• Starbase is an incorporated Texas city and the site of SpaceX's large launch complex.
• Fans and critics of Elon Musk have shared plans to erect monuments dedicated to the CEO.
• One statue — a bust of Musk — has already been placed near Starbase and was vandalized last year.

Lovers and haters are erecting monuments for their favorite tech billionaire, Elon Musk.

Just north of the US-Mexico Border, near Brownsville, Texas, sits Starbase, SpaceX's massive rocket launch and development site. In 2025, the surrounding area became incorporated as the City of Starbase, with a population of more than 500 residents, though thousands of people work at the complex.

Recently, Starbase has turned into a locus of monuments tied to Musk and the achievements — or excesses, depending on your point of view — of his companies.

A French foundry group, Atelier Missor, shared photos on X last week, showing its progress in erecting a statue near the complex.

The group wrote that the monument depicts Prometheus, a Greek mythological figure, holding a torch, and is supposed to stand 50 feet tall. Prometheus is famously known as the titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to humanity.

Last year, Atelier Missor wrote on X that it wished to offer "a colossal titanium statue of Prometheus to Starbase," adding that "SpaceX makes humanity dream." The group has also publicly reached out to Musk about its plans.

It's unclear whether the CEO ever responded to the post directly or whether Atelier Missor contacted him privately. Musk has interacted with Atelier Missor's X posts before, giving the group props for some of its concepts.

Atelier Missor did not respond to a request for comment.

One unlikely group is also leading the charge for another Musk monument, but for entirely different reasons.

Cards Against Humanity, the makers of the raunchy, fill-in-the-blank card game, made a public call-to-action on Thursday to raise money for a monument intended to "f—k with Elon Musk."

A spokesperson for Cards Against Humanity told Business Insider that SpaceX's activities at Starbase had damaged the parcel of land the company purchased in 2017 to slow down the first Trump administration's plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

The spokesperson added that it has been working to restore the area, but those plans are also complicated by new housing for SpaceX employees.

The land dispute went through the courts in 2024, when the game company sued SpaceX over the property and reached a confidential settlement the following year. Cards Against Humanity said at the time that SpaceX later removed its equipment from the property.

"When we first purchased this land, it was a beautiful lot surrounded by nothing but a peaceful river and open fields," the spokesperson wrote. "Now, it's surrounded by a 'town' called 'Starbase' — corporate hellscape littered with broken rockets and ugly mansions for Musk's s—t-eating executives."

The company organized the "Official Elon Musk is a Sad Little B—h with No Friends Monument Design Committee" and is collecting $10 from contributors to the initiative.

The spokesperson said over 12,000 members have signed up as of Thursday evening, and the company raised about $150,000.

When asked what Musk represents to Cards Against Humanity, the spokesperson said, "the kind of humanity we're actually against."

A SpaceX spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Another monument was put up near Starbase two years ago, commissioned by a crypto outfit that launched a memecoin called ElonRWA.

The cofounder of ElonRWA, who has only been identified online as Louis XXII, told Artnews at the time that the statue was meant to resemble a poorly-drawn version of the SpaceX CEO that had gone viral on the internet.

"We wanted to bring this meme into the real world," Louis XXII told Artnews. "How could we have an impact on the real world? We are a bunch of guys on computers active on X, but we wanted to touch more people."

In April 2025, the statue was defaced with large gashes around the right cheek and chin, ABC News reported. The vandalism occurred around the time of nationwide protests against Trump and Musk, when the CEO helped lead DOGE's efforts to cut federal spending.

A large pink sticker resembling a bandage was later placed on the cheek.

• Tesla is planning a 124-stall Supercharger hub in SF, marking a major urban charging expansion.
• A charging hub of such scale is rare in a major city due to land costs.
• The plan also includes a 416-square-foot "micro-amenity" building with vending machines.

Tesla is making a major bet on demand from urban EV owners by planning an unusually large charging hub in San Francisco.

Plans filed with the city show that Tesla is planning for 124 V4 Supercharger stalls at 75 Waterloo Street, a triangular vehicle storage lot near the intersection of Alemany Boulevard and Bayshore Boulevard, alongside Highway 101.

The proposed station would be among Tesla's largest globally, and a rare project of that scale inside a major city. By comparison, Tesla's planned V4 Supercharger at 25 Mason Street, near Market Street in the city, would have 35 stalls. That permit application was submitted on May 18.

Tesla's biggest charging hubs are typically built along heavily traveled interstate corridors, where land is cheaper and demand surges during road-trip season. The hub sits at the crucial location where the 101 meets Interstate 280, which leads to the Peninsula, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco International Airport. It's also not far from Bernal Heights and the Bayview, which have significant residential populations.

Some of Tesla's largest charging locations include a 200-stall station in Yeehaw Junction, Florida, and a 164-stall station in Kern County, California. While the latter became fully operational in November 2025, the largest hub in Florida has yet to open.

Based on maps submitted to the city, the 124 stalls would use a conventional parking configuration rather than the pull-through stalls Tesla has introduced at some newer locations.

The plans indicate the station would operate around the clock and include a roughly 416-square-foot "micro-amenity" building. Sketches show that the building contains two gender-neutral, accessible restrooms with diaper-changing stations, water fountains, and vending machines, as well as space for storage, cleaning equipment, and the site's security and IT systems. The vending area would offer coffee, hot drinks, and snacks.

The plans do not appear to include solar canopies or Tesla Megapack batteries, features used at some of the company's other large charging hubs. Solar canopies are typically used to lower peak-demand costs and keep chargers operating during some outages.

The latest version of the application was submitted on July 29, but the project still needs to go through the city's permitting process. No construction or opening date has been announced.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

• Sarah J. Maas announced the release dates for the next two "ACOTAR" novels on "Call Her Daddy."
• The two books will be released on October 27, 2026, and January 12, 2027.
• Maas said the two books will be separate volumes of the sixth "ACOTAR" story.

After five long years of waiting, Sarah J. Maas fans can rejoice — the sixth "A Court of Thorns and Roses" book finally has a release date. Well, it actually has release dates.

On March 4, 2026, the author announced the next "ACOTAR" book would be published on October 27, 2026.

The work is eagerly awaited not only by fans but also by Maas' publisher, Bloomsbury. The company's sales fell 10% for the 2025-2026 fiscal year because Maas didn't release a new book, Publishers Weekly reported.

Interestingly, though, Maas said her next novel will be just part one of the sixth "ACOTAR" story, with parts two and three released together in January 2027. Part four will be released separately.

Here's everything we know about "ACOTAR" book six so far.

Warning: Some spoilers for Maas' work ahead, including "ACOTAR" and "Crescent City."

Maas is releasing book six of 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' in multiple volumes

Maas announced the next "ACOTAR" book was on its way during an appearance on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast with Alex Cooper.

She told Cooper she finished the book while writing in Montana over the summer of 2025, but declined to reveal the book's title or which characters from the world of "ACOTAR" will be telling the story.

She also didn't share the novel's length, which she said was for a specific reason.

"OK, well, part of why I guess it's tricky to talk about the length of this book is because this book's coming out October 27, and then on January 12, like two months later, I can't do math, whatever that is, the next ACOTAR book will be coming out," Maas said. "So there will be two books within, like, a very short span."

As her fans will know, Maas' books are typically split into parts, separating different sections of the story she is telling. However, when it comes to the sixth "ACOTAR" book, Maas said the individual parts became longer than she anticipated as she started writing, with part one coming in at 400 pages at one point.

As she continued writing, Maas decided the parts didn't have to be in a single physical book.

"I decided I wasn't gonna approach this project from a traditional format of a book," she said. "What if this book was really long? Like, what if it took me more than a thousand pages to tell the story that needed to be told, the arc that I wanted to create from start to finish?"

Maas said the story for "ACOTAR" six was ultimately divided into four parts, though it is still one cohesive story. Part one is the novel that Bloomsbury will publish on October 27, 2026, and parts two and three will be published together as one volume on January 12, 2027. Maas has yet to write or give a publication date for part four, but she said all three volumes would be published "in a very short time."

Although the works will be published individually, Maas told Cooper she still hopes readers treat them as one story once they are all out in the world.

"It's meant to be read, ideally, as one massive, massive story as opposed to in a trilogy," she said. "It's not a trilogy. Like, arcs aren't wrapped up."

The next 'ACOTAR' has been in the works for years

Although Maas hadn't given detailed information about the sixth "ACOTAR" book before her "Call Her Daddy" appearance, it wasn't a total shock that her next work would bring readers back to Prythian.

In March 2023, Bloomsbury announced that Maas had signed a deal for three more books with the publisher. At the time, she was already under contract for four titles, including "House of Flame and Shadow," the third installment in her "Crescent City" series, published in January 2024.

In September 2023, Maas gave readers their first clue as to what would come next in the six books she had left under her contract, telling authors Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings during a "Live Talks Los Angeles" appearance that she was "drafting" the next "ACOTAR" book — and having a blast doing it.

"I will say that I've become so focused and obsessed with writing this book," she told Hobbs and Billings. "It's like that feeling of having a crush or when you're first, like, obsessed with someone, and you're just thinking about it nonstop."

Likewise, in a January 2024 interview with Jenna Bush Hager, Maas said her next published work would be the sixth installment of "ACOTAR," saying she was "very, very excited about that one."

However, the book seems to have transformed since those comments based on Maas' conversation with Cooper.

Clues about the future of 'ACOTAR'

Maas has been tight-lipped about the contents of her coming work, but on August 13, Bloomsbury shared an "ACOTAR Autumn Equinox" digital kit to its website that may offer some clues.

The kit breaks down how to throw an Autumn Equinox-themed release party for book six, including recipes, discussion questions, and games readers can play together to celebrate the book.

The whole guide is themed on autumn, which may be a sign that at least some of the book will take place in the Autumn Court. There are also a few recipes in the guide, including a "Shadowsinger Spritz," a nod to Night Court member Azriel. It's possible the drink hints that the book will focus on the shadowsinger Azriel, though the Autumn imagery may suggest that Lucien Vanserra or his brother Eris will be a focus of the story.

The guide also contains a "predictions tracker" with group discussion questions. One question asks which points of view the story will be told from, and another asks what new romances may be featured in the coming book, suggesting the story will be told by and follow multiple characters. It also asks how Bryce Quinlan's journey to Prythian in "House of Flame and Shadow" will impact the story, making it clear that fans should read the entire "Crescent City" series before "ACOTAR" six. That won't be a surprise to fans who have been following Maas' work.

The most recent book in the "ACOTAR" series, "A Court of Silver Flames," was released in 2021 and focused on Nesta Archeron. The first four books were told from the perspective of Feyre Archeron, while Maas seemed to usher in a new era of the series by writing from her sister's perspective in "ACOSF."

Nesta also appeared in "House of Flame and Shadow," which created a multiverse between "ACOTAR," "Crescent City," and the "Throne of Glass" series.

In "House of Flame and Shadow," Nesta and Azriel discover that the magical prison in Prythian lies atop what was once a powerful fae court, the Dusk Court, alongside Bryce.

They also learn that Rhysand's lineage traces back to the fae who ruled the Dusk Court, creating the potential for Rhys to rule two courts.

Nesta also seems to have connections to those long-forgotten fae, as she bears an eight-pointed star tattoo that matches a chamber in the prison and the design on a sword called Gwydion that had been missing from Prythian for centuries. The sword had been with Bryce's family on her planet, Midgard, where it is called the Starsword. She used the sword and Azriel's matching dagger, Truth-Teller, to bring peace to her planet.

When she returned the dagger to Azriel, Bryce also gifted Gwydion to Nesta.

"I think that eight-pointed star was tattooed on you for a reason. Take that sword and go figure out why," Bryce told Nesta.

It's possible Maas was setting up a continuation of Nesta's story for her next "ACOTAR" story in the scene, which may see her explore her power and connections to the fae of the Dusk Court.

Elain's role in future 'ACOTAR' books

Although Maas tied "ACOTAR" and "Crescent City" together primarily through Nesta and Azriel in "House of Flame and Shadow," it's possible she may turn to other characters or balance multiple plots in her next book, given the length of the coming volumes. For instance, Maas told Eva Chen during an appearance on "Live Talks Los Angeles" in February 2021 that she planned to write a book from the third Archeron sister's perspective — Elain.

In "A Court of Silver Flames," Elain had settled into life at the Night Court, refusing to explore her mating bond with Lucien. After breaking ties with Tamlin and the Spring Court, Lucien served as an emissary to the human lands for the Night Court, keeping his distance from Elain because being around her was painful.

Maas also spoke to Cooper about Elain and Lucien's mating bond, indicating that she was eager to explore how it differs from others we see in her works.

"I think Elain's got her own trauma and shit that she's going through right now," she said, adding that Lucien's involvement in bringing Elain to the fae world is a barrier to their relationship.

"So, exploring a concept of a free will, what does that look like with a mating bond?" Maas said. "What does that mean? And does nature get it wrong sometimes? Does it get it right sometimes?"

Maas said she was "interested" as a writer in exploring what it meant for someone not to desire to be mated, which could mean she would wrote about that topic in her coming work.

Elain also seems to have an attraction to Azriel in the text, though Maas juxtaposed their bond with how ill-fitting aspects of life at the Night Court are for Elain during a visit to the Court of Nightmares in "ACOSF." Some fans think Maas set up a storyline in which Elain finds a home at another court (which could lead her back to Lucien, who has ties to the Autumn, Spring, and Dawn courts), and that Azriel will find love with Nesta's friend Gwyn instead of Elain.

Maas also hasn't explored the full potential of Elain's Seer powers in the series, so she will likely write more about her abilities in future "ACOTAR" novels.

• A new report found that the median rent for a Manhattan apartment is $5,000 a month and climbing.
• Inventory has fallen as New Yorkers can't afford to move.
• Mayor Zohran Mamdani has pledged 200,000 new homes in NYC, but it's a lofty goal.

Renting a New York City apartment isn't for the weak.

The median Manhattan rental price for a market-rate apartment soared to $5,000 in July — up 3% from June and 6% from July 2025 — an August 13 report from The Real Deal and appraisal firm Samuel Miller found.

The record-high rent comes alongside a staggering drop in public market listings. Apartment inventory in the borough has dropped by roughly 4,000 units, or 39% year-over-year, as homes are spending far fewer days on the market and people are signing leases with fewer discounts off the asking price.

Last summer, rentals spent an average of 48 days on the market. This summer, it's 36. Shorter duration on the market is typically an indicator of tighter supply and higher demand, as aspiring renters snap up open units more quickly.

Finding housing in the city has long been a challenge. Business Insider has heard from single moms who moved in together to cut costs, side hustlers struggling to make ends meet, and retirees worried they can't pay to age in the city.

The majority of New Yorkers spend more than 30% of their income on rent, the threshold economists classify as unaffordable.

Prices are jumping as inventory drops

The rental market trends are largely in line with America's broader housing market. A 2026 report from the Harvard Joint Center on Housing Studies found that the US has a significant shortage of affordable homes and that rents are rising. Even so, vacancies for both expensive rentals and single-family homes have increased, as many families can't afford to move. This kind of market stagnation is also reflected in NYC, as the Real Deal report showed the number of new leases dropped by 19%.

The Real Deal report also found that, in Manhattan, prices are rising fastest for apartments with two or more bedrooms. The year-over-year median price for "luxury" units — those in the top 10% of the market — has jumped 31% year over year to $13,750 a month.

Downtown neighborhoods have the steepest prices, followed by the West Side, East Side, and Northern Manhattan. Listing inventory across all areas, however, has dropped about 40% in the last year.

To address the housing affordability crisis, Mayor Zohran Mamdani launched his "Block by Block" plan, which aims to build 200,000 affordable homes during his tenure. Business Insider has covered city efforts to convert historic hotels into apartments, construct low-cost senior housing, and repurpose libraries, office buildings, and city-owned property for homes. Increasing supply could help lower prices in the long-run.

The city and state have pledged billions of dollars to these housing initiatives and are also leaning on support from nonprofits, developers, and big banks to foot the bill.

The Real Deal report only captures market-rate units, not rent-stabilized apartments, which make up 44% of Manhattan's housing. Mamdani's rent freeze — one of his top campaign promises — takes effect this fall and will cap rents on those rent-stabilized apartments for one- and two-year leases. While rent freezes can help alleviate costs for (often high-earning) residents in the short term, the policy can cause market-rate costs to increase. A rent freeze under former Mayor Bill de Blasio lapsed for this reason.

In the middle of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, her then-boyfriend, Travis Kelce, materialized onstage wearing a top hat and grinning ear-to-ear. He clicked his heels, cradled Swift in his arms, and mimed putting makeup on her face during a well-rehearsed skit, hitting all his marks as a member of her supporting cast.

While tens of thousands of fans in London's Wembley Stadium screamed their approval, none had shelled out money for tickets to see Kelce. His cameo was the mere cherry on top of Swift's monumental career achievement: She'd set an attendance record for the venue and generated an estimated $1 billion for the UK economy.

Not that Kelce seemed to mind playing second fiddle. In fact, he said it was "an honor" to dip his toe into Swift's world, casting himself as a superfan who got luckier than most.

"You can do no wrong when Taylor's onstage," Kelce said on his podcast. "She's the best to do it."

Kelce is a star in his own right, an athlete on track for the NFL Hall of Fame. Yet Kelce's reported net worth is dwarfed by Swift's multibillion-dollar fortune, and this summer's headlines about his return to football can't resist shoehorning in a mention of his and Swift's recent wedding.

Off the field, Kelce's prestige is not threatened by Swift's success but is perhaps even bolstered by it. He belongs to a new wave of secure Hollywood husbands: male celebrities whose enthusiastic endorsement of their high-earning wives makes them more endearing and, crucially, more bankable.

Think: Tom Holland, Spider-Man himself, interrupting his own interview at a "Spider-Man" premiere to admire the glamorous arrival of his wife, Zendaya. (This has happened not just once, but many times.) Holland also told Men's Health that he doesn't join Zendaya on non-Marvel-related red carpets because "it's not my moment, it's her moment."

Or consider the musician Benny Blanco, who said he's so afraid of flying that he literally took a boat across the Atlantic Ocean to lay eyes on his billionaire wife, Selena Gomez, who's currently in London filming her Emmy-winning TV show. "The things we do for love," he wrote on TikTok.

This pattern offers a refreshing contrast to the more common reality, which is that divorce rates in heterosexual couples rise significantly when a woman is more professionally successful than her male partner.

It may also offer an escapist balm for the women in question. Celebrity culture thrives by reflecting our own desires like a gilded mirror — and husbands like Kelce, Holland, and Blanco represent an alluring ideal for women at a time when many are outpacing their male counterparts in the labor market. Women outnumber men in medical school and law school; they earn more bachelor's degrees; and they hold more jobs in the US as of March, according to a survey conducted by the Indeed Hiring Lab.

"That concept of a supportive husband is really appealing to women in 2026," Mike Fahey, the founder and CEO of the PR agency Fahey Communications, told Business Insider. Plus, famous hype husbands who are loving and supportive enjoy the added bonus of being "more marketable," Fahey said.

A female breadwinner isn't exactly a new phenomenon, but as women accumulate more cultural and economic clout — and as prominent men publicly celebrate that trend — the strict "alpha male" archetype loses its luster.

"We're reimagining what masculinity looks like," Fahey said. "As more of those couples take A-plus-list status, others follow suit. You just need one trailblazer to really change the game for the rest of Hollywood."

'They're more than just the alpha male. They're the modern male.'

The social media era has transformed celebrity branding, turning descriptors like "real" and "relatable" into high praise. Now more than ever, it pays for celebrities to put their dimensions on display, be it via Instagram posts, red carpet appearances, or paparazzi shots. One of the best ways to do so is by giving fans a glimpse into their relationships.

"This is a really important place for men to show that they're more than just the roles they play," Fahey said. "They're more than just the alpha male. They're the modern male."

Take someone like the rapper A$AP Rocky, who rose to fame with songs like "Peso" and "F**kin' Problems," which feature lyrics in which he brags about his groupies and his own pretty face. Rocky still releases popular, braggadocious music — and his latest album, "Don't Be Dumb," debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in January — but now, he also spends a lot of time gushing about Rihanna, his longtime partner and the mother of his children, not to mention a beloved hitmaker and Fenty Beauty billionaire.

"So much better when you got 'the one,'" Rocky told GQ when he confirmed their relationship. "She amounts to probably, like, a million of the other ones."

Unlike the trite "wife guy" archetype — the kind of man who builds and sustains his entire image on his marriage, to the point that it can read as performative — Hollywood's hype husbands have plenty going for them on their own. Kelce has Super Bowl rings, and Holland has record-breaking box-office achievements. Blanco made hit songs like Rihanna's "Diamonds" and Katy Perry's "California Gurls" long before he teamed up with his pop-star wife for a collaborative album, 2025's "I Said I Love You First."

Peter Mancusi, a PR professional and communications professor at Northeastern University, said the distinction comes down to self-sufficiency and confidence: It's not "I need you," but "I want you."

"It's not like these men are drafting their wives to become famous themselves. They're already, in their own realms, famous," Mancusi explained.

"Confidence is really about doing what these men are doing, which is supporting their partners," he continued. "It's to say, 'I'm confident enough in who I am to be very supportive of her spectacular career.'"

Want to win over female audiences? Supporting your wife is a good place to start.

In Rob Sheffield's book, "Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music," about Swift's impact on the music industry, he quotes Smokey Robinson: "Women make show business," the singer-songwriter and producer told Rolling Stone in 1979. "Men contribute to the thing, but women actually make show business happen."

Sheffield argues that Swift knows this all too well, but I would argue that her husband Kelce does, too. When he proudly declares that his favorite Taylor Swift song is "Blank Space," or he's caught filming the Eras Tour on his phone, Swifties are eager to rally behind him. He becomes one of them.

"Being this famous football player and having this supportive, softer side to him — he's into the music, into what his wife is about — is very appealing, especially to women," Mancusi said. "He's got unlimited possibilities because of his relationship."

Women and girls are the driving force behind fan culture — often as early champions of male celebrities they find charming and non-threatening, from The Beatles to Harry Styles to the stars of "Heated Rivalry." History shows that winning over female audiences can be a fast track to stardom.

"I think that women are more likely to click 'Follow,' they're more likely to click 'Like,' they're more likely to visit your TikTok shop," Fahey said. "Getting women on your side makes your brand much stronger. It makes your longevity much stronger. It makes your marketability much stronger and your prospects limitless."

Melvin L. Williams, a communications and media studies professor at Pace University, agreed that famous men like Kelce, Blanco, and Callum Turner, who recently wed pop juggernaut Dua Lipa, are "keenly aware of the economic benefits" of wooing the crowds who flock to their famous wives.

"Each man's next business venture or media appearance has the possibility of a highly profitable endorsement from a notable figure like Selena Gomez, Dua Lipa, or Taylor Swift," Williams said.

Indeed, after Kelce began dating Swift, NFL viewership spiked — particularly among teenage girls — and sales of Kelce's jersey surged nearly 400% when Swift made her first game-day appearance. Kelce's brother, former NFL player Jason Kelce, has credited Swift with introducing their family to a whole new demographic.

Meanwhile, Blanco's joint album with Gomez sold more in its first week than any other album in his discography, and rumors are swirling that Turner — who was previously best known for starring in the embattled "Harry Potter" spinoff series, "Fantastic Beasts" — is being eyed as the next James Bond.

So whatever you want to call it — modern masculinity, savvy branding, or simply being a good husband — being in love with a commercial juggernaut has its perks. For Hollywood's hype husbands, a happy wife makes for a lucrative life.

• US Army soldiers experimented with drones at a recent exercise in the Mojave Desert.
• Troops said that the drones offered them new capabilities, extending their sight and reach.
• But temperature, connectivity, and equipment proved challenging.

Two US Army 4th Infantry Division soldiers sat on the barren desert earth at Fort Irwin, California. One wore first-person-view goggles and held a drone controller. The other watched the drone's feed on a laptop.

After a few moments of setup, the Neros Archer lifted off, the buzz loud up close and still audible at a distance. The small aircraft made a short flight before returning to the launch point and circling overhead. Then, hovering about a foot above the ground, the operator cut the power. The drone dropped silently.

The demonstration only lasted a few minutes, but it offered a glimpse into a much larger Army experiment with drones. As part of the service's massive transformation initiative, the Army is working to flood the force with small uncrewed aerial systems to prepare soldiers for future wars

Throughout the exercise, soldiers described learning, often through trial and error, what it actually takes to use drones in the field, including when to launch them, how to keep them flying in punishing conditions, what equipment to carry, and how operating them fits alongside troops' existing jobs.

Drones are bringing new capabilities to the fight

In the desert, Business Insider observed soldiers using a mix of drone technology in demonstrations and simulated combat, including the Archer first-person-view drone, Anduril's Bolt-M, Teledyne FLIR Defense's Rogue I, and Teal Drones' Black Widow. Some soldiers had multiple systems at their disposal and were weighing the pros and cons of each.

The consensus on the positives during the experimentation exercise was that drones could help soldiers spot enemy vehicles or positions and decide how to respond.

"Now my capabilities are just exponentially increasing. I can see further. I can continuously see," Capt. Dominic Sparkling, a unit commander within the 4th ID, said.

Many warfighting lessons can be learned from Ukraine, where both Moscow and Kyiv's forces have used drones as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance tools to extend what they can see on the field of battle, as well as attack options for striking enemy targets. Some drones are one-way attack systems, while others used in the war drop munitions rather than detonating on target, making the systems reusable for future missions.

Some of the uncrewed systems at Fort Irwin featured interchangeable payloads that could be used to see, sense, and, if needed, strike an enemy with an explosive or fragmentation round.

Depending on the situation, certain payloads could either be launched from the drone or require the drone itself to be expended in the attack. Cpl. Emiliano Lopez, one of the Rogue I operators, said using drones meant soldiers didn't have to dismount as often because they can use them to extend their sight and reach.

The two soldiers operating the Archer told Business Insider that they had recently completed the monthlong training course for that particular drone and had logged flight time in another class.

"Just being able to go out to the field and test these, we've seen the worst scenarios of these things, and we've seen the best," Specialist Christopher Frank, who was flying the drone, said, citing problems like loss of connection and physical damage.

The soldier watching the Archer's feed on the laptop, called the spotter, served as a second pair of eyes and a guide for the pilot. Sgt. Gabe Tedro assisted Frank and retrieved the drone when it was powered down. Frank and Tedro were the only two scouts in their platoon qualified to use the Archer, though more troops were preparing for future drone courses.

During simulated combat, soldiers using drones often set up on a mountain at their observation post. They'd position a tripod to relay the drone's signal and keep their equipment plugged in and ready in case they got a call from their commander to launch a drone.

Then, "all it takes is just putting a battery on and tightening the nuts on the rotors, and then we're sending it," Frank said.

Beyond UAVs, the Army was also testing uncrewed ground vehicles. Soldiers had used one, the NOMAD, more than a dozen times for logistics and resupply missions. Sgt. 1st Class Alex Alcantar called it "extremely useful," saying it reduced the risk to troops on dangerous runs.

Punishing conditions reveal challenges

As troops experimented with the systems in the Mojave Desert, they also ran into challenges and unknowns.

Operators told Business Insider that they weren't pushing their drones in the hot weather, avoiding further distances or long flight times in order to prevent overheating.

"The heat's been a very big thing when it comes to this drone in particular," Sgt. Ramontez Bennett said, describing the Bolt-M. Bennett said the temperature limited how long he could fly the drone and prompted him to keep it moving rather than hover in the air, because "the longer you keep it around in the air, it's gonna overheat."

The heat caused problems ranging from overheating hardware to reduced battery life. Soldiers improvised some solutions to cool other technology involved in operating the systems, Army leaders told reporters after the exercise. In one example, troops covered an antenna with a T-shirt soaked in ice water.

None of the drones that Business Insider saw were connected to Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, the Army's new prototype warfighting system, which officials have said is intended to connect drones and weapons across the network.

Army leaders said many of the drones weren't connected because vendors were still working toward interoperability requirements with NGC2. In some cases, the drones in use were not yet formal Army programs.

In other situations, troops were navigating connectivity problems caused by simulated enemy jamming, desert ridges, and heavy winds. Frank and others said that connection issues, such as static blurring the drone's camera feed, can come from a range of factors like frequency problems, weather conditions, location, and geography.

Like many drones, the Archer and Rogue I have a "return to home" function should they lose connection with their operators.

But other systems, like the NOMAD ground robot, didn't have that fallback option. Instead, it stopped where it was when it lost connection and required a soldier to go out and retrieve it. The rocky terrain also reduced the NOMAD's range, cutting it in half as the vehicle traveled over ridges.

Another challenge was deciding what to carry into the field. Concerns about the added weight and gear came up repeatedly, and soldiers said the trade-offs depended on time, capability, and conditions. If troops needed to move quickly and quietly, that could limit their loadout.

"That's the trade-off," Lt. Col. Shawn Scott, a unit commander within the 4th ID, said. "That's the balance, and it's always going to be hard to find."

Frank and Tedro said that at one point, they had received an order to ready their drone while riding in the back of a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. Setting it all up inside the vehicle was risky because a bumpy ride can damage some parts of the system.

They said they'd learned tricks in the field, like leaving the drone case behind when they went up to the observation post because it added unnecessary weight, and carrying only a few batteries while keeping the rest in the Bradley.

Those small adjustments were part of a larger process of figuring out just how drones fit into the way soldiers actually fight. Army leaders said soldier feedback from the exercise was critical for assessing how systems performed. Vendors weren't present in the field with soldiers, but some troops said they'd received cheat sheets from companies to reference if they ran into problems.

• Sarah Silbiger and her partner, Jason Bernert, took a yearlong sabbatical to road trip the US.
• Living in a van with your significant other for a year can naturally get frustrating at times.
• Here are her top five relationship tips to make life as smooth as possible.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sarah Silbiger, a 30-year-old freelance video and photojournalist based in Philadelphia. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

My partner and I are both journalists. We worked straight through the pandemic, and it was unrelenting. After covering such partisan politics, I really wanted to have a more holistic understanding of what it meant to live in the US.

We're really outdoorsy and wanted to see the country. Simply put, I was seeking a creative refresh and whimsy.

That led us to take a sabbatical, sell all our stuff, and move into a van.

Being in love was a nice way to keep things amicable. He's my partner, but he's also my best friend, so that helped.

Nonetheless, being on the road for so long isn't easy; here are my top tips and tricks to keep the peace when you're with someone 24/7.

1. Food can lift morale

Trader Joe's was an essential stop throughout our trip.

Unlike Costco, you're not buying huge quantities, so they're easier to fit in the van. The food is already simplified for you, so you can buy fewer individual ingredients and have easy-to-make meals.

We also connected over food because life on the road isn't picture perfect every day. After a long day, making a big pot of Thai peanut noodles was great for morale and absolutely kept the peace in our tiny home.

2. Recognize when something else is making you both miserable

When we were traveling around New Mexico, it was super hot, which, when you're living outside, puts you in a terrible mood. I was with my partner this whole time, so we were obviously getting frustrated with each other.

Coming from Pennsylvania, there's not a huge difference between the lowest elevation and the highest. But in states like Arizona, Utah, or New Mexico, a completely different climate might be a short drive away. This is where understanding elevation maps came in.

We realized we could drive for 30 minutes to get from a blazing-hot desert to a snowy mountain in Cloudcroft. Everything was fixed. All morale was restored. Peace was restored to our kingdom.

3. Bring your hobbies

I'm a big crafter.
I stuffed an entire storage area with my crafting supplies. I brought my entire tufting setup, including a gigantic canvas and an electric tufting machine.

Bringing along my crafting supplies in the van was super grounding. When your environment is changing so frequently, it feels important to have something that remains consistent.

It always gives you an avenue to have your own space. So anytime I didn't want to chat with my partner, I would just go do a craft outside on my own.

I think people think they have to go so minimalist with packing that they don't bring anything except their clothes, food, and a book.

If you're going to be on the road for a long time, or even if you're just on a regular camping trip with your partner, I really am pro bringing your hobbies with you.

4. Implement a reset ritual

Spending all your time with someone can drive you crazy at times.

Something we used to reset the energy was these itty-bitty ice-cream cones. If things were going wrong, we would just say: "We need a tiny ice cream."

