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• Ben Lang, 30, is a Notion super fan.
• He was roasted online after he revealed that he was using Notion to manage his marriage.
• Lang told BI that while he does enjoy the memes, Notion definitely isn't controlling his life. 

Ben Lang, 30, is a huge fan of the note-taking software Notion.

Lang was one of the startup's first employees, and he spent around five years leading Notion's community efforts.

But while most users use Notion to track their finances or plan their projects, Lang uses the software to manage something a little closer to the heart: His marriage.

"My wife and I use Notion religiously to manage our day-to-day life. Here's a screenshot of our set-up," Lang wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on April 6.

The template includes a section for budgeting and holiday planning. There's also a repository of "life"-related planning items, including tabs to create a repository of "our principles" and "learnings."

Lang told BI in an interview on Friday that he and his wife are indeed using the template, which he says more than 2,300 people have downloaded as of press time.

Lang said he first introduced his wife to Notion when they were planning their wedding, and they've used it together ever since.

"I would say I'm definitely the one who drives the structure of the page and how we use Notion," Lang said.

"There are times where I'll ask her to add something in the Notion, and there are also times where she'll ask me to add something in the Notion," he added.

While some online commenters were interested in using the template to manage their relationships, others made fun of Lang's page. They likened the Notion-based planning of one's married life to OKRs and high-stakes performance reviews.

"My friend's husband is currently on a PIP I think this will help him a lot," another user joked, referencing the performance-improvement plans tech workers are placed on when their performance is deemed lackluster.

The roasting also found its way to Lang, who told BI that he was "entertained" by all the memes and jokes that people were coming up with about his work.

"I think people who saw what we were doing either thought it was ridiculous, or it was so wholesome and amazing that we were investing in our relationship," Lang told BI. "So people either loved it or hated it."

That was when Lang decided to embrace the humor.

"I was entertained by the people hating it and all their memes. So I figured what I would do is, I would just make a parody of their responses," Lang told BI.

On April 9, Lang posted a screenshot of what he said was an updated copy of his Notion template. This joke template had new elements — like a section that tracks "Quarterly OKRs" and another tab for "360 performance reviews."

Jokes aside, Lang told BI some of his haters have the wrong idea about his Notion use and presume that the page dictates and controls all aspects of his marriage.

"They could be thinking, 'Oh, there's this couple who are controlled by this Notion page and it's how they live their life every moment.' In reality, that's not how it is," Lang said.

"The way we see it, this is just a very useful home base for us to track things, to log and remember things, and to plan things," he said. "It by no means is controlling our lives or is taking away the spontaneity and joy of life that some might think."

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• Trump struck out 0-3 during three visits this week to a Manhattan appellate courthouse.
• Three judges rejected all three of his bids for an immediate delay of his hush money trial.
• Barring an unforseen, nonlegal emergency, jury selection will begin Monday, experts predict.

Someone is out of Trump cards.

Former President Donald Trump has run out of legal options to delay Monday's start of his Manhattan hush-money trial, legal experts predict.

Trump's lawyers struck out 0-3 this week, when three Manhattan appellate judges rejected three separate emergency delay bids during arguments on Monday, on Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Barring an unforeseen, nonlegal emergency, jury selection in Trump's first of four criminal cases will begin as scheduled on Monday morning in Supreme Court in lower Manhattan, experts said.

"I think they've run out of steam here," as far as pretrial delay bids go, Barry Kamins, a retired New York Supreme Court justice, said with a laugh on Thursday.

"I think the only thing that would stop the trial now would be a question of health — meaning if Mr. Trump came down with some condition or there's some health reason," he told Business Insider.

"But that would be looked at very carefully," said Kamins, a former chief of policy and planning for the state court system, and now a partner at Aidala Bertuna & Kamins.

"I don't see any other legal options for delaying the trial other than a health issue" on the part of the defendant, he added. "And that would only delay the trial a few days or weeks at most."

