in contact with union workers at Verizon.

“We all revolve around the same rotten retail jobs,” Papin said. “This is the moment when we all realized that it actually sucks everywhere, so let’s just stand by and prove it.”

In early May, Starbucks said it would raise wages, double training for new employees and add a tip feature to credit and debit card transactions. However, he said he would not offer improved benefits to workers in more than 50 cafes owned by the company that voted for unionization.

“We see social justice combined with workers’ justice, and it not only ignites but also pays off,” Pierce said.

Richard Bensinger, a union organizer at Starbucks Workers United and a former AFL-CIO director, believes most of the union workers are in their early 20s, prompting him to be part of Gen U for unions. According to Gallup data from 2021, young people aged 18 to 34 approve of unions at a rate of 77%.

These younger workers see the other’s victories as inspiration for their own, experts said.

Kutch and Pierce gave the example of Google Walkout, which she said was “an important moment not only for the technology sector, but also for the history of the labor movement.”

In November 2018, thousands of Google employees in more than 20 offices around the world staged rallies to protest the explosive New York Times report detailing how Google protects or detains executives accused of sexual misconduct. staff, or allow them friendly departures. The organizers described it as “a workplace culture that doesn’t work for everyone” and listed several demands. Some of them eventually became California law, while others were included in an agreement with shareholders who sued the company to deal with the incidents.

This showed that employees of a large corporation can get organized through internal calls, spreadsheets and emails – in a few days, Kutch said, adding that many people have seen the images on social media.

“Shouting in the park about injustice or raising a banner in front of a facility has a much greater effect when it’s online,” Pierce said.

CNBC’s Annie Palmer also contributed to this report.

Starbucks on Tuesday halted its outlook for fiscal 2022 as Covid’s blockade in China weighed heavily on international sales.

Still, strong US demand offset China’s sharp decline, helping the company’s quarterly revenue outpace Wall Street estimates.

Shares rose 5% on the expanded trading report.

Here’s what the company said compared to what Wall Street expected, based on a survey of analysts at Refinitiv:

• Earnings per share: 59 cents adjusted, meeting expectations
• Revenue: $ 7.64 billion versus the expected $ 7.6 billion

The coffee giant reported a net profit for the second fiscal quarter due to Starbucks of $ 674.5 million, or 58 cents a share, compared to $ 659.4 million, or 56 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding items, Starbucks earned 59 cents a share, according to analysts polled by Refinitiv.

Net sales rose 14.5 percent to $ 7.64 billion, beating expectations of $ 7.6 billion. Global sales in the same store increased 7% during the quarter, fueled by strong growth in the United States.

Sales at the same store in the United States rose 12 percent as customers spent more on orders and visited more often. Active membership in Starbucks’ loyalty program jumped 17% to 26.7 million customers.

While demand for his coffee remains strong in the United States, the company’s baristas are uniting in hopes of getting better pay and working conditions. In the last six months, about 50 company-owned companies have voted in favor of the merger. Since Howard Schultz returned as interim chief executive in early April, he has stopped buying shares and launched a hearing campaign with baristas across the country to curb growing pressure from unions.

As the company seeks to curb union pressure, Schultz has announced a $ 1 billion investment in fiscal 2022 to raise wages, improve training and innovation in stores in fiscal 2022. However, the coffee giant will not offer improved benefits to workers in cafes that have voted for unionization. Such changes in union stores will have to come through bargaining, Starbucks said.

“The union agreement will not even come close to what Starbucks offers,” Schultz told analysts during the company’s conference call.

Outside the United States, it was a grim neighborhood for Starbucks. International sales in the same store shrank by 8%, driven by a sharp decline in China, the company’s second-largest market. Sales at the same store in China fell 23% during the quarter as the country imposed a blockade again after the Covid outbreak. Executives said 72% of Chinese cities with cafes had outbreaks of omicron during the quarter.

Approximately one-third of Starbucks stores in China are temporarily closed or only accept mobile orders and payment or delivery orders.

“We expect even more impact on ours [third-quarter] results due to the time of the blockade in Shanghai and the further resurgence of the virus in other cities, including Beijing, “said Belinda Wong, chairman of Starbucks China.

Citing China’s blockade, inflation and investment in its stores and employees, Starbucks suspended its forecast for fiscal 2022. In the last quarter, it said it expects GAAP earnings per share to fall between 4% and 6%. adjusted earnings per share to increase by 8% to 10% in the fiscal year.