We'd eat them, and it was like an instant reset.

Sometimes, if we really needed to put the kibosh on a heated situation, we would take a shot of pickle juice. It was such a funny way to just be like, OK, we're done. We're just tired and irritable.

For some reason, that was a really good way to snap out of it.

5. Advocate for your needs

A huge aspect of keeping the peace is advocating for your needs. If you're tired, you need to say, "I'm done driving, I'm going to go lie in the back. You drive the rest of the way."

It's the best way to work out communication in a relationship because otherwise, you're not going to make it on the road.

For us, it worked out. In fact, we recently got engaged at Green Lake State Park in New York when we went camping in our van again.

• Influencers are getting roasted for using or promoting artificial intelligence.
• AI is deeply polarizing, and using it carries reputational risks for content creators.
• Even creators who are trying to steer clear of AI sometimes get swept up in the controversy.

Being a content creator in the age of AI means navigating a minefield of reputational risks.

Using or simply talking about AI in the wrong way can spark internet backlash, never mind doing a promotional post for an AI company.

Artificial intelligence is highly polarizing, and the backlash against the tech has been ramping up recently. Many factors have contributed to the negative vibes, from unpopular data centers to fears about job displacement and AI-induced price hikes on tech products like video game consoles.

In the particular case of video platforms, AI slop has flooded social feeds with low-quality videos and misinformation, irking some viewers.

In this environment, creators like Hank Green and Cliff Tan have recently faced criticism from their audiences for their associations with AI. There are three main ways creators have been getting raked over the coals about AI in recent weeks.

Here they are:

1. Promoting an AI company

The easiest way for a creator to draw criticism around AI is to post promotional content on behalf of an LLM company or AI firm.

Influencers who posted about attending a luxury OpenAI-hosted "Summer Camp" in early August received a wave of criticism from fans in their comments sections, who variously called it "dystopian," "gross," and "morally bankrupt."

An OpenAI spokesperson told Business Insider that the retreat was an education-focused event, and that "creators are an important part of our community and how people get information and learn about our products."

This week, interior design creator Cliff Tan apologized to fans after posting promotional content for the Chinese AI platform, Dreamina, acknowledging the post had disappointed many of his viewers.

Large AI companies have a lot of money to spend on influencer marketing, but creators who want to get that bag should be prepared for potential backlash.

"There's a PR issue with AI as it relates to taking people's jobs and environmental concerns around data centers," Eric Bogard, CEO of the talent firm UnderCurrent Management, previously told Business Insider. "Creators are hesitant to promote AI companies as a result."

2. Using AI in the wrong way

At this stage, pretty much every influencer is using AI tools in some manner.

If you use Adobe Photoshop or TikTok's CapCut, or tweak an image or video with an editing tool, there's a good chance that AI has played a part in your final output.

Audiences generally understand that.

Creators run into trouble when it becomes evident that AI was heavily involved in the making of a finished product.

YouTuber Hank Green learned that lesson when he disclosed he'd used AI as a research tool for one of his shows, and drew an immediate negative reaction from his fans.

"I have been relying too heavily on AI as a research aid," Green said. "It can be very useful for this task, giving me access to a lot of papers I didn't know existed really fast, but I think that has been to the detriment of my work because it has not given me the freedom to find all of my own ways into and around a topic."

The science and educational content creator has since laid out a new policy regarding the use of AI, saying he won't allow any portion of a script to be written, edited, or outlined by an LLM; that a video's thesis must originate with a human; and that no image or music in a video will be AI-generated.

3. Getting flagged for using AI, even if they tried to avoid it

Even if a creator goes out of their way to avoid using AI, they may still get nailed for it.

As social apps like TikTok and Instagram try to detect and label more artificial content in their feeds, some influencers are finding their content getting mislabeled as AI-generated.

Creators like Gregory Littley and Lindsey Lee Lugrin found that social posts promoting work they did offline, such as taking physical Polaroid photos or painting by hand, were flagged as AI.

"I cringe when I see that label," Littley said. "I cringe even more when I know it's not true."

Read more about how influencers are dealing with AI mislabeling

• Former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is bullish on the future of AI for companies.
• The Anthropic board member said, "You're going to see a lot of companies attacking each other."
• Having left Netflix completely in June, Hastings said he's using AI to level up his Utah ski resort.

Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings says CEOs could soon face critical decisions if generative AI continues to rapidly improve.

"You could either cut your workforce in half and stay in the same business lines, or you can use all these new resources to expand against your competitors," Hastings said during an interview for Semafor's "The CEO Signal" podcast.

Hastings, who sits on Anthropic's board of directors, said that in five years, frontier models will be 32 times better than today. If that pace continues, which is not guaranteed but is something many in the industry expect, "then in 10 years, that's a thousand times better."

"What do CEOs have to do? It's like doubling your workforce," he said.

Many companies, Hastings said, will take it as an opportunity to try to gain a leg up on their competition.

"You're going to see a lot of companies attacking each other, which is the great act of creative destruction," he said. "And because it's gotten easier and easier to make software and soon will be easier to make everything."

Hastings said all of society, including the C-suite, isn't ready for what AI will do if the pace of advancement continues.

"I think most humans are underestimating what doubling every year that's an exponential rate of improvement is going to do," he said.

The Netflix cofounder also dismissed concerns that only large companies like the entertainment giant he helped create will truly thrive with AI. Larger companies are better suited to funding the high costs of widespread, intensive AI use, though that gap may narrow if AI usage costs decline, as some industry analysts expect.

After leaving Netflix's board of directors in June, Hastings is devoting his time to Powder Mountain, a Utah ski area, parts of which he's turning into a luxury, members-only ski community.

"I think sometimes the small companies are the most innovative and will be the most aggressive users of AI to unlock various scenarios to compete with their competitors," he said. "So it varies quite a bit."

Instead, Hastings said it's CEOs like himself who will determine which companies will benefit the most from AI.

"I think it's more attitudinal than the size of the firm, and certainly depends on the applicability of it," he said.

Hastings said he's using AI "all the time" both to expand his own knowledge and to create better experiences for Powder Mountain's members.

"I'm asking AI to teach me how ski lifts work, how sewer systems work, what property developments have worked and why," he said. "So I'm the student for so much of the AI session. And then we're using AI to improve the software in the place."

• Denise Dresser is leaving her role as chief revenue officer at OpenAI after eight months.
• It's the latest in a batch of executive shake-ups at OpenAI as it positions for an IPO.
• Dali Rajic, the former chief operating officer of Wiz, will replace Dresser.

OpenAI's executive shake-up continues.

The company announced Thursday that it is replacing its chief revenue officer, Denise Dresser, after only eight months in the role. Dali Rajic, formerly the chief operating officer of Wiz, is taking over the role with the monumental task of preparing OpenAI for its initial public offering, expected next year.

Dresser's departure joins a wave of change inside OpenAI's upper ranks. On Tuesday, former chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said he'd be leaving the company — Dresser had been given parts of Lightcap's former remit as recently as April. In July, OpenAI lost Johannes Heidecke, its head of safety systems, and Joshua Achiam, its chief futurist. Fidji Simo, its CEO of applications, moved into an advisory role due to health reasons.

The dramatic upheaval comes at a crucial juncture for OpenAI. This year, its rivalry with AI lab Anthropic reached a fever pitch, with the companies battling for market share and talent as they speed toward IPOs. OpenAI is trying to parlay its billion users into a sustainable business, scrambling to build data centers and win customers as its core technology evolves.

Dresser joined OpenAI last December to spearhead its revenue growth, coming from a CEO role at Slack within Salesforce. OpenAI's Thursday release said she would leave after a transition period.

"Denise has led our revenue organization through a formative period for the business and has worked tirelessly to get the team to where it is today," Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, said in the release.

Dresser thanked the OpenAI staff in a message she posted on LinkedIn on Thursday. She didn't provide details about her next move, writing that she "made the difficult decision to leave OpenAI in the coming weeks to pursue other opportunities." Dresser didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

OpenAI told Business Insider that under Dresser, the company now has 2 million business customers, double its count from a year ago. The company aims to generate half of its revenue from enterprises by the end of the year.

Rajic was Wiz's president and chief operating officer throughout the cloud security firm's recent purchase by Google. He'd previously held executive roles at Zscaler and AppDynamics.

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• Allison Strumeyer wanted experience in finance and a startup before launching her own.
• She says working for BlackRock showed her how to work to a high standard.
• She launched a sock company that does millions in annual sales.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Allison Strumeyer, cofounder and CEO of doublesoul. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I was in college at the University of Pennsylvania, I had a side hustle selling T-shirts. I would connect with local artists to feature their work and sell the shirts on campus. I also did pitch competitions with my now-husband, Ben. I've always felt very native to entrepreneurship, and I knew I wanted to start my own business.

Yet, when I graduated, I chose to work at BlackRock. It was intentional: I believed working with a global finance company would give me insights valuable to me as an entrepreneur. BlackRock also taught me how to perform at a high level, in everything from communications to project management.

I was at BlackRock for about two years, then joined Mirror, a startup that was acquired by Lululemon. Mirror was smaller and scrappier, and during my four years there, I learned about scaling a startup. The combination of both experiences left me ready to start my own company.

I became really passionate about socks

I always found it interesting that we wear socks more than almost anything else in our wardrobe. But there's little innovation, product development, branding, or design around socks. I felt the category had been ignored, and I believed that we all deserve socks we're excited about.

My husband Ben and I became really emotionally attached to the idea of creating better socks. But we wanted to test the market before diving in. We created a prototype and ordered 10,000 pairs — the minimum order, which was about $100,000 worth of socks.

We shared them with pretty much everyone we'd ever met and asked them to post about the socks. That gave us organic sales and — more importantly — proof of our concept. In 2022, we officially launched Doublesoul.

Investment gave me the confidence to leave my job

I chose to stay in my day job as long as possible while we started the company. On social media, people are encouraged to leave their jobs to pursue their own projects, but that felt like dangerous territory to me.

Having that backing gave me the confidence I needed to leave my job. Ben and I knew we would need to sell lots of socks before we could fund a team. But we also wanted to move quickly, so we pursued venture funding. We raised about $2 million.

Leaving my job was emotional. I went to a school where most people went on to high-paying careers, and I was walking away from a secure salary. Even though I knew I was building equity in the business over the long term, that was scary.

I was too pregnant to appear on 'Shark Tank,' so my husband went

We had a lucky break early on at the company when comedian Pete Davidson tried the socks and loved them. He started as a customer, but quickly invested. Now, he's like a third partner to Ben and me.

We were brainstorming unique marketing opportunities and decided to try to get on "Shark Tank." I was too pregnant to travel when the show taped, so Pete and Ben went.

I didn't mind missing out: I didn't have to be nervous, and having Ben there was like having an extension of myself. Ben and Pete called to tell me about the deal with Kendra Scott, the Shark who invested in the company.

We create time daily for family, without business talk

When the show aired last September, our son was 3 weeks old. In many ways, early parenthood mirrors a startup. I'm glad to have Ben at my side for both. Splitting responsibilities and knowing that we share a vision for our future — for the business and our son — is very grounding.

We take a walk most mornings to bring the baby to the park. During that time, we're not allowed to talk about Doublesoul. We just relax and enjoy a family moment. We need to be intentional about clearing time for our relationship, or it would be too easy to talk business all the time.

• Chili's just released its latest earnings and credited its chicken sandwich with boosting sales.
• I tried the chain's crispy chicken sandwich to see what the hype was about.
• It gives Chili's an edge in the value battle with fast food.

Chili's has a new weapon in the war against fast food: its crispy chicken sandwich.

While the chicken sandwich wars have faded in recent years, the fight for value has only intensified.

Chili's has repeatedly leaned into that competition, launching three campaigns in the past few years that directly challenge fast-food staples with larger versions of those items, arguing that diners can get more for their money at the casual-dining chain.

Earlier this year, Chili's launched a new campaign for its $10.99 3-For-Me deal, featuring a revamped chicken sandwich and five new versions, from Buffalo to BLT-style, as it looks to challenge fast-food chains on taste and value.

The bet on chicken sandwiches is paying off.

On its parent company's Q4 earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Kevin Hochman credited the chicken sandwich push with helping boost same-store sales. He said daily chicken sandwich orders on the base menu jumped 175%, and said the item was "designed to drive traffic."

I tried the new chicken sandwich to see why it's become such a hit for Chili's — and while it may not be as convenient as a fast-food option, the overall taste and value won me over.

Chili's crispy chicken sandwich immediately impressed me with its size

In addition to its classic version, the chicken sandwich comes in five variations, including honey-chipotle, Buffalo, spicy mayo, and a deluxe version topped with bacon, lettuce, and tomato.

It's also featured in Chili's nationwide $10.99 3-For-Me deal, which includes fries, bottomless chips and salsa, soup or a side salad, and unlimited fountain drinks.

For comparison, at my local McDonald's, a McCrispy chicken sandwich meal, which includes a sandwich, fries, and a drink, costs $10.59, excluding tax.

The chicken sandwich comes topped with mayonnaise and thick-cut, crunchy pickles

The sandwich was much thicker than any fast-food chicken sandwich I've had, and that's intentional.

Chili's said a local study found its chicken sandwich fillet is more than 80% larger than the average McDonald's McCrispy breaded fillet.

"If we can have a superior product that tastes great and is a great value, people are going to come," CEO Kevin Hochman told Business Insider. "And then if we can execute it, they're going to come back."

Chili's also hand-breads its chicken fillets in-house, rather than re-frying them from frozen, which Hochman said is part of the chain's mission to focus on menu improvements, not just innovation.

I can see why the chicken sandwich is helping to boost sales

Each bite was a satisfying mix of salty, briny, and savory flavors, with the tangy pickles cutting through the richness of the chicken.

However, the texture is what ultimately gives the Chili's sandwich the edge over fast-food chicken sandwiches. The coating stayed crunchy from the first bite to the last, making this a sandwich that lives up to its "crispy" name.

The value proposition was just as convincing. For $10.99, my meal came with fries, bottomless chips and salsa, and an unlimited fountain drink.

With this meal, Chili's outperforms fast-food restaurants on both taste and value, even if it can't compete with the speed and convenience of a drive-thru.

• As a dietitian and mom of three, I'm always looking for new breakfast recipes to try.
• Ina Garten's blueberry-bran muffins were simple to make and my kids loved them.
• The muffins also froze well and can easily be reheated in the microwave.

As a dietitian and a busy mom of three, I often find myself stuck in a breakfast rut, serving the same foods I know my kids will eat.

Every so often, though, I make an effort to try a new breakfast recipe to add some variety to our morning routine.

I enjoy making Ina Garten's recipes since they typically feature straightforward instructions and simple ingredients. So, when I found her recipe for blueberry-bran muffins, I knew I had to give them a shot. Here's how it went.

I gathered all the ingredients before getting started.

Before getting started, I arranged all the ingredients on the counter and preheated the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

I appreciated that I only needed two mixing bowls: one for wet ingredients and one for dry.

The only tweak I made to the original recipe was swapping fresh blueberries for frozen, which my kids prefer.

I began by mixing all the dry ingredients together.

In a large mixing bowl, I combined a cup of all-purpose flour, a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of baking powder, half a teaspoon of baking soda, and half a teaspoon of cinnamon.

Then, I combined all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

In a separate mixing bowl, I added 7 ounces of Greek yogurt, half a cup of sugar, half a cup of vegetable oil, half a cup of honey, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

I whisked two jumbo-sized eggs and incorporated them into the bowl of wet ingredients, thoroughly mixing everything together.

Next, I combined the wet and dry ingredients.

I then poured the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients, and mixed the batter until everything was combined.

I added the blueberries, which gave the batter a nice purple hue.

Once all the ingredients were fully mixed together, I gently stirred in 2½ cups of wheat bran and 1½ cups of frozen blueberries.

When all the ingredients were combined, the batter had a nice purple hue from the blueberries.

I greased the muffin pan before adding the batter.

Once the batter was ready, I greased the muffin pan using olive-oil spray to prevent sticking.

Then, I scooped the batter into the muffin pan, filling each cup to be about three-quarters full.

Personally, I decided to skip the paper liners Garten suggested since I didn't find them necessary.

I let the muffins bake for 25 minutes.

I used a toothpick to check if the muffins were ready. When it came out clean, I knew it was time to take them out of the oven.

I let them cool on the kitchen counter until they reached room temperature before storing them.

My kids devoured the muffins.

My kids absolutely loved having Ina Garten's muffins for breakfast and even requested seconds.

The muffins had a nutty flavor with hints of honey, and their texture was wonderfully moist and chewy. They also freeze exceptionally well and can be easily reheated in the microwave.

I'll definitely be making these blueberry-bran muffins again and will be adding them to our breakfast rotation.

This story was originally published on March 5, 2024, and most recently updated on August 13, 2026.

• Paramount Skydance is putting monthly limits on Claude token usage for tech employees.
• The change is meant to "ensure controlled spending and effective usage," a tech leader said.
• Other companies, including Disney and Microsoft, are encouraging responsible AI usage.

Paramount Skydance is putting limits on Claude spending for tech staffers as the company looks to cut down on wasteful AI usage.

David Ellison's company has capped how many Claude tokens users can use each month, three Paramount employees said. Tokens are units of AI usage and are generally how companies like Claude-maker Anthropic bill customers.

"As part of ongoing AI governance, monthly spend limits have been applied to Claude accounts to ensure controlled spending and effective usage across the organization," a senior AI leader said in an early-August message in Paramount's #claude-users Slack channel.

Paramount's move is part of a trend of companies putting limits on AI usage. Disney has told employees to avoid "tokenmaxxing," or maximizing AI usage without an eye toward productivity. Tech giant Microsoft also wants to crack down on AI token overuse, which CEO Satya Nadella said can be "addictive."

The senior Paramount AI leader said on Slack that "most users won't notice any change to their day-to-day experience" and added that tech leadership still "wanted to give everyone a heads-up."

A person familiar with the change said these monthly AI usage limits aren't team-specific and are instead "tailored by person and by need." They added that the limits are "more of an art than a science."

Users who exceed their monthly quota can request more tokens by filling out a form, four Paramount employees said.

Despite putting in Claude token limits, Paramount is "definitely still encouraging AI," the person familiar with the company's strategy said.

Token limits cause 'a fair amount of hubbub'

Some tech staffers were caught off guard by the new limits.

"There was a fair amount of hubbub around the change," one streaming employee said, though they added that it "won't really affect me" since they use only a fraction of their monthly token limit.

The senior AI leader's message thanked employees for "patience as we continue building out the right guardrails for responsible AI use at Paramount."

Paramount's cost-conscious move comes as its $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery is on hold after an antitrust lawsuit from 12 states.

Barring a settlement, the company will owe over $1 billion in fees to WBD shareholders while it waits for its March trial. Paramount's financial backers agreed to pay a so-called "ticking fee" of about $7 million per day that the WBD deal isn't closed, starting after September 30.

If Paramount buys WBD, it will have roughly $80 billion in debt, and if the deal doesn't close, it would have to pay a $7 billion termination fee.

• My sister and I flew to Paris to meet up with our 78-year-old dad, who visits the city every year.
• I couldn't believe how different he seemed, from wearing linen clothing to speaking fluent French.
• This trip showed me new facets of his interests and how a place can truly transform a person.

My 78-year-old dad has had a 15-year love affair with Paris. Every summer like clockwork, he and my stepmom escape their New England home and make their annual pilgrimage to the French capital.

Even though my older sister and I have done our fair share of our own adventures, we had still never been to Paris. That was my dad's thing, not ours.

However, that all changed in 2023, when my sister and I flew into Charles de Gaulle to see what all the fuss was about.

The morning we arrived, we planned to meet our dad in the lobby of our hotel. It had been a few weeks since I saw him, and I almost didn't recognize him when he walked through the door.

He had a breezy linen shirt, leather sandals, and a scruffy 5 o'clock shadow.

For a man who wouldn't dare leave his New England house without a clean shave, my immediate thought was that something had gone wrong. He probably lost power, misplaced his razor, or found his way into a Montmartre absinthe bar.

My sister and I joked, "Is customs confiscating Gillettes nowadays?"

"It's the Paris effect," he replied, as if it were obvious.

He'd transformed into a Parisian local right in front of my eyes

In New England, I know my dad to be a few things: a down-to-earth parent, a woodworker by trade, and a meticulous professor. In his classes, he instills a love of hand-carved pieces and abstract chairs in a generation that grew up with Ikea furniture.

That particular version of himself is all I'd known — most of the time we've spent together has been where we've lived in the northeast.

However, as my dad has continued to visit Paris over the years, he's established new roots and, apparently, another identity — one that was completely unknown to my sister and me.

In Paris, my dad's L.L. Bean flannels were on sabbatical. Instead, he stuck with a mostly linen wardrobe, and shirts rarely ever buttoned to the neck.

As we walked around the city, he showed us his favorite spots, grumbled about the crowds, and scoffed at the suggestion of going to the Eiffel Tower.

I was thoroughly shocked when we went to a local café, and he ordered for us in remarkably good French.

Throughout the trip, I continued to gather new information about my dad, like his love of drinking thick red wines and wearing a denim chore coat from his preferred atelier. I also discovered that he pairs a stinky cheese with a long walk along the Seine and likes to take his lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens.

He seemed like a true local, and I was blown away by the person in front of me.

By meeting a different version of my dad, I remembered my own potential to become someone new

While we were in Paris, I felt like I had been reintroduced to my dad. I learned about more of his interests and frequented his stomping grounds, but I also met a version of him who exists only in that city.

I realized I had previously seen my parents as just singular characters in life, an isolated definition of who someone can be. However, seeing my dad in Paris confirmed for me that who we are is relative not only to our relationships but also to geography.

It felt special to connect with a new side of him as an adult, and this experience also left me reflecting on the year and a half I spent living in South Korea back in 2021.

After returning to the United States, I felt that something essential had changed in who I was, but I also felt that I had left someone behind. Maybe it was about time to reawaken that part of myself on a return visit.

I'm hoping to schedule another trip to Paris with my dad sometime this year. But regardless of where we are in the world, I can't wait to discover more of his interests and alternate personas — and maybe find other versions of myself along the way, too.

• Garry Tan said he once passed up a role on Palantir's founding team to stay at Microsoft.
• It was a "$2-4 billion mistake," he said. He learned not to chase "what was hot."
• Tan eventually joined Palantir as its 10th employee. He now leads startup accelerator Y Combinator.

Garry Tan was employee No. 10 at Palantir. He regrets that it wasn't single digits.

On "The A16z Show," the Y Combinator CEO said that he was offered a place on the company's founding team — but he turned it down to stay at Microsoft.

Tan was in Stanford University's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. His frat brothers included Joe Lonsdale and Stephen Cohen, two Palantir cofounders. Both were interning at Peter Thiel's hedge fund, Tan said.

He described one of Thiel's strategies: "When you start a thing, you write down on a piece of paper all the smartest people who you need to go and hire."

Tan was on both of their lists, he said. So, Tan said that Lonsdale and Cohen flew him down from Seattle to have dinner with Thiel.

Thiel said, "I'm so sure this is the right thing for you," Tan recounted. He also offered Tan a $70,000 check, Tan said, which would have matched his Microsoft salary at the time.

"I said, 'Thank you very much, Mr. Thiel, but I might get promoted to level 60 this year,'" Tan said. "Which I did."

He called it a "$2-4 billion mistake."

Palantir has since become a $420 billion company. It popularized an entire job category — the forward-deployed engineer — that is now replicated by many Big Tech companies. Palantir's stock opened at $10 per share during its 2020 direct listing; on Thursday, it was trading at over $175 per share.

Tan chalked his mistake up to chasing what looks hot. He compared it to an early career move in which he worked on Windows Mobile rather than sticking with web development. Then, the Facebook boom happened.

"Joe and Stephen were among the smartest people I'd ever met," Tan said. "If not them, who was I going to be a cofounder with?"

The universe was speaking to him, Tan said, but he didn't listen. "All I cared about was what was cool, what was hot, what would a really good investor say," he said.

Tan eventually made it to Palantir, of course. He learned: "Everything that's awesome in my life is kind of a cult." That cult should start with "some sort of truth or belief that flies in the face of an orthodoxy," he said.

It's "very punk, actually," he said.

Do you work at Palantir? Contact the reporter from a non-work email and device at hchandonnet@businessinsider.com, or on Signal at henrychand.30.

• I always daydreamed about living with friends, but at 28, I've only ever lived with my parents.
• There are downsides, but I've been able to save up to buy a house and become closer to my family.
• I've also learned many interpersonal skills that I'll bring with me when I move in with my partner.

When I was 16, living with my parents was a drag. It felt like they always wanted to know where I was going, when I was coming home, and who I was going out with.

I dreamed of the day I would move into a house with my friends. Shows like "The Bold Type" and "Girls" had me fantasizing about living in a tiny apartment in New York, hanging out on the couch, and ordering pizza for dinner.

I always thought one day, I would inevitably find myself in the right circumstances where I would move out with some friends or housemates — but at 28, I'm still living at home.

The older I got, the more apparent it became to me that I liked living with my family, and I didn't feel a rush to leave. Now, I'm preparing to move into a new house with my soon-to-be husband, and I'll never get to live that girlhood dream.

I have no regrets about how things shook out, though.

I've been able to save money and learn invaluable life skills

Admittedly, in some ways, living at home has given me less freedom: Blasting music at midnight is a no-go, and often everyone's trying to use the kitchen at the same time.

What I've lost there, though, I've gained in financial flexibility.

While my friends have faced rent increases, power bills, and other household expenses, I've been able to save money throughout my 20s. Because of that, I could afford to get my degree — and even to purchase the house I'll move into soon.

I've also been able to spend extra money on passions like traveling the world. Having the disposable income to book a holiday at the drop of a hat is a privilege I wouldn't have if I were paying rent here in Perth, Australia.

Along with saving money, I've been able to hone my conflict-resolution and communication skills.

Agreeing on who gets to use the washing machine on which day or who burned the good pot in the kitchen can lead to many an argument. I've learned lessons on picking my battles, letting things go, and most importantly, cooperation.

I know now that some arguments aren't worth having, and it's better for everyone's relationship if we try to meet in the middle.

Best of all, I've become so much closer to my parents

When I was a teenager, I moved mountains to keep secrets from my parents. I wouldn't even tell them what I bought at the supermarket, let alone share the deepest parts of my life.

Generally, we've never been the type of family that uses our words to express ourselves, something I've attributed to our Asian background. Living together as adults, though, has brought my parents and me closer in ways I wouldn't have seen coming when I was a bratty 16-year-old.

We're intrinsically part of each other's everyday lives. We talk over breakfast, vent about our workdays, and send each other funny pictures of what our dog's doing. With time, this led to us connecting about deeper, more "adult" topics, from work and relationships to faith and finances.

Now, I find that I share almost everything with my parents. I turn to my dad for advice when I need support, and whenever I have a smidgen of news, my mom is often the first person I want to tell.

There are times I wish I lived on my own, though

I would be lying if I said that it's always fun to be a 28-year-old living at home. There are times when I wish I could host my friends for dinner, or that I could paint the living room a color of my choice. (For what it's worth, I'd choose a warm yellow.)

As accommodating as my family is, at the end of the day, I do often feel like I live in someone else's space. I crave the feeling of coming home to a place that I decorated myself, where I can leave dishes in the sink or have a late-night snack without waking anyone up.

I know that this setup isn't forever. Soon, my partner and I will get married, and I'll have to get used to living with someone new.

However, when we do move in together, I know I'll be bringing skills I've learned from nearly three decades of sharing a home with the people who know me best. I know how to have difficult conversations with people I love, how to compromise when we don't always agree, and when to just let things go.

I may have missed out on having my own place in my 20s, but I gained skills — and a true friendship with my parents — that I never expected, and wouldn't trade for the world.

• Russian jet-powered drones now make up as much as two-thirds of the drones used in some attacks.
• The latest Ukrainian assessment reflects a huge uptick in the number of jet-powered drones launched.
• Jet-powered drones are more difficult for Ukraine to intercept compared to their predecessors.

Russia is increasingly using drones with jet engines in attacks against Ukraine, forcing its air defenders to grapple with the challenge of high-speed threats that are more difficult to intercept.

Col. Yurii Ihnat, the spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, revealed in remarks shared with Business Insider on Thursday that "jet-powered drones account for as much as two-thirds of all drones used" in some Russian attacks.

Ihnat's assessment appears to be the highest publicly disclosed estimate yet of the share of jet-powered drones in Russian bombardments.

Earlier estimates provided in recent months put that figure at up to 20%, already a sharp increase from last year, when jet-powered drones were reported only rarely.

In early June, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine's former commander in chief, said that Russia planned to increase the proportion of jet-powered drones to 50%. "This presents us with new challenges that require a timely response," he warned at the time.

Russia has routinely used a strike drone called the Geran-2 to attack Ukraine. This propeller-driven aircraft, modeled after the Iranian Shahed-136, is packed with explosives and can fly at roughly 115 mph.

Russia has developed a few faster variants of the Geran attack drone that are powered by mini turbojet engines. The Geran-3 can cruise at speeds of over 200 mph, while the Geran-4 can reach 310 mph. The newest model, the Geran-5, can fly at speeds up to around 375 mph. It lacks the delta-wing shape and more closely resembles a cruise missile's profile.

The jet-powered drones carry explosive payloads for hundreds of miles before striking a target in Ukraine.

Yehor Cherniev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliament's national security, defense, and intelligence committee, told Business Insider that Ukraine has managed to intercept more than 90% of Russian cruise missiles and Geran-2 drones.

He said that Russia has decided to rely more on its jet-powered drones and ballistic missiles, far more challenging threats.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that a Russian jet-powered drone struck a passenger train in the southern Odesa region, killing at least two people in the latest attack.

Russia has been expanding the infrastructure at its air bases to support the launch of jet-powered drones, which take off on long rails and accelerate to flight speed before the engine takes over.

Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency said in May that Russia was ramping up the employment of jet-powered drones in response to the effectiveness of Ukrainian interceptor drones, while also improving their design to make them more maneuverable.

The interceptor drones, which are cheap and destroy their targets by colliding with them or exploding nearby, were initially made to counter the slower Geran-2s.

However, Ukrainian defense companies are developing a new class of faster interceptor drones to keep pace with the high-speed jet-powered Gerans, which are harder for Kyiv to shoot down.

Ukrainian firm Skyfall told Business Insider that its new interceptor, the P1-Sun JetKiller, had already downed more than a dozen jet-powered threats by late July. The company said it planned to begin mass production this month, with other developers pursuing similar timelines.

Beyond the interceptors, Ukrainian forces also have mobile air defense units, electronic warfare systems, fighter jets, and missiles to engage Russian drones.

The uptick in Russian jet-powered drones comes as Ukraine struggles with worsening ballistic missile attacks and depleted stockpiles of Western-made interceptors.

• In the AI gold rush, Nvidia is selling picks, investing in mines, and bankrolling prospectors.
• That's according to Rob Lalka, a business professor and Big Tech expert.
• Mark Cuban and Michael Burry have warned the AI industry's reliance on Nvidia makes it vulnerable.

Nvidia is playing many positions on the AI pitch, a leading business professor says.

"If AI is a modern-day gold rush, then Nvidia is not only selling the picks; they're also shareholders in the mines themselves, and now they're becoming the bank that's lending to all the prospectors," Rob Lalka told Business Insider in an email.

Lalka, a business professor at Tulane University and the author of "The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits into Power," described Nvidia's meteoric rise over the past two decades, from making graphics cards for video games to becoming the world's most valuable company and the linchpin of the AI boom.

Nvidia has invested or committed tens of billions of dollars to OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, and has equity stakes in scores of AI startups that buy its hardware, Lalka said.

The chipmaker also holds stakes in data center specialists that need its processors, such as CoreWeave and Nebius, he continued.

Lalka highlighted Nvidia's latest financing agreement with some of Wall Street's biggest names, including Apollo and KKR, to raise $500 billion for AI infrastructure built around Nvidia chips.

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nvidia's web of deals has made it the beating heart of the AI boom, as it sells the semiconductors that power the technology, and invests in and finances the array of companies buying its chips.

Several high-profile commentators have warned that the AI ecosystem's reliance on Nvidia could cause problems.