Mid-trial legal delays are also unlikely

Trump still has three appellate efforts underway, challenging state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan's gag order, his ability to preside impartially over the hush money trial, and his recent efforts to rein in 11th-hour pretrial motions.

The defense and Manhattan prosecutors will file paper arguments on these three efforts over the next two weeks. The cases are proceeding on an expedited schedule, so three full panels of appellate judges could issue three decisions by month's end, maybe even by opening statements.

But even if Trump wins — and that's a long shot — it's highly unlikely any of these three appellate decisions would stop or even pause the trial, experts also said.

And if he loses the three decisions, the state's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals, would be highly unlikely to interrupt an ongoing trial, should its judges even agree to hear the cases.

"They don't have to take it at all, and I'd be surprised if they took it in the middle of a trial," said Paul Shechtman, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, where he served as chief of appeals.

Ditto the US Supreme Court, where Trump could ultimately end up, given that all three appellate efforts raise Constitutional issues, Schechtman said.

These challenges would all be matters for after the trial, not during, agreed Kamins and attorney Michel Paradis, who teaches national security and Constitutional law at Columbia Law School.

"It's very, very unusual to stay a criminal trial," when it's already in progress, Paradis said.

But though Trump's lawyers failed to stop the trial, their efforts may not be wasted down the road.

Trump's lawyers have complained, so far unsuccessfully, that his First Amendment right to campaign for office and his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial have been denied.

By raising constitutional issues now, in these failed delay bids, Trump's attorneys are laying the groundwork to challenge his conviction in the state's and the nation's highest courts, Paradis said.

"One way or another, by dropping the word 'Constitution' in all their pleadings, Trump's legal team is hitting the wickets they need to take this to either the New York Court of Appeals or the US Supreme Court," he said.

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• Ziwei Li used her severance from Lyft to reinvent her career narrative.
• She invested in career counseling, started her own business, and invested in hobbies.
• Li also used mindful travel to help transition from one role to another.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ziwei Li, a 28-year-old LA-based former Lyft employee and founder and CEO of Wei Good Food. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I led food delivery partnerships at Lyft for one year. Then the role was eliminated when the company decided to shut down its delivery business during its layoffs in November 2022. The layoff impacted 13% of Lyft's workforce, and my team was broadly affected.

I was taken aback by the layoff, but also a little relieved. It didn't seem like anyone on the team knew it was coming. My manager was in shock and didn't seem to know what to say.

My severance package, which was 10-week salary, became a pivotal resource not just to weather the immediate storm of my job loss but also to start a new career narrative. Up until the layoff, I'd been working on Wei Good Food as a fun side hustle on nights and weekends, dreaming about a day when I could take it full-time. The layoff felt like a sign from the universe to pursue that.

The joint account I share with my husband definitely alleviated things, and my severance was able to support us for about eight months. Here are the best ways I spent my severance package.

1. Career Counseling

I worked with a career coach to talk through my past work experiences, issues I faced, and what I hoped to accomplish in the future. It felt similar to therapy but specifically focused on my professional life.

Career coaches usually charge $200 to $600 an hour, but I was able to access a discounted rate through an MBA program I was already enrolled in before the layoffs. During monthly sessions, my coach helped me understand myself and how to position myself for success. We talked about my strengths and weaknesses, and what roles would use my natural skills.

Talking with a professional helped me to see that I'd accomplished more in my career than I gave myself credit for, which gave me the confidence to start my own business.

The coach also helped me see patterns around my bad habits like not prioritizing rest until my health suffered. The insights I gained and the plans I made during these sessions ultimately steered me toward a more fulfilling career path.

2. Starting a business

I'd always felt tied to the traditional career path and didn't feel ready to act on my business ideas. Suddenly I had the means to start my own business and a chance to see if I'd be happy as an entrepreneur.

I used this cushion as seed funding. I'd been making and selling chili oil as a passion project while I was still working in my corporate job. I started making this product during the pandemic and tinkered with it until I created a version I liked.