Starbucks opened 313 net new seats in the quarter.

The company also announced it was moving its investor day from December to September and moving its location from New York to Seattle.

Read the full revenue statement here.

In late February, Christie Cassidy joined Reddit and called for action against people who sell their goods on Etsy.

A day earlier, Etsy announced that it was increasing fees by 30%. For Cassidy, a seller of gothic wedding dresses on the e-commerce platform since 2006, the decision felt like an insult to small businesses that kept the site humming during the pandemic by selling their wares.

“I wonder what would happen if so many retailers put their stores on vacation on April 11 that Etsy launches [freaking out]”And then they have no choice but to negotiate with them.” us“

Cassidy’s post on Reddit kicked off a week-long strike by Etsy vendors that began on Monday. Thousands of Etsy sellers are putting their digital stores on “holiday mode” to protest the fee increase. An online petition outlining their demands had more than 77,000 signatures as of Thursday night.

Etsy has 5.3 million active vendors on its platform, according to the company’s website.

The fee increase comes after a huge period of growth for Etsy. The company was a big winner during the Covid pandemic as consumers reduced store trips and flocked to online retailers. Etsy retailers generate $ 12.2 billion in gross sales in 2021, compared to $ 5 billion in 2019.

Etsy, which is known for its handmade and customized goods, initially noticed an influx of buyers looking for face masks. Now Etsy is trying to get them back on the site while competing with other e-commerce players like Amazon and eBay.

Etsy told investors in February that the additional proceeds from the fee increase would be reinvested back into various initiatives at the company.

Raina Moskowitz, Etsy’s chief operating officer, said the company was “committed” to supporting vendors and helping them grow their businesses.

“We are always receptive to feedback from sellers, and in fact the new fee structure will allow us to increase our investment in the areas identified in the petition, including marketing, customer support and removing ads that do not meet our policies,” Moskowitz said. says in a statement.

Investors and analysts tracking the company applauded the fee increase and other recent changes. Guggenheim analyst Seth Sigman acknowledged that sellers are likely to bear the brunt of the higher costs, but that the changes should ultimately benefit “everyone on the platform” in the long run.

“We appreciate the worries of the sellers. This is their livelihood,” said Sigman, who recommends buying shares in Etsy. “But the compensation is that the company is using this as a lever to reinvest in the business. Our view is that this should ultimately lead to stronger market share gains.”

Cassidy and other Etsy sellers interviewed by CNBC said they remain skeptical whether the fee increase will lead to improvements to the platform. Last time, the company raised transaction fees in 2018 from 3.5% to 5%, and payouts are minimal, Cassidy said.

In addition to transaction fees, Etsy sellers also have to pay ad fees, payment processing fees, and shipping fees. As part of the company’s Offsite Ads program, Etsy sellers are also charged an additional fee of between 12% and 15% each time buyers make a purchase after clicking on an ad for their product.

“The latest increase in the transaction fee, together with [other fees]it makes it harder for smaller creators to make a profit and make their business sustainable, ”said Marie Hart, who sells needles, talismans and artwork at her Etsy store.

As part of a week-long strike, Etsy sellers are calling on the company to lift the fee increase, allow them to opt out of off-site advertising and end a recently launched program called Star Seller, which they say is putting undue pressure on sellers.

“As a small indie creator who designs and handcrafts my goods and clothing, I waste hours of work and money using Etsy,” said Sudabe Ruhand, who runs Sudibear’s art and clothing store.

Some veteran Etsy sellers are also urging the company to deal with resellers who they say have tarnished the market.

Since Alex Keatl became an Etsy salesman in 2010, she said she has noticed an influx of bulk goods and dropshipers. The change feels separate from Etsy’s origins as a platform for showcasing handmade, one-of-a-kind goods that are often made to order, she said.

“For the most part, I find it a fun and eclectic community, with both friendly sellers and buyers, and a great place to reach my type of customer (who is often a little nerdy or alternative in taste),” Keatle said. in email. “Over the last few years, it has expanded to include larger companies, dropshippers, distributors and even fraudulent stores.”

Etsy CEO Josh Silverman told resellers in February that the company expects to devote more resources this year to removing ads that violate its policies. In 2021, Etsy spent $ 40 million to expand teams and technologies focused on market safety, the company said.