Mark Cuban, the tech billionaire of "Shark Tank" fame, recently posted on X that Nvidia is playing a similar role to the IPO market during the dot-com boom as it's "funding everyone and anyone."

"One breakthrough in another chip provider, or a misstep, and it all could crumble," Cuban added. "It's truly scary."

Michael Burry, the investor of "The Big Short" fame who called the subprime mortgage crisis, has used the same analogy as Lalka.

He wrote in November that, like Cisco during the dot-com boom, Nvidia was "at the center of it all, with the picks and shovels for all and the expansive vision to go with it."

Burry recently posted on X that Nvidia is "overreaching" as it hustles to push circular spending to "biblical proportions."

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has acknowledged just how reliant the AI boom and the global economy are on his company's success. Describing online memes on the topic in November, he said: "We're basically holding the planet together — and it's not untrue."

Nvidia has broadly met sky-high expectations so far. It grew revenue by 85% year-on-year to about $82 billion in the three months ended April 26, fueling a 211% surge in net income to $58 billion.

• This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Some McDonald's customers told us they don't see value in the Golden Arches value menu.

That's a top concern for CEO Chris Kempczinski, who said the chain botched the rollout of a new low-cost menu.

The menu, featuring 10 items priced under $3 each, was launched as McDonald's simultaneously cut back on its digital discounts, upsetting some of its loyal customers.

"That ended up being a bad trade," Kempczinski said on this week's earnings call.

So what are customers looking for? BI's Alex Bitter and Katherine Li decided to run a little survey of our own to hear from folks about where the Golden Arches are looking rusty.

Out of 227 people who responded to Business Insider's not-so-scientific reader survey, the majority (about 57%) rated the value that they got for their money while dining at McDonald's as "poor" or "very poor." (We're still accepting responses here, if you have thoughts.)

One issue: McDonald's could be a victim of memories of a bygone era. One customer said the chain's under-$3 menu didn't feel like a real value.

"If it were $1, it might be worth it," Brian Schnabel told BI.

(McDonald's ended its dollar menu back in 2013. Man, I feel old.)

Fast-food restaurants that raise their prices risk losing their competitive edge over their higher-end peers.

When an extra-value meal runs you north of $10, people might consider splurging at fast-casual chains like Chipotle or Shake Shack. Even casual dining spots like Chili's are getting in on the action with their competitive meal deals.

Price isn't the only number potentially weighing down McDonald's.

Take a look at any menu these days, and you'll notice restaurants love touting the amount of protein in their food. Many even separate high-protein options.

It's all an effort to tap into the growing wellness trend that's got people doubling down on protein.

McDonald's jumped on the bandwagon, with a dedicated "Protein Picks" section on its app. But it's a tough pitch. The menu doesn't lend itself to people looking for high-protein, low-calorie options.

One of your best bets is the 3-piece McCrispy Strips. They pack a respectable 31 grams of protein, but comes in at roughly 400 calories. (Don't even think about using that creamy chili McCrispy Strip Dip, which clocks in at 110 calories.)

You might not think of McDonald's as a go-to spot for healthy eating, but one chain known for indulgence managed to do it.

Chick-fil-A has become a fast-food favorite among the fitness community. Its eight-piece grilled nuggets offer 25 grams of protein at just 130 calories. (Again, stay away from the 140-calorie Chick-fil-A sauce.)

And for value hunters out there, the price difference is negligible. The Chick-fil-A order cost $6.85 after tax, while the McDonald's order was $6.43 when I test-ordered both online.

I realize not everyone's tracking their macros. But just like price, it shows another area where McDonald's is potentially coming up short in appealing to the trends customers are following.

• Some companies are getting an unexpected lift from billions of dollars in returned US tariffs.
• Nintendo recorded a $300 million tariff refund.
• The refunds are lifting profits and margins, but analysts warn the benefits are unlikely to last.

An unusual boost is showing up in some corporate earnings this summer: tariff refunds.

Nintendo became the latest beneficiary of the boost on Thursday, reporting net profit of 147.4 billion Japanese yen, or $931 million, for the quarter ending June, up 54% from a year earlier and handily beating analyst expectations of 77.8 billion yen. Revenue fell about 10% to 517.8 billion yen, but still came in above expectations.

Tariff refunds were a major contributor: The Kyoto-based maker of the Switch 2 said it recorded a $300 million tariff refund that had previously been recorded as cost of sales.

Strong software sales, led by the video games Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream and Pokémon Pokopia, also helped lift margins.

Shares of Nintendo closed 5% higher on Friday following the results. They are 24% lower this year.

In its presentation, Nintendo said the tariffs related to the refunds "were primarily borne by the company rather than passed on to consumers through product prices."

Nintendo has not said how it plans to use the refunds. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Nintendo is fighting a class-action lawsuit over the tariff refunds.

Two US customers sued the company in April, arguing that Nintendo could effectively recover its tariff costs twice — first through higher prices that they allege were passed on to consumers, and again through refunds from the US government.

Nintendo moved to dismiss the case in July, arguing that customers "received exactly what they bargained and paid for" and have no legal right to a rebate simply because the tariffs were later struck down.

An earnings season of tariff refunds

Nintendo's tariff windfall is part of a broader earnings-season trend, with companies from Apple to Amazon to Siemens Healthineers recently disclosing sizable tariff refunds or related earnings benefits.

Companies are taking different approaches to the windfall.

Apple said tariff refunds added about two percentage points to its June-quarter gross margin and 11 cents to diluted earnings per share. CEO Tim Cook has said the company will reinvest the refunds in additional US innovation and advanced manufacturing.

Amazon said it received about $600 million in tariff refunds in the second quarter and plans to reimburse customers in limited cases where it can determine they directly bore the tariff cost.

Siemens Healthineers also got a sizable boost. Tariff refunds helped lift the German medical-technology company's adjusted operating margin to 19.1% from the 16.8% a year ago and contributed to a 16% rise in adjusted operating profit to 1.1 billion euros. The company also raised its full-year earnings-per-share forecast to reflect the refunds.

Elsewhere, Walmart has said it expects to return its anticipated refunds to consumers through price reductions, while McCormick and Campbell's have said they will use proceeds to offset higher costs.

The repayments follow a February 20 Supreme Court ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the president to impose the tariffs. The US Court of International Trade has overseen the process of returning the duties to importers.

About $166 billion was collected under the invalidated tariffs, with roughly $100 billion in refunds processed by early August, official filings show.

Analysts caution that the refunds offer just a one-time boost to earnings.

"Most tariff proceeds will fail to sustain profitability as companies prioritize competitive prices and mitigating costs," wrote analysts at S&P Global in a report last month.

• When my husband and I moved in together, we started having monthly money dates.
• We talk about household finances, shared expenses, investments, and things we want to save up for.
• It's the reason we haven't argued about money in 10 years.

On the last day of every month, my husband and I sit down for what we call a money meeting — a monthly money date where we discuss our household finances. We look at how much we each earned that month, our fixed and variable expenses, our savings and investment accounts, and discuss any financial decisions we need to make.

I used to dread these money dates, but they're such a regular part of our lives, I don't mind them anymore. In fact, I actually look forward to sitting down with my husband and seeing all of our numbers laid out.

We started having monthly money dates when we first moved in together, almost 10 years ago, and haven't missed a month since. I firmly believe that being open about our financial situation on a regular basis is the reason my husband and I have never fought about money.

At first, sharing finances was intimidating

When my husband and I first moved in together, we weren't in the best financial situation. I wasn't earning a lot of money as a new freelance writer, and he had student debt and car payments.

Our first time sitting down to talk solely about money was scary, but we both committed to being vulnerable and completely open about our financial situations.

We made a pact that these monthly money chats weren't about shaming the other person for their spending or feeling guilty about past debt. The goal was to share, without judgment, and figure out how we could use our money to reach our goals.

Sharing those numbers got easier the more often we did it. Eventually, money went from something taboo that we were insecure about to something we were excited to discuss and make work for us.

By having a monthly money date on the calendar, it meant one person wasn't responsible for bringing up the money conversation. It was something we automatically did each month.

Our financial system changed over the years but we never stopped talking about it

My husband and I had separate bank accounts when we first moved in together in 2017. We then opened a joint account for rent and household expenses. As time went on, we found that more and more things were coming out of the joint account.

Eventually, we decided to combine our finances completely. We now have fully joint bank accounts, and we have access to each other's retirement accounts and credit cards, as well.

For us, this system works. It makes it simpler for us to pay bills, buy groceries, and make decisions about bigger expenses, like travel and day care. We trust each other to spend reasonably on the day-to-day stuff and always discuss any big purchases ahead of time.

But I know completely combined finances doesn't work for everyone.

Even when our accounts were separate, we still made sure to talk about finances every month and used the time to share how much we were each earning, spending, and saving. That transparency made it easier for us to build trust, reduce resentment, and work toward future plans.

We look at our money as a tool to achieve our goals

One of my favorite parts of our monthly money dates is deciding what to do with any leftover funds after paying our bills and expenses, which is a privilege to be able to do.

My husband and I have many savings goals (some are shared, and some are just his or just mine), such as saving up for travel, for retirement, for our daughter's college fund, and even a fun account for things my husband wants to buy, like video games or bike parts. It's really exciting to be able to fund those accounts and see our money helping us get closer to our dream life.

But even when we don't have extra money to put into savings or investments, I'm still so glad we have our monthly money meeting. I like getting on the same page with my husband and knowing we can talk openly about our financial picture.

I know money is something that a lot of couples fight about. Even though it's hard — and perhaps especially when it is — my biggest tip for new couples is to start talking openly about your finances from day one. It's better than letting years of shameful spending, debt, or money secrets build into resentment that could ruin your relationship.

• PwC US CEO Paul Griggs said he tried not to over-communicate in the past.
• He said he received feedback from staff who asked him to share more about his decision-making.
• Griggs said he continues to work on communicating frequently and via different styles and mediums.

After roughly three decades at PwC, senior partner and US CEO Paul Griggs said he still isn't above criticism.

He's also not exempt from changing his mind based on feedback he gets from across the firm. Griggs said he appreciates working at a company where leaders aren't afraid to change their minds in response to feedback.

For example, Griggs said he's "a big believer in the power of communication without over-communication." As CEO, he makes decisions and doesn't expect everyone to agree with every call. As a result, he didn't always explain his reasoning.

After taking over as CEO two years ago, however, he realized that he had been communicating less than some employees would like. He said he came in with a bias against overwhelming others with too much communication. Over time, he said he had grown tired of reading emails that were too long.

"So, I simplified communication," Griggs said. "Slowed it down."

Griggs said not everyone needs to agree with all decisions all the time, but they need to understand the reasoning behind it. That's where leadership and communication play a crucial role, he said.

"'If you don't communicate the nature of that decision and the outcome of that decision, then I fill the void, fill the vacuum with my own story,'" Griggs said employees told him.

It's feedback he has worked on incorporating, he added. He has been advised to share messages more than once, even though it wasn't his default approach.

"My team would tell me: 'No, seven times,'" Griggs said, adding that he's learned he should relay the message in different styles and mediums.

• Business Insider asked its readers on LinkedIn: Are shorts appropriate in the workplace?
• Instagram head Adam Mosseri recently said he was "pro" wearing shorts in the office.
• As of Friday morning, 54% of respondents said no, while 20% said yes. More debated dress codes in the comments.

Free the knee? Our readers want the knee locked away.

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri recently came out as "pro" shorts in the workplace. He said that it was a "hot debate" in the Instagram office, though "not all shorts are created equal" and not everyone can "pull them off."

We posted the question to our readers on LinkedIn: Do you think it's appropriate to wear shorts to the office? Over 7,000 people have cast their vote so far.

As of Friday morning, the majority of respondents, 54%, said no, compared to 20% who voted yes. Another 25% of respondents said "it depends."

The survey is far from scientific, and the results could shift as more readers vote. Still, the early results provide an interesting look into people's evolving views of the office dress code. Gone are the "Mad Men" days of mandatory suits. And with Gen Z firmly in the workplace and sweltering summer temperatures potentially swaying people's views, it's a good time to revisit the polarizing topic.

A lively debate over dress code and etiquette

Readers in the comments below the LinkedIn poll debated what, if any, shorts dress code would be appropriate.

Joella Shepherdson commented that chino shorts should be allowed, but basketball shorts shouldn't. She voiced worry of a "double standard."

"I think if skirts are acceptable, shorts should be too, but they should be subject to the same workwear rules as normal," she wrote.

Stephanie Cary wrote that it may depend on the industry. Startups and fashion may be more open to the apparel, she wrote.

What about a temperature threshold? Jay Martin wrote that shorts were okay if it was over 90 degrees.

Of course, the heat is outside the office for much of corporate America. Many workplaces pump cold air into their cubicles. April Weygand drew a comparison: "The men wear shorts in the summer while the women are wearing sweaters because of the crazy AC."

Donald Peace narrowed in on Mosseri's comment that "not everyone can pull it off." Peace called it a "clearly subjective judgement," describing the Instagram head's view as an "HR nightmare."

Working from home has changed standards of dressing. Brian Bower wrote that he sometimes wears pajama bottoms while working virtually.

"Businesses up top," he wrote. "Party below."

• Miguel Marquez began pursuing financial independence in his late 30s.
• He uses a seven-step ladder, ranging from debt freedom to Fat FI, to make the goal feel achievable.
• The Spanish and French professor is currently at Lean FI, with traditional FI his next milestone.

Miguel Marquez has spent years making complex subjects easier to understand.

Originally from Spain, the 47-year-old earned a Ph.D. in French linguistics from Indiana University Bloomington and now teaches French, Spanish, and personal finance at a university in Shenzhen, China.

Through teaching personal finance and pursuing financial independence himself, Marquez has learned that saving for such a distant goal can feel either too intimidating to begin or too tedious to sustain over decades.

He found a way to make the process more manageable by using "financial freedom milestones," a concept he first discovered on the Money Flamingo blog. Rather than treating financial independence as one enormous — and potentially unachievable — target, the framework divides the journey into seven stages.

"It's like playing a video game," he said, with each milestone representing another level of financial security.

Marquez, who began seriously pursuing financial independence after completing his Ph.D. at 38, explained the seven milestones he uses to track his progress.

1. Debt freedom

The first milestone is eliminating debt. Marquez said he borrowed money only once, during his fourth year at university, and quickly decided it was not something he wanted to get used to: "I didn't like the feeling."

He's been debt-free since completing his undergraduate degree, meaning he had already cleared the first milestone before he began deliberately pursuing financial independence.

2. 'F-you money'

The next stage is accumulating "F-you money," typically defined as having enough savings to leave an unfulfilling job, take a career break, or make another major life change without facing immediate financial consequences.

Definitions vary, but Marquez follows the version popularized by JL Collins, author of "The Simple Path to Wealth": roughly one year of living expenses set aside.

That cushion creates options, Marquez said: "If you're in a job you don't like, you can say, 'I'm leaving.' You can look for a different job, become self-employed, or do whatever you want to do."

3. Coast FI

Reaching Coast FI means you have invested enough that, assuming your portfolio continues compounding, it's projected to grow into the amount you'll need by traditional retirement age — without requiring further contributions.

That can free up income for other priorities, since you no longer need to save as aggressively for retirement.

Marquez said he reached Coast FI in June 2024, less than two years after moving to China for his current teaching position. He was in his mid-40s.

4. Flamingo FI

About a year later, Marquez reached "Flamingo FI," another concept developed by the Money Flamingo blog.

At that point, he'd saved about half of his full FI target — or roughly 12.5 years of annual expenses under the conventional 4% rule. The name comes from the idea that you've reached FIRE "standing on one leg," like a flamingo.

5. Lean FI

Marquez is currently at Lean FI, a form of financial independence in which investments can cover essential living costs while leaving relatively little room for discretionary spending. He said his portfolio, worth nearly $400,000, can support housing, food, fixed expenses, and an occasional short trip.

His low cost of living in Shenzhen is an important part of the calculation. He lives in subsidized housing on his university campus and said he can cover his annual expenses with just 30% of his income.

6. Full financial independence

The next stage is full financial independence, sometimes simply called FI or traditional FIRE.

Under the 4% rule, you're generally considered financially independent once you've saved about 25 times your annual expenses. You can then withdraw 4% in your first year of retirement and adjust future withdrawals for inflation.

7. Fat FI

The final milestone is Fat FI: having enough invested to support a lifestyle with considerably more discretionary spending than traditional financial independence. While there is no universal threshold, some investors define it as a portfolio large enough to cover two or three times their normal expenses, while others use a specific net-worth target.

Marquez said he's not compelled to reach Fat FI. Because his living costs are comparatively low, he expects ordinary financial independence to provide him with a lifestyle that already feels abundant.

Chunking out his journey into smaller milestones helped him reach a level of financial security he once assumed was out of reach on a teaching salary.

"I thought that you needed a lot of money to solve the money problem," Marquez said. "But when I started calculating and writing down what I would actually need, I thought, 'Wait a second — this is feasible.'"

• Google insiders view Demis Hassabis' move to chief scientist as a way to find the next leap in AI.
• Since the Google DeepMind merger, some of Hassabis' focus has been pulled away from research.
• Hassabis had been moving away from day-to-day managerial work for about a year.

Google needs a win in the AI race. Employees say moving Demis Hassabis into a chief scientist role is the kind of gambit that could deliver one as the industry pushes toward AI that can surpass human intelligence.

Google's shock leadership reshuffle on Wednesday, which saw longtime chief scientist Jeff Dean depart and Hassabis step down as DeepMind CEO, comes at a critical juncture for the search giant.

After riding high in late 2025, the company is trailing the competition in coding — AI's first big commercial takeoff — and continues to postpone its new frontier model.

Placing Hassabis in his new role at Google parent company Alphabet gives it a longer-horizon view that some insiders said could help it make bigger leaps in areas beyond chatbots and coding. Hassabis will also become chair of DeepMind, the company said.

"He doesn't care about chatbots," said one longtime Googler of Hassabis, who was among six current and former employees who spoke to Business Insider. "He wants to use AI to cure cancer."

A Google spokesperson pointed Business Insider to its blog announcing the leadership changes.

Hassabis' balancing act

In recent months, Hassabis has found a new favorite phrase. We are, he likes to say, in "the foothills of the Singularity."

Those five words about the moment when AI substantially overtakes human capabilities offer a clue to what Hassabis thinks is important: helping usher in the next major leap in artificial intelligence.

Hassabis, who cofounded DeepMind in 2010 and sold it to Google four years later, has long been passionate about AI's potential for scientific breakthroughs — even when they aren't an obvious revenue generator for his employer.

He oversaw AlphaFold, an AI system that solved the 50-year-old protein-folding problem, which won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2025, he told The Guardian that, if he had controlled AI's development path, he might have kept it in the laboratory longer to pursue more AlphaFold-like achievements and "maybe cured cancer."

However, after Google fully absorbed DeepMind in 2023, he found himself in a balancing act between pushing the frontiers of AI and helping Google shore up its commercial products with AI. That has at times involved Hassabis wading into company politics to resolve team tensions or focusing on product development that interests him less, Business Insider previously reported.

At times, two insiders said, Hassabis appeared to relent to corporate realities. When Google removed its red lines on building AI for weapons or surveillance — which was marked by a blog post with Hassabis' name on it — it was a direct reversal of a position Hassabis had previously held. The change in stance has caused tensions in the workforce and some departures.

'An incredible new age of discovery and wonder'

Over the past year, Hassabis' attention has moved away from corporate politicking and day-to-day management to the bigger-picture impacts of AI, according to some inside the company.

Google employees have different views on whether the new role will give him more or less influence over these types of issues inside the company, and whether it's a promotion or a demotion.

"I'm not sure I would call it a move up or down," one longtime senior Googler who has worked closely with Hassabis told Business Insider. "I think it's just a move towards what he's passionate about and maybe where the organization needs him."

On Thursday, tech analyst and cofounder of Turing Company, Jiang Liu, responded on X to reports of Hassabis' shift away from CEO duties over the last year, saying it was "actually a good thing."

While the markets didn't like Hassabis' move — Google's stock dropped as much as 6% on the news — it's a "formalization of something that had been happening informally," said Sebastian Mallaby, the author of a biography of Hassabis and DeepMind, in a post on X.

Externally, Hassabis has increasingly become the face of Google's AI efforts, meeting with President Donald Trump and other AI leaders in recent months to discuss his long-running concern: AI safety.

In a note to DeepMind staff shared publicly by Google on Wednesday, Hassabis captured what he sees as the urgency of the moment: "I've been working towards AGI my whole life and now, like many of you, I feel it is close at hand," he wrote. "It's critical that we collectively get the next steps right to ensure this all goes well for humanity and we usher in an incredible new age of discovery and wonder."

Google's brain drain

Google's big bet on moving Hassabis comes amid a talent drain at the company.

Dean said on Wednesday that he and three other top AI researchers, including his longtime Google collaborator Sanjay Ghemawat, were departing to start their own company.

In recent months, Noam Shazeer, a key figure on Google's Gemini work, and John Jumper, one of the scientists behind Alphafold, also departed. Meanwhile, the company keeps delaying its next frontier model, Gemini 3.5 Pro.

Teams inside Google DeepMind have been working to improve Gemini's AI coding capabilities as rivals OpenAI and Anthropic scoop up customers. Google has discussed a deal with AI agent coding startup Mechanize, Business Insider reported this week.

While coding has proven to be AI's first major commercial application, every AI lab is looking to what's next. Freeing Hassabis up to take a longer-term perspective would both satisfy the chess prodigy's interests and help Google get ahead of the next big thing. If the singularity is as close as Hassabis predicts, it will require deep thinking about everything from safety to how compute is allocated.

In response to the news of Google's shuffle, OpenAI's former chief futurist, Joshua Achiam, said he saw the changes as smart bets.

"Being in a leadership role on the next frontier" is more crucial right now, he said in a post on X. This may be the motivating factor behind both Hassabis' move and Dean's departure to form his own AI company, Achiam posited.

"Early AI/AGI/ASI leads will, over the next year, begin leaving what look like important leadership posts to go place their bets on what they think the most important thing will be," he wrote.

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• McDonald's second-quarter sales growth slowed as it faced trouble rolling out a new value menu.
• CEO Chris Kempczinski said that the chain has an execution issue, not a strategic one.
• Customers told Business Insider that the chain should rethink its approach to pricing.

McDonald's customers are looking for value. Some say they aren't finding it there.

Patrons of the Golden Arches told Business Insider that they're not impressed with the chain's prices lately. Some are reducing their visits and are critical of the food quality delivered for the cost. While McDonald's still has fans, some diners are reducing their visits.

McDonald's executives have acknowledged that they've had trouble breaking through to customers. The company's shares are down 9.6% this year.

US sales growth slowed during the chain's second quarter, it said Tuesday. CEO Chris Kempczinski pointed to trouble rolling out an under-$3 value menu — ranging from burgers and breakfast sandwiches to soft drinks — and running too many promotions at once as reasons why the chain struggled during its second quarter.

Kempczinski said that McDonald's had execution problems, but that its strategy is sound. The customers who spoke to Business Insider had their own thoughts, especially about prices.

Steve Armstrong, a retiree in Louisiana, said that he goes to Burger King because he thinks its Whopper represents a better value and is higher-quality than burgers at McDonald's.

"There's better food out there," Armstrong said. "And if you want people's money, you need to step up."

Christoph Winarski, who goes to McDonald's about once a week, said he's noticed menu prices rising over the past few years and is rethinking his habit.

"When you can get a meal from a sit-down restaurant for the same price that you get from a fast-food meal, I think that's kind of where the tipping point is," he said.

McDonald's has a value issue, customers say

Out of 227 people who responded to a Business Insider reader survey asking them to rate the value that they got for their money while dining at McDonald's, about 57% — 130 people — responded "poor" or "very poor." The survey was not scientific but showed that price and value for money were key factors they use to decide whether or not they eat at McDonald's.

Brian Schnabel said that he often stops at McDonald's while driving between his home in New York City and visiting friends in Maryland.

He hasn't ordered from the chain's under-$3 menu lately, he said, because he finds it overpriced. "If it were $1, it might be worth it," he said, referring to the dollar menu that McDonald's scrapped in 2013.

Instead, Schnabel said his go-to order at McDonald's is the Chicken Snack Wrap, which consists of fried chicken covered in lettuce, cheese, and a tortilla and costs $2.99 at the locations that he visits.

Schnabel said he thinks the snack wrap is a good deal.

"It's out of character, almost, for McDonald's to offer something at $3 which is so substantial and fills me up," he said.

Some responses to Business Insider's survey echoed the sentiment.

"I am not going to McDonald's as much since the in-app deals were cut back," one person wrote, adding that they liked a 2019 promotion that allowed diners to get a second sandwich, such as a Big Mac, for $1 when they ordered one at full price.

"To be honest, there's far better out there for my dollar," another said. "Unless something REALLY changes, I won't be going back."

Some said they liked McDonald's new value menu. "I have gone back to McDonald's only since the new value meals," one wrote. "They are an outstanding deal!"

Value versus meal deals

Mike Perry, founder and creative officer at Tavern, an agency that works with restaurant and hospitality clients, said that McDonald's should consider other ways of pitching its under-$3 selection.

Instead of trying to sell it as a "value" menu, it could make more sense to offer the items as add-ons to full meals or refocus on meal deals, such as the $5 meal that McDonald's introduced in 2024. "I would just never say the word 'value,' frankly," he said.

Other chains, such as Chili's, have successfully drawn in customers by focusing on meal deals like the Triple Dipper instead of value menus with cheap à la carte items, Perry said. That approach also tends to help restaurants' bottom line in the long run, he added.

"You can only sell so many dollar hamburgers," he said.

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• William Tunstall-Pedoe co-created Amazon Alexa after Amazon acquired his startup, Evi.
• He said the AI singularity is not here and finds the idea unlikely.
• He said this is because AI lacks the discovery intelligence humans have and is trained on human data.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with William Tunstall-Pedoe, a 57-year-old founder and CEO who sold his voice recognition company Evi Technologies to Amazon in 2012, becoming a co-creator of Alexa.

Business Insider previously interviewed Tunstall-Pedoe about how Evi, an AI-powered search engine that answered spoken or typed questions, became an integral part of Amazon's Alexa. He told us his addiction to tech started in his high school and that early in his career, after graduating from Cambridge in 1991, he worked for Acorn Computers and the Isaac Newton Institute, where he did what he called "some more niche AI things." After leaving Amazon in 2016 to mentor founders and invest in AI startups, he launched UnlikelyAI, a neurosymbolic AI startup, in 2019.

Tunstall-Pedoe weighed in on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's recent claim on the "Relentless" podcast that "we are now, like, in the singularity" — the point at which AI surpasses human intelligence and begins advancing faster than humans can predict or control.

This essay is part of Business Insider's coverage of expert responses to Altman's claim. It has been edited for length and clarity.

All sorts of friends of mine who aren't in technology have been reaching out to me over the last few weeks because they're suddenly having to wake up to what's happening at work or in their industry due to AI.

The number of people using LLM chatbots for all sorts of things is only growing, and people are becoming more aware of this change. Still, there are a lot of assumptions about AI singularity and what it means.

To me, the singularity is the idea that technology accelerates improvements in technology at an ever-faster rate. Eventually, it'll get to the point where the speed of technological change is so enormous and autonomous that the human race will get caught up in it and land in some magical future state.

AI is certainly continuing the trend of new technology accelerating old technology, but that's been happening for centuries, with the Industrial Revolution being a prime example. As we've seen in the past, it's not a new and novel idea for a machine to be better than humans at a task.

I think the idea of runaway AI, brilliant and perfect at everything and at a level of intelligence that's thousands of times ahead of what we see today, is implausible at the moment. I don't think we're in the singularity.

Machines have outperformed us in some tasks for decades

If you look at what the brain can do, there are things that computers have been able to do dramatically better than the brain for decades and decades.

If you think about math, people long ago stopped trying to compete with computers at math. If you think about memory, Google has perfectly learned hundreds of billions of webpages and can produce them on demand. Meanwhile, the human brain struggles to remember six or seven digits a lot of the time.

In some dimensions, LLMs are now superior to the human brain. They can talk competently on almost every academic subject, which no human being can do. They've learned competencies from large amounts of training data that cover a wide range of tasks and topics.

My point is, there are ways in which machines have been dramatically superior to the human brain for a long time; this isn't something brand new to worry about.

AI functions on human data

Part of the illusion of LLMs' extraordinary capabilities and why they appear so smart is that they've been trained on a meaningful percentage of everything that's ever been written; they've seen, read, and learned so much from training data.

But much of what we're seeing is based on the imitative capabilities that come from AI training on large amounts of data and a wide range of human actions. I don't think AI singularity is a natural continuation of that.

AI would need to show stronger evidence of what I call discovery intelligence: AI independently producing and evaluating genuinely valuable, paradigm-shifting ideas. LLMs can currently generate novel ideas, but they can't determine whether those ideas are realistically super valuable.

The singularity idea, to me, assumes that discovery-type intelligence is an extension of the learned-competence type of intelligence that AI already has.

Here's what I think we'd see if AI reached the singularity moment

If AI ever gets good enough to self-improve, actually innovate in AI, and it turns out there are no limits to its intelligence, then that would clearly be a very momentous point in time.

AI would then become extraordinarily capable very, very quickly because it will be able to keep improving itself in inventive ways. That rapid pace will be the singularity moment.

Generally, I think it's easy to critique the idea of the AI singularity because it kind of assumes reality is like a mathematical function and that intelligence is very linear. I think intelligence is a collection of things that you can do to various degrees of capability, so it's not clear to me that there is such a thing as runaway infinite intelligence, and I don't think true AI singularity level acceleration will happen.

We would recognize it if it were here

I don't think technology necessarily accelerates very smoothly. It accelerates for a bit, hits a wall, and then there's a decade or two before the next paradigm shift or the next big innovation unlocks further innovation.

I think even non-tech people would notice the difference between the rapid acceleration in adoption happening now and what would happen if the AI singularity ever comes. It would show up in pretty much everything.

• Newly filed court documents show how MrBeast's ambitions have shifted over time.
• The YouTuber previously eyed podcasts and NFTs to grow his media empire.
• Today, he's exploring fintech and mobile phone services.

MrBeast has had grand ambitions to build a media empire for years — but they have changed considerably.

New court docs filed as part of an ongoing lawsuit between MrBeast founder Jimmy Donaldson and his burger business partner reveal that he once explored avenues like podcasts and NFTs before pivoting to other areas, including fintech and creator services.

The docs demonstrate how YouTube's top creator pivoted as he sought to capitalize on his social clout.

It's common for startups, and especially creator-led ones, to begin with one idea and then shift gears, said Megan Lightcap, a partner at the VC firm Slow Ventures, where she leads its Creator Fund. Unlike consumer brands launching with a specific product, it's easier for creators to move into entirely new categories.

"Because their popularity is centered on their personal brand, they have even more opportunities," she said.

A 2021 investor fundraising deck included in the court documents labels "Beast Games, Netflix Beast Studios, Beast NFT, Beast Podcasting" as coming in 2023. His company has not launched significant businesses focused on games, Netflix, NFTs, or podcasts.

The 2021 deck also talks about launching a "subscription fan platform" called "Beast World" in 2022. At the time, MrBeast envisioned a $9.95 a month platform featuring "exclusive content, merchandise, community, and experiences."

By 2024, the company was talking about opportunities in theme parks, theatrical releases, and a vast array of consumer products, according to a July 2024 board meeting presentation.

The company was also mindful of the need to diversify away from having Donaldson on camera. The presentation called for animated series and associated toys and consumer products, which manifested in the MrBeast Lab YouTube channel and products.

By 2025, with new CEO Jeffrey Housenbold at the helm, MrBeast's ambitions had changed further.

In a February investor deck that year, MrBeast presented the company as built on three pillars: media, consumer packaged goods, and software, with a "comprehensive" video game portfolio and a loyalty program earmarked for 2026. A creator platform, fintech, and pro sports were being explored. The company also hinted at a mobile phone service.

Here's how MrBeast is currently moving forward on some of those fronts:

Fintech: This year, the company acquired Step, a digital banking platform offering savings accounts, a credit-building Visa card that functions similarly to a debit card, and a cash-advance program. Step, which is geared toward young people, hasn't posted any new videos on its YouTube channel since the deal closed.

