CNBC TechCheck Evening Edition: July 11, 2025
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CNBC
20 minutes ago
- CNBC
Do this in the first 90 days at your new job to stand out and be more successful, says Walmart exec
How you start a new job can set the tone for your overall experience at a company, including the relationships you build and opportunities that come your way in the future. That's why being strategic about your first 90 days is crucial, says Donna Morris, executive vice president and chief people officer at Walmart. Morris has been in the C-suite for almost 10 years, and has held executive-level roles since 1998. Morris says her success is due, in part, to dedicating the first three months on a new job to communication and clarity — and she recommends that others do the same. "In the first 90 days, do as much as possible to really understand who you'll be working with, how they work and what's expected," says Morris. That means tapping into your interpersonal skills and asking your boss, managers and co-workers not just about their jobs and responsibilities, but who they are and how they show up best at work. Actively listening to their responses can help you be more likable and influential in the workplace, and make you sound smarter, Harvard University associate professor Alison Wood Brooks recently told CNBC Make It. "Foremost, make sure you understand what your job is and what's expected of you. Sounds like a basic [idea], but it's so important," Morris says. "And to go a little bit further, take what you've understood to be what's expected of you, write it out and share it with your manager, and make sure that you're both aligned." Morris' advice comes as workers feel increasingly disconnected from their bosses. Nearly 50% of employees say their bosses don't understand them or their jobs, according to the April 2025 Workplace Perception Gap Survey from HR platform The Predictive Index, which sampled 1,000 workers across different industries, age groups and job levels. The result: 44% of employees said they were overlooked for raises or big, exciting projects because their boss didn't understand the scope of their role, their skills and their work habits, like how they prioritize tasks or organize information. And 48% said their leaders and managers regularly undervalued their contributions, leading to feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. This miscommunication could possibly be avoided if employees and bosses discussed expectations, working styles and goals early on. You don't have to have a decades-long career to have these conversations — even interns and associates should go above and beyond to ensure their first 90 days at a new job are productive. This helps you exude confidence and make a good impression, says Morris.
CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Startup Trunk Tools is using AI to reduce construction errors and waste
Homebuilding has long been one of the slowest industries to modernize, and commercial construction isn't far behind. Its scale is enormous, and yet it remains one of the least digitized industries in the world. That lack of innovation in commercial technology contributes to outdated documentation and errors in tasks that then have to be redone as well as administrative drag. It's a huge drain on time, budgets and materials and can lead to costly delays and unnecessary environmental waste. All told, it contributes to nearly $1 trillion in lost productivity each year, according to an August 2024 report from McKinsey Global Institute. Historically, construction companies spent an average of less than 1% of revenues on IT, less than a third of what is common in automotive and aerospace, according to the report. Sarah Buchner learned all this the hard way. The daughter of a carpenter in Austria, she came to the U.S. to learn construction and worked her way up to foreman, superintendent and eventually contractor. CNBC's Property Play with Diana Olick covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, delivered weekly to your inbox. Subscribe here to get access today. "At the peak, I was running a $400 million high-rise, 600 guys working for me in the job. And on that specific construction side, I had a fatality, which in construction happens, unfortunately, a lot," she said. "But I was, I think, very young, and couldn't fully process what was happening." So Buchner decided to build a health and safety app, switching careers from construction to construction software and construction tech. A decade later, with the proliferation of AI, she launched Trunk Tools, a generative AI platform trained on real construction workflows. It automates some of the more tedious tasks and also pinpoints project risks and simplifies documents. "We take all of the unstructured documentation on a construction site, and we use different AI and machine learning tools to restructure it," Buchner explained, noting that an average high-rise project in New York City, costing about half a billion dollars, would require about 3.5 million pages of documentation. "Those pages change every single day, because the planning isn't finished by the time you start construction," said Buchner. So contractors often get conflicting orders and can't search the documents to clarify. For example, take the installation of an emergency exit door. One data set says it needs electricity, but the electrical drawings don't have an outlet there. Discrepancies in the data, Buchner says, not only waste money but contribute to carbon emissions due to work inefficiencies. Trunk Tools' technology can process millions of unstructured documents, from blueprints to drawings to schedules and specs, and then return them in a clearer format that workers can better follow. The startup is partnering with Microsoft to integrate the technology into the company's suite of options. Trunk Tools just announced a $40 million Series B funding round led by global software investor Insight Partners with participation from Redpoint Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, StepStone, Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures and Prudence. This investment brings its total funding to $70 million.
NBC News
2 hours ago
- NBC News
Design software company Figma more than triples share price in NYSE debut
Figma 's stock more than tripled in its New York Stock Exchange debut on Thursday, a day after the design software company sold shares at $33 in its initial public offering. The big opening pop is the latest indication that the tech IPO market has reopened following a multiyear lull that began in early 2022, when inflation was soaring and interest rates were on the rise. So far this year, online bank Chime, stablecoin issuer Circle and artificial intelligence infrastructure provider CoreWeave have hit the market, along with health-tech companies Hinge Health and Omada Health. Figma's first trade at $85 valued the company at about $50 billion. The stock, trading under ticker symbol FIG, was halted after it soared past $112, before closing at $115.50 for a 250% gain. The company ended the day with a market cap of almost $68 billion. In 2022, Adobe agreed to acquire Figma for $20 billion, but the deal fell apart in 2023 after U.K. regulators said the tie-up would likely harm competition. Led by 33-year-old CEO Dylan Field, Figma makes web-based software that allows people to collaborate on slide decks, digital whiteboards and designs for apps and websites. Field told CNBC's 'Squawk Box' on Thursday that regardless of what happens with the market debut, the company has to 'stay focused, stay on mission, listen to our customers and really keep our priorities in mind.' 'The most important thing to remind myself of, the team of, is share price is a moment in time,' said Field, whose stake in the company is worth over $6 billion based on Thursday's closing price. 'We're going to see all sorts of behavior probably today, over the weeks ahead.' Figma boasts more than 13 million monthly users, two-thirds of whom are not designers. As of March 31, more than 1,000 clients were paying Figma upward of $100,000 annually, according to the prospectus. Google, Microsoft, Netflix and Uber are all customers. In its filing of preliminary results for the second quarter, Figma said it generated $9 million to $12 million in operating income on $247 million to $250 million in revenue, with sales growing about 40% year over year. Last week, Figma said in a filing that it would price shares at $25 to $28 each. On Monday it issued another update, calling for a range between $30 and $32, before ultimately pricing $1 above that range. The offering raised $1.2 billion, with most of the proceeds going to existing shareholders, including venture capital firms Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital. Founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, Figma ranked 45th on CNBC's 2025 Disruptor 50 list of private companies. Lynn Martin, president of the NYSE, told CNBC's 'Squawk on the Street' on Thursday that plenty more deals should be on the way. 'I think given that Figma did so well with their pricing last night, and there is so much demand that has persisted still in the order book this morning for this company, I think this will open the floodgates,' Martin said.