Nicole Lewis, who has been selling handmade pastels to Etsy for 15 years, said she did not agree with the premise of the strike. Etsy linked CNBC to sellers who did not take part in the strike.

Lewis said he did not blame Etsy for the increase in transaction fees and that many of the recent changes are a necessary part of market growth.

“I think a lot of OG vendors who are upset about Etsy still see it as Etsy from 2004, 2005, 2006,” Lewis said. “It’s not like that anymore and it can’t be. Not in the world we live in today, when there are so many people who want to sell their jobs, and we’re competing with Amazon.”

Cassidy said she did not expect the seller’s strike to develop in this way.

But after contacting the sellers through the strike and realizing that they shared many similar concerns, she and other Etsy sellers began to consider whether they should form an alliance.

“The crazy thing is that I didn’t even realize how many people there agreed with me,” Cassidy said. “It was a great, eye-opening experience, just to see how much all the other people on this platform who are trying to make a living with me agree and how much my clients support me.

Etsy sellers are not employees of the company, but they hope that by uniting, they can better advocate for changes in the online market. A number of Etsy vendors have joined a Discord server where they plan to draw up plans, Cassidy said.

Although Lewis did not take part in the strike, she said she supported the idea of ​​a sellers’ union. “Honestly, I think it’s a smart idea because people just want to be heard and recognized,” she said.

Etsy representatives did not respond to a request for comment on the sellers’ plans to merge.

Cassidy said she was inspired to organize Etsy sellers after witnessing recent union victories among Starbucks baristas and an Amazon warehouse.

Workers’ activism has risen across the country since the beginning of the pandemic. The shrinking US labor market has further boosted union support, and workers have taken advantage of the moment to demand higher pay and better compensation from their employers.

Since the strike began, Cassidy said she had been contacted by working groups on the issue of organizing vendors. All the next steps will come down to what the reseller community wants, she added.

“We weren’t sure what to call it,” Cassidy said. Is it a union? Is this a handmade vintage solidarity? What do we call this thing? We don’t really know what it looks like, because I’m moving through unexplored territory. “

Restaurant executives are the latest wave of workers to join the Great Resignation.

In the past six months, six CEOs of publicly traded restaurant companies have announced plans to retire, retire or move on to a new corporate challenge. Their reports came after a turbulent two years for the restaurant industry, which struggled to survive by blocking a pandemic, a shortage of workers, a roar in the supply chain and incredible food costs.

Private restaurant companies have witnessed such evictions. Chick-fil-A, Torchy’s Tacos and Red Lobster have announced changes to the CEO in recent months.

“Many people had to spend more time at home with their families when the pandemic struck. My feeling is for a lot of CEOs, it was just the opposite, “said Timothy Hubbard, an assistant professor of management at the University of Mendoza’s College of Business in Notre Dame. “They may have been at home, but their workload has simply exceeded.”

While many companies have hired insiders to take over, others are looking for their next CEO, even when their current one leaves.

“My general feeling is that the pandemic plans alone were ruined by the pandemic,” Hubbard said. “This is the case in all industries: succession planning during the pandemic was not a priority and the plans in place did not seem very effective at all.

In some cases, the outgoing CEO may have begun to consider retiring before or during the pandemic. For example, former Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in a retirement announcement that he had signaled to the company’s board about a year earlier that he wanted to leave.

Of course, not all CEOs who retire retire. For example, Johnson’s temporary successor – and predecessor – Howard Schultz, returned earlier this month to lead Starbucks as interim CEO. After a bit of rest and relaxation, some of these corporate leaders were able to return to the game.

Here are the restaurant companies that will see the transition of CEOs this year:

Darden Restaurants CEO Gene Lee announced in December that he would retire on May 29. The board chose Rick Cardenas, its chief operating officer, as its successor. Cardenas also previously served as Darden’s chief financial officer.

“This is the right time for this transition and I look forward to continuing to work as chairman of Darden,” Lee said during a call for the company’s profits in December. “Our company is in a clear position of strength and this is also the right time for me and my family.”

Lee, 60, has led Olive Garden’s parent company since February 2015.

Domino’s Pizza said in early March that CEO Rich Alison would step down on May 1. Alison, 55, will serve as an adviser until his official retirement in July.

“I am now in my life when my wife and I are ready to go home to North Carolina… and I will tell you that I feel really good doing this because the company is in such a fantastic place, right now.” , said the native of Charlotte in an interview with “Mad Money” on CNBC.