Creator platform: MrBeast recently hired a team from the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup Pietra, including its CEO and cofounder Ronak Trivedi, who's playing a key role in developing the platform.

Membership: At a breakfast for advertisers in May, MrBeast revealed plans for the "largest membership service in the world," with a philanthropic element, early access to content, exclusive content, and member challenges.

CPG: Feastables, a "better for you snack brand," launched in 2022 with a chocolate bar. The MrBeast Burger business continues, even if Donaldson stopped promoting it after getting embroiled in a legal dispute with his partner.

Media: MrBeast has expanded his spectacle-style video offerings and launched the "Beast Games" competition show on Amazon's Prime Video. His company is planning new verticals centered on food, entertainment, fitness, and gaming that aren't meant to rely on Donaldson's on-screen presence.

Mobile phone: The company plans to launch a phone business called "Beast Mobile," Housenbold said at The New York Times' DealBook Summit in December. According to the 2025 investor deck, it's likely to take the form of an MVNO, which uses a major carrier's infrastructure and is a model other celebrities have adopted.

Experiential: MrBeast tested the theme park concept in November with a 45-day pop-up in Saudi Arabia, where visitors could participate in challenges inspired by his videos.

Ashton McGrady was horrified to discover that TikTok had slapped an "AI-generated" label on a post she'd made for Disability Pride Month.

The creator had spent hours making a collage of images, stickers, and advice.

"It was really jarring to me, because that's not something that I personally align with, and neither does my audience," McGrady told Business Insider. "The whole point of being a creator is to create myself." The post later had its AI note removed without explanation.

McGrady's upload was one of the billions that TikTok says it has flagged using a mix of human labeling and automated tools. McGrady said she had a similar experience with a different post on Meta-owned Instagram, too.

Platforms like TikTok and Instagram say AI labeling offers more transparency to viewers, but the inexact processes have led to misclassifications, seven creators say. Some platforms acknowledge they're not always accurate at spotting AI, using phrases like Meta's "likely created or modified with AI" to hedge. For creators, even the suggestion that they've published AI content can feel damaging to their reputations.

Gregory Littley, who frequently posts photography to his Instagram, said several of his posts — which include scans of physical Polaroids — say that the "content in this post may have been modified with AI."

"I cringe when I see that label," Littley said. "I cringe even more when I know it's not true."

These labels could have real consequences for creators in a time of intense AI backlash. It's particularly relevant in the $12 billion US influencer marketing industry, where authenticity and human connection are paramount. An AI hiccup can turn an audience against an influencer. YouTuber Hank Green, for example, recently apologized after coming under fire for using ChatGPT to help research a script.

"It's literally the Scarlet Letter," creator Lissette Calveiro said about AI labels and accusations of producing AI-assisted work. Some brands have begun adding stipulations in campaign briefs that creators can't use generative AI.

In recent weeks, AI has been thrust into the center of the creator conversation. Substack's CEO took a shot at AI-generated LinkedIn posts while debuting a new AI detection partnership. Days later, LinkedIn announced a button to flag suspected "AI slop." YouTube has been pulling down channels that host "low-quality" AI content, and Snapchat has made videos wholly generated by AI ineligible for recommendation in its short-form video feed, Spotlight.

Both openly using AI and promoting AI companies are increasingly seen as risky in creator economy circles. The concern is warranted. Influencers who attended a recent luxury retreat hosted by OpenAI faced immediate online backlash.

"There's a PR issue with AI as it relates to taking people's jobs and environmental concerns around data centers," said Eric Bogard, CEO of the talent firm UnderCurrent Management. "Creators are hesitant to promote AI companies as a result."

At the same time, there's no real path of purity as an influencer traversing content creation in 2026. Nearly every platform automatically uses or pushes AI tools, from Adobe Photoshop to TikTok's CapCut. In many ways, AI tools have helped creators balance the workload of managing their social media accounts and brand deals, as well as brainstorming.

Companies like OpenAI want creators to be more open about their use of AI.

Charles Porch, who OpenAI poached from Meta this year to lead creative partnerships, recently told Business Insider that part of his job is getting creators to "come out of the closet" about using AI.

"Whether creators choose to share how they use AI publicly is entirely up to them," an OpenAI spokesperson said.

AI's 'PR issue'

AI is infiltrating many aspects of modern life — and content creation is no exception.

A May survey of 16,000 creators conducted by Adobe, in partnership with The Harris Poll, found that 75% of creators who had used or tried creative AI described it as "integrated or essential to how they work."

Not all creators want to admit that publicly, though, lest they wear the AI "Scarlet Letter" on their chest.

YouTube creator Billy Yue, who goes by 8illy, isn't shying away from AI. He even made a promotional video for Anthropic's Claude in November. Still, the creator, who regularly features hand-drawn animation in his videos, added a disclosure at the end of his most recent YouTube upload that "no AI was used" in the production. He wanted fans to know that he'd drawn 1,800 illustrations for the project.

Broader public opinion is shifting, and creators feel it.

The influencer marketing agency Billion Dollar Boy found that the share of consumers who viewed generative AI as a "negative disruptor" increased from 18% in 2023 to 32% in 2025. Those who saw it as a "positive disruptor" declined from 34% to 31%. The firm surveyed 4,000 consumers ages 16 or older in the UK and the US.

"Part of this backlash is every platform is filled with slop," said Max Spero, CEO of AI detection startup Pangram. "It feels like the algorithms are shoving it in your face. It feels like it's harder and harder to find things made with craft by real people." Pangram recently partnered with Substack on an integration that detects whether — and how much — AI was used in writing newsletters and comments.

Concerns about "AI slop" have become a focus on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, which all have automated AI detection tools that help identify content that is either entirely AI-generated or substantially edited with AI.

Lawmakers have also gotten in the mix. The European Union and New York state recently developed laws requiring brands to inform viewers when AI-generated characters appear in ads.

AI labels aren't foolproof

As platforms have rushed to ramp up their AI labeling, creators like McGrady say they have become the victims of false positives.

Lindsey Lee Lugrin, a content creator and model, recently posted some paintings she had made by hand. However, her Instagram posts included a label that said they were "likely created or modified with AI."

In some instances, using popular editing tools like Canva or Adobe's Lightroom resulted in content on Instagram, Threads, and TikTok being flagged as potentially AI-generated.

While third-party platforms like Pangram can assist with AI identification, none are completely accurate. (Substack added options in its AI detection feature for creators to dispute a Pangram assessment, explain how and why they used AI, and even disable the tool altogether.)

Slip-ups can be a risk for both creators and brands.

McGrady said that if a post made in partnership with a brand was flagged as AI, it could "harm your relationship with the brand."

Advertisers are well aware of the public backlash an AI-heavy ad can bring.

Brands are taking proactive action to prevent this. Five creators and talent managers said there had been an increase in clauses in partnership briefs and contracts that explicitly state that creators cannot use AI in parts of the content process — particularly in scriptwriting, captions, and visual edits.

"If you're a brand, you obviously don't want to see an influencer you hire have a 100% negative comment section," said Jack Appleby, a relatively AI-positive creator and social media strategist. "If you're not an AI brand, you probably avoid AI right now, just because there's no reason to risk it."

There is no escaping the AI era

Despite the blowback, AI pervades many aspects of content creation.

Photo and video editing apps use it, whether loudly or under the hood. If you use Instagram's fancy font tools when making a Story post, it will trigger a tag that says the text has been "restyled with AI."

"It's really difficult to have a fully AI-free experience right now, no matter what line of work you're in," Calveiro said. "I think a lot more people are using it than they want to admit."

There are real benefits to some tools, too.

"I very frequently tell my audience that there are ethical and moral reasons to use AI. When I do, it's from an accessibility perspective," McGrady said. "But I am a person who proudly says that I do not use generative AI."

The backlash against creators' use of AI may ease in the coming months as AI-powered creative tools become ubiquitous. Labeling efforts could shift toward flagging only fully AI-generated posts.

More transparency about how AI is used could reduce headaches for creators and platforms alike, making room for them to explore how the tech can expand their creativity.

"I'm very honest about how I use AI," Appleby said. "I don't really run from it. If a piece of content entertains or educates or provides value to somebody, for the most part, they shouldn't really care."

• OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT ads to Brazil and Mexico as part of its latest push to grow the product.
• OpenAI has been enhancing its ChatGPT ad tools, testing new ad styles and integrations.
• ChatGPT recently reached the milestone of 1 billion active users.

OpenAI is sprinting ahead with upgrades for ChatGPT ads.

The AI lab revealed a new raft of releases to advertisers in a Wednesday email reviewed by Business Insider, part of its rapid push to build up a cash-printing ads business from scratch as it explores routes to make more money. ChatGPT users are now guinea pigs for the quickly evolving tool, with new countries coming online and new ad styles in early testing.

The new releases arrive shortly after OpenAI announced in late July that ChatGPT had hit the milestone of 1 billion active users. A company spokesperson confirmed the email's contents to Business Insider.

OpenAI is launching advertising on ChatGPT in Brazil and Mexico in the coming week, the email said, adding to several other active markets: the US, Canada, the UK, Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. In July, the company launched the ability for advertisers to target users within geographic areas of a country.

ChatGPT users on Free or Go plans are the only ones who are served ads. They're now beginning to see a new ad style, with multiple products in a carousel. For now, these carousels are confined to a single advertiser's products, unlike the Google carousel, which often tops that site's search results.

OpenAI's email also announced improvements to the product's tools for tracking and measuring campaigns, which competitors Google and Meta have been developing for years. Advertisers on ChatGPT can now test ad campaigns that optimize for specific conversions, such as sales or sign-ups. The email also listed new partnerships with the adtech companies Hightouch and Triple Whale, adding more ways to measure an ad campaign's success.

OpenAI is also signaling that it could roll out "sponsored agents." While it wasn't included in the Wednesday email, OpenAI's latest advertising policies document, updated on July 31, defined "sponsored agents" as "conversational experiences that allow users to interact with an AI-generated representative for an Advertiser's business, products, or services." It indicates that the company is testing new ad styles built on generative AI. The OpenAI spokesperson declined to comment on this.

Advertisers see incremental changes to ChatGPT's ads tool practically every day, Juozas Kaziukėnas, who sold his market intelligence firm about two years ago and closely watches the e-commerce market, told Business Insider.

"The ad product is quite clearly one of the highest priorities for OpenAI, just from the rate and pace of change that is happening," he said.

Kaziukėnas views the possible foray into an "AI native" ad format as promising for marketers.

"We'll see if brands actually want that because we often find that despite many experiments from the companies, often advertisers just want traffic back to their sites," he said.

As popular as ChatGPT has become, OpenAI has a major feat of catch-up ahead. When the company last revealed its annual recurring ads revenue in May, it tallied $100 million. Google and Meta respectively raked in over $294 billion and $196 billion in ads revenue last year.

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• Andrew Tsao transitioned from a six-figure tech job to being an artist in New York City.
• Medicaid and lifestyle changes helped him heal after the switch.
• Tsao's first art show, "The Art of Surrender," marks his farewell to NYC before returning to Taiwan.

It took Andrew Tsao a layoff from his six-figure tech job, Medicaid-subsidized therapy, and a psychedelic session to realize he wanted to be an artist in New York City. His first art show ended up as his goodbye letter to the city he called home for 13 years.

The 34-year-old artist and life coach, born in California and raised in Taiwan, is based in Brooklyn and recently finalized his first art exhibition, "The Art of Surrender." The collection, displayed in T.O.L.K. — a Bushwick café and art gallery in mid and late July — served as his final homage to the city, as he returned to Taiwan on August 5 to complete the military service required to retain his citizenship.

Since the opening, he has sold his first four pieces at his first art show, two for $500, with the help of the coffee shop's owners, who did not take a commission. He was able to hold the show under his planned budget.

Yet, it was just a year ago that he started calling himself a part-time artist. During his time in New York City, he has worked in B2B sales, held multiple tech jobs at startups, become a career and life coach, and found his passion for art. All the while, he has had to learn how to afford to practice art in one of the most expensive cities in the country after his income fell from six figures to under $25,000 when he left the corporate world.

Tsao is among the many New Yorkers who have adapted how they live to keep up with the city’s high cost of living. Business Insider has documented similar trade-offs throughout our Cost of the City series.

From a one-way ticket to a six-figure career

After graduating from the University of Southern California, Tsao moved to New York with a one-way ticket and no job lined up. He worked in B2B sales before transitioning into the tech industry, where he became a product manager, earning over $100,000 a year at a healthcare startup doing opioid addiction treatment.

Then came the pandemic. Although Tsao's company had gone fully remote a few months prior, he was laid off on May 15, 2020. Frustration with the layoff led to Tsao taking steps toward entrepreneurship. He began coaching early-stage founders and taught them how to build websites without coding.

The career change came at a financial cost: Tsao watched his annual income fall from six figures to less than $25,000. He had some money in his 401(k) and savings from his tech career, which he invested in opening his own business. Although he could move back in with his parents in Taiwan if things got worse, the loss of financial stability weighed on him and made him reassess his priorities.

"It is true that there are things that could feel more heavy," like paying bills, he said. "I was able to really be clear with myself of what I need to really feel joyful and safe."

Tsao found that while the city takes a lot, it offers a lot too

Tsao realized his priorities were to have a roof over his head and access to affordable food. The trade-offs he made included going out less often, cooking rather than ordering delivery or eating out, and choosing longer subway commutes over Uber rides.

"It actually did allow me to realize that there's a lot of things that are really beautiful in New York, even if you're not having as much disposable income," he said.

Tsao concluded that New York City can be unaffordable and affordable at the same time.

He exchanged pricey concerts for walks through Prospect Park, came up with creative date ideas, and took advantage of the Culture Pass, which gives New Yorkers free access to museums and libraries. He shifted from buying books from Amazon to discovering the Brooklyn Public Library, which became his favorite place to read and find books.

"I found creative ways to really enjoy living in New York City, especially Brooklyn, on a budget," he said.

During the pandemic, he moved into a two-bedroom apartment with in-unit laundry, which he split with his ex-girlfriend. By the time he moved out in June 2026, the rent was around $1,300 each. He temporarily stayed in a sublet until he moved to Taiwan.

Besides rent, he budgeted around $150 a month for groceries and kept his art-supply costs down. Most of his materials were donated by friends or found on Brooklyn patios. Yet, he did pay $12 per bottle of ink and about $38 for Posca markers.

Healthcare was one of the biggest shifts he experienced

As Tsao's income bracket fell, he was caught by something else — Medicaid. After qualifying for the federal program, he began to receive both emotional and physical treatment, which he would not have looked for when working in tech and paying for his own private health insurance.

Through Medicaid, he began seeing a social worker at Le Santé Health Center in Flatbush for weekly therapy sessions.

"I was trying to separate my identity and value from productivity, output, and how people perceived me," he said. "I would not have gotten therapy if I had not been on Medicaid."

He also began to receive Medicaid-subsidized physical therapy for chronic pain in his upper-right shoulder, which had developed in 2020 from a combination of leaning forward at his desk and recreational bouldering.

"From a health level, it was the most abundant I had ever felt," he said. "That was really one area that the change in affordability didn't make me feel more constrained. Actually, it made me feel like I had more options."

A new beginning in art, and a farewell to New York City

Tsao found that what he enjoyed about coaching was the emotional guidance he brought to it. In 2022, he replaced his technical, no-code coaching with coaching for executives and people in leadership roles — $200-$250, hour-long sessions — which were his main source of income.

"I realized I liked talking about those feelings more than I liked the technical coaching," he said.

Tsao realized he "also wanted to live" what he was coaching.

This realization, tied to his period of personal healing and one psychedelic session, led Tsao back to art. During that session, he began picking up art materials and rediscovered his love of painting. Afterward, he began using art materials he had received from friends and carving out time to create while supporting himself through coaching. His mixed-media abstract work featured in the exhibition explores ancestry, Eastern and Western identities, and connection to the self through ink, collage, crayons, and colored markers.

This shift is what led him to his first art exhibition and now to the send-off for the city he lived in for 13 years. He will miss the city's pizza and diversity, but most importantly the vibrance of its people — from buskers on the subway to dancers in Washington Square Park.

"I think about the New York that doesn't really relate to things with price," he said. "I definitely do think about the concerts I've been to, the food I've had, the encounters at that. But most importantly, the love letter is everything in between. It's for the little pockets of magic."

• PwC has canceled its annual end-of-internship trip to Disney World.
• The trip to Florida was a celebration for interns being converted to full-time staff.
• The Big Four firm said it continued to make "significant investments" in early-talent programs.

So much for a magical ending.

PwC has canceled the signature finale to its summer internship program: a multi-day trip to Disney World.

Managers at the Big Four firm told members of its 2026 summer intern class they wouldn't be ending their internships with a trip to Orlando, according to three PwC interns who spoke to Business Insider.

PwC confirmed that the traditional trip — a perk that has been running for all but five of the last 20 years — had been canceled.

The multi-day event, which was for interns who received full-time job offers, was typically held in mid-August to celebrate the end of the summer internship. The event featured entertainment, keynote speeches, and career-development panels, as well as free food and accommodation, and access to the Disney World Resort.

A PwC spokesperson told Business Insider that while the celebration, known as Impact, was no longer happening, the firm continued to make "significant investments" in its early-talent programs.

One PwC tax intern told Business Insider they had been told their internship would end with a team dinner at an Italian restaurant.

PwC's spokesperson said the company was increasingly investing in strengthening learning and building connections within individual teams, said the spokesperson.

"As part of that approach, we're intentionally focusing our programs on experiences that provide more time with colleagues, greater exposure to clients, and stronger opportunities to build relationships within the offices and teams where interns begin their careers," the spokesperson said.

PwC still hosts a number of other events and talent initiatives, some of which take place in Orlando and include access to Disney World. Destination CPA, for example, is a three-day networking event held in Orlando that introduces incoming accounting interns to the firm.

The interns who spoke to Business Insider had mixed views about the cancellation.

One was disappointed, saying that although PwC had organized some happy hours and office-based events, they were "nothing compared to what Impact would have been."

"Honestly, I don't mind!" another said. "Many current interns went a year and a half ago during Destination CPA."

A changing talent strategy

In the past year, PwC has made other internal changes aimed at more collaborative, team-focused learning.

In February, it launched the "Learning Collective," a workplace training initiative that encourages more learning outside standard courses, such as bringing team members to meetings or having teams discuss what they've learned that week with each other.

Since fall 2025, PwC has reduced the number of locations where entry-level consultants can start their careers, from 72 to 13, to bring junior consultants closer together during their first years at the firm.

The Americas was PwC's fastest-growing region in its most recent financial year, but globally and in North America, the firm fell behind its Big Four competitors in terms of growth last year.

PwC also reduced its global head count by 5,600 during the 2025 financial year, reversing an earlier strategy of expanding its workforce.

Big Four internships

Elaborate intern experiences are common among the Big Four professional services firms. They serve partly as recruitment tools, helping firms foster a sense of community and encouraging promising candidates to accept full-time offers.

They can be a costly investment — every summer, the Big Four take on several thousand summer interns across their accounting and advisory divisions.

KPMG invites summer interns to Lakehouse, its $450 million training facility in Florida, where they learn while enjoying an 18-hole putting green, gym facilities, and a constant stream of free food. Deloitte operates a similar facility in Texas, called the Deloitte University.

The growing use of AI is prompting professional-services firms to reconsider how they recruit and train junior staff. KPMG US has shifted its audit intern training to focus less on technical aspects of the profession and more on critical thinking, data analysis, and drawing conclusions.

As the technology increasingly performs some of the data-heavy tasks traditionally assigned to entry-level workers, it's also raising questions about the future role of graduate hires.

PwC plans to reduce its hiring of entry-level workers in the US by a third over the next three years, Business Insider reported in August. An internal presentation linked the decision to "transformation efforts, the impact of AI, and further AC integration." The firm has also reduced entry-level recruitment in the UK.

• American Airlines is making it harder for elite flyers to receive an upgrade from economy to business class.
• The new policy affects some of the longest domestic routes, including trips to Hawaii.
• An aviation expert said the airline is trying to capture revenue it previously left on the table.

American Airlines is making it harder for its most loyal customers to score one of its most coveted perks.

American Airlines said on Thursday that beginning August 25, elite AAdvantage members traveling on several of American's longest domestic routes, including select transcontinental flights and trips to Hawaii, will no longer receive complimentary upgrades from economy to business class.

Instead, eligible travelers will be upgraded to premium economy when seats are available.

The move also affects routes including New York to Los Angeles; Boston to San Francisco; Dallas-Fort Worth to Honolulu, Kona, and Maui; Phoenix to Honolulu; and Chicago to Honolulu and Maui.

"As American Airlines expands its offering of Premium Economy on more domestic routes," a spokesperson of American Airlines told Business Insider. "We are streamlining our complimentary upgrade process to deliver a more consistent customer experience."

According to the airline, elite travelers who purchase a premium economy fare or pay to upgrade from economy to premium economy will still be eligible for a complimentary upgrade to business class.

The policy change reflects a broader trend across the airline industry as carriers look to protect revenue from their highest-priced cabins. Delta in 2025 has changed its loyalty program to reward customers who pay for higher fare types, while United is betting on selling more premium seats by expanding its high-end cabins.

Zach Griff, a travel and aviation expert, called the rollback in frequent flyer benefits "bad news" in a post on X.

"Delta will become the lone holdout to still allow space-available elite upgrades from economy to Delta One," Griff said on Thursday. "United doesn't allow complimentary upgrades on routes with Polaris cabins."

Gary Leff, a points expert and author of the aviation blog View from the Wing, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that American Airlines seems to "systematically be squeezing out areas" where they are likely missing out on revenue."

"I think this is broadly fine, although it's clearly less value to status members who have been jumping from coach to business class," Leff said. "To fly business with an upgrade you'll need to first be in the premium economy cabin which costs more."

"I largely expected American to do this not just with domestic upgrades but with systemwide upgrades and for long haul international flights — about seven years ago," Leff added.

• Sia and Mikael Lilja spent six years building their dream family home in Sweden.
• When they decided that kids were no longer part of the plan, they moved to Japan for a fresh start.
• They paid 8 million yen, about $49,000, for an akiya, one of Japan's old vacant houses in the countryside.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sia and Mikael Lilja, who moved from Sweden to Japan, where they bought and are restoring an old house. It's been edited for length and clarity.

We've been together for 12 years and married for the last 4.

In 2020, we bought a piece of land in a small town about 15 minutes outside Malmö in Sweden, and started building our dream home. We were planning for our long-term future: have kids and live close to family.

By the end of 2023, we were able to move in, although there were still projects — including an upstairs bathroom — that we'd take our time to complete.

However, by then, our plans had already begun to change.

We joined the waiting list for IVF in 2021, but the process was delayed because of the pandemic. We had a lot of hard conversations about the future we'd imagined for ourselves. By the time it was finally our turn to begin IVF, we'd already decided it wasn't the path we wanted.

The house felt too big for just the two of us and our dog. The life we'd planned around it no longer existed, so we started thinking about what else we could do.

A change of plans

Back in 2019, we'd spent six months traveling around Asia and fell in love with the region. We'd always imagined that if we ever moved abroad, it would be somewhere like Bali or South Korea. However, as we looked into both places more seriously, neither felt quite right.

As we explored other possibilities, we came across a podcast about buying a house in Japan. We'd been wanting to visit Japan for years, so we booked a trip for the end of 2025.

Even though we'd never set foot in Japan, it already felt like the right place to begin our next chapter. Before our trip, we started browsing Japanese property listings online and began selling our home in Sweden.

By the time we arrived in Japan for our 3-week trip in November 2025, our house in Sweden had already been sold, although we still had until May 2026 to hand over the keys.

The trip was our chance to make sure Japan really was the right place for us before buying a home there, and it did exactly that. Over the next 3 weeks, we explored different parts of Japan, including the Kansai region, to decide where we wanted to settle. We eventually narrowed it down to places within a 90-minute drive of Kyoto.

When we returned to Sweden, we stepped up our house hunt. We hired a buyer's agent and set up alerts for akiya — old, vacant homes — that matched our criteria.

We wanted a traditional home with natural light, a wraparound veranda, and a rural setting while still being close to a train station and other amenities.

In January, we finally got the alert we'd been waiting for.

Our agent quickly arranged a viewing. Since we were still in Sweden, he walked us through the house over a video call. When we saw it, we knew it was exactly what we were looking for, so we made an offer immediately.

Our offer was accepted, and the purchase price was 8 million yen, or about $49,000, before taxes and other fees.

The start of a new chapter

We decided to look at this time as a gap year for adults, so we both left our jobs.

With that, we turned our attention to wrapping up our lives in Sweden. In May 2026, we handed over the keys and flew to Japan.

When we saw the house in person for the first time, we were pleasantly surprised; it had been incredibly well-maintained.

The kitchen looked almost brand new, and the bathroom was much nicer than we'd expected. It almost feels strange calling it an akiya because it's nothing like the old, half-ruined homes people often imagine.

Everything is in Japanese, so we're constantly translating labels with an app. We spent almost two weeks eating convenience store food before we'd bought a fridge and could finally cook our own meals.

Thankfully, our neighbors — mostly older Japanese residents — have been welcoming. Our house sits on the edge of a small village surrounded by fields and bamboo forest, and they've already shown us how to weed the property and look after the bamboo shoots.

We spent about a month settling in, cleaning the house, and buying simple furniture and appliances. We ordered new tatami mats, had the roof inspected, and started planning the work we'd tackle before returning to Europe.

We're back in Europe for a few months, visiting family while we wait for our dog's vaccination paperwork to be finalized. We're aiming to officially move to Japan in September.

Once we're back, we'll start renovating. Unlike our house in Sweden, we don't want this project to take over our whole lives. Instead, we want to travel around Japan and renovate the house little by little. There are plenty of places we'd like to visit with our dog.

We're looking forward to starting this new chapter.

• CEO Brian Chesky said one of Airbnb's new services has been a surprise hit with guests.
• Chesky said luggage storage and rental cars have both been driving revenue.
• Airbnb posted an earnings beat on Thursday, with the stock jumping after-hours.

Airbnb helped solve one of the more annoying aspects of staying in a rental home, and it looks like it could be paying off.

CEO Brian Chesky said on the company's third-quarter earnings call Thursday that one of the most popular new features offered as part of the app's push into experiences and services was one that he did not expect: luggage storage.

"What a sleeper hit," Chesky said when an analyst asked which of the newer services were most popular.

Chesky said he was giving a keynote speech where he was talking up a bunch of AI features, and that the mention of luggage storage got the biggest cheer. He also said it got a huge reaction when he posted about the new offering on Instagram, adding, "I finally felt cool on the internet."

Airbnb announced in May that it was partnering with Bounce, a global luggage storage platform, to help guests find places to store their bags before check-in or after checkout. After booking a trip, Airbnb guests can see luggage drop-off locations near their stay and receive a discounted rate in some cities.

The added service addresses an advantage that hotels, which commonly store guests' luggage before or after their stay, often have over rental homes.

"That's not the sexiest service," Chesky said of luggage storage, adding, "but I will say that what we've learned is that every service in and of itself has value."

The most popular new service "by far" has been car rentals, Chesky said, adding that the average car rental on the platform lasts longer than the average Airbnb stay.

He said both rental cars and luggage storage have been revenue drivers compared to some other services.

"But what all these services have in common is they make you more likely to want to book a home on Airbnb or a hotel on Airbnb," he said. "And so we have a pipeline of dozens of more services."

Airbnb posted an earnings beat on Thursday, with the stock jumping around 10% in after-hours trading.

Airbnb did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Marc Palet, a tech VC, uses AI tools to boost his productivity.
• He said he uses tools like Claude and Lovable to build automated workflows for himself.
• This allows him to meet more founders and source better deals for the firm.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marc Palet, 26, a Singapore-based venture capitalist at OMVC. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I was first exposed to venture capital while running an e-commerce fashion business in college back home in Barcelona. During a study abroad program in Hong Kong, I did a ton of networking and came across a VC firm investing in fintech, blockchain, and AI — all the things I liked. I ended up staying with them after graduation and spent three years in Hong Kong before moving to Singapore to lead the firm's Asia Pacific investments.

I'm 26 now and have invested in over 12 AI companies since I started my VC career. AI isn't just a part of my portfolio; it's become a crucial part of my workflow and how I manage things as the firm's only employee outside the US.

Even though I've vibe-coded many of my workflows, AI hasn't replaced any of my software subscriptions. It's actually added more, since I pay more than $120 a month across Claude, ChatGPT, n8n, and other AI tools like transcription APIs.

But I'd be happy to spend more if it makes me more productive.

Here's what my tech stack looks like and how it has helped shave countless hours of operational work.

Summarizing founder meetings

I started using ChatGPT in 2023. But the real shift came when I began using coding tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Replit.

One of the first things I built for work automatically summarizes my meetings with founders.

We record our meetings using Fireflies. Instead of manually listening back and writing investment notes after every meeting, I receive a structured summary covering the company's problem, solution, market, and other information we capture during due diligence.

My first knowledge base

One recurring problem was that if I weren't at my laptop, I'd read something interesting on LinkedIn or X and then forget all about it.

So creating repositories on NotebookLM was a turning point for me. Every time I read something online that I thought I wanted to remember, I'd copy and paste it into that repository.

Whenever I wanted to write a blog post, I could query it and retrieve all the information I needed.

Building a company brain

The stage I'm in now started a couple of months ago, after I read something OpenAI founding member Andrej Karpathy wrote about building a knowledge base that automatically ingests information and keeps updating itself. I thought that was really interesting, so I built something similar for venture capital using Claude Code.

It pulls information from Gmail, Slack, my call transcription service, newsletters, YouTube podcasts, and anywhere else I get knowledge or updates on our portfolio companies. An AI agent parses the raw information, then organizes it into the right place.

Each portfolio company has pages for things like fundraising, financials, and commercial updates. If there's a new Slack message, the AI figures out which company it's about and updates the relevant page. And it doesn't just copy and paste new information — it rewrites the page so everything stays coherent.

More powerful than an intern

One workflow automatically creates our quarterly limited partner reports by summarizing everything that's happened across our portfolio during the reporting period. Another helps with audit work by gathering information from all our portfolio companies.

Those tedious tasks that used to take up so much of my time. For a VC fund as small as ours, time is always a constraint, so I'm happy to spend on AI that can save me time.

My agents for LinkedIn posts, an important part of my role, have helped me increase my output from one deep-dive article every two months to one every three weeks. Every article brings in more deal flow, and because I'm spending less time on operational work, I have more time for in-person meetings.

I realized that AI is much more efficient than training an intern for a month, only for them to stay for three months. AI also does things the way I want them done. I realized that AI plus me is more powerful than me plus an intern.

• Meta was ordered to pay a total of $942 million over harm caused to children on its platforms.
• A New Mexico judge on Thursday ordered Meta to pay $567 million, mostly for treatment services.
• A jury previously found the company liable and approved a fine of $375 million.

Meta must pay a total of $942 million to address harm caused to children on its platforms, a New Mexico judge ruled Thursday.

A jury in March found Meta liable for failing to protect kids and approved a $375 million fine. New Mexico state Judge Bryan Biedscheid issued a ruling Thursday ordering the company to pay an additional $567 million and to make changes to its platforms to make them safer for kids. The judge said the money was to be put into an abatement fund, with most of it, $420 million, to go toward treatment services.

Among the changes, Meta must strengthen age verification in New Mexico, limit users under 18 in the state to a combined 90 hours a month on Facebook and Instagram, turn off most push notifications for minors overnight and during school hours, and hide "like" counts by default unless a parent or guardian allows them to be shown.

"This case has always been about protecting children, standing up for families, and making sure that one of the world's largest technology companies cannot profit from practices that endanger young people without consequence," New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said in a statement following the ruling. "Today's decision is a victory for every parent who has worried about what social media is doing to their child and every child who deserves to grow up safer online."

In a separate statement, Torrez called the ruling a "blueprint" for holding social media companies liable for products that endanger children.

"Now other states, and other countries confronting the same crisis, have a roadmap they can follow," Torrez said.

Meta said it disagrees with the ruling and will appeal.

"We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and have been transparent about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors and harmful content," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider. "We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts."