I put $3,000 from the severance package directly toward the business for basic costs to get my idea off the ground. First, I officially incorporated the company with the state of California. I also set aside money for the annual California franchise tax. Then I invested in building the brand and leased a commercial kitchen space to produce at scale.

I'd always been interested in the food and beverage industry but never worked in it — in my corporate role. My severance package gave me the chance to attend conferences and events and make connections that guided my next career move. I allocated around $1,000 of my severance funds for registration, travel, and accommodations.

I also used severance funds to join professional organizations related to my new field, giving me networking opportunities and industry resources.

3. Investing in my hobbies

I've got a couple of things I'm passionate about, but when I had my corporate job, I often didn't splurge on them because they're just hobbies.

After getting a severance package and more free time, indulging in these pastimes and creative projects felt like a well-deserved treat, giving me a renewed sense of purpose.

I'd always enjoyed baking but didn't have an outlet for all the baked goods I'd make and didn't want to spend money on baking if everything would go to waste. So I found a local nonprofit that would bake birthday treats for underserved kids, and after receiving my severance, bought more baking equipment, cake decorating tools, and classes to learn how to decorate a cake.

I spent about $200 on everything, and spending more time and money on my hobby felt nice.

4. Mindful travel

I used mindful travel as another strategy to help with my mental transition from one role to another.

I used a small part of my severance to take a quick weekend trip to San Diego, a three-hour drive from LA, to recharge after the emotional turbulence of my layoff and think about my next steps. I thought of this trip as self-care and an investment in my mental and emotional health.

My husband and I booked a hotel near La Jolla and spent the next couple of days going to the beach, visiting the San Diego Zoo, and eating at local restaurants. The hotel cost about $150 per night, and the total cost of the trip, including lodging, dining, and activities, was about $800.

Sitting with my thoughts during travel helped me reconnect with myself and what genuinely interests me. It was rejuvenating and served as a form of "strategic contemplation" of the next step of my career.

My layoff led to unexpected opportunities

Before being laid off, my day-to-day life forced me to focus on the next task or meeting. But this layoff was a deliberate step toward self-reinvention and showed me the transformative power of unexpected opportunities.

My severance package became a pivotal resource not just to weather the immediate storm of my job loss, but for starting a new career narrative.

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• Global airlines are governed by nine "freedoms of the air," drafted 80 years ago in 1944.
• These dictate how airlines can operate in foreign nations, with some more complicated than others.
• The fifth freedom can give airlines a competitive edge and help capitalize on demand.

Over the past 100 years of shuttling people around the globe in metal flying machines, the world's aviation network has grown into a vast web of intersecting routes that connect nearly every corner of the globe.

Because of the complexities of crossing international borders, commercial carriers follow what is known as the "freedoms of the air" — or the right for an airline to operate within a nation other than its own.

These building blocks of aviation make international connectivity possible. 

According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, there are five official freedoms and four other "so-called" rights, that have been outlined in agreements between countries. ICAO is an agency of the United Nations that sets standards for the global aviation industry.

Drafted in 1944 during what is known as the Chicago Convention, the laws were written as world governments relaxed their grip on airline networks and pricing. This liberalization, however, meant countries with bigger airlines would likely dominate the skies — prompting ICAO to implement strict route regulations.

The governing freedoms not only promote more competition and choice but also allow airlines to optimize routes and increase efficiency, according to FlightRadar24. 

Most international carriers except for a very small few follow the basic freedoms of allowing airlines of one state to fly over or land in another, and vice versa.

Open Skies agreements simplify these international routes, like the one between the European Union and the US that allows any airline registered in either market to fly between the two.

Some freedoms are more complicated, but provide interesting and diverse route options to travelers.

The fifth and eighth freedoms of the air

Beyond the first four freedoms, there is one more officially recognized right, as well as the four "so-called" rights. The latter four were not officially drafted during the 1944 Chicago Convention but are regularly accepted and practiced worldwide.

According to ICAO, the fifth freedom gives an airline of one nation the right to fly between two other countries, so long as the one-stop routes start or end in its home country and all parties agree.