Russell Weiner, the company’s chief operating officer, will succeed Alison.

Denny’s CEO John Miller will retire later this year after running the restaurant company for more than a decade. The daily dining sector was particularly hard hit by the pandemic, as visitors were slowly returning to restaurants.

Denny’s is currently looking for a replacement for Miller.

After 10 years in office, Wingstop CEO Charlie Morrison resigned in March. But he has no plans to leave the restaurant business. He is now the CEO of Salad and Go, a much smaller Phoenix-based salad chain.

Wingstop has chosen Chief Operating Officer Michael Skipworth as Morrison’s successor. Skipworth has been in the restaurant chain since 2014, before its initial public offering the following year.

El Pollo Loco CEO Bernard Acoca resigned in October to look for other options. Two weeks later, the fried chicken chain Zaxby’s announced that Acoca would succeed the company’s founder as CEO. Zaxby’s is privately owned, but has almost twice the size of El Pollo Loco.

El Pollo Loco CFO Larry Roberts was elected interim chief executive, and the board removed the “interim” from his title in March.

In March, Starbucks announced before its annual shareholders’ meeting that 61-year-old Kevin Johnson would retire in early April. His retirement came when Starbucks faced a push from unions from its baristas, among other challenges facing the wider industry.

Former CEO Howard Schultz has returned as interim chief while the board looks for a long-term candidate, although Wall Street is divided over whether Schultz will stay for more than six months.

Starbucks’ campaign to dissuade baristas from uniting may include extending new benefits exclusively to non-union workers.

The company’s chief executive, Howard Schultz, told U.S. store managers this week that he was reviewing the café chain’s compensation program for its employees. However, employees working in company-owned stores who voted for unionization will not be eligible for these improved benefits, Schultz said.

Schultz cited federal labor law and the company’s legal councils, saying it would be illegal to extend benefits unilaterally with union members in the equation.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report his comments.

Under federal labor law, employers must negotiate with the union that represents their workers when it comes to changes in compensation, benefits or other conditions of their work. But companies can still ask union members if they want additional benefits.

American airlines, for example, are strongly united in unions and offer union employees bonuses or extra pay to help with staff shortages, incentives that are beyond regular contract negotiations.

Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges told CNBC that Schultz and other company leaders will continue to share key knowledge from these employee listening sessions as they happen.

In late March, before Schultz’s return to the company, Starbucks Workers United said it expected the company to announce new benefits to curb union pressure on Starbucks cafes. A Starbucks spokesman did not respond to a request for comment at the time, but Schultz appears to have confirmed the strategy when he announced last week that he would stop buying back shares to invest back in the company’s workers and stores.

Approximately 200 of Starbucks’ companies have filed for union in recent months. To date, 18 stores have voted in favor of unionization within Workers United, with only one cafe voting against.

As union pressure is gaining momentum, Workers United claims the company has been involved in dismantling unions, including firing organizers, cutting baristas’ working hours at unions, and other forms of retaliation. In March, the National Labor Council filed a lawsuit against Starbucks, alleging it violated federal labor laws by firing organizers on the spot in Phoenix.

In the week and a half ago, Schulz led a more aggressive campaign against the union than former CEO Kevin Johnson. Schultz mentions the union in public letters and speeches with workers, describing the pressure to organize as divisive and unnecessary.

“While not all partners who support trade unionism are in secret agreements with external trade union forces, the critical point is that I do not believe that conflict, division and disagreement – which have been at the heart of trade union organization – are beneficial to Starbucks or our partners, “he wrote in a letter to employees on Sunday.

Shares of Starbucks closed more than 1% on Wednesday, along with wider market gains. The company has a market value of approximately $ 93.3 billion.

– Leslie Josephs of CNBC contributed to this report.

The first week of Howard Schultz’s return to head Starbucks ended with the merger of seven other cafes owned by the company, bringing the total to 16.

But potential Starbucks union members will probably have to step in for a tougher response from the company. Schultz, who has watched the coffee giant grow from a small chain in Seattle to a global giant, has a long history of opposing unions.

It is still too early to say whether Schultz will adopt a new book at a time when workers feel encouraged by rising wages and tight labor markets, but his latest actions and words may offer some clues.

On Monday, he announced that the company would stop buying shares to invest in its stores and employees, but at the town hall with workers the same day he reiterated his belief in the company’s team’s approach to labor management.