• After decades at Google, Jeff Dean is starting Discovery Loop.
• Dean is cofounding the AI startup alongside three other former Googlers.
• Discovery Loop will focus on AI applications in science and engineering.

Legendary Googler Jeff Dean is starting his own AI company.

On Wednesday, Dean, Google's chief scientist, announced that he and three other colleagues were leaving to start Discovery Loop, an AI startup focused on AI applications in science and engineering.

Here's everything we know about the new venture

What is Discovery Loop?

Discovery Loop is a public benefit corporation "whose mission is to automate machine learning, science, and engineering to accelerate discoveries and progress," Dean wrote on X.

The loop part of the name comes from the company's goal of automating the process by which scientists and engineers propose an experiment, implement and run it, and evaluate the results.

The company hopes this automation can unlock some of the trickiest problems in science and engineering by enabling "parallel execution of thousands of experiments."

Specifically, Discovery Loop wants to build systems that can tackle parts of the 14 challenges laid out by some of the world's most accomplished scientists and engineers to improve life as we know it. Formerly known as the "National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges," the 14 topics range from "Reverse Engineer the Brain" to "Prevent Nuclear Terror."

Interestingly, the 2008 committee that came up with the grand challenges included Larry Page, the cofounder of Google.

Who is funding Discovery Loop?

According to Dean, Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures, two Silicon Valley mainstays, led the initial round. Lightspeed, Kleiner Perkins, and Doerr Capital also participated.

In a sign of how he left things at Google, Alphabet is a founding investor and cloud partner, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.

"I also want to give a huge thanks to the incomparable @JeffDean after an incredible 27-year run at Google," Pichai wrote on X.

Who is Jeff Dean?

If you've used Google in the last two decades, you have Jeff Dean to thank. As Google's 30th employee, his tenure spans from establishing Google's dominance in search to the creation of generative AI models.

Dean helped advance Google Search, Google News, Google Translate, and Google Ads.

If that wasn't enough, Dean co-founded the Google Brain team that, as the "Godfather of AI" and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton put it, turned "basic research in neural nets into game-changing products." One of the biggest breakthroughs Dean helped develop was the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which is credited with accelerating AI research.

As Google's AI head, Dean oversaw AI research and later co-led the development of Gemini, Google's family of models.

Many of the biggest names in AI worked alongside Dean, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever, and more.

Who else is leading Discovery Loop?

Sanjay Ghemawat: Ghemawat is one of Dean's oldest collaborators, going back to before the pair joined Google when they worked at Digital Equipment Corporation.

At Google, the pair became so inseparable that Dean's kids called Ghemawat "Uncle Sanjay," according to a 2018 profile in The New Yorker. Ghemawat and Dean also became the first-ever level 11 Google engineers, carrying the title of Senior Fellows.

According to Dean's slide deck, he is the most-cited distributed systems researcher; Ghemawat is the fourth most cited.

Oriol Vinyals: Vinyals, a principal scientist at Google DeepMind, is also joining Discovery Loop.

According to his Google biography, Vinyals focused on machine learning and reinforcement learning. Before joining the team, he worked on projects that fuel tools like Google Translate.

One of his research projects, called AlphaStar, was an agent that bested a top-tier professional StarCraft II player.

Among the most-cited AI researchers, per Dean's slide deck, Vinyals is sixth.

Quoc Le: Le was a founding member of the Google Brain team. At Stanford, his advisor was Andrew Ng, who helped establish the Brain team.

Le worked on one of Google Brain's first big projects: developing a neural network of 1,000 machines containing 16,000 processors that demonstrated machine learning by teaching itself how to recognize items after being trained on 10 million images randomly pulled from YouTube videos, as The New York Times reported in 2012.

This being the internet, the system taught itself to recognize cats.

What's next for Google?

Google is no stranger to big shake-ups, including in AI.

In 2014, the search giant acquired DeepMind, then a startup. Under Google's banner, DeepMind conducted influential research, including AlphaGo, a program capable of beating a master at the challenging board game Go.

Despite laying the foundation for several AI breakthroughs, Google saw some of its former employees, including Sutskever, push OpenAI to the front of the generative AI race with the release of ChatGPT in 2022.

In 2023, Google merged the Brain and DeepMind teams into one group led by Demis Hassabis.

In addition to Dean's departure, Google announced that Hassabis would become chair of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet.

Koray Kavukcuoglu, chief technology officer of Google DeepMind and Google's chief AI architect, assumed the day-to-day operations of DeepMind and the title of senior vice president.

• Sandra Bonola left Connecticut for the South in search of a cheaper home and more excitement.
• After living in South Carolina, she realized the South wasn't as affordable or fun as she'd hoped.
• Now back in Connecticut, Bonola said costs are higher, but she's happier.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sandra Bonola, 56, who moved from Connecticut to Charleston, South Carolina, in 2021, then to Beaufort, South Carolina, in 2023, before deciding the South wasn't right for her. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I am a native New Englander, born and raised in Connecticut. In late 2021, I started thinking seriously about moving. I'm an empty nester, and thanks to my remote job, I can work from anywhere in the country.

I was drawn to the South because people talked about it as if it were the promised land. The stories made it seem like it had better weather, cheaper homes, and a more affordable cost of living. I bought into that and told myself, "If I move to the South, I can have an easier life, and it won't be as expensive."

I decided to move to Charleston, South Carolina. I figured that there, I'd be outside more, near the beach, have a lower cost of living, and have access to the coast. I was also hoping for that small-town vibe and Southern charm.

I packed up the 2,500-square-foot Colonial I had lived in for 20 years and moved. I got rid of a lot of things I no longer needed and put the rest into storage.

I was really hopeful Charleston would be right for me. But about four months after moving there, I realized that almost everything I had hoped for was turning out to be the opposite.

I tested the waters in Charleston first

In Charleston, I stayed in a friend's apartment and paid rent month to month while I decided whether I wanted to buy a home there. I'm grateful for that setup because it gave me a trial period. In those four months, I learned a lot about Charleston — and about what I actually wanted.

One of the first things I noticed was that everybody seemed to be moving there. The city was crowded, and navigating the downtown area was always challenging. Its streets were also full of traffic — it would take me up to an hour to try to get to downtown Charleston from John's Island.

The city was also more expensive than I expected. I was somewhat insulated from housing costs because I was renting from my friend, but food, entertainment, and taxes were all much higher than I had anticipated.

The Southern charm I was hoping for also didn't feel as I expected. Charleston has a big "going out" culture, much of which seems to revolve around where to eat or drink. That's not really my thing. For me, the city lacked some of the creative flavor I was looking for.

The climate was another big factor. Everyone knows New England can have brutal winters, and I don't like shoveling snow, so I was eager to get away from that. But after moving South, I realized I had traded brutal winters for brutal summers. It was just so hot.

At first, I thought I just needed time to adjust. But the more I explored Charleston, the more I realized the lifestyle I had imagined didn't match my reality.

I was getting annoyed, then frustrated, and then I was done.

I tried the South again, but it still wasn't for me

I didn't feel like I had anything to lose, so I moved back to Connecticut in 2022. Instead of feeling defeated, I actually felt grateful that I had given Charleston a shot.

For a while, I rented a month-to-month beach house in Connecticut while I looked for a home to buy. But the homebuying search in New England felt bleak. I was trying to downsize, but even the smaller homes came with big-home prices. It made me feel like I might never find what I was looking for.

After house hunting for 14 months in Connecticut, I really wanted to put down roots. The idea of moving to a quieter, more affordable small town was still appealing. So in July 2023, I decided to try the South again — this time in Beaufort, South Carolina, a small town I had explored while living in Charleston.

There, I was able to purchase a beautiful three-bedroom ranch home for $425,000. It was a new build in a planned community.

The house checked a lot of boxes. It was beautiful, new, and far more affordable than what I could have bought in Connecticut. But I still didn't feel at home in Beaufort.

Affordability is important, but you also need community

In Beaufort, it was so hot that I rarely saw or interacted with my neighbors. People would say hello and then quickly go back inside. I kept thinking, "How am I ever going to socialize here?"

I joke that I'm an OG remote worker because I started working remotely in 2008. Remote work gives you some social interaction, but you still need to get outside and make real connections with people.

I tried to put myself in situations where I could meet people. I looked for yoga classes, local events, and other activities I could join. But what I found was that many people had moved there for family or moved with a spouse, and they mostly kept to themselves.

It lacked the kind of community connection I was used to seeing in the Northeast. I kept trying to make those connections and stay open to it, but it just kept falling flat.

I tell people this story, and sometimes they understand it, and sometimes they don't. But I knew I was done one morning when I woke up, looked at the ceiling fan in my bedroom, and thought, "I really hate that fan, and I'm losing hope for my life."

I didn't appreciate Connecticut's beauty until I moved back

In 2024, I moved back to Connecticut. Right now, I'm living on the coast in an apartment inside a refurbished Civil War-era hospital. I'm on one of the top floors, so I can see the boats and the water.

I'm still searching for a home and making offers with more confidence. Home prices are high here, but prices down South are creeping up, too.

I've started thinking about owning in Connecticut more as an investment in both my future and my happiness. I've set a budget of about $800,000 for a home, though some of the homes I've been interested in have been closer to $650,000.

I'm seeing possibilities I didn't see before, and that's exciting.

Being back in Connecticut has been eye-opening. I don't think I fully appreciated its beauty until I had something to compare it to.

There's so much opportunity here. I love the energy and the people. I've been taking advantage of the location, too, doing things like hopping on a train to New York to see a show or making more of an effort to connect with friends.

When I think about whether I'd move somewhere else again, I keep coming back to something a photographer once told me in Massachusetts. He had lived in Bali with his family, and I remember asking, "You lived in Bali? Why would you come to Massachusetts?"

I'll never forget what he told me. He said, "I can go anywhere in the world from an airport, but you really have to realize the ground beneath your feet is beautiful if you choose to see it that way."

That stayed with me. It changed the way I think about Connecticut and made me realize I needed to take the blinders off. There was beauty right at my feet — I just needed to see it.

• Atlanta's FIFA Fan Festival features concerts, activations, and a stadium-like atmosphere for fans.
• It's drawn 450,000 visitors so far, offering free entry and a vibrant atmosphere.
• Attendees praised Atlanta's diversity and welcoming vibe at the lively FIFA Fan Festival.

I'm not the biggest World Cup fan, so when the first general-admission tickets went on sale earlier this year, it didn't cross my mind to check the prices for an individual game.

World Cup tickets reportedly hit the market at seven times the expected rate, with one consumer telling Business Insider that they spent over $2,000 on a single ticket through FIFA's resale portal. Unfortunately, even if I wanted to attend, my bank account wasn't prepared to support such behavior.

Lucky for me, in addition to the actual games, FIFA launched 13 Fan Festivals across Canada, Mexico, and the US. I figured this would be my best option for joining the festivities.

I found it hard to ignore all the World Cup fanfare in Atlanta, my home city

It was equally hard to ignore the starting price for attending the Atlanta FIFA Fan Festival: $0.

Guests still had to reserve both free and paid tickets online.

The sold-out festival is taking place at the Centennial Olympic Park, right around the corner from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where seven World Cup matches have already been held. Atlanta will host its final match on July 15.

With tickets ranging from free general admission to $325 VIP packages, Atlanta's FIFA Fan Festival has drawn more than 450,000 visitors, according to organizers, making it one of the country's most-attended events alongside Philadelphia's FIFA Fan Fest and Miami's.

After checking out the hype for myself, I had such a good time with the music, concerts, activations, free swag, and energetic crowds that I went twice.

On my second visit to the Atlanta FIFA Fan Festival on June 26, I asked attendees why they think it's consistently been one of the country's most-attended Fan Festivals.

Here are the guests who stood out from the crowd and what they shared.

Atlanta's diversity is on full display

Twin sisters Shanteria and Siera W. told BI that World Cup tickets were out of their budget. They only spent $15 on drinks to stay hydrated at the Atlanta Fan Fest.

"Atlanta has just upgraded into something more and more popular," Shanteria said. "Atlanta is diverse. You can come from any culture, any background, and just have fun."

"Everybody comes from different places, and we welcome everybody," Siera added.

The crowd and giant screen create a stadium-like atmosphere

Another team Mexico fan, Daniel S., caught my attention with his small group of friends.

Daniel, who shared that he's also an Atlanta FIFA Fan Fest volunteer, was enjoying the match between Spain and Uruguay on the 40-foot jumbo screen. Out of all the ways to watch the World Cup, being in a crowd of up to 15,000 with a few close friends is memorable and one of his highlights.

Atlanta knows how to host major sporting events

Torrence, a Chicago native who lives in Atlanta, said he didn't bother looking at World Cup tickets.

He spent about $40 on drinks and enjoyed running into his frat brother while taking in the festivities. He was rooting for Côte d'Ivoire, which lost to Norway in the first knockout round.

"Atlanta's a good city, good atmosphere. Super Bowl, College Football Championship — they're always doing something here," Torrence said. "I'm with it. I'm out here having a good time"

Visitors found getting to the festival easy

Friends Rebecca and Anna took MARTA into the city to watch Spain, which has advanced to the semifinals.

The pair said they spent about $6 each after driving from Johns Creek, Georgia, to the nearest train station. They also didn't bother looking up World Cup tickets due to the high prices.

Both ladies found the Atlanta FIFA Fan Fest to be a fun and affordable way to experience the World Cup.

The Atlanta FIFA Fan Festival celebrated more than the World Cup teams

The festival was filled with jerseys from countries that weren't even competing in the World Cup. As a Liberian, I immediately spotted a Liberia soccer jersey in the crowd and had to speak with Jordan McGlotten, whose family is also from the country.

McGlotten, who is from Virginia and lives in Atlanta, was on his third visit to the festival and said he spent roughly $80 altogether.

"We've got a little bit of everything," McGlotten said. "It's very diverse. We have a lot of different nationalities. We have the trees, we have the skyline, we have everything."

He also reminded me that the US Soccer headquarters and national training center are just south of Atlanta, making it somewhat of a soccer city.

Being at the festival felt like being a part of history

Joi and Xavier, a couple cheering for Haiti, said the Atlanta FIFA Fan Festival had amazing vibes.

This was Haiti's first time in 52 years competing at the World Cup. Speaking with Haitian fans felt like being a part of the long-awaited return. Though Haiti was knocked out in the group stage, the Atlanta FIFA Fan Festival wasn't about fans simply cheering on their team. It was about culture, pride, and unity.

After spending time there, I can see why Atlanta's FIFA Fan Festival has become one of the country's busiest.

• Tarek Mansour, the CEO of Kalshi, acknowledged the company has an "unusual" management style.
• Most employees report directly to him or his fellow cofounder, Mansour said on a recent podcast.
• It's "kind of chaotic," Mansour said on a recent podcast, but "the tradeoff is a company that can adapt quickly."

At Kalshi, most employees report directly to both founders of the largest prediction market in the US in what CEO Tarek Mansour described as a deliberately "unusual" management structure.

Speaking on a recent episode of Sequoia Capital's "Long Strange Trip," Mansour said he and fellow cofounder Luana Lopes Lara have roughly 150 direct reports with little traditional hierarchy in between.

"There's some functions that like we sort of let them do like what they do," Mansour said, "but pretty much most of the company reports to between the two of us."

Mansour and Lara founded Kalshi in 2018 after they met as students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The CEO acknowledged that the management style is "pretty unusual," but said the tradeoff is a company that can adapt quickly, even if it's "kind of chaotic."

"I think you could build an organization that's somewhat okay with that, because what you get out of chaos is like continuous, constant adaptability," Mansour said. "It's very easy for a company to adapt, very easy."

His goal, Mansour said, is to keep the company flexible enough to "constantly reorient and reassemble around the biggest challenges or biggest opportunities."

"You want to be able to do that with no friction — that's inherently chaotic," he said, adding, "your structure needs to be as adaptable as possible."

During the podcast, Mansour told host and Sequoia Capital partner Brian Halligan that he doesn't follow any leadership playbook and described his approach as "making it up as I go."

Mansour called he and his cofounder, Lara, "probably very sort of like entrepreneurially illiterate."

"We haven't read all the books, we haven't watched all the podcasts," he said.

Mansour said he concentrates on Kalshi's big-picture strategy, while Lara focuses on the day-to-day operations of the company.

"I actually think we kind of disagree by design," Mansour said. "Like we have this thing, this dynamic over time, it's become a thing where like we essentially will always take the opposite side of the argument."

• Living with my aging mother changed how I understood her worries.
• I realized I had started treating my college daughter the same way.
• Parenting and caregiving have become mirror images of each other.

I bounded upstairs to retrieve the laundry basket, trying to tack on one more chore before losing the day to my remote job's endless emails and Zoom meetings.

As I picked up the strewn-out clothes — this is why my husband's a software engineer rather than a basketball player — I noticed my phone screen light up. It was Mom. She's away visiting my sister for a few weeks.

"Are you OK. Send me a message you are OK," her WhatsApp text read.

The lack of punctuation in her text is not just a reflection of her not being a native English speaker, but an echo of her anxious personality. Above all, it's a symbol of her new reality, a universe where I, her firstborn, unwittingly find myself center stage.

My mom used to be independent

When Dad died in India almost a decade ago, I didn't want to deal again with the agony of having an aging parent thousands of miles away, and I insisted Mom move in with us.

The last time I'd lived with my parents was at 17, when I headed to college 1400 miles away, after which life took me around the world and eventually to California and a family of my own.

As Mom and I started to reacquaint ourselves, I grappled with watching my once-strong, independent mother become vulnerable and dependent, a result of biological aging exacerbated by geographical and cultural upheaval.

Ostensibly, she didn't see me differently, though, peppering me with questions that would have made sense 30 years ago: "Where are you going?" "Why aren't you eating enough?" "When did you get home last night?" They come from a place of caring. Although sometimes my annoyance is obvious.

I realized I do to my daughter what my mom does to me

"I'm fine. I was out for a walk when you called yesterday. I'll call later," I texted Mom back.

"I just talked to you yesterday afternoon," I said out loud to the phone. Only Siri heard.

As I waited for my work computer to power up, having lost the laundry battle, I picked up my phone and texted my daughter away at college in New York.

"Good morning, my child. I miss you. How are you? Call today."

My modus operandi these days is to blame everything on my hormones, a middle-aged gift that keeps on giving. Misplaced keys, names that elude you when the person is in front of you, vanishing nouns when you're desperately trying to explain something, all collateral damage thanks to hormones.

Two hours later, in the middle of a meeting to discuss metrics on how many code defects were resolved, the irony hit me. I did to my daughter what Mom had done to me. I laughed out loud, and I'm sure my coworkers must have also thought, "Hormones!"

I'm turning into my mom

My daughter jokes about it all the time. When my husband and I visited her a few weeks ago, I sensed the edges of exasperation on her face and voice, as she grabbed the phone from my hand and took control of a family selfie, a skill I'll never master. "I don't miss Paati (grandma) now," she said, as she handed me the phone back.

Already gifted with tall genes, she has further increased her stride length living in the city. I almost jog to keep pace with her as she turns around and smiles, "Keep up, marathoner!" Was it only 10 years ago when she'd cling to my leg at the sight of strangers?

During spring break, when she was at home, I headed out for a Costco run. Mom reminded me, for the fourth time, to pick up Pepto Bismol. When I asked my daughter what she needed, she told me she'd go shopping on her own.

At dinner, when I made roti and dal, my daughter stood by me in the kitchen, finely slicing scallions to garnish her high-protein salad, as she delivered a TED Talk on macros and nutrition.

I watched her, spellbound, the same way Mom watches me when I explain digital scams and that not all WhatsApp messages that begin with PLEASE READ CAREFULLY need to actually be read.

As I put away laundry, I have a dawning awareness. I recognize all of my mom's clothes, but I wouldn't be able to pick out my daughter's clothes in a laundromat. Some days, I wish I could press pause on the universe. To a time when my mother needs me less, and my daughter needs me more. When Mom wouldn't need me to pick her outfit when we go out to dinner. When Mira would let me go shopping with her. But those moments pass. Thank you, hormones.

At night, I text my daughter again, "Hellooooooo." Unironically. It's the law of the universe. A mother needs her daughter. Who am I to question it?

• Last year, I went through a difficult breakup, lost my job, and moved back home with my mom.
• At first, returning to the city I grew up in made me feel like a failure.
• Surprisingly, reconnecting with the community healed me and inspired my next career move.

At 36, I had everything I ever wanted.

I was a senior communications leader at one of the world's biggest entertainment companies, earning a title and salary that I had worked my entire career to get.

Not only did I have my dream job, but also an amazing group of friends and family, a healthy relationship, and a passport that was getting stamped almost monthly.

I felt like I was finally creating the life and family I always wished for. Until, suddenly, everything changed.

A breakup and a layoff forced me to reevaluate my life

After returning home from a girls' trip, my partner of four years and I had a hard but necessary conversation, and ultimately decided to end our relationship.

Although we had our ups and downs, we seemed to be working through things, and I never thought our struggles would ultimately end in a breakup.

Because we had been living together, I was forced to pack up my belongings at my partner's home in Florida and move to my mom's condo in my hometown of New Orleans — the best financial option and a way to be close to my family when I needed them most.

Luckily, my job allowed me to work remotely as long as I visited the New York City office once a month, so moving states wouldn't be an issue.

Plus, my mom and I are close, especially since I'm an only child, so I was excited to live with her again. But part of me still felt like a failure returning to the city I grew up in.

However, I looked forward to spending meaningful time with her — something I hadn't been able to do since moving to a different state.

It felt nice slipping into our old routines: watching our favorite "Real Housewives" episodes together, grabbing lunch, being each other's plus-ones to sporting events, and recapping our days in person instead of over the phone.

I was so grateful for every moment we shared together, but I didn't think I'd stay there much longer than six months.

That all changed when I was laid off from my job. Full of shock and uncertainty, I was faced with the reality that, for the first time in my life, I didn't know what would come next.

Suddenly, I was stuck at home, unemployed, and staring at a future I couldn't map out.

Reconnecting with my community inspired my next career move

Thankfully, severance and unemployment benefits gave me something I had rarely allowed myself before: time.

As I sat with myself, I realized I've spent almost my entire life searching for that next title, promotion, or accomplishment.

The layoff forced me to face the truth I had been denying: it was time for a change.

So, instead of rushing to recreate my old life, I decided to lean into the one I had. I decided if I was going to be in New Orleans, I was going to truly be here.

After exploring new parts of the city, attending local events, and trying new fitness classes, I started to see my hometown in a new light.

When I used to visit the city as an adult, I never thought I could be happy living here again. However, I never had a community to rely on, since I had grown apart from my childhood friends and was never in town long enough to truly reconnect.

Now, a year and a half after moving back, my life looks completely different than the one I thought I wanted. I started a business, established a flourishing group of old and new friends, built a personal brand, and discovered a passion for community-building that I never knew existed.

Most of all, I found something I wasn't expecting: I love living back in New Orleans, and I'm really happy.

The city gave me space to heal and rediscover myself after one of the hardest chapters of my career.

I'm not sure if my time living at home will be permanent, but for now, I'm content and hope to continue to blossom here until the next adventure calls me.

Overall, returning home didn't ruin my life — it's helped me rebuild it.

• Power walking could be the key to a long, healthy life, with a lower risk of dementia and disease.
• New research on "super movers" suggests their longevity secret is keeping a brisk pace after age 80.
• A neurologist shares how to walk your way to antiaging benefits in as little as 30 minutes a day.

As a neurologist, Dr. Joe Verghese is all about finding creative strategies for a healthier brain — especially when it helps simplify his workout routine.

"I don't always enjoy exercising, or the idea that I have to do it regularly," he told Business Insider.

In pursuit of a healthier brain, he's tried everything from balance tests to ballroom dancing (after his studies found it may help stave off dementia).

Now, the Stony Brook University researcher is aiming to become a "super mover," a rare demographic of people 80 and older who have an exceptionally fast walking speed for their age — and live uniquely long, healthy lives.

According to his studies, persistent speediness may have a protective effect on the brain and body, Verghese said.

By studying them, he hopes to learn not just how our bodies and minds deteriorate as we age, but what we can do about it.

"Aspiring to be a fast mover, a super mover is a good thing because it has not only benefits for the brain, it has benefits for the rest of the body too," he said.

Move fast, slow aging

Super movers are defined as people who can keep pace with someone decades younger, like an 80-year-old walking at the speed of an average 50-year-old, Verghese explained.

His most recent study, published in the journal Neurology, found that super movers are 50% less likely to develop cognitive impairment than their peers. Another of his studies found that super movers had a younger biological age than their years would suggest, and lower rates of heart disease, depression symptoms, and hearing loss.

Brisk walking has long been linked to longevity, so that wasn't a surprise. What was intriguing, Verghese said, were the autopsy results of people who died during the study. After death, super movers were just as likely to show age-related wear and tear in their brain tissue as their slower-walking peers. On average, though, they showed fewer symptoms of cognitive decline during their lifetimes.

Verghese was inspired to seek out super movers based on previous research on super-agers, people who retain the physical and mental spryness of someone much younger, in part because of lucky genetics. And as with super movers, studies on super-agers' brains have similar rates of deterioration on average, with fewer symptoms.

However, only 19% of super movers are also super-agers. That suggests there may be multiple strategies to protect your brain from aging, Verghese said. More research could help provide personalized recommendations for an antiaging plan.

"You might have some unique resilience mechanisms that might prevent you from showing those effects," he said.

Power walking for a healthy brain

Most importantly, you may not need to win the genetic lottery to be a super mover.

Verghese found evidence that super movers were speedy before they reached age 80. While genetics likely play a role, getting comfortable with a brisk walking pace now will make you more likely to maintain it and become a super mover later, he said.

To walk your way to longevity, your pace should be around 3 miles per hour, studies suggest, and faster may be better.

Aim for at least 30 minutes a day, in line with the CDC's recommended 150-300 minutes of moderate activity a week.

"You don't have to do the 30 minutes in one go. You can split it up. 10 minutes is better than zero minutes," Verghese said.

• I lived with my parents for six years, until they decided to retire and downsize a year ago.
• I loved living with them and decided to move in across the street from their townhouse.
• This year was hectic, and the quality time, shared grocery costs, and pet day care were so helpful.

When I first moved in with my parents in my late 20s, I did not expect the arrangement to carry me into my mid-30s. I stayed because, although it was different from what anyone in my social circle was doing, I was surprised by how much we all enjoyed it. In this house of three adults who cared deeply about one another's well-being, my life was better than it had been in a while.

The best part, for me, was the interdependence — coming off of two years living by myself, even being able to say, "Could you make me a sandwich, too?" or "No problem, I'll get your headache meds from upstairs!" felt refreshing. I also appreciated the opportunity for unscheduled quality time and the sense that I was never completely alone.

I felt like I'd uncovered a secret, and I wondered what other iterations of housing and community I'd been missing out on. I decided to edit an anthology on the subject, which became Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection. When my parents wanted to retire and downsize after six years of, well, living together, and I had to look for my own place again, I kept everything I learned from the book's stories in mind.

Moving out of my parents' house, I imagined I'd settle in a more walkable neighborhood than the one they chose. When a townhouse opened up across the parking lot from theirs, I was reluctant to look at it. Surely I couldn't go from living with my parents in my 30s to living mere steps away. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the prospect of continuing the casual hangs, resource sharing, and emotional support that have enriched our lives.

It's been almost a year since we became neighbors, and I think it was a great move.

We have more privacy and flexibility than when we lived together

When I lived with my parents, it was sometimes difficult for them because I needed quiet while working. Now, I can have that at my house, and my parents don't have to worry about the volume of their TV shows or phone calls.

We also don't typically stop by one another's houses constantly and unannounced, even though we live so close and have each other's house keys.

I avoid the single-person grocery curse, and they save money by sharing, too

The bane of my existence as a single person living alone is food that rots in the fridge. Lunch meat, melon, fresh mozzarella — I somehow can never eat it all.

This is the first time I've lived alone and been able to share groceries because my parents live so close by. It ensures food and money don't go to waste for either of our households.

They help me care for my cats

My 2-year-old cat spends half the day at my parents' house playing with their cats. They all have a blast, my senior cat gets much-needed rest, and I can focus on work without kitten energy around. One of my friends asked if she could drop off her energetic cat and 1-year-old son at the Rosen Family Day Care!

My senior cat has also developed chronic health conditions that make me uneasy leaving her alone for long. When I know I have to be out for more than a few hours, one of my parents checks in on her. I'm not sure what I'd do without that option, and I know they enjoy being able to visit her frequently.

My parents have been a big help during a busy year

My parents' proximity has made a world of difference, practically and emotionally, in a year where I've had tons of extra work related to my book's publication. At least one night a week, my mom arrives with leftover ziti or salad; she understands I have a lot going on, and these efforts make me feel cared for.

While I've had to decline more plans than I'd have liked to this year, I've been able to maintain the routine of having dinner and watching TV with my dad almost every Tuesday night. Even when we're tired or we start late, we make it happen because it's a 30-second walk!

Similarly, when I only have a short time to socialize, I can pop over to my parents' house for dinner (and to trim their squirmy cats' nails or weigh in on a technology mishap). When free time is too tight to see friends, my parents being so close has ensured my mental and emotional health haven't suffered.

For however long it lasts, I'm glad I'm here

I learned from working on my book that the key to reaping the benefits of communal living is flexibility. I'm aware that this is a season of my life, and I'm open to whatever living scenarios the future may hold.

Sometimes I wish I lived in an area that's within walking distance to coffee shops, libraries, artistic experiences, and friends. But I made this decision to live so close to my parents based on what I felt I needed at the time. It's been helpful, meaningful, and fun — and that was during a tough, busy year.

I'm looking forward to what the future of being neighbors with my parents will bring.

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
• Sign up for the weekly BI Tech Memo newsletter here.

Every week in the AI Playground section of our Tech Memo newsletter, we feature folks trying an AI tool, or sometimes I test stuff out myself.

This week, we hear from Business Insider's star AI reporter Stephen Council. He's been using OpenAI's Codex tool to build software stuff without using code. OpenAI merged Codex with ChatGPT this week, so this is good timing.

I adore the copy-paste tool. Every day, it saves me from misspelling names, misquoting sources, wasting time on rewriting… I could go on and on. It's quick and easy and basically perfect.

This week, Codex made it better. I've long wanted a version of copy-paste that lets me store multiple strings of text at once, so I can copy something new without losing what I'd copied before. There are clipboard managers for this online, but they often cost money, or add a pop-up and additional clicks — exactly the slowdowns I don't want.

I gave OpenAI's tool a 190-word prompt, and voila! Five minutes and 26 seconds later, Codex handed me my app.

Now, I have 9 different copy-paste slots on my work MacBook. Command-c and command-v work as normal, that's slot one. But now I can keep additional names, quotes, and links at the tip of my tongue: cmd-c-2 copies text for cmd-v-2, cmd-c-3 ties to cmd-v-3, and on and on. The app hangs out on my menu bar, so if I want to see what each slot is storing, it's all a click away.

Very satisfying. It's exactly the niche and nerdy case that vibe coding is good for.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• Bakari Akil, a New York private equity investor, explores 30 countries with Remote Year's program.
• Akil manages travel expenses by using platforms like Airbnb and spends $2,000 a month on housing.
• After his tour, Akil found international living offered a better quality of life than in the U.S.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bakari Akil, 37, a private equity investor from New York. Akil grew up with no international travel experience and, three years ago, set out to visit 30 different countries each month. He finished his list, but is still traveling around the world. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

People I knew were traveling around and out of the country, and doing all this really cool stuff, and I was just like, "How are people pulling this off?" I just couldn't figure out how people were living these cool lives.

While I was at the Equinox on 67th Street in New York City, one of my gym friends had just come back from a trip internationally.

I said, "Yo, how do you travel like that?" He said, "I've been doing this since I was a kid." I didn't have any international traveling under my belt at all.

He told me to look into this program called Remote Year. I looked it up. The program takes other digital nomads, people who don't have to be locked into whatever location, on month-long trips.

Remote Year would find your housing, they'd find stuff for you to do inside the country, and they'd introduce you to people who were there. They even covered the flights between the countries as you were going to the next country. The only thing they didn't cover was food.

It was all-inclusive in a monthly $2,000 fee. I was paying about $3,000 a month to live in New York City just for rent — not including the gym and all that other stuff.