Among the most well-known fifth freedom routes are Emirates' flights from New York-JFK to Milan and Newark to Athens, both flying onward to the carrier's base in Dubai.

Similarly, Singapore Airlines flies between New York and Singapore via a stop in Frankfurt, and Australian flag carrier Qantas flies between Sydney and New York via Auckland, New Zealand, according to Google Flights.

United Airlines' delayed fifth freedom route will fly between the US mainland and Cebu, Philippines, via Tokyo starting in October, the carrier told Business Insider on Monday. It was supposed to start in July — before the FAA launched an investigation after a string of safety incidents at United.

These unique routes can be efficient for airlines trying to serve destinations that a plane can't reach nonstop, like Emirates' fifth freedom between Mexico City and Dubai via Barcelona or Latam Airlines' route between Sydney and Santiago, Chile, via Auckland. 

Still, carriers will make stops on otherwise attainable direct flights because they can capitalize on the high-demand market on both legs — filling more seats and making more money.

Customers may also view carriers like Emirates and Singapore as a more luxe offering than the competing US and EU carriers across the Atlantic.

On the other hand, an airline that wants to serve a low-demand market can better fill the plane by adding a fifth-freedom leg to a nearby city, like Dutch flag carrier KLM's flight between Amsterdam and Santiago via Buenos Aires. 

Among ICAO's most interesting "so-called" rights is the eighth freedom, which gives an airline the right to fly between two cities in a country that isn't its own— but the domestic leg seats cannot be sold as the entire journey must start or end in the foreign airline's home nation.

Qantas used to fly an eighth freedom route between New York and Sydney via Los Angeles — but only those originating or destined for Australia could fly on the domestic cross-country leg, Forbes reported.

Also no longer flying, per Cirium data, African carrier Air Senegal, for example, launched a flight from Dakar to Baltimore with a layover in New York in 2021. The domestic leg seats couldn't be sold.

Here's a closer look at the freedoms of the air.

"Five Freedom Agreements"

First Freedom

This allows an airline of one nation to fly over another without landing.

Second Freedom

This allows an airline of one nation the right to land in another territory for a technical stop. Think refueling or an inflight mechanical issue that prompted an unplanned emergency landing.

Third Freedom

This allows an airline of one nation to carry passengers to a foreign state, and vice versa.

Fourth Freedom

This allows the airline of one nation to take on passengers originating in another. The fourth freedom is simply the reverse of the third freedom.

Fifth Freedom

This allows an airline of one nation to carry passengers between two countries other than its own so long as the route starts or ends in the carrier's home state.

"So-called" rights

Six Freedom

This allows an airline to carry passengers from one nation to another via its home state. This represents the typical hub-and-spoke network used by global airlines.

Seventh Freedom

The seventh freedom is similar to the fifth freedom but takes out the limitation of where the route must start or end. Instead, an airline has the right to fly between two nations other than its own without flying onward to its home base.

The EU's single-aviation market, for example, grants airlines the right to fly to and from any EU country, like Ireland-based Ryanair that flies between Rome and Vilnius, Lithuania.

Eighth Freedom

This allows an airline to fly between two cities in a foreign country so long as all passengers originate or are destined for the airline's home state.

Ninth Freedom

This cabotage freedom allows an airline of one nation to fly between two points in a separate single country. This does not exist in the US, but it does in the EU — like easyJet's back-and-forth nonstop between Paris and Nice, for example.

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• Biden announced another $7.4 billion in student-debt relief for 277,000 borrowers.
• It impacts borrowers on the SAVE plan, along with others on income-driven repayment plans and PSLF.
• The new relief comes just after Biden released new details for his broader student-debt relief plan.

Another batch of student-loan borrowers has been approved for debt cancellation.

On Friday, President Joe Biden and the Education Department announced that 277,000 more borrowers will get $7.4 billion in debt relief. It results from a new provision in the SAVE income-driven repayment plan that allows for a shorter timeline to loan forgiveness for some borrowers, along with ongoing fixes to other income-driven repayment plans and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

"Today we are helping 277,000 borrowers who have been making payments on their student loans for at least a decade," Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said in a statement. "They have paid what they can afford, and they have earned loan forgiveness for the balance of their loan."

