People of the Year

Welcome to Clock In, TIME's monthly LinkedIn-only newsletter about the changing world of work. In this edition, we're discussing TIME's latest Person of the Year profiles—and the biggest workplace lessons we can learn from

Person of the Year: Taylor Swift

In her first in-depth interview in nearly four years, Taylor Swift spoke to Sam Lansky about the biggest career lessons she's learned through her time in the spotlight. One of them came courtesy of Kenny Chesney.

She was 17 and had booked a slot opening for Chesney on tour. “This was going to change my career,” she remembers. “I was so excited.”

Then the bad news. Chesney's tour got sponsored by a beer company, meaning Swift couldn't participate in the tour. But on her 18th birthday, Chesney sent her an gift: a check.

“It was for more money than I’d ever seen in my life,” Swift says. “I was able to pay my band bonuses. I was able to pay for my tour buses. I was able to fuel my dreams.”

Swift talks more about her career, the intense preparation she did for the Eras Tour, and more in our cover story.

Read more here.

Athlete of the Year: Lionel Messi

Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi isn't just athlete of the year for his unbelievable performance on the field. Sean Gregory writes about how Messi impressed his new Miami teammates as a co-worker:

Messi, for example, joined a team text chain and offered to help secure extra game tickets for players’ friends and family. “It was really nice to see, especially for the younger players,” says DeAndre Yedlin. “I went through this as a young player: you get on little ego trips when you have a good game. But it really humbles you to see the greatest ever coming in and talking to everybody and making jokes and giving advice to the young guys and saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to everyone in the building. It makes you realize, ‘I have a lot further to go before I can start putting myself on a cloud.’”

Read more on Messi here.

CEO of the Year: Sam Altman

On Nov. 17, OpenAI’s nonprofit board of directors fired Sam Altman, without warning or even much in the way of explanation.

At one point, OpenAI’s whole staff threatened to quit if the board didn’t resign and reinstall Altman within a few hours, three people involved in the standoff tell TIME. Then Altman looked set to decamp to Microsoft—with potentially hundreds of colleagues in tow. It seemed as if the company that catalyzed the AI boom might collapse overnight.

In the end, Altman won back his job and the board was overhauled. Naina Bajekal and Billy Perrigo talk to Altman about being fired—and then re-hired—at OpenAI.

Read more about Altman's work and the surrounding controversy at OpenAI.

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This newsletter was curated by Kari Sonde and edited by Samantha Cooney.