They're saying I can go live in a different country every month for 60% of what I'm paying for rent? What am I doing, of course I should do this.

I learned about it in March 2023, and I was on the trip with them by July.

I had a strict list of 30 countries I wanted to visit

I got on a plane, and I flew to Cape Town, South Africa. I traveled with Remote Year for four months. We went to South Africa, Greece, Spain, and Turkey together.

Then in Turkey, I left them. Since then, I have basically lived in a different country every month.

I went to India, then Thailand, then Vietnam, all throughout Southeast Asia. Then I went to East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea. I went to Jamaica, and then I flew to Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Egypt.

Then I spent a month in Israel and Palestine, going back and forth between Tel Aviv and Ramallah.

I did a European tour last summer. I was in Berlin, and then I spent a month in London, Paris, and Rome.

After Rome, I went to South America for the first time. I went to Peru. And then I went up to Mexico. I spent a little bit of time in the Caribbean in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Then from Puerto Rico, I flew to Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina in March of this year — that's when I officially wrapped up my specific tour of 30 countries I'd wanted to go to.

A lot of people got a chance to study abroad — I didn't get a chance to do that. So this was me catching up.

I tried to keep my expenses consistent across countries

My travel expenses between the nations were a couple of hundred dollars. If I'm flying from America to Thailand, it's going to cost me maybe $1,000. But if I'm flying from Cambodia to Thailand, it might cost me $100.

The idea was: while I'm right next to places, go visit them and make it easier.

In Asia, Africa, South America, and parts of the Caribbean, it would be very difficult or very unlikely for me to spend more than $2,000 a month on housing. The platforms I would use primarily were Airbnb and Booking.com.

Airbnb has always been the best for me because I want to cook, and it's not impossible, but it's harder to find hotels outside Asia that will provide you with a room that also has a kitchen.

In each place, I'm staying for a month, and I'm spending about $2,000 to live, and not in a faraway area — in the same kind of building that I was aspiring to live in when I was living in New York.

When I was in South Africa, I was living in the Victoria and Alfred area, which is the most expensive area in all of Cape Town, and I paid less than $2,000 for the month.

But the cool thing is that, unlike rent, when I'm in London for a month, and I know I'm going to be spending 12 months abroad, one month might be $2,800, and the next might be $1,400. It ends up balancing itself out.

Right before I left on my trip in 2023, I also applied for dual citizenship (I'm Jamaican by lineage). I got my Jamaican and American passports, which made it easy for me to navigate throughout Africa because there are certain nations where, if you bring your Jamaican passport, you don't have to pay a visa fee, or you can pay a lower visa fee.

So with a Jamaican passport, Ghana is visa-free, and Nigeria is cheaper than a United States visa.

I wanted to travel the US, too, but it's so expensive

After I finished my initial trip in March, I came back to the US for a month. I spent a month in Washington, DC, and was excited to come back to the US.

In fact, I was thinking I was going to do the same thing I had done internationally. I'll spend a month in Washington, then a month in Boston, then Chicago, and New York, and get a good sense of my home country. I'd been international, and I hadn't done the same thing at home.

The first time I went grocery shopping in Washington, DC, I was like, "What is going on? Why is it so expensive?"

In the rest of the world, you go inside a grocery store, you spend $50, and you have a very well-stocked fridge.

I'm coming from Argentina. I go back to the capital of my country, and it's just like, wow. It's unaffordable — and I'm not poor. It felt like the quality of life outside the United States was better than inside the United States.

I'm looking for somewhere to stay longer

After coming back home, I feel like I'm an international guy now.

I'm in Bangkok now. But now I am thinking, "Where are those places I can stay permanently?" Mexico City's one of those, Bangkok is one of them, Nairobi, Cape Town, and a few others.

I am a very big proponent of ownership, but I've always felt like the idea of owning your own home for the purpose of owning a home felt like a vanity thing — not necessarily a great financial situation. People end up spending way more than what they intended to spend when they buy their homes.

And the flexibility to wake up and say, "All right, Bangkok was nice. Now let's go to X, Y, Z," is impossible if I own a home.

• I'm raising my kids in the Hamptons as a single mom, and it isn't easy.
• I have to grocery shop out of town, and I've cut my kids' expensive activities.
• I'm not going out as much anymore to save money, but I'm making it work.

I live in the Hamptons year-round, and I understand why people think summer here looks glamorous from the outside.

There is the much-anticipated season for those who come to visit: the rush of crowds, people jumping from one boutique fitness class to the next, the packed restaurants and bars, the private parties, and the highly coveted events all around.

But for me, as a single mom of two and the founder and owner of East End Taste, an event planning and production company, summer out east can be extraordinarily challenging. But I grew up in The Hamptons and want to raise my children here.

Housing costs are high

When I got divorced, I liquidated a great deal of my savings. I would not have been able to afford the divorce process otherwise. I am still pushing on from that deficit, and I have to work nearly four to five times as hard just to keep everything moving.

That means my Hamptons rent is a struggle. I pay around $4,000 a month, including utilities, basic maintenance, and house cleaning.

But the cost of renting a home here doesn't stop at rent. Lawn care, air conditioning, pool maintenance, and basic upkeep add up quickly. Pool maintenance alone can cost $3,000 to $5,000 or more. I remember this from when my husband and I took care of his family's property, and we were not even paying rent.

For pool maintenance during the summer months, I currently pay about $1,000 a month combined for air conditioning maintenance and pool cleaning.

Feeding my family can get difficult

Groceries in the Hamptons are extraordinarily overpriced. I am not even talking about some of the specialty markets like the famous Round Swamp Farm in East Hampton or Loaves & Fishes, where two items can easily be $40.

Costco, Lidl, and Walmart runs are necessary for my family. Most of my necessary shopping is in Riverhead or Hampton Bays, where the cheaper grocery stores are located.

For my kids' lunches, I team up with a few other moms and pay one of them to make food for my kids for the week. I am so busy running around for my job that I feel like I am constantly either driving, stuck in traffic, on my computer drafting emails, or reviewing contracts. Having that help with lunches is one less thing I have to worry about.

I have also had to rethink my children's activities

I cut out private tennis lessons and instead enlisted buddies who are more senior players to play with my kids.

My son organizes soccer sessions at the park, even with children he has just met. I love seeing that because they are learning how to stay active and create their own fun without every activity having to come with a major price tag.

I have also become savvy with checking out all of the public libraries in the Hamptons. Each one is different. I take my children there to participate in summer reading challenges and other programs. I am grateful for affordable classes and community offerings, like Italian in Bridgehampton and t'ai chi in Hampton Bays.

I do not allow my kids to go to the toy store or Dylan's Candy Bar as liberally as I once did. I tell them, "If it is not in your piggy bank, you cannot afford it."

My daughter has made homemade slime, lemonade, and iced tea to sell in our neighborhood so she and her brother can make extra cash to buy toys.

My social life is a financial struggle, too

I rarely purchase alcohol. Going out to eat for a party of four in the Hamptons can easily be well over $1,000 if everyone has dinner and two drinks.

I have become savvy with learning about happy hours, and I have no shame in asking whether a local's rate is available.

I am also grateful for complimentary fitness classes around the Hamptons, typically sponsored by a brand. There are still ways to participate without spending a fortune, but you have to know where to look.

Living in the Hamptons year-round means seeing both sides of it

There is the glamorous version people come here for in the summer, and then there is the reality for locals, single parents, and small business owners trying to make it all work.

I love where I live and where I grew up. But summer here is not always easy behind the scenes.

For me, it takes discipline, creativity, help from friends, and a constant willingness to adapt and be humble.

• Fareed Kotb is a 39-year-old sports photographer who lives in Cairo.
• He was a photographer at the last two World Cups, and this year, he wanted to try something different.
• He bought a camera made in 1930 and took a slow approach to photographing two World Cup games.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Fareed Kotb. It has been edited for length and clarity.

After photographing two World Cups in Russia and Qatar, I wanted my third to be different.

I somehow wanted to connect to the first World Cup in 1930, nearly 100 years ago, and decided to do this; I would take photographs with a camera made in 1930.

I bought a 1930s camera in Cairo

In Cairo, we have a market for vintage cameras. I narrowed it down to four cameras, settling on one I found in a big box — a Zeiss Ikon Ideal 250/11.

The camera, I learned after researching the origin of the serial number, was owned by a photographer who used it to photograph players before they traveled to the 1954 World Cup. He also photographed Egyptian players before the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

In the lead-up to the 2026 World Cup, I spent a lot of time learning how the camera worked. I practiced loading film, focusing, setting the exposure, and taking test photos. I read old manuals and learned about the camera's history — it was like studying for university.

It was important to me to be completely comfortable using the camera before taking it to the World Cup.

With this camera, you don't get limitless chances to get a good photo as you do with digital cameras — everything is slower. I had to carefully plan my movements and the photos I wanted to capture before the games because you only get one chance.

With a digital camera, I can quickly decide when to shoot, and a second later, I can see the result.

But with my 1930 camera, I knew I could take no more than 20 photos each game. As a comparison, at one game in the last World Cup, I took 5,000 photos.

I would need to trust my experience and wait until I developed the film to see the final result.

I was denied permission to shoot the World Cup final

Heading to Canada, I felt very excited to use the camera. When I arrived, people — fans, photographers, and volunteers — mocked when they saw the camera — they had never seen a camera like it.

Walking onto that pitch in Canada with a camera nearly 100 years old was a highlight of the tournament for me. I knew that every photo I took, I would be connecting the past with the present. That was very special.

I photographed two games: Portugal versus Croatia in Toronto and Colombia versus Switzerland in Vancouver.

Although it was my dream to shoot at the final in America, I was denied four times, which was difficult.

But for the two games I was able to attend, I thought about what the last photographer using the camera must be thinking. How would he shoot moments? How would he position himself to take a photo?

My movements were planned, my eyes constantly darting left and right to know when to shoot.

I've now returned home to Egypt and will develop them in the lab on Sunday. I feel as if I am preparing for the birth of my first baby. I can't sleep and am constantly overthinking. Will the photos be good?

I can't wait to see the results, and neither can all the people who have followed me on social media after hearing about this project.

After I posted online about the camera, I woke up the next morning to messages and comments from people interested in the results and excited about this very new but old way of taking photos in 2026.

Now, we just wait.

• The new Robotics Integration Group will turn battlefield drone lessons into service-wide training.
• The Corps has an attack drone team and a new counter-drone team to test tactics against threats.
• The moves reflect growing urgency driven by Ukraine and fights in the Middle East.

The Marine Corps is standing up a new organization designed to rapidly turn battlefield drone lessons, like best practices for defeating hostile drones or using them to spy on and attack an enemy, into standardized training for more Marines.

Drone warfare is evolving quickly and has reshaped battlefields. To meet the challenge, the new Marine Corps Robotics Integration Group, or MCRIG, will serve as the service's hub for institutionalizing training on small drones and counter-drone systems across the force, according to a press release from the Corps' Training and Education Command.

At the same time, the service is also launching its new Marine Corps Counter Drone Team to test emerging counter-drone technologies and tactics, a defensive sibling to the service's offensive drone team it created last year.

Earlier this year, Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, who oversees Training and Education Command, told Business Insider about the expected creation of the counter-drone team, explaining that the Corps intended to "pressurize the learning and dedicate a small, highly qualified group of individuals to learning just as fast in the counter-drone space as we have been in the drone operation space."

The Corps hopes its two new teams will speed up the journey from experimentation, consolidated within its offensive and defensive drone teams, to broader training across its units before Marines deploy to combat zones.

At the Marines' annual symposium in April, another Marine Corps general shared the outcomes of a recent exercise in which Marines faced off against drones in the field.

"It went about as expected," said Maj. Gen. Mark Clingan, who oversees Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command, adding that during the training, "the Marines had a really difficult time going downrange and dealing with the drones."

The Marines are also in the middle of figuring out which troops make the best drone pilots, how to standardize training pipelines, how to differentiate between friendly and hostile drones, and how to defeat drones on the move.

These efforts come as the broader military continues to grapple with the opportunities and threats that come from the proliferation of drones, particularly small, low-cost uncrewed aerial systems, and learn lessons from recent conflicts, from Ukrainian battlefields to fights in the Middle East. Employing them offensively is one thorny challenge. The second is finding large-scale, reliable methods for defeating enemy drones.

"The battlefield continues to demonstrate that small unmanned aircraft systems are no longer niche capabilities," said Clingan in a released statement. Drones, many of which are small enough to fit in a single hand, are now indispensable for military missions like reconnaissance and offensive strikes.

• Business Insider sat in exclusively on Blackstone President Jon Gray's advice to summer interns.
• Gray told them that a trifecta of traits will help them get ahead at the firm.
• He also said an "eye of the tiger, will to win" has distinguished those who become leaders.

Despite his constant travel and packed schedule, Blackstone's Jon Gray tries to respond to every email before he goes to bed, even if it's just to say he'll look at it more carefully later.

He advised summer interns that adopting a similar habit will probably serve them well.

"Responsiveness is a habit that you can learn that wins you a lot of positive affirmation," Gray, the firm's president and chief operating officer, said Wednesday.

"If you respond to people in a timely way, it shows you value them," he said.

Responsiveness was just one part of Gray's broader playbook for building a career at Blackstone. Speaking to blazer-donning interns in the firm's New York headquarters and on Zoom around the world, he said success comes from combining hard work, entrepreneurial thinking, and kindness.

"You're giving huge effort, you're willing to take a little risk as an entrepreneur, but you're treating people in a nice way. To me, that's a winning formula," Gray told the room, as some jotted down his words in black notebooks.

Gray started at Blackstone when he was only a few years older than the majority of interns he was talking to. He joined as a 22-year-old college graduate, rose to prominence through the real estate investment group, and became president in 2018.

The firm's stature and scope have ballooned since then. Blackstone now employs more than 5,000 people, manages $1.3 trillion in assets, and accepted fewer than 1% of interns this year. Blackstone had more than 170 interns last summer and declined to comment on this year's class size.

When it comes to hustle, Gray advised interns to "work harder and care more," because those he has seen achieve the most have tended to go the extra mile, whether that's doing additional diligence or arriving a bit earlier.

Entrepreneurship can also take many forms, Gray said, like streamlining a report using AI. (Every intern, regardless of what group they're working in, will see how important AI is "in almost every product where we're deploying capital today.")

For Gray, being nice doesn't mean being any less ambitious or demanding, and it usually boosts business. So much of what Blackstone does — raising capital and executing investments, for example — is a "team sport," he said.

Beyond advice for those at the very beginning of their careers, Gray shared the defining characteristic he looks for in potential leaders: an "eye of the tiger, will to win."

"One quality above all else: it is that drive and hunger. There's just this sense that they want it," he said.

Gray added that the hunger could come from anywhere — maybe someone played competitive sports or is a first-generation citizen. Both Gray and CEO Steve Schwarzman, who spoke to interns on their first day, said that intellectual "flexibility" is also crucial, especially at Blackstone, which prides itself on an entrepreneurial spirit.

"Things happen in the real world. You've got to be able to figure it out," Schwarzman told interns on June 1.

For all the changes in the world, Gray emphasized the importance of not chasing hot sectors and remaining squarely focused on Blackstone's "north star" of delivering returns for customers. Gray, a dual English and economics major in college, said Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs has had a profound impact on his life philosophy precisely because it reinforced that belief. He remembered, when reading, that even though Jobs was a brilliant marketer, simply creating amazing products likely would have been enough to make him successful.

"We are an investment firm, and we must deliver for our customers," Gray said. "Always focus on your core product. Don't forget that."

• My husband and I prefer to hash out disagreements via text message.
• It gives us time to pause before responding, and we're less likely to blurt out something hurtful.
• Not every argument is suited for text, however, and we still make time for in-person closure.

Most relationship experts seem to agree on one thing: Never have an argument over text. But my husband and I do it all the time — and it's actually led to some of the healthiest conflict resolution in our marriage.

I'm not saying that fighting over text is right for every couple, or every conversation. For me, though, it's become an unexpectedly effective tool for navigating conflict.

Here's why it works for our relationship, and what we've both learned in the process.

For me, fighting over text feels "safer"

After growing up in a pretty volatile household, I developed a deep fear of conflict.

Face-to-face disagreements can feel overwhelming, making it difficult to express myself honestly. Rather than fighting (or fleeing), I tend to "freeze" or "fawn."

Texting, on the other hand, feels like a safer space to air things out, since I don't have to hear or see the other person's responses in real time. I can take some space — whether for a few minutes or longer — to process what I'm feeling and respond. This has allowed me to get increasingly comfortable with sharing what I'm feeling and thinking in the moment.

Having time to process before responding is a gift

When our arguments have escalated in the past, it's because my husband and I speak before thinking.

That's the beauty of texting: it gives us both time to process our emotions, organize our thoughts, and craft a more thoughtful and genuine response on our own time, rather than blurting out something we'll regret in the heat of the moment. (If only we had the option to delete things in real life before saying them out loud!)

In fact, I can't think of a single time my husband or I have resorted to name-calling, "you always" or "you never" blanket statements, or other problematic tactics.

Arguments feel lower stakes

Many couples therapists advise against arguing over text because there are no nonverbal cues like tone of voice and facial expressions. But for me, that's actually one of the main advantages.

Without raised voices and eyerolls, disagreements often feel less emotionally charged. This helps me to not only stay calmer and grounded, but also more focused on the actual issue at hand.

Having a permanent written record minimizes misunderstandings

I've found it super useful to be able to scroll back and reread what we wrote during a conflict. Not only does this enable us to dodge those pointless and cyclical debates about what was actually said (since we have the receipts), but it allows us an opportunity to reflect on times when we might have been overly harsh or defensive — and even notice patterns in our communication that we'd like to work on.

There's no interrupting

I'll admit it: I have a habit of steamrolling when I get heated (and so does my husband). It probably stems from never having had the chance to share what I was really feeling as a child — so now, when I do, I feel an intense urgency to get my message across.

We've gotten a lot better about gently pointing it out to each other when it happens, but texting eliminates this entirely. We can both say our piece without accidentally cutting each other off.

Not every fight is suitable for text

While texting has been a valuable tool for hashing out disagreements, some things need to be addressed face-to-face — and learning to distinguish between them has been key.

For example, if the argument is about a complex, long-standing issue rather than a one-off incident — or about a sensitive topic that demands empathy — we'll wait until we have a chance to tackle it in person.

Text arguments still call for in-person closure

Even when we do manage to resolve a dispute digitally, there's still one final step that can't happen over text: repair.

Typically, this entails checking in with each other to ask, "Is there anything else you need from me to move on from this?"

Sometimes getting real closure is as simple as a hug, some verbal validation, or the opportunity to share one more concern.

• Olivia Love, 37, won £10,000 ($13,400) a month for a year in a lottery. In total, that's over $160,000.
• She and her husband thought about buying a house, but spent the money on making memories instead.
• Love didn't save any money, but spent thousands of pounds on starting her dream wedding business.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Olivia Love, 37, a wedding content creator from Glasgow. She won £10,000 a month on the UK's National Lottery Set for Life game. Business Insider has verified her winnings and business expenditure. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.

I used to work on the kiosk at a supermarket that sold lottery tickets. Occasionally, I'd buy a few myself, but I never won anything significant.

One evening in May 2025, I bought six lottery tickets. I went to bed, and when I woke up, I found out we'd won a heck of a lot of money: £10,000 ($13,400) a month for a year, the equivalent of more than $160,000 in total.

We could have bought a house with that money, or we could have saved every penny. Instead, we carried on renting, saved nothing, and I created my dream job while giving my family the best year of our lives.

Money was always a source of stress

My husband was a truck driver, and I worked 17 hours a week at the supermarket to help pay for childcare for our kids, who are now 16, 6, 4, and 2. Money was always a source of stress. I'd say we were on the breadline.

We always had enough to pay the rent and the bills, but there was never anything left over at the end of the month. We often couldn't afford to fill up the petrol tank in one go or pay for our children's birthday parties, and we tended to buy their presents at secondhand markets. If the washing machine had broken, for example, we wouldn't have been able to afford to replace it.

We were getting by and were happy, but a little more money would have helped us a lot.

Winning didn't feel real

On the morning of May 15, 2025, I was in bed scrolling through my phone when I received an email from the National Lottery saying I'd won a prize. I assumed it would be £5 or something small.

When I logged onto the National Lottery website, I saw that we'd won £10,000 a month for a year. I called my husband, who was already at work. Even after someone from the National Lottery called later that morning to confirm the prize, it still didn't really sink in.

For days, it felt like someone would pinch me, and I'd wake up from this really vivid dream. Over time, though, a new feeling emerged: I no longer had this niggling worry about how many miles I had left in the tank or how much money was left until the end of the week. I felt far less stressed.

We chose not to spend our money on buying a house

My husband and I sat down and talked about what we wanted to achieve with our winnings.

Our natural instinct was to buy a house, but we quickly decided against it. We hadn't won enough to buy a house outright, so we'd need a mortgage, and we didn't even know whether the bank would give us one.

We worried it would make us less financially secure. Instead, we decided to keep renting our place and have the best year of our lives. Our strategy was simple: pay the bills, and whatever was left was ours to spend.

The first thing we bought was a new car for my husband. His old one was about 15 years old, had 140,000 miles on it, and the air conditioning didn't work. We couldn't afford to fix it and put off replacing it.

We also decided to have a second wedding. We first got married in December 2024 in a very small registry office ceremony with our immediate family. We scrimped and saved for months to pay for it, with financial help from both of our parents.

For our second wedding, in December 2025, we hired the pub where we'd had our first date. We had a photobooth, a buffet, a DJ, a saxophonist, a magician, and a celebrant to renew our vows. It was the best night ever.

We also had our first family holiday abroad this year, to Turkey. It has been the perfect year.

I created my dream job as a wedding content creator

I initially decided to give up work for a year, but then I worried about explaining a gap on my résumé to future employers. I figured that after 20 years in retail, it was the perfect time to change careers.

I love weddings and capturing all the joyous moments, and I suddenly had the money to start a wedding content creation business.

In the first six months, I spent about £7,500 setting up Moments by Love. I bought everything I needed, from new phones to microphone equipment. I did my first few weddings for free or very cheaply to build up a portfolio. You have to spend money to make money.

The job makes me so happy, and because I mostly work weekends, I'm at home during the week to take my children to and from school, and put them to bed. I wasn't always able to do that before.

This new career has given me freedom. I've basically created my dream job.

I don't regret spending all the winnings

The final instalment from the National Lottery came in April 2026. It was a complicated feeling, almost bittersweet. On the one hand, it was sad, but I'm also excited about my business. I truly believe I've put myself in a good position for the future.

In the end, I made the decision that was right for my career, for me, and for my family. I didn't save any of our winnings. I could have, but because we'd struggled for so long, I don't regret a thing about choosing to live our best lives.

• A Royal Holloway Dean worries that AI will stop people from asking how they know something is true.
• Lucy Gill-Simmen says AI can deliver answers, shortcutting the struggle that makes learning happen.
• "It risks becoming a substitute for thinking," she told Business Insider.

AI can produce convincing answers, but a professor says the greater risk is when people stop questioning them.

Lucy Gill-Simmen, associate dean for Education and Student Experience at Royal Holloway, University of London, said the technology could make people less willing to question, verify, and investigate information on their own.

"Hallucinations are a visible problem because we notice them when an answer is wrong," she told Business Insider of AI's well-documented tendency to invent false information. "The deeper risk is that people stop asking how they know whether an answer is right."

Gill-Simmen said knowledge has traditionally required effort — comparing sources, testing assumptions, and working through uncertainty. AI, by contrast, can produce a convincing answer without requiring users to go through that process.

"My concern is not simply misinformation," she said. "It is that people become less inclined to verify, question, and investigate for themselves. In education, the struggle is often where learning happens. AI removes much of that struggle."

AI as a substitute for thinking

Gill-Simmen's concern echoes a growing body of research into what Wharton researchers have called "cognitive surrender" — a tendency to accept AI-generated answers rather than actively evaluate them.

Steven Shaw, a postdoctoral researcher in marketing at Wharton, warned about it in a report earlier this year, telling Business Insider that people risk becoming "passive followers of unthought thoughts" by adopting AI-generated ideas without fully processing them.

In three experiments involving 1,372 participants completing 9,593 reasoning tasks, he found that participants chose to consult an AI assistant on more than half of the tasks and, once they did, accepted its recommendations about 92.7% of the time when it was correct and 79.8% of the time even when it was intentionally wrong.

Similar concerns have emerged in education. Kimberley Hardcastle, a business and marketing professor at the UK's Northumbria University, said AI could erode people's ability to independently verify, challenge, and construct knowledge without algorithms.

Gill-Simmen described the phenomenon as "epistemic atrophy," or "the gradual weakening of the habits through which knowledge is acquired."

"When people work through a problem themselves, they develop mental models, strengthen reasoning skills, and build confidence in their own thinking," she said.

"The issue isn't that AI becomes a substitute for memory. It's that it risks becoming a substitute for thinking."

'Illusion of understanding'

Gill-Simmen sees this firsthand among her students, who she said sometimes experience an "illusion of understanding."

An AI-generated explanation can sound convincing, but when students are asked to explain the reasoning themselves or apply an idea in a new context, the depth of understanding is often much weaker, she said.

Wharton professor Ethan Mollick said that AI works best as a form of "co-intelligence" that helps people explore ideas and challenge assumptions, provided humans remain responsible for evaluating its output.

In a paper he coauthored with learning scientist and wife Lilach Mollick, he wrote that students should "critically assess and interrogate AI outputs, rather than passively accept them," allowing AI to "serve as a supportive tool for their work, not a replacement."

"Ironically, in a way, the more capable AI becomes, the more important these human capacities become," Gill-Simmen said.

"In a world filled with fluent AI-generated outputs, success will depend less on producing information and more on evaluating it wisely," she added.

• Pepsi's former CEO shared a raft of career advice in a recent interview.
• Indra Nooyi said that chasing opportunity, finding mentors, and working hard are key to success.
• Nooyi also endorsed focusing on the job you have, taking calculated risks, and staying humble.

Indra Nooyi, the former CEO of PepsiCo, offered up some great career tips during an interview released July 1 as part of the Hoover Institution's "Only In America" documentary series.

Here are the six best pieces of advice she gave:

1. Seek opportunity

Nooyi emigrated from India to the US in 1978 to attend the Yale School of Management. Studying and living in the US was the springboard she needed to secure jobs at Boston Consulting Group, Motorola, and ultimately PepsiCo.

"An immigrant could come in with nothing in her pocket and become the CEO of an iconic American red, white, and blue company," Nooyi said, reflecting on her unlikely career path.

"I would never have been CEO in any other country in the world including in India," she added, championing the US as a meritocracy where the best and the brightest can get ahead.

2. Find mentors

Recruiting guides to accelerate her learning and help her chart a career path were vital to Nooyi's success.

Nooyi said she's a "product of great mentoring" and "forever grateful to every one of those people who gave me so much of their time and energy."

"My mentors believed in me even more than I believed in myself," she said. "They would give me impossible assignments to do, just to prove to the world that I was worth mentoring. They would lift me up at points when I thought I could never be lifted up."

3. Work hard

Nooyi said she's had to hustle and grind her entire life, including as a foreign student at Yale.

She and her peers "worked our tail off" with the mindset that they weren't at college to go to parties or take weekend trips, but instead "to study and to work hard and to move ahead."

"So we'd go to school in the morning, work through the night, and I was a receptionist in my dorm from midnight to 5 a.m. So people realized that this was a grueling experience for us and they respected us for that."

4. Focus on the job you have, not the job you want

Nooyi said she didn't join PepsiCo intending to become CEO. Her approach was "I'm going to nail this job," to the extent that when her bosses wanted to promote her, she would ask if they were sure and tell them she was happy in her current role.

Having an explicit goal like becoming CEO in 10 years can mean "you get obsessed with that," she said. Her advice is to "do the job you're doing very, very well and everything else will take care of itself."

5. Budget for taking risks

Nooyi said she "took calculated risks knowing that I might lose my job sometimes."

That was possible because she and her husband "lived simply" so that "even if I had lost my job we could have lived on one salary," she said.

"So we both were very comfortable that the risks I was taking were calculated, and it was worth fighting for, and that's what we did through our career."

6. Stay humble

Nooyi said her family played a "major role" in keeping her grounded.

She recalled her mother always telling her, "I don't care if you're a big shot, leave your crown in the garage because you don't need to bring your crown into the house. You're the mother, you're the wife, you're the daughter, the daughter-in-law. Don't forget those roles."

Nooyi said that the message from her mother, that she wasn't above helping around the house and taking care of her family, "anchored" her and kept her humble.

• My husband and I both worked as teens. When our son wanted to do the same, we were ready to help.
• During a date night at a local restaurant, we connected with the GM, who had specific requirements.
• Our son built his first résumé and emailed the GM that same night. The next day, he landed the job.

My husband and I both started working at 14.

When our oldest son told us he wanted to do the same, we were ready to help him make it happen. But it was challenging because most companies require employees to be at least 16, sometimes 18.

We knew we had to find an independent business with a manager willing to take a chance on a young teenager.

The opportunity came on a date night

We live in a beach town with a strong tourism economy, and one Friday night, my husband and I were out at a local restaurant. We're always thinking about how we can open doors for our kids, so when our server came to the table, I asked if they were hiring.

She brought over the general manager, who had decades of restaurant experience. We explained that we had a 14-year-old son who wanted to work.

He was skeptical. He said he had hired a lot of teenagers over the years and said the pattern was almost always the same: the parents wanted them to work, but the kids didn't. He said if our son applied online and emailed him directly, he'd be willing to interview him. He needed to know whether our son wanted the job or we did.

He didn't wait to apply

We got home around 10 p.m. and told our son exactly what the manager had said to us.

He went straight to his computer, built his first résumé, and sent the email that night.

The next morning, he had an interview scheduled.

We talked him through what to expect, how to dress, how to carry himself, and the kinds of questions he might be asked. It was his first job interview, and we wanted to set him up for success. We drove him to the restaurant and waited outside.

He came out hired, with a uniform list in hand, and a training date on the calendar.

Our son has always called moments like this the alley-oop. We found the opportunity and set him up, but he had to follow through to make it happen, and he did.

Seeing him at work was something else

Our son worked at that restaurant for nearly two years. A month or two after he started, my husband and I went in for dinner to see him in action. Multiple people approached us that night, telling us what a great job he was doing

At home, he was a teenager like any other, but in that restaurant, we got to see a different side of the person he was without us around, a glimpse into the adult he was becoming. Focused. Professional. Driven in a way we hadn't seen before.

The restaurant's manager was a big part of that. He didn't just give our son a chance; he invested in him. On slower shifts, he'd give him little assignments, like looking up certain songs from the 90s, listening to them, and coming back to talk about them. Our son took every single task seriously because it came from his manager at work.

Two years in a real job taught him a lot

When the manager eventually moved on to another opportunity, our son got to experience firsthand what leadership changes can do to a team. He'd come home after certain shifts, frustrated, explaining how things had changed and weren't going as smoothly in his mind. He was learning as a teen what most people don't learn until their 20s.

That's why we keep giving our kids real-world experience as early as possible. When they're still at home, they get to stretch and learn while we're there to support them. Our son earned every bit of that opportunity. We just threw the alley-oop.

• Tech billionaires have become some of the superyacht industry's most illustrious clients.
• Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos have each spent nine figures on their pleasure crafts.
• Here are the largest superyachts owned by tech billionaires.

Size doesn't always matter. But in the rarefied world of superyachts, bigger tends to be better.

Long a status symbol for the masters of the universe, superyachts are defined by their excess, not their practicality, and as the rich get richer, their boats are getting longer.

The trend illustrates an unofficial yachting rule of thumb: The bigger the boat, the richer the owner. To own a 50-meter vessel, you likely have to be a billionaire. Over 100 meters long, add a zero or two.

Over the past two years, three of the wealthiest people on the planet  — Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sergey Brin — have taken possession of yachts over 100 meters long.

"It's a bit of a celebration of your success in life, of wealth," Giovanna Vitelli, the chair of the Azimut Benetti Group, one of the biggest producers of superyachts, previously told Business Insider.