Specifically, according to the Education Department's press release, $3.6 billion of the relief will go to 206,800 borrowers enrolled in SAVE. The provision allows relief for borrowers who originally borrowed $12,000 or less and have made as few as 10 years of qualifying payments, contrasting the 20-year threshold for other income-driven repayment plans.

Additionally, the rest of the relief is going to borrowers on income-driven repayment plans or PSLF as a result of the one-time account adjustments and administrative fixes to the plans to bring borrowers' payment counts up to date.

According to the Education Department, impacted borrowers will begin receiving emails on Friday informing them of their relief, and their servicers will process the relief in the coming weeks.

This latest batch of debt relief approvals comes just days after Biden announced new details for his broader attempt at student-loan forgiveness using the Higher Education Act of 1965. While the plan is still subject to change, the latest details outline relief intended to benefit over 30 million borrowers, including those whose balances have grown due to unpaid interest and those who have made at least 20 years of payments but have yet to receive relief.

The regulatory text for that broader plan is set to be published in the coming months, after which there will be a period for public comment. Biden's administration expects to implement the plan as early as this fall — but it faces uncertainty due to the possibility of legal challenges that could block the relief, as they did with Biden's first attempt at loan forgiveness.

Two groups of GOP state attorneys general have also filed separate lawsuits over the past few weeks to block the SAVE plan, calling the shortened timeline to relief unconstitutional.

Still, the administration is moving forward with more targeted efforts for debt cancellation through its fixes to repayment plans, recently announcing $1.2 billion in relief for 153,000 borrowers through the SAVE plan.

"From day one of my Administration, I promised to fight to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity," Biden said in a statement. "I will never stop working to cancel student debt — no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us."

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• Nvidia is in a bubble, stocks will falter, and a recession will hit this year, Jesse Felder said.
• The markets guru said the microchip frenzy would fade, and stock-market returns would drop off.
• Prepare for slower growth, higher unemployment, and sticky inflation and interest rates, he said.

Nvidia hype is a bubble that will burst, stocks will disappoint for the next decade or longer, and a recession will strike this year, Jesse Felder said.

The veteran analyst behind "The Felder Report" made his case on the latest "Thoughtful Money" podcast episode.

He warned the microchip buying frenzy wouldn't last, the market's outsize returns would dry up, and the economy might sink into stagflation.

Living in a fantasy

Stocks have surged to record highs this year as investors wager that AI, rate cuts, and steady economic growth will bolster corporate profits.

Felder, who managed money for around two decades before launching his market research firm, cautioned that stocks have become so expensive that their future returns are bound to be underwhelming.

"Prices of financial assets are going to perform a lot worse than they have over the last 10, 15 years," he said.

Hoping for further outperformance is "extrapolating the unsustainable — it's the definition of a bubble," he said.

"That's exactly what's going on with the stock prices of Nvidia and Micron," he continued, warning it can be "extraordinarily painful" to buy high-flying stocks as they can suffer massive crashes.

The semiconductor industry is cyclical, meaning it swings from boom to bust over time, he said. Overexcited AI companies have ordered double or triple the amount of chips they need from suppliers like Nvidia in their rush to secure them, meaning the market will be flooded, he continued.

"Everything goes in the toilet, that's the history of these companies," Felder said.

Chipmakers like Nvidia could even swing from explosive growth in revenues and profits to declines, which could mean "some real pain for a lot of these stock prices that have discounted a fantastical future," Felder said.

The markets guru also called out the recent surge in insiders selling their companies' stock as a red flag, pointing to Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, and JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon as examples.

"This is a very, very dangerous equity environment," he said.

Economic trouble

Many on Wall Street expect the US economy to escape a recession, inflation and interest rates to drop this year, and unemployment to remain near historic lows.

However, Felder expects "much more of a stagflationary type of a scenario than a soft-landing or even a no-landing scenario."