“I’m not anti-union. I’m pro-Starbucks, pro-partner, pro-Starbucks culture,” Schultz said. “We didn’t get here by having an alliance.”

Both organizers and labor experts expect the Schultz-led company to step up its efforts to end the push.

“I think they’ll probably redouble their efforts against the unions and do their best,” said John Logan, a professor of labor at San Francisco State University.

Starbucks, under former CEO Kevin Johnson, has already faced charges of terminating unions from Workers United, which has filed dozens of complaints with the National Labor Council. The NLRB also accused the company of retaliating against phoenix workers. Starbucks denied the allegations.

Johnson took relatively far from the public approach, leaving most of the efforts of North American President Rosan Williams. But when the unions began last year in Buffalo, New York, Schultz, not Johnson, was the one who visited to talk to baristas.

To date, more than 180 company-owned seats have petitioned for union elections, although this is still a small part of Starbucks’ total footprint in the United States of nearly 9,000 stores. Of the places whose votes were counted, only one cafe is against unification.

Schultz’s position against the unions extended to his first days in the company. In his 1997 book, Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Glass at a Time, co-authored with Dori Jones Young, Schultz described the company’s first union battle when he was marketing director.

The growing company, led by CEO Jerry Baldwin at the time, bought Peet’s Coffee and Tea in 1984. Integrating the acquisition requires effort as the company’s cultures collide, according to Schultz. He wrote that some Starbucks workers began to feel neglected and therefore circulated a union petition after their demands to management went unanswered. The union won the vote.

“The incident taught me an important lesson: There is no more valuable commodity than the relationship of trust and confidence that a company has with its employees,” Schultz wrote. “If people believe that management doesn’t share the rewards fairly, they will feel alienated. Once they start not trusting management, the company’s future is compromised.”

Schultz left Starbucks shortly thereafter to start his own espresso chain, Il Giornale, and its early success led him to acquire Starbucks and merge the two companies. In “Pour Your Heart Into It,” Schultz said the barista “on his own” worked successfully to desert the Starbucks Retail Workers’ Union.

“When so many of our people supported desertification, it was a sign to me that they were beginning to believe that I would do what I promised,” he wrote. Their distrust was beginning to dissipate and their morale was rising.

But Starbucks employees at the time and union representatives at the time opposed the story. In a 2019 Politico article on Schultz’s political hopes, Dave Schmitz, organizational director of the local United Union of Food and Trade Workers in the 1980s, said Starbucks had filed a petition for desertification.

Schultz then did not respond to requests for comment on the Politico report.

On top of that, Schultz often painted the benefits of the café chain as a health cover for part-time workers, as his own idea as part of a broader belief that good treatment of employees would benefit the company as a whole. According to the Politico report, these benefits were part of the union’s contract with Starbucks.

“I was convinced that under my leadership the staff would understand that I would listen to their concerns. If they had faith in me and my motives, they would not need a union, “Schultz wrote.

Schultz will step down as the company’s chief executive in 2000, before returning for a new tenure in 2008 as the financial crisis turned Starbucks’ business upside down. While he served as chief global strategist, meanwhile, Manhattan baristas have tried to unite. Starbucks successfully thwarted the effort, but an NLRB judge eventually ruled in 2008 that the company had violated federal labor laws.

During his second term as CEO in 2016, Schultz called a California barista who circulated a union petition, successfully dissuading him from organizing his colleagues.

Two years later, Schultz retired from an active role at Starbucks. The following year, he publicly considered running for president as an independent centrist, but his potential candidacy failed to generate enthusiasm.

While Schultz was away, Starbucks and its baristas endured a pandemic that changed the minds of many workers about their work and their own strength. In August 2021, Starbucks workers in Buffalo filed a petition for an alliance with the NLRB under Workers United.

Now that Schultz is back in the spotlight, attitudes around the unions have changed dramatically. A September 2021 Gallup poll shows that 68% of Americans approve of unions – the highest of 71% of approvals in 1965.

Each union victory in a Starbucks café gives a bigger boost to unions, and other high-profile victories on Amazon and REI further fuel the movement.

“[Starbucks and Amazon] I think the old anti-union campaigns that have always worked in the past will work this time too, but I think in some cases they find that is no longer true, “said Logan, a labor professor.” I don’t know. each of these union campaigns would have succeeded two or three years ago, but something has changed. “