There's trouble in the trees for the moneyed residents of New England's elite enclaves

This is a condensed version of Business Insider Today, a newsletter that gives you a look at the week’s top stories. Sign up here to get the full Business Insider Today in your inbox every day for the top stories in markets, tech, and business.

Welcome back to our Sunday edition, where we round up some of our top stories and take you inside our newsroom. Gen-who? Gen Xers are often excluded from generational conversations. We've played into this, too. In the past year alone, BI has published 166 stories about Gen Z, 123 about millennials, 97 stories about boomers — and only 34 about the "forgotten generation." Sorry, Gen X!

On the agenda today:

• The story behind Blackstone’s barricaded office photo.

• Inside the million-dollar tree war brewing among New England’s elite. 

• Starbucks set up a new office a 5-minute drive from the CEO’s home. 

• Internal pay guidelines shows how much Microsoft offers new hires — but there’s a big caveat.

Behind the viral Blackstone photo

Following the deadly New York City office shooting that cut four victims' lives short, a haunting image of a furniture barricade at Blackstone's headquarters became emblematic of the tragedy.

One person familiar with the matter told BI that Blackstone employees moved quickly and worked together to pile everything up, including a refrigerator. Employees also barricaded themselves inside closets, bathrooms, and conference rooms, another person familiar with the matter said, with some hunkering down until 10 p.m. when authorities cleared the building.

“It was a long day.”

Also read:

• Real estate industry mourns, grapples with questions about the future of office security  

Trouble in the trees

In New England’s most exclusive coastal enclaves, neighbors are feuding over ocean views — and cutting down each other’s trees to get to them.

The timber wars don’t come cheap. Cases of unauthorized chopping and poisoning, known as “timber trespass,” have sparked bitter legal feuds among the wealthy and sometimes resulted in seven-figure payouts.

Splintered paradise.

The 5-minute commute

Starbucks’ newest office is a 4,624-square-foot space just minutes from CEO Brian Niccol’s Southern California home. It’s 1,200 miles away from the company’s headquarters in Seattle, where corporate employees are under a four-day return-to-office order.

The California office, nicknamed "Project Sunshine," was part of Niccol’s compensation package, built so he wouldn’t have to commute across states daily.

Views of the Pacific coast.

Also read:

• Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol says price changes are a last resort in coffee chain turnaround

Microsoft’s pay guidelines, revealed

The company’s internal pay guidelines obtained by BI’s Ashley Stewart sheds light on how much the tech giant generally offers new hires, including pay ranges for engineers and researchers in the US.

Microsoft's pay documents include a carve-out for competitive situations, though. Recruiters can seek approval for higher offers for exceptional candidates.

Breaking down pay by levels.

Also read: 

• How much do tech employees make? See salary data from top tech companies.

More of this week’s top reads:

• Sex sells. So does outrage. Sydney Sweeney's "great jeans" ads cash in on both.

• Was Jeffrey Epstein a spy? There's nothing about that in the Epstein files, sources say.

• I went to Figma's IPO. It turned Wall Street into a literal block party.

• Parents of college kids are getting unhinged in their group chats.

• I'm a career coach. Applying for jobs should be the last step in your job hunt process.

• CNBC's "The Profit" ended with legal acrimony and an $11 million payout. Its host is now back on TV.

• Inside the $10 billion boom in psychedelic medicine.

Curated by Jamie Heller and edited by Lisa Ryan, Grace Lett, Akin Oyedele, and Amanda Yen.

This is a shorter version of our flagship newsletter, which brings you in-depth analysis and summaries of the top stories from Wall Street to Silicon Valley.

Sign up here to get the full Business Insider Today in your inbox every day.