Decked out with amenities like gyms, spas, pools, movie theaters, and helicopter hangars, these megayachts — broadly defined as over 70 meters long — are custom-built and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The comings and goings, customizations, and sheer size of the boats provide insight into how today's ruling class lives. New yachts often feature state-of-the-art gyms and wellness areas as longevity has become an obsession of the superrich, and with superyacht owners skewing younger, many have offices and work setups on board.

Here are the largest yachts owned by tech billionaires, or at least those we know about.

In an industry governed by discretion, deciphering who owns what is an exercise in stringing together many clues. There are likely yachts that have not been publicly recorded or registered. Evan Spiegel, for example, is rumored to own the 94-meter megayacht Bliss. If you're lucky, it turns out money can buy privacy.

Sergey Brin: Dragonfly

Google cofounder Sergey Brin has a flotilla of yachts, boats, and water toys known as the "Fly Fleet."

The largest is the 142-meter-long Dragonfly, which was delivered in December 2024. The yacht has since been spotted in Miami, where Brin spent $51 million on a waterfront mansion earlier this year.

Built by the prestigious German shipyard Lürssen, Dragonfly earned the 2025 Yacht Style award in its length class. It comes equipped with a full suite of amenities, including a glass-bottomed pool, a cinema, a spa, a gym, a business deck with a home office, and a helicopter hangar.

The superyacht is Brin's second of the same name.

The former Dragonfly, 73 meters long, was listed for sale under a new name, Capricorn, with a $30 million asking price.

Brin's fleet, which requires a team of 50 full-time employees, also includes Butterfly, a 38-meter-long yacht; a smaller boat named Firefly; Jet Skis; foil boards; dinghies; and kiteboards.

Jeff Bezos: Koru and Abeona

Bezos' $500 million megayacht, the 127-meter Koru, made waves when it was delivered in 2023.

As the largest sailing yacht in the world, Koru is hard to miss thanks to its three massive masts. It travels with Abeona, its 75-meter support vessel, in tow.

"I heard back in 2018 or something that somebody had ordered a classic sailing yacht," one superyacht aficionado told Business Insider. "You order 125 meters, that's not really going to be classic. But it is. I think it's pretty cool."

The yacht has hosted several of Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos' famous friends for various occasions, including an engagement party that drew Bill Gates and Leonardo DiCaprio on board and a pre-wedding foam party to celebrate Sánchez Bezos' son's birthday.

Before its completion, Koru made headlines when it was announced that a historic bridge in Rotterdam would be taken apart to allow the Oceanco-built boat through. Due to the backlash, the shipyard made alternative plans.

The yacht has also been criticized for the liberal use of teak on its decks and interiors. The wood has gained a reputation for its connection to Myanmar, a country with a checkered human rights record. In 2024, Oceanco was fined for violating the European Timber Regulation, and the shipyard has since apologized.

Mark Zuckerberg: Launchpad

Following months of rumors, Zuckerberg debuted Launchpad in 2024. The 118-meter superyacht was originally designed for a sanctioned Russian businessman.

The ship made its maiden voyage in March 2024, going from Gibraltar to St. Maarten and mooring in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It has since visited Panama for Zuckerberg's 40th birthday and spent summers in the Mediterranean.

Little is known about its interior, but photos show a large swimming pool, and its shipyard, Feadship, has written about its "fully enclosed pod-like observation lounge" and two helipads.

Its price has likewise been kept under wraps, but a yacht of that size would typically cost nine figures.

Eric Schmidt: Whisper

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt purchased Kismet, a 95-meter-long superyacht formerly owned by billionaire Shahid Khan, the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, in 2023 and renamed the Lürssen-built vessel Whisper.

Schmidt had agreed to purchase the Alfa Nero, which had formerly belonged to a sanctioned Russian oligarch, at an auction for $67 million, Bloomberg reported, but he backed out of the deal after questions arose over its true owner.

Whisper can accommodate 12 guests and a crew of 28, according to Moran Yacht & Ship, which oversaw its construction. It features a master deck with a private jacuzzi, a full-service spa, a lap pool, a movie theater, and an outdoor fireplace.

While its final sale price was not public, it was listed for about $160 million.

Schmidt charters the yacht for about $1.4 million a week — an opportunity his fellow billionaire, Magic Johnson, has taken advantage of. In the summer of 2025, Johnson posted videos and photos from a weekslong Mediterranean vacation aboard Whisper, including workouts in the outdoor gym and a toga party with the crew.

Barry Diller: Eos

Billionaire Barry Diller, the chairman of digital media company IAC, owns the sailing yacht Eos with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, who is immortalized in a figurehead sculpture by Anh Duong.

Among the largest private sailing yachts in the world, the three-masted Lürssen schooner measures 93 meters long. It took three years to build, and was delivered to Diller in 2009; little has been revealed about its interior and features since then.

The power couple has hosted many celebrities on the Eos, which spends its summers in the Mediterranean and New Year's Eve in St. Barts. Over the years, guests have included Oprah Winfrey, Emma Thompson, Anderson Cooper, and Bezos, leading some to believe it inspired Koru.

Jim Clark: Athena

Netscape founder Jim Clark's 90-meter sailing yacht Athena was delivered in 2004.

"I could easily have built a 50- or 60-meter motor yacht that would have had the same space as Athena, but I was never really interested in building a motor yacht," he told Boat International in 2016. "To my eye, she's one of the most gorgeous large sailing yachts, maybe the most gorgeous large sailing yacht in the world."

The former Stanford professor has tried to sell it at various points — listing the yacht for $95 million in 2012, $69 million in 2016, and $59 million in 2017 — but it has yet to change hands.

Charles Simonyi: Norn

Early Microsoft employee Charles Simonyi has purchased two megayachts from the German shipyard Lürssen: the 90-meter Norn and 71-meter Skat.

Delivered in 2023, Norn features an outdoor cinema and a pool floor that lifts to become a light-up dance floor. It shares a militaristic style with Skat, which Simonyi sold in 2021 after listing it for €56.5 million.

"The yacht is to be home away from my home in Seattle, and its style should match the style of the house, adapted for the practicalities of the sea," Simonyi once said of Skat.

Larry Ellison: Musashi

Oracle founder Larry Ellison has owned several superyachts over the years, including the Rising Sun, which he later sold to fellow billionaire David Geffen.

His current custom yacht, Musashi, was delivered by Feadship in 2011.

Named after a famous samurai warrior, the 88-meter-long yacht has both Japanese and Art Deco-inspired design elements. It also boasts amenities such as an elevator, swimming pool, beauty salon, gym, and basketball court.

Ellison is known for his spending — private islands, jets, a tennis tournament — and yachting is among his favorite and most expensive hobbies. He took up racing them in the 1990s and has previously financed the America's Cup-winning BMW Oracle Racing team.

Laurene Powell Jobs: Venus

Steve Jobs' widow, investor, and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, inherited a nearly finished 78-meter yacht named Venus when the Apple cofounder died in 2011.

After spending years vacationing on Ellison's yachts — Venus and Musashi come from the same shipyard, Feadship — Jobs wanted one for himself. He designed Venus with French starchitect and decorator Philippe Starck, and it was worth $130 million upon completion.

"Venus comes from the philosophy of minimum," Starck said of its design on his website. "The elegance of the minimum, approaching dematerialization."

Jobs and Starck began working together in 2007, the designer told Vanity Fair, and held monthly meetings over the course of four years. Venus was delivered in 2012 to Jobs' specifications: six identical cabins, a design to ensure spaces of absolute silence, and the most up-to-date technology.

"There will never again be a boat of that quality again. Because never again will two madmen come together to accomplish such a task," Starck told the magazine.

Grace Kay and Sindhu Sundar contributed to an earlier version of this story.

• Kasia Kovacs was unsure hiring a personal trainer would be worth the money.
• Nearly a decade later, she's still reaping the benefits of splurging $180 on training.
• She said investing in her health helped her become a more confident, happier version of herself.

When I hired a personal trainer in 2017, I didn't expect that decision to change my life.

It seemed like a hefty financial commitment at the time, but I had the rather cliché goal of slimming down and I was determined to get my money's worth.

Sure, I lost a few pounds, but that soon became unimportant. More significantly, I got stronger, the fog that had plagued my mental health lifted, and I developed healthy habits that I keep almost a decade later.

As a self-proclaimed gym hater, it wasn't easy to get started

I'd never considered myself particularly athletic.

I played a couple of sports and danced ballet growing up, but these were extracurricular hobbies. I was far more interested in reading books and flipping through magazines.

Because of that, weightlifting seemed like a foreign language reserved for bodybuilders. And the gym? That was hostile territory.

Early in 2017 I had moved to Bluffton, South Carolina, a town that was pretty but sleepy, especially after the constant stimulation of NYC where I had lived before. I was 26 years old, and all of a sudden I found myself with too much free time.

So when my roommate suggested that I join her in the gym, I took her up on that offer. It still felt scary, but going with a friend made it less intimidating.

That's when I met my roommate's personal trainer, Josie. She was a friendly young woman, defying my stereotype of the gym bro. It didn't take long before I was Josie's newest client.

Working with the right personal trainer shifted my priorities

I paid $180 for a few sessions a month, which felt like a hefty commitment for a early-career local newspaper reporter. I cringed when I saw the fee, but I reminded myself that I could just try it out and quit if it became financially overwhelming.

Josie taught me everything: workout structure, proper warm up practices, basic strength training movements, and how to use those weightlifting machines that looked like medieval torture devices.

She explained concepts like progressive overload, lifting until failure, and taught me about the importance of protein before it became a marketing buzzword.

We tracked my workouts in a notebook, and once a month we did a weigh in.

To my surprise, I became less interested in the number on the scale and more interested in the numbers in my workbook. I always wanted to beat my performance from the session before.

I also remember when I began to see the muscle definition in my arms and shoulders — seeing my body actually respond to my workouts was exhilarating. I no longer wanted to be skinny; I wanted to be strong.

Beyond seeing the physical changes in my body, I felt like I was soaring after my workouts. I struggled with anxiety in my twenties, and working out lightened my day-to-day mental load significantly.

I stuck with personal training sessions for nine months, from October to July, before I moved away from South Carolina.

Nearly a decade later, I've kept those habits

These days my life looks very different.

I'm in my thirties. I live in London. My anxiety is not as acute as it used to be. I have a dynamic social life.

But one habit remains: I go to the gym regularly.

I may have only worked with a personal trainer for less than a year, but that short time equipped me with skills I've consistently used over the past near-decade: specifically, correct form in lifting weights and aiming for progressive overload.

Now I pay £53, or about $71, for my gym membership each month, which is a reasonable rate in a city like London — and less than I paid for a personal trainer in 2017. It's a lot less expensive than if I relied on classes alone, which can cost £15-£35 ($20-$47) per single class in London.

I commit to two to four strength training days per week, plus I take yoga classes as part of my gym membership and run regularly in my neighborhood parks. Cross-training means I take a holistic approach to movement, keeping my muscles, heart, and mind strong.

Now that I'm older and have learned more about health in general, I can appreciate other benefits too: maintaining my mobility as I age, an improved metabolism, better cardiovascular health, and the decreased risk of several illnesses including osteoporosis.

3 lessons I've learned from personal training and my fitness journey:

• I stopped comparing myself to others. I'm not the strongest, and I'm not the fastest. I never will be. But I can be stronger and faster than I was last week, and that's enough.
• As a perfectionist, I struggle to admit when I'm bad at something. When I started weightlifting I was a total beginner. I was bad at it! And, lo and behold, it was okay to be bad at something! Now I know that I'm always getting better, and I've implemented that growth mindset in other areas of my life too.
• On a related note, jumping into the gym world taught me that our identities are not fixed. When I was younger, I convinced myself that I was the bookworm, not the jock. But in reality, we have the ability to stay curious and learn new things, and our sense of identity can — and should! — evolve.

Hiring a personal trainer was the best money I've ever spent. But the payoff was much bigger than anything financial: I invested in my health and become a more confident, happier version of myself.

• My husband and I celebrated our fifth anniversary and my 40th birthday with a trip to Cancún.
• However, we didn't feel comfortable leaving our 4-year-old daughter at home, so we took her with us.
• We also brought my mother-in-law along to help us keep an eye on her, and we had an amazing time.

As the sun rose over the Caribbean Sea, I stepped out of my beachfront suite and settled into a lounge chair beside my private plunge pool, listening to the waves crash.

I snuggled up in my complimentary bathrobe and enjoyed my mandatory morning fuel — a coffee from the in-room Nespresso machine — taking in the calm of the first day of a weeklong vacation celebrating my 40th birthday and fifth wedding anniversary.

The views were serene. The atmosphere was peaceful. The company — to some — was unexpected. Next to me, wrapped in a similar bathrobe, sat my mother-in-law.

My husband and I wanted to take a trip to celebrate our anniversary, but didn't want to leave our daughter behind

Since having my 4-year-old daughter, traveling has taken a backseat to motherhood. In my 20s, I traveled as often as possible, from the gumless streets of Singapore to the iconic safaris of South Africa.

These days, my husband and I travel less often or choose to visit new countries with our toddler in tow. Although we're always glad to create these memories with her, we knew we wanted something different to celebrate my 40th birthday and our fifth anniversary.

Some people might have chosen to leave their kid at home so they could celebrate with a lavish party or intimate dinner for two. However, we didn't feel comfortable being away from our preschooler for a week in another country.

So, we brought her along and invited my mother-in-law with us to help keep an eye on our daughter and make sure we got some alone time.

The four of us headed on an all-inclusive vacation in Cancún, where we stayed in a two-bedroom enclave suite, complete with three beds, two bathrooms, and 1,570 square feet of shared, yet separate space.

Having that much room kept us from feeling crammed and confined, and with a living room in between the bedrooms, privacy was never an issue.

The arrangement granted us a nice mix of private and family time

We chose to stay at the Hilton Cancún Mar Caribe because it advertises itself as a family hotel. My husband and I spent days wading around the splash pool, rooftop pool, or plunge pool with our daughter.

We took advantage of the resort's dedicated kids areas and activities, including Beach Bunch — the kids' club complete with a playground, indoor playroom, and crafts. And at night, we attended the live shows.

Some days, we ate together at the family-friendly buffet, but on certain occasions, my husband and I dined "date-night-style" while our daughter and my mother-in-law had their own dinner or playdates back in the suite.

It was a great opportunity for them to enjoy quality time together while my husband and I celebrated our milestone anniversary.

My husband and I also relaxed together at the spa, delighting in a refreshing hydrotherapy session that included a sauna, steam room, cold plunge, hot tub, and sensory pool.

And even though my mother-in-law took care of our daughter and brought her to the kids' club, we made sure she had her own time alone at the spa as well.

Overall, we all had a great time together

During this trip, the old saying, "two's company, three's a crowd," came to mind.

And yes, there were times when it felt like we were staying at my husband's childhood home with his mother (or our daughter) occupying the space between us. Plus, some moments meant just for us became a group affair.

But then, we'd all look at the view of the beach while eating our in-room dining — that none of us had to prepare, on beds that none of us had to make, in rooms that none of us had to clean — and that feeling would dissipate.

Having my mother-in-law and kid on this trip was certainly unconventional, nontraditional, and maybe even downright weird to some. However, it granted us the opportunity to travel with some peace of mind.

• US forces started practicing conducting at-sea rescue missions with naval drones several years ago.
• These rehearsals were put to use earlier this month after Iran downed a US Apache helicopter.
• A US military official called the first-of-its-kind rescue mission a "significant step forward."

US forces began practicing using sea drones for water rescue missions years before an uncrewed vessel saved two soldiers after their Apache helicopter was shot down in the Middle East this month.

"You can rehearse medevac scenarios during exercises," a US military official told Business Insider, but to successfully execute that capability in a real emergency situation, "there's something to be said about that."

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to share insight into the unusual early June rescue mission, during which a US Navy sea drone picked up two American crew members after Iran shot down their AH-64 Apache off the coast of Oman.

The rescue mission — an operational first for the US military — involved an uncrewed surface vessel, or USV, operated by Task Force 59, a Navy unit focused on integrating drones and artificial intelligence into naval operations in the Middle East.

When the Navy launched Task Force 59 in 2021, one of its goals was to test emerging technologies — particularly USVs, with which the US had less experience compared to some other drones — "to see how they could be optimized" for everyday naval operations, the military official said.

To do that, the US military worked closely with USV manufacturers during exercises with partners in the Middle East. One such drill, held a few years ago in the Gulf of Aqaba, south of Israel, tested the concept of using naval drones for medical evacuation. The simulation involved transporting a "patient" from a ship to the shore for follow-up treatment and care.

The military official said "the concept of using drones to support personnel transport — and, in particular, support medical evacuations — is something that was thought about very early on as these systems were integrated into regional operations by the US."

A 'significant step forward'

President Donald Trump said on June 9 that Iran had shot down an Apache helicopter while it was patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. The US military said the two American crew members were rescued off the coast of Oman within roughly two hours.

The US knew the Apache crew's location and had established contact with the soldiers while looking for an opportunity to rescue them using assets from across the military, the official said.

Among the assets available were tactical aircraft and a Corsair USV, a 24-foot-long surface drone made by Texas-based Saronic Technologies. The official said this vessel, while just one platform in a broader effort, played an "integral role" in the search-and-rescue mission.

When the vessel arrived, the Apache crew members were able to hoist themselves into the USV, which had the capability and proximity to move the crew from one location on the water to another — a necessary switch because of "operational circumstances," the official said, declining to elaborate.

Once they were moved to the second location, the soldiers could then be "feasibly" lifted by helicopter to be transferred ashore for additional treatment, the official added.

The maritime rescue mission comes amid a broader push by Washington and its allies to integrate drones into naval operations. Ukraine's use of USVs against the Russian Navy in the Black Sea has given these efforts greater urgency.

Beyond the Middle East, where US forces have primarily used uncrewed surface vessels for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, the Navy has also been expanding its naval drone training and operations in Europe in recent years.

The military official said the Apache rescue is a "clear demonstration" of the value of integrating USVs into everyday naval operations and marks a "significant step forward" for the US in expanding its surface drone mission portfolio.

While the Apache rescue mission was out of the ordinary, casualty evacuations using drones aren't a new concept. Ukraine regularly uses uncrewed ground robots, or UGVs, to rescue wounded soldiers from the battlefield.

Warfare is becoming increasingly autonomous, and there are indications that missions like these could become more common as time goes on. Western militaries are taking note. Last December, for instance, NATO hosted an event in London to source industry solutions for battlefield treatment and evacuation in drone-saturated environments.

• This post originally appeared in the Business Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Learn AI so I can eventually go away.

That's the mindset for many Gen Xers and Baby Boomers who are learning AI to hang onto their jobs long enough to retire. BI's Amanda Hoover spoke to elder Americans about how they're getting a crash course in AI as they race toward retirement.

While younger Americans worry about their job prospects for the next few decades, older Americans are on much shorter timelines. Many just need to work for a little bit longer before calling it quits.

They're also uniquely positioned for the AI boom in the short term. Years of workplace experience mean they are a treasure trove of knowledge that could benefit the AI tools that need training.

And unlike their younger colleagues, they're less inclined to worry about automating themselves out of a job. After all, they want to be out of a job in a few years if they can afford it.

Not everyone's so enthusiastic about adopting AI. Amanda spoke to a 47-year-old working in legal sales who has moral qualms about the tech's environmental footprint. But she's also realistic about trying to future-proof herself until she can retire in a few years.

"Most people in corporate are just trying to make it to a point where they are fine financially," she said. "You just don't know when your ticket is punched."

Kymm Dracup knows what it feels like to get her ticket punched.

She was unemployed for 22 months before nabbing a temporary consulting job a few months ago. But with no guarantees of future full-time work, she's on edge. She outlined her challenges to BI's Tess Martinelli as part of a new BI series, Still in the Game, about older Americans still looking for work.

At 56 years old, she says being older has impacted her confidence when searching for jobs. She also thinks her age is affecting her job search, although she acknowledges that it's difficult to prove.

She was evicted from her home and moved in with her daughter, joining the many Americans who have opted for a multigenerational household to address financial pressures.

Dracup's story shows why so many older Americans feel they can't afford to fall behind on AI. Longer lifespans, vanishing pensions, and rising healthcare costs mean retirement has gotten more expensive, and the margin for error is thin.

• Lisa Desai moved her family of eight from Florida to Barbados.
• The mom said the kids have more freedom and independence living on the island.
• There are some cons, she added, but they are far outweighed by the pros.

This story is based on an interview with Lisa Desai, 46, founder and CEO of a facility management corporation that operates remotely in her adopted country, Barbados. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Our twins were approaching 14 when my husband, Ebrahim, 59, and I decided to move them and our four younger kids from Hutchinson Island North, Florida, to Barbados.

We were looking for an adventure before they hit 16 and took on responsibilities like getting a driver's license.

Ebrahim and I could run our facility management corporation, The Harmil Group, remotely, and we wanted a drastic change of scene.

We considered Thailand but were put off by the time difference, as we operate in Canada and the US and would be juggling separate schedules.

Greece and Italy seemed like slightly better options, but moving there involved a lot of bureaucracy.

Someone suggested Barbados

Then someone suggested to us, "Hey, why don't you try Barbados?" There was a $3,000 "welcome stamp" program for people who didn't work for a Barbados company and could show they had a certain amount of money in the bank.

It made perfect sense to us because it had super-reliable WiFi and an international airport from which you could fly directly to world cities like New York City and London.

We rented out our homes in Ottawa and Florida and arrived in Barbados on April 19, 2025. It was one of the best decisions of our lives.

I've homeschooled all six kids — now between 5 and 15 — since 2019, and there's a great homeschooling community here. We usually start at 7 a.m. and finish at 1 p.m.

Islanders are polite and friendly

Then we'll do something fun like go to the beach, go sailing, and play golf or tennis. The children are very independent, and we give them freedom to be themselves. Life in Barbados is the adventure we craved.

I don't think they'll fully appreciate it until they're adults, but the exposure to a new culture is very helpful.

Bajans are very friendly, polite, and open-minded. The kids are happy to chat with strangers and don't shy away from them.

Another advantage is the great healthcare system. It's inexpensive, and you get same-day or next-day service.

As for cons, the food can be expensive, and Amazon deliveries take between one and three weeks. If you want to buy something like a rashguard, you might visit five stores before finding the right size.

Transportation is a bit scary for me because it's the other side of the road, and the highways need maintenance. Infrastructure is in progress.

Everyone drives like they're in little go-karts. But you learn to go with the flow. You also need to adapt to island time, when a visit by a plumber arranged for 9 a.m. means sometime that day.

The kids' childhood is unusual

We visited Canada, where Ebrahim and I were raised, in the fall of last year, and it was nice to get some North American vibes. The kids spoke to their friends and family and came away thinking their childhood wasn't the norm.

We still have wanderlust, and our next journey may take us to Europe, but we'll always treasure our stay in Barbados.

• Polls in June estimated Trump's approval rating at between 30% and 37%.
• Gallup tracked presidential approval ratings for nearly 90 years until earlier this year.
• Bill Clinton had the highest approval ratings when he left the Oval Office.

For nearly 90 years, the Gallup presidential approval polls measured Americans' public opinion on the president's job performance, but now, they're a thing of the past.

In February, Gallup, the analytics and polling company that pioneered presidential approval ratings, confirmed they were ending the practice, which, since the 1930s, had asked Americans: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way [the current president] is handling his job as president?"

The company cited a "shift in corporate strategy" as the driving force behind the decision, The New York Times reported. Instead, Gallup will "focus more on issues and policy polling."

In Gallup's most recent poll, conducted in early December 2025, 36% of respondents said they approved of Trump's performance, down from 47% in early 2025 after he took office for the second time.

In the poll, 59% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency, slightly down from 60% in late November 2025.

While the Gallup polls may no longer be conducted, other polling firms continue to release approval-rating polls.

The American Research Group, a New Hampshire-based pollster, asked the exact same question as Gallup and found that 30% of respondents approved of Trump's job performance in mid-June, while 66% disapproved. It also found that 70% of respondents disapproved of the president's handling of the economy, a defining issue during the 2024 election.

A larger poll conducted by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in mid-June put his approval rating at 37%, while 62% disapproved.

During his first term, Trump was the first president since Gallup began tracking presidential approval in the 1930s to never have a job approval rating above 50%.

The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, compiled the final Gallup ratings for each presidential term over the past 70 years — from Harry Truman to Joe Biden — and indicated how popular each leader was when they left the Oval Office.

See how the last 13 US presidents ranked in their end-of-term polling, from the lowest to the highest final approval ratings.

Richard Nixon

Final approval rating: 24%

While Richard Nixon won the 1972 election in a historic landslide, the end of his presidency was tainted by the Watergate scandal that led him to resign on August 9, 1974, when facing the threat of impeachment and removal.

Surveyed between August 2 and 5, 1974, after the House Judiciary Committee had passed articles of impeachment against the president, but before Nixon resigned, 66% of respondents to the Gallup poll said they disapproved of Nixon's presidency — the highest disapproval rate of any president on the list.

Harry S. Truman

Final approval rating: 32%

Assuming the presidency after Franklin D. Roosevelt's death, Harry Truman served two terms that covered the aftermath of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, including the Korean War, which was widely unpopular and contributed to his low approval rating by the end of his second term in 1953.

When asked December 11 to 16, 1952, 56% of poll respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency during his term.

Jimmy Carter

Final approval rating: 34%

Jimmy Carter had high approval ratings — and a disapproval rating in the single digits — during the early days of his term, but his handling of international affairs, such as the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, along with a struggling economy, ultimately made him widely unpopular by the end of his term.

He lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan and faced a disapproval rating of 55% in polling conducted December 5 to 8, when he was readying to leave the White House.

George W. Bush

Final approval rating: 34%

Despite uniting the nation in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush saw his public approval fade during his second term. His approval rating spiked after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, and the capture of Saddam Hussein.

After his reelection, his popularity began to decline as the Iraq War extended. His handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the onset of the 2008 financial crisis also contributed to his low approval ratings.

From January 9 to 11, 2009, as Bush prepared to hand over the presidency to Barack Obama, 61% of poll respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency during his second term.

Donald Trump

Final approval rating: 34%

Donald Trump's first presidency was divisive from the start, as he entered the White House with an approval rating below 50%. He's the first president in modern history to never exceed 50% approval on the Gallup polls during his entire presidency.

While his approval ratings dwindled over the course of his four years in office, his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular came under scrutiny ahead of his loss in the 2020 election.

His lowest approval rating in office came during his final Gallup poll, conducted January 4 to 15, 2021.

Most of that polling period took place immediately after the Capitol insurrection on January 6, and Trump faced a disapproval rating of 62%, the second-worst only after Richard Nixon's at the time he left office.

Joe Biden

Final approval rating: 40%

While Joe Biden saw approval ratings above 50% during his first six months in office, rising inflation, illegal immigration, and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza contributed to a decline in his approval ratings.

His lowest-ranking Gallup poll, in which 36% of respondents said they approved of his handling of the role, came in July 2024, a month after his debate performance against Trump shifted focus toward his age and fitness for office.

As he left office, in polls collected January 2 to 16, 2025, Biden received a disapproval rating of 54%.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Final approval rating: 49%

After assuming the presidency because of John F. Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson won the 1964 election in a historic landslide, but he faced decreasing approval ratings over his handling of the Vietnam War.

Low approval ratings, along with a divided party, led Johnson to withdraw from the 1968 presidential race.

At the time of his withdrawal, only 36% of poll respondents said they approved of his handling of the presidency.

By the time he left the office, however, his approval rating had risen to 49%. In polling conducted January 1 to 6, 1969, 37% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the role, and 14% said they had no opinion, one of the higher percentages among the listed presidents.

Gerald Ford

Final approval rating: 53%

Assuming the presidency upon Nixon's resignation, Gerald Ford served as US president from August 1974 until January 1977, after losing the election to Jimmy Carter.

During his presidency, Ford faced mixed reviews, with his approval dropping after he pardoned Nixon and introduced conditional amnesty for draft dodgers in September 1974.

Polled December 10 to 13, 1976, after he had lost the reelection to Jimmy Carter, 32% of respondents said they disapproved of Ford's handling of the presidency, and 15% said they had no opinion on it, the highest percentage of the listed presidents.

George H. W. Bush

Final approval rating: 56%

Though the elder Bush lost his reelection bid in the 1992 presidential election against Bill Clinton, the public opinion of him was generally positive by the end of his term.

In the weeks before his 1992 nomination as the Republican presidential candidate, however, George H. W. Bush had only a 29% approval rating, the lowest of his presidency. A recession and a reversal of his tax policy contributed to his drop in popularity.

In polling conducted January 8 to 11, 1993, 37% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency, while 56% said they approved.

Barack Obama

Final approval rating: 59%

Since the beginning of his presidency in 2009, Barack Obama had a high approval rating for a modern-day president; he averaged nearly 47% approval over eight years.

At his lowest point, in polling conducted September 8 to 11, 2011, 37% of poll respondents said they approved of his presidency, a decline most likely influenced by the president's healthcare policies and his handling of the 2008 economic crisis and the subsequent rise in unemployment rates.

In polls conducted January 17 to 19, 2017, when Obama was leaving office, 37% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the role, with 59% saying they approved.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Final approval rating: 59%

After winning the 1952 election in a landslide, Dwight D. Eisenhower saw high approval ratings throughout his presidency, never dropping below the disapproval rating.

Holding office during the critical Cold War years, Eisenhower saw his approval remain positive through the end of his second term, with only 28% of respondents polled December 8 to 13, 1960, saying they disapproved of his handling of the presidency, the lowest among the presidents listed.

Ronald Reagan

Final approval rating: 63%

Ronald Reagan's strong leadership toward ending the Cold War and implementing his economic policies contributed to consistently positive ratings during his presidency and the subsequent election of his vice president, George H. W. Bush, as his successor to the presidency.

By the time he left office, 29% of respondents in a Gallup poll conducted December 27 to 29, 1988, said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency.

Bill Clinton

Final approval rating: 66%

After winning the 1992 elections against the incumbent George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton saw high approval ratings throughout his presidency, though he faced mixed opinions at times during his first term because of his domestic agenda, including tax policy and social issues.

Despite being impeached in 1998 by the House of Representatives over his testimony describing the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton continued to see positive approval ratings throughout his second term.

By the time he left the White House, he had an approval rating of 66%, the highest of all the presidents on this list.

In the poll conducted January 10 to 14, 2001, only 29% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency.

• Elon Musk is too rich for the rich list.
• The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, worth $1.1 trillion, is wealthier than the next four richest people combined.
• Musk lost more than Warren Buffett's entire net worth on Monday.

Elon Musk is now so wealthy that he's making a mockery of the rich list.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO was worth $1.08 trillion as of Monday's market close, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The next-richest person in the world, Alphabet cofounder Larry Page, was less than a third as wealthy with a net worth of $299 billion.

In fact, Musk is richer than the next four people in the billionaire rankings: Page, his cofounder Sergey Brin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, who were together worth $1.06 trillion as of Monday's close.

The sheer scale of Musk's fortune means shifts in others' fortunes now pale in comparison. For example, Page, Brin, and Bezos each lost more than $10 billion in Monday's tech rout.

Those losses look paltry compared to Musk's $152 billion wealth decline on the same day, fueled by a 16% plunge in SpaceX's stock just days after its blockbuster IPO.

Put differently, Musk lost in one day a sum that exceeds Warren Buffett's entire fortune. The 95-year-old investor and Berkshire Hathaway chairman ranked 10th on Bloomberg's list with a $146 billion net worth at Monday's close.

Given Musk has a $700 billion-plus lead over anyone else, he simply looks out of place on a mere billionaires list. He's started a trillionaire club with only one member.

The wealth gap between Musk and his rich-list peers has only grown truly stark in the past few months. In fact, Ellison briefly leapfrogged him in September to become the world's richest person despite being worth less than $400 billion.

The key reason for Musk's net worth skyrocketing has been SpaceX's soaring valuation, which has boosted his fortune by $456 billion in less than six months, per Bloomberg's list.

That wealth gain has catapulted Musk into a league of his own and given him a seemingly insurmountable lead over the rest of the billionaire pack.

The yawning divide reflects Musk's large stakes in two companies valued at over $1 trillion: Tesla and SpaceX. It's hard to see anyone catching up to him, barring a massive crash in either company's stock price, given nobody else has two horses of that size in the wealth race.