The ex-trader and former hedge fund boss said the economy probably wouldn't be "trashed" like it was during the pandemic or Great Recession.

There's likely to be more of a "slow burn" than a "real painful dip" in growth, he said. Joblessness might tick higher, and the economy might only shrink in real terms as inflation more than offsets nominal growth, he noted.

Felder pointed to ageing populations in many Western countries, and deglobalization trends like reshoring, as two structural forces that will likely stop inflation from falling too far.

He also cited vast amounts of government spending, the rising cost of servicing the national debt, and the Fed potentially relaxing its 2% inflation target as other inflation drivers.

"It's overwhelming evidence that inflation's going to remain elevated relative to recent history," Felder said.

If he's right, that's likely to mean interest rates stay higher for longer, the economy grows slower and might even contract, and assets like stocks perform worse than many experts predict.

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• A former LinkedIn engineering manager recounts the company's shift in performance evaluation.
• He said he had to identify underperforming employees to put on performance improvement plans (PIPs.) 
• LinkedIn then laid off more than 1,400 workers in two rounds of job cuts last year. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with a former senior engineering manager at LinkedIn. Business Insider has verified his former employment. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I transitioned into a management role at LinkedIn, it was with the goal of helping people become the best engineers and teammates possible.

For several years, I had the pleasure of being able to do just that, and with the full support and encouragement of my company. Then, all that changed when I was asked early last year to identify 10% of my team who were not meeting expectations, even if they were.

It made me feel very frustrated and sad that it had gotten to that point. Before that point, LinkedIn was a company that lived its values even in challenging times. Being asked to do that wasn't just wrong — it went against the company's values, which was very hard to accept.

It was contrary to the way we were encouraged to manage people in the years before. It was sort of wrapped in "it's not that we want you to misidentify people," but we had to stack-rank our team.

LinkedIn has a one to five tier system to rate workers' performance. A five means they are exceeding expectations, while a one or a two means they are underperforming and at risk of being put on a PIP. 

I know some managers felt the pressure to find "twos" and give them to people who they felt didn't deserve it.

During the pandemic, we sort of lowered the bar of performance expectations. We had this concept of "soft threes", where maybe there are good reasons people aren't performing well because of mental health or things of that nature, and the sentiment among higher-ups was that "you're putting them on a 3 rating because you're trying to take care of them" and that we should stop doing that in 2023.

There's a 3-step process before a PIP

The first step was that I had to identify some of the underperformers on my team. Then, you put those employees on a 30-day plan to improve. If they don't, we move them to an "improvement goal," or IG, which is a slightly more formal 30-day improvement plan. If they're still not meeting expectations at the end of that, then they're placed on an official performance improvement plan.

My manager told me to identify people who I truly believed met that criteria. At first, I couldn't identify anyone who did, but after a director's meeting, my manager said I really needed to find somebody. It sort of felt like the rug was pulled out from under me in the sense that I had to find someone.

Performance was assessed using a quantifiable score, something called the CPP, which is a "Career Performance Profile." It's like a checklist of behaviors and evidence indicators that they want to see from you. It's what we use to determine that somebody is ready for promotion. You would assess somebody as an engineer in three primary areas: leadership, execution, and craftsmanship.

I identified one person on my team who was not fully meeting expectations. They could've got a three rating in years past, but if looking at the CPP guidelines, they were not, so I accepted that one person was an underperformer. But that person managed to exit the process in the 30-day stage and was able to improve, so they didn't get as far as being put on a PIP.

Herculean effort to come back from a PIP

Some people survived the PIPs as the idea is to coach them out of it. But once you get put on a PIP, it is very challenging to come back from because of the three-stage process that comes before that. It was pretty rare for people to successfully get out of a PIP, because in a manager's mind, they were given opportunities to improve in the steps before that.

If you're put on a PIP, decide whether you really want to come back from this because it's going to take a lot of effort. At that point, the clock is ticking. So consider if you want to put that time and effort into starting to get your affairs in order. It's really hard to come back from a PIP, and in the tech industry, it's considered a foregone conclusion once you get to that stage.

You also have to look at the environment for what it is. Do you think you're not performing, or are you not valued by your direct manager, and are they going to give you the right support? Going into the PIP, do you get the feeling that your manager wants you to succeed? If they are already starting to be a little cold or reserved, it's unlikely you're going to change their mind.

'Kill list' leaked on Blind

LinkedIn laid off 716 sales, operations, and support workers in May 2023. Then, in October, a list of people who were going to get laid off in its second round of cuts was leaked on Blind over a weekend.

Other managers texted me and said there was a "kill list" on Blind. The list was taken down, but the people who had it said that they would check to see if my name was on the list, but I didn't want to know.

The following Monday we got an email announcing the layoffs. I saw I was one of the folks who were chosen. I was surprised because I thought I was perceived as someone who brought high value to the company.

But I was grateful that, as a leader, I didn't have to lay somebody from my team off, and I felt like I was lucky that I wouldn't have to do that to somebody else.

LinkedIn did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. A spokesperson previously told BI that it did not have a percentage mandate for performance management.

Are you a tech worker with insight to share? Contact this reporter at jmann@businessinsider.com

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• Vietnamese real-estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death for her role in a $12.5 billion fraud case.
• Lan's fraud case is part of Communist Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's corruption crackdown.
• The anti-corruption campaign has impacted Vietnam's economy and investment climate.

A mega-fraud case has rocked Vietnam, shining a spotlight on the emerging economy that is positioning itself as an alternative to China.

On Thursday, Vietnamese real-estate tycoon Truong My Lan was sentenced to death for her role in a $12.5 billion fraud that took place over the course of a decade — which amounts to about 3% of the country's GDP. Prosecutors allege the damage from the fraud could reach $27 billion.

Lan, the chairwoman of real-estate developer Van Thinh Phat Group, was arrested in 2022 over the fraud case. She was found guilty of embezzlement, bribery, and violating banking rules.

Lan has denied the charges and intends to appeal, according to media reports.

The high-profile fraud case has scandalized the country and is raising questions about the one-party state. Vietnam has emerged as a top location for manufacturing outside China as global companies seek to diversify their supply chains.

For context on the scale of the Vietnam fraud case, consider the 1MDB case, which rocked Malaysia and the world when it started to unravel in 2015. In that scandal, investigators estimate senior officials stole $4.5 billion from the Malaysian state fund. The Lan case is looking at figures nearly three times that size.

Foreign direct investment in Vietnam reached a record high of $36.6 billion in 2023, according to official data.

Hanoi's corruption crackdown has hit Vietnam's economy

Lan's fraud case is just one in Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's sweeping corruption crackdown.

Notably, two Vietnamese presidents have resigned in two years amid the crackdown. The Vietnamese Communist Party did not specify the reasons for their resignations, but they have been linked to the country's anti-graft campaign.

The so-called "Blazing Furnace" corruption crackdown has hit investment and market sentiment as investors question if Hanoi can secure the integrity of its banking system, bond market, and economy amid the country's rapid economic growth. Vietnam's GDP grew 5.05% in 2023 and 8.0% in 2022.

"The government regulators are overwhelmed," Zachary Abuza, a Southeast Asian expert at the National War College in Washington DC, told Bloomberg in March. "They can't keep up with the growth of the economy. Look at the volumes of money pouring into the country. They just don't have the manpower. And they're so poorly paid."

Foreign investors have been "cautious" since news of Lan's case broke, Trang Bui, the country head of Cushman and Wakefield, a commercial real-estate services firm, said at a press conference in December, per Nikkei.

Vietnam's benchmark VN-Index tanked 33% in 2023 on the back of the anti-corruption campaign. It is up 12% this year to date.

For now, government officials are scrutinizing approvals for licenses and projects, slowing down bureaucratic processes even more.

"Especially now, everyone is scared," Bui said, per Nikkei. "It's a big cleanup."

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