• Lauren Sánchez Bezos is a former news anchor, the wife of Jeff Bezos, and a rising fashion figure.
• Though her style has always had a daring edge, it's notably evolved over the years.
• She's become a fan of vibrant colors, designer pieces, and statement gowns.

News anchor, helicopter pilot, actor, and mother can all describe Lauren Sánchez Bezos. You could also call her a rising fashion star.

The 56-year-old New Mexico native has been wearing bold looks on red carpets since the start of her career. Recently, though, especially while making her relationship with Jeff Bezos public, her style has leveled up.

Here's a look at her fashion evolution, from simple outfits accessorized with Hermès bags to see-through pieces at White House events.

Lauren Sánchez Bezos kept her outfits simple at the start of her career.

She regularly wore trendy two-piece outfits in the early 2000s and an assortment of minidresses — like the brown knit piece she sported at the 2002 Environmental Media Awards.

Sánchez Bezos also had a signature pair of shoes at that point in her career: PVC sandals with light-brown soles and thin, see-through heels.

But she wasn't afraid to experiment with daring styles.

At the 2004 Shalom Foundation Gala, Sánchez Bezos donned a deep-gray gown that hugged her body at the bodice and reached the floor with its long skirt.

It was also practically strapless, with only a single spaghetti-thin strap across one shoulder. The piece connected to more strings across its open back, which held the dress up and created a daring detail.

Sánchez Bezos completed the outfit with crystal earrings and a silver statement watch.

Her accessories were always chic, even in the early 2000s.

While attending a High Flying fundraiser in 2008, Sánchez Bezos opted for trendy styles at the time: a high-neck, short-sleeve blouse tucked into a black-and-white circle skirt, knee-high boots over semi-sheer tights, and a leather belt.

But her purse was timeless. She carried a solid black Hermès Birkin bag with what appeared to be palladium hardware.

She started to look like a Hollywood star around 2010.

She attended Vanity Fair's Oscars after-party that year in a shimmering gown that was fit for an award winner.

The dress was sleeveless, form-fitting, and covered from top to bottom in silver sparkles. It also had a tan lining that gave the dress a nude illusion and a deep V-neckline.

She began introducing vibrant colors to her wardrobe around the same time.

At the 2012 Vanity Fair Oscars after-party, Sánchez Bezos sported a strapless, understated gown. It had a fitted bodice, a straight skirt, and solid fabric.

But its bright red shade stood out on the carpet, making for a memorable look. The color has become one of Sánchez Bezos' go-to shades in recent years.

She completed the look with platform sandals and diamond jewelry.

For her first red-carpet appearance with Jeff Bezos, Sánchez Bezos showed up in style.

She wore a black-and-red dress that was as daring as it was glamorous. It featured long sleeves made from dotted mesh, a plunging neckline that reached her navel, and a thigh-high slit that showed her platform sandals.

The piece also had a geometric print crafted from sequins that shimmered in the light.

And even when they began coordinating their outfits, Sánchez Bezos' daring aesthetic still stood out.

The couple attended the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscars after-party in matching black outfits. While Bezos sported a classic suit, Sánchez Bezos wore a bold Elie Saab gown.

The dress had a corseted bodice with off-the-shoulder sleeves, black sparkles arranged in stripes, and a see-through skirt that revealed her legs.

In recent years, color has remained a staple of Sánchez Bezos' outfits.

At the 2023 Kering Caring for Women dinner, for example, Sánchez Bezos sported a neon-yellow gown from Dolce & Gabbana.

The halter dress hugged her body, reached the floor, and didn't need any accessories. It sparkled entirely on its own.

So have see-through dresses, even while visiting the White House.

Sánchez Bezos and Bezos attended a 2024 state dinner hosted by Joe Biden in honor of then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Though the couple's presence was notable on its own, Sánchez Bezos' outfit caught even more attention.

She wore an off-the-shoulder gown crafted from red satin and lace. Its corseted bodice was semi-sheer with a low neckline, and its skirt was tightly wrapped around her legs.

Sánchez Bezos wore it with gold-leaf sandals and diamond earrings.

Sánchez Bezos had a high-profile fashion moment at the 2024 Met Gala.

She stunned in an Oscar de la Renta gown. It featured a strapless black bodice with a sweetheart neckline and a full skirt decorated with reflective pieces shaped like roses.

It was even rumored that Anna Wintour had a hand in the outfit choice.

She then took on the style of a businesswoman to promote her children's book.

At the Forbes Power Women's Summit in September 2024, Sánchez Bezos talked about the start of her career, writing her first children's book, and being engaged to Bezos.

For the occasion, she sported an all-white outfit with long trousers, a blazer that revealed her lace bralette, and platform heels.

Recycling outfits has become a regular practice for the former journalist.

After wearing her McQueen suit to the Forbes panel in September and a New York Times book event in December, she donned it again at Donald Trump's inauguration.

This time around, however, she paired it with another daring piece: a Schiaparelli coat made from brushed wool, mohair, and gold-brass buttons designed to look like nipples.

The Italian piece retailed for 8,700 euros, or about $9,982.

She entered her bridal era in March 2025.

While the Amazon founder wore a black suit with a white undershirt, a matching bow tie, and a diamond brooch, Sánchez Bezos donned a strapless white Oscar de la Renta ball gown.

It had a feather fringe, a mermaid silhouette, and was accessorized with an emerald necklace.

The couple married a few months later in June 2025.

Her style has taken an elegant turn in 2026.

For the 2026 Met Gala, Sánchez Bezos wore a Schiaparelli gown crafted from navy blue satin.

It had a V-shaped neckline, a short train, and crystal straps — one of which hung off her shoulder.

The dress, inspired by the 1884 painting "Madame X," doubled as a hidden message to those who have criticized her daring fashion choices.

Still, Sánchez Bezos hasn't abandoned her core style.

In June, the author was photographed wearing an outfit that blended casual and high-end styles.

She wore a blue knit dress lined with silver shimmering mesh at the hem and neckline.

To complement the latter details, she added a metallic clutch, diamond earrings, and tan Louboutin heels.

• I promised my sons a trip to the World Cup. Sixteen years later, I couldn't afford to make it happen.
• After I wrote about breaking that promise, a stranger offered to fly all three of us to the match.
• I was so sure it was a scam that I reported it to the FBI.

For sixteen years, the same photo has been my Facebook cover. It's me and my twin boys, Charlie and Thomas, then 3, in matching Australia jerseys, taken before I flew to the 2010 World Cup. I crouched beside them shortly after my marriage ended and promised that when they were older, I'd take them to a World Cup of their own. They were too young to understand, but I meant it.

We talked about it for years, always aiming for 2026. But when I priced the trip, it stopped being a holiday and became a house payment. I sat them down, showed them the cost, and asked if they still wanted it. They said no and meant it. I was the one who couldn't let go of the dream.

So I wrote about it. Then, everything changed.

A stranger sent me a message

A few days after the article ran, a man named Avi messaged me on LinkedIn. His profile had no photo and 21 followers, and I almost ignored it. He'd read the piece and asked if it was true. When I said it was, he offered to fly the three of us from Australia to Seattle to watch Australia play the US, and to cover the flights, accommodation, and tickets.

I thought there had to be a catch, so I searched his name. Google revealed him to be a business founder, which was enough to give me hope. I sent him photos of our passports.

My family told me I'd been scammed

Then the messages stopped, and my excitement turned into dread. I had sent copies of my children's passports to a random stranger. I pasted the messages into ChatGPT, which stated there was a 100% chance it was a scam. I called my bank, the passport office, and the police. I even emailed the FBI, who surely had better things to do.

My wife said what I already knew. Nobody would offer a free trip to a stranger. "You're stupid," she told me. I had to agree.

Even so, a small part of me thought there was a 1% chance it was real. For the next eight hours, I swung between the certainty I'd been played and the small hope I hadn't.

I couldn't believe my eyes

Avi messaged back. I told him I wanted to FaceTime, sure this would be the moment of truth. He called. Avi told me he was a father too and knew what my promise meant. He wanted to do something good with no strings attached.

Soon after, he messaged to say the airfares were booked. I typed in the confirmation number on the United website, expecting nothing. Three confirmed seats appeared on the screen, under my name and the boys'. It was past midnight, which made it my birthday. I just sat there staring at the screen.

In the morning, the match tickets were transferred to my FIFA account. When they hit my account, I told the boys we were flying to the US in two days. They reacted the way I had, certain it was too good to be true.

When it came time to pack, the only things they put in their bags were soccer jerseys. Even heading to the airport, I was unsure if this was still happening. It was only when the cabin doors closed that I let myself believe it. We were crossing the Pacific and back for four days, all for a single match.

In Seattle, my boys led the chants

We made every hour in Seattle about the tournament, because I wanted my sons to feel what I felt in South Africa in 2010. We visited fan sites and watched every match.

On the morning of the game, we crammed into Victory Hall with thousands of other Australians. I had a beer in my hand at 7 a.m. because I'm an Aussie and it was a match day. Grown men in green and gold, belting out songs, drinking beer out of their shoes, drums banging. My boys had never seen anything like it.

From there, the streets turned into a moving crowd. Singing, chanting, people spilling toward the stadium in waves. Charlie was on crutches, weeks after knee surgery, refusing to slow down. His brother stayed beside him the whole way, leading the chants.

It usually takes an act of God to get a teenager to show that kind of joy in public. Both of mine were grinning the entire way. Walking into the stadium with my arms around both of them felt unreal. For a moment, the three of us just stood there. I thought about the photo from 2010, and how long I'd waited to take another one. Then we took it, the same three faces, same positions, and the same grins. Except I was now the shortest one.

I sent the photo to Avi, who replied: "I'm just so glad I had the balls to do it."

Seventy-two hours earlier, Avi was a stranger with no photo and 21 followers. A man I had never met had spent thousands of dollars so two teenagers he would never meet could be happy. I made a promise to two 3-year-olds who had no idea what I was saying. Sixteen years later, a stranger made it happen in three days.

Now I can change that Facebook photo.

• Ukraine's drone operators aren't necessarily more protected than other soldiers on the battlefield.
• Saying "they are doing their job in much safer conditions is completely wrong," an official said.
• They're top targets, and a soldier said pilots sometimes need to fight just like infantry.

Ukraine's drone operators aren't necessarily spared from the horrors of war because they pilot remote systems, a senior official said. Many are in the fighting, and they're often top targets for the enemy.

Taras Berezovets, head of the military cooperation department of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, a part of Ukraine's armed forces, said that with drone operators, "they do just the same job" as other soldiers. "To say that they are doing their job in much safer conditions is completely wrong."

"We should never forget that drone operators are the primary targets for Russian units," he added, speaking at a recent drone summit in Latvia. "They are trying to kill them," he said, just as Ukraine is trying to do to Russian drone pilots.

"Drone operators are first of all soldiers, and they are subject to the same psychological problems and traumas" as any other soldier, Berezovets said, explaining that he would never consider operators differently.

Dmytro "Liber" Zhluktenko, a former drone operator who is now a lessons-learned analyst with Ukraine's 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment "RAID," told Business Insider that operators don't feel they are in any less danger because they have a remote-controlled weapon. "It's not like that," he said, rejecting the idea that the role is safer. "It's very dangerous."

"In some of the cases, we have our drone operators engage in small arms combat like infantry," he said, "So it's basically infantry with the drones." It means getting close to a fight, as soldiers with other weapons do.

Drones are a crucial weapon for both Ukraine and Russia in this war, filling shortages of both weapons and manpower. Ukraine says that drones are now causing 90% of Russia's front-line losses as usage expands.

Drone operators are also force multipliers. One pilot can launch countless drones over a deployment to scout and gather intelligence on enemy movements and targets or to launch cheap attacks on soldiers and weapon systems, including expensive gear.

That makes them priority targets.

The operators that control Ukraine's spy and strike drones often have to get close to the front lines to preserve the connection with their drones and to work effectively with regular infantry. It means they have to move, hide, and survive just like other soldiers.

Soldiers and drone operators have told Business Insider that Russia treats drone pilots as high-value targets because of the damage they can do on the battlefield. They said Russian forces have intensified attacks with missiles, bombs, and other weapons to hunt those operators, while Western analysts have noted rising casualties among Ukraine's drone pilots.

One drone operator, who spoke to Business Insider on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military issues, said "when the enemy spots a drone operator somewhere, it uses every single thing at its disposal — every type of weaponry" — to eliminate them. And Ukraine is targeting Russian pilots, too.

Ukraine is working to develop solutions to protect its drone operators by keeping them farther from the fighting to decrease the risk. For instance, there is new remote-control technology that allows interceptor drone pilots to control their drones from hundreds of miles away from the launch point. But many drone types still require operators staying much closer.

Zhluktenko said that Ukraine wants to have fewer people at risk on the battlefield, but that's not always possible.

Sometimes they move operators farther back for their safety, "even if it comes at the expense of our capabilities, because these are our people and we value them so much." He described it as "a very tough balance."

"We want to keep them extremely safe, but at the same time, there is some work to be done," he said.

Ukraine is heavily pushing autonomy so drones and robots can operate with less human control, keeping soldiers farther from the fight. It's part of a broader effort to move troops out of the most dangerous areas, including by scaling ground robots that could eventually handle front-line logistics.

Mykyta Rozhkov, chief business development officer at Ukrainian drone and weapons maker Frontline Robotics, told Business Insider that "the general trend is to get the pilots as far as possible" from the front line, with the absolute bare minimum of soldiers used in dangerous areas when drones and robots can't handle it alone.

But, for now, drone operators and other soldiers remain at risk.

"Russians are right now prioritizing hitting not the assault troops or soldiers;" instead, they are aiming at drone and ground robot operators, he said.

Western militaries watching the war are also aware of how at-risk drone pilots can be. The US Army course designed to catch the force up on drone warfare is teaching soldiers what it feels like to be hunted.

Maj. Rachel Martin, the course director, previously told Business Insider that the instructors deliberately use drones against students to help them understand "what it's like to be hunted by another operator from an adversary force: what it sounds like, what it feels like, how often they need to displace in order to survive or not be observed."

That matters because "the minute you're observed, you need to move," she said. "What follows that is usually fires of some capacity," such as artillery.

She said that the goal is to simulate an enemy force actively searching for them and to test their reactions "so they get used to one being hunted by the enemy." The US is used to having control of the air in its conflicts, where anything in the air above them is likely friendly, but that may not be the case in future fights.

Berezovets said Western militaries should study Ukraine's experience, including how heavily Russia targets drone units and command centers. He said Ukraine has to keep moving them because "this war, especially in terms of the drone war, is like a cat-and-mouse game. The Russians are always searching for the locations of our drone units."

He said allies ought to consider building drone command centers "deeper underground," like Ukraine does when it can, even though it's expensive work. He said that "they should be as deep as possible."

• I have my own child, but having other people's kids in my home has always been overstimulating.
• When other children are in my home, I feel anxious and responsible for their safety.
• As a neurodivergent family, having other kids over can feel overwhelming.

With all the ongoing rhetoric surrounding where kids do and don't belong, it feels a bit uncomfortable to admit that I don't like having other people's children in my home. Most kids are small, noisy chaos agents that leave a mess in their wake, mine included. And since I already have one wreaking havoc on my home regularly, adding more can feel overwhelming.

Prior to becoming a mom, I spent years working with children. While there were parts of it that I enjoyed, it was also overstimulating, and I was relieved to come home and have kid-free time. Beyond the noise and energy levels, it also felt like a huge responsibility to care for other people's children and look after their safety and well-being.

Having other children in my home makes me anxious

The toddler years, when I was worrying that my daughter might choke on a too-small toy or too-large grape, are now behind me. But when younger children come into my home, those worries crop up again. Especially because my daughter now has an extensive collection of Legos and other toys with tiny pieces that are annoying, but not potentially dangerous, most of the time.

It's unnerving going through her things to determine what needs to be hidden away. In the past, I've ended up having to leap across the room when something I missed ends up grasped in a toddler's fist. The responsibility for supervising the other kids always seems to be dumped on me as well, even when other parents are present. And since it is my home, I also feel responsible for making sure everyone stays safe and leaves uninjured.

For my neurodivergent family, home is our safe space

In a lot of ways, our house is my family's safe space. As a neurodivergent individual who also has an autistic child, we have our house set up for her sensory and other needs. On the rare occasions that we have other children over, there is a scramble to relocate all the items that aren't age-appropriate or could lead to chaos when used by multiple children, such as her trampoline or sensory toys. And my daughter is very attached to her belongings, so we also have to be careful to put away anything that could get broken and damaged.

Moving and returning items to their places can be exhausting for me and overwhelming for my daughter. So is trying to clean and tidy our home for children who seem to find everything — from eating the goldfish they find under the coffee table to using a bill from the doctor's office as a coloring page.

Clearing up my doom piles around the house often just results in them being relocated to my bedroom, where I can close the door. And then there's the cleanup afterward — when the sandbox ends up getting tracked all over the first floor, and there is a collection of rejected food under the dining room table.

It's all why I try to limit gatherings with kids at our house. While I don't mind going to other people's homes, the ideal situation for me is to meet at a neutral location, like a park or museum. That way, I don't feel responsible for supervising someone else's children, and no one has to worry about cleanup before or after.

• Oracle laid off staff in March. A new filing shows its global head count fell by 21,000 over the last year.
• Costs associated with restructuring increased by $1.5 billion over the past year, up 391%.
• Oracle has been ramping up data spending during the AI boom.

Oracle's head count has been shrinking as it made layoffs to cut costs — and now there's a number behind its reduction.

A filing published Monday showed that its global workforce declined by 21,000 between May 2025 and May 2026. The number includes both attrition and layoffs.

Oracle employed around 141,000 employees worldwide as of May 31, 2026, the filing said.

Compared with the numbers reported in its 2025 filing, the company shed 9,000 jobs in the US and 12,000 jobs internationally.

Restructuring and other expenses — which consist of costs for employee severance, contract termination, and other exit activity — increased by 391% from $374 million to about $1.8 billion over the last year, Oracle said in the filing.

Oracle did not respond to a request for comment.

In March, the company began laying off staff but did not confirm the scale of the cuts.

The notification email sent to the laid-off employees, which Business Insider exclusively obtained, said the decision to eliminate roles was made "after careful consideration of Oracle's current business needs" and was part of "broader organizational change."

According to LinkedIn posts from laid-off employees, the cuts affected staff across Oracle Health, Sales, Cloud, Customer Success, and NetSuite.

The reduction in head count comes as Oracle invests heavily in data center infrastructure while looking for ways to rein in costs. Oracle's stock is down about 15% over the last year.

In March, Oracle executives told investors not to worry about its significant data center spending because the company is "very, very good" at cost-cutting.

In January, Business Insider reported that the company was struggling to find financing for Stargate, its $500 billion data center initiative with OpenAI. In February, Oracle announced a $50 billion debt raise to help fund its infrastructure buildout.

Across the tech industry, major companies have been reducing their workforces. Many bosses have cited AI in their layoff notifications.

In January, Amazon said it would slash about 16,000 corporate roles, months after cutting 14,000 employees. Meta axed around 8,000 staffers in May, and Dell's recent 10-K filing showed that employee numbers have fallen by 36,000 over the last three years, a 27% decline in head count.

• Anthropic's Boris Cherny says companies are right to focus on their ROI for AI.
• At the same time, Cherny said employees at all levels and roles still need tokens to be able to experiment with AI.
• Then, the Claude Code creator said, companies can start to control costs.

Claude Code creator Boris Cherny has a message for companies that are nervous about their AI token budgets.

"ROI is absolutely the right framing because you don't want to just think about cost because you kind of spend something on it and you get something back," Cherny said during a recent fireside chat at Scale AI.

Jesse Chen, Meta's director of product management who moderated the chat, asked the Anthropic employee directly about the recent concerns raised by Uber COO Andrew Macdonald about whether the rideshare giant's AI spending was leading to enough of a return to justify the rising cost of AI tokens.

Tokens are units of text that serve as a measurement for AI usage, such as the prompts processed by large language models, including those that power chatbots like Anthropic's Claude or its generative AI coding tool, Claude Code.

Cherny said it's right to be focused on ROI. It's also important, he said, not to overdo it in response to cost concerns.

"The way to do this is give people tokens and give them safety to experiment so they feel like they can try stuff and they're not going to get penalized for it," he said. "Once you find these internal use cases that kind of work, then you want to control the costs and you want to do that on the backend, not on the front end."

Otherwise, companies might miss out on the best ideas for deploying AI.

"Often, some of the most interesting ideas and the most innovative ways to improve processes and new product ideas are going to come from an accountant somewhere in the corner of the org or a marketing person that the CEO has never heard of," Cherny said.

Cherny emphasized that Anthropic offers several ways for its enterprise customers to control costs and set budgets, including per-seat cost controls.

Others in the AI space, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, are also increasingly discussing companies' concerns about the ROI of their AI investments.

As Cherny mentioned, AI firms like Anthropic are essentially token generators. That also means that they have an incentive to keep selling their models and generative AI tools, especially as they approach highly anticipated IPOs. The creator of Claude Code said that Anthropic is also paying attention to how its tokens are used.

"They're not free for us because every token we use is a token we do not give to a customer, so there's an opportunity cost," he said. "When I think about it, it actually maybe comes back to ROI."

Measuring that ROI is also changing, Cherny said, as the pace of AI model advancements continues to accelerate. He previously said that companies may have looked at the percentage of code written by AI. Cherny said that measurement is no longer as useful once more people let AI write 100% of their code, as he does.

"Then think about, how much is the code per engineer accelerating? And then the third thing to think about is like, what are the other bottlenecks that are getting in the way?" he said. "Because once you get it to this point where engineers are just writing a lot of code, the bottleneck is going to be like good ideas. So, how do you un-hobble that so that your company can generate ideas faster?

• CFOs are taking charge of AI spending as companies pour billions into the technology.
• Some are introducing AI budgets and new controls to keep costs from spiraling.
• "The CFO is really becoming the face of the AI story," said a PwC advisor to finance chiefs.

At Match Group, every employee now has an AI budget.

The parent company of Tinder, Hinge, and other dating apps recently began giving department heads a set amount to spend on AI, which is then distributed across their teams. Employees can track their usage on a dashboard, and if they want to exceed their budget, they have to explain why. The company's most expensive AI models also aren't available by default and require a specific use case.

"If you don't set guardrails, there's no reason for an engineer to not go use the most expensive model," said Match Group CFO Steve Bailey. The average software engineer at the company spends roughly $600 a month on AI tokens, he said.

Match Group's system reflects a growing reality across corporate America: As companies spend billions on AI, CFOs are emerging as some of the most powerful executives in the AI era.

Finance chiefs are doing more than signing off on AI budgets. In many cases, they're the ones deciding who gets access to AI tools, how much employees can spend, which vendors make the cut, and whether AI investments are generating enough value to justify costs.

"The CFO is really becoming the face of the AI story," said Peter Pollini, a PwC advisor to finance chiefs in the financial-services sector.

A spending boom

The stakes are enormous. Match Group initially allocated $5 million for AI this year, but it's now on track to spend double that amount, Bailey said. The increase followed CEO Spencer Rascoff's May push to make the company more AI-native by expanding access to AI tools across the workforce. Initially, they were available mainly to engineers.

"Aside from maybe travel and entertainment, we've never had to budget for a cost that's this big at the employee level," Bailey said.

To help fund those investments, Bailey said Match Group plans to dramatically slow hiring while it assesses how AI could reshape its workforce.

Across corporate America, similar calculations are turning CFOs into the gatekeepers of one of the biggest spending booms in decades.

At Elevance Health, CFO Mark Kaye oversees a hidden way of keeping AI costs from spiraling. The insurance giant quietly routes employees' queries to different AI models based on the complexity of the request. That's because a single prompt can cost anywhere from a few pennies to more than a dollar, depending on how many tokens, or units of data, employees gobble up.

"We manage it on the back end," said Kaye, adding that he expects Elevance Health, the parent of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, to invest $1 billion or more on AI this year.

Making AI pay off

Some CFOs are making tough decisions about how to fund AI expenses at large, such as by freezing annual salary raises and laying off workers. Others say AI is helping to pay for itself.

Kaye said AI automation at Elevance has reduced administrative work tied to medical-chart reviews by roughly 40%, giving staff more time to support customers.

"There are significant inefficiencies in the system that AI is allowing us to take out," he said.

Keeping a tight leash on AI spending isn't the only new hurdle for CFOs. They're also responsible for managing spending on a category that is evolving more rapidly than previous generations of enterprise software.

For the first time this year, Xero, a global small-business platform that offers accounting, payroll, and payments, added a line item to its budget for AI token spending per employee, said Claire Bramley, the CFO. The company also created a task force to review software purchases and identify AI products it can do without.

"Do we have more than one tool that serves the same purpose?" Bramley said. "As a CFO, you want to make sure that everybody's not going off and doing their own thing."

AI is also changing who CFOs spend time with. Bramley said finance, technology, and HR leaders at Xero now work together more frequently to evaluate software purchases, hiring plans, and how AI could affect future staffing needs.

"You could probably do it once a month before, and I think you have to do it weekly today," she said.

Additional headaches

CFOs are also facing new business problems arising from AI.

Netta Samroengraja, finance chief at healthcare platform Zocdoc, said her team has had to hustle to evaluate AI tool providers to solve problems that, ironically, were created by the technology. In recruiting, for instance, the technology suddenly enabled job seekers to flood the company with applications and create phony personas.

"It was pretty prevalent very quickly, and so we had to react quickly," Samroengraja said.

That wasn't the only surprise, as the economics of AI were shifting, too. Early on, Zocdoc raced to vet vendors, anticipating that prices designed to attract customers at the start of the AI boom would increase over time.

The company used that window to test multiple providers and compare their cost and effectiveness before settling on the tools that delivered the strongest business results, Samroengraja said, adding that Zocdoc has been willing to spend more on tools that produce measurable business outcomes rather than optimize for the lowest possible AI spend.

"If you see the ROI in it, you should keep investing in this," she said.

A crowded AI market is making those decisions even harder. New providers are constantly pitching tools that promise to boost productivity, cut costs, or replace existing software, forcing many CFOs to take a more active role in evaluating vendors, said Alex Sobol, cofounder of the Millennium Alliance, an invite-only community for C-suite executives in North America and Europe.

"It seems like every hour there's a new AI vendor," he said. "It's hard to know what's real and what's fake, and what's good and what's bad."

• New York health regulators say Tiger Medical smuggled alloClae into the state and lied about it.
• A court filing includes photos of boxes piled in the driveway of a New Jersey nurse who regulators allege drove the product to NYC.
• Tiger says only the FDA, not New York State, can regulate alloClae, and denied wrongdoing.

On a blustery December day, nine large white cardboard boxes sat stacked next to a garbage can in the driveway of a New Jersey nurse as a man packed them into the bed of a pickup truck.

Other than a manufacturer's label in the corner and a note that the contents were perishable and shouldn't be frozen, there was no indication they held thousands of dollars' worth of processed cadaver fat. Inside the boxes, state regulators allege, was alloClae, a hot new injectable filler derived from the fat of dead people and headed to high-end cosmetic surgeon practices in New York City.

Photos of the boxes were part of a recent court filing by New York State health officials, who have accused Tiger Medical Holdings, which manufactures and sells alloClae with its affiliates, of "smuggling" the product into New York.

Tiger has said only the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to regulate alloClae, and that FDA rules don't require premarket approval. New York is one of a handful of states that issues permission to store and distribute human tissue, and it claims that Tiger violated those rules by bringing alloClae to market without waiting for approval.

Recent court filings reveal that the state obtained FedEx records, including photos, in an attempt to prove that Tiger organized a scheme to smuggle hundreds of boxes of the product — possibly over $1 million worth — into New York.

The dispute could affect the availability of a product that lets busy C-suiters get a boob job during a lunch break or a butt lift between meetings. Doctors have said the injectable is flying off the shelves, and some have continued to administer it during the state investigation.

Tiger co-CEO Oliver Burckhardt said in a filing on Wednesday that 60 doctors have contacted the company about the fat spat with New York — some worried about the case, but most wanting to buy more alloClae.

Tiger hasn't disputed shipping alloClae through New Jersey, though it has called the state's evidence "unreliable" and "self-serving," and said the allegation of "smuggling" is baseless and inflammatory.

It said the health department kept asking for more information without signaling concerns until last month, and that the company submitted testing data as recently as January to show that alloClae was safe.

Tiger's lawyer, Larry Wood Jr., did not address specific questions from Business Insider, referring a reporter to Tiger's court filings.

Building buzz for alloClae while dealing with regulators

AlloClae hit the market in 2024. It didn't take long for plastic surgeons on Manhattan's Tribeca and Upper East Side to realize the appeal. Their patients wanted a quick touch-up and were willing to pay for the convenience. In small quantities, the product can be injected for under $10,000; in other cases, it can cost up to $100,000 per procedure.

The product is a good fit for "the CEOs, COOs, CCOs that don't want to be away from the boardroom," Douglas Steinbrech, who practices in New York City, Beverly Hills, and Chicago, told Business Insider last year. "They have to go to a lot of meetings that just pop up, and they cannot control when they're going to happen. They can't just clear their schedule to recover for a surgery."

AlloClae was advertised on social media and websites: "Revolutionary," said one clinic. "Pure Gold. On Demand," said another.

In a video posted by a Texas plastic surgery practice, audio of Oprah gifting cars to a screaming audience was dubbed over a man in scrubs pretending to dole out alloClae boxes to employees who wriggled with excitement.

Tiger, which is privately held, said this month that alloClae is experiencing "rapid growth" and the company plans to build a 200-person sales force by the end of 2027 to sell alloClae and a similar product in development, dermaClae, to surgeons, med spas, and other buyers.

When Business Insider spoke to Tiger Aesthetics at the end of last year, the company said it was struggling to keep up with demand. Behind the scenes, it was grappling with more than a shortage.

The company was engaged in a back-and-forth with New York's health department. Between October 2024 and May 2025, the agency sent three letters saying that it could not grant Tiger permission to distribute alloClae in the state.

In July 2025, a health inspector visited two Tiger tissue facilities in Pennsylvania and asked why New York doctors were advertising alloClae. Monica Garcia, the COO of Tiger Aesthetic's parent company, said she was unaware of any shipments to the state and asked what the consequences would be if there were, according to a sworn statement from Joseph Giovannetti, the agency's top investigator.

Garcia, in a sworn statement, said the exchange took place at a Tiger affiliate where employees familiar with alloClae weren't present. She said the inspector didn't ask for follow-up information about alloClae distribution to New York, disputing one of Giovannetti's claims.

Giovannetti said the inspection prompted Tiger to stop shipping alloClae directly to New York and start going through New Jersey and Connecticut.

Despite the letters and inspection, Caroline Van Hove, the president of Tiger Medical Holdings affiliate Tiger Aesthetics, provided reassurances about alloClae to at least one New York plastic surgeon. "We can confirm that the New York Department of Health has not reached out to us in connection with our alloClae product," she wrote in an April 2026 letter seen by Business Insider.

Boxes of alloClae were piled up in a New Jersey driveway

Every week or two, starting no later than September 2025, a new set of white boxes would appear at the clapboard, shuttered home of Robert McGee, a nurse who lived on a cul-de-sac in the central New Jersey town of Tinton Falls, according to FedEx records and a state investigator's statement.

The boxes of alloClae would be stacked next to duffle bags and trash cans in McGee's driveway or on his front porch, according to delivery photos and Giovannetti.

Between September 2025 and April 2026, the company sent over 330 boxes of alloClae to McGee, who loaded them in his pickup, drove them the 50 miles into Manhattan, and dropped them off at more than three dozen plastic surgeons and med spas, Giovannetti said.

McGee did not respond to requests for comment.

In January 2026, the state said in a filing that an unidentified "whistleblower" told regulators what was happening. Three months later, health investigators made an "unannounced inspection" at the office of Dr. Adam Schaffner, a Manhattan plastic surgeon.

Schaffner's paper trail laid out a shift in Tiger's shipping processes. Invoices from July 2025 showed Tiger had sent alloClae directly to his Fifth Avenue office. But starting in August, the month after the inspection, the products were mailed to homes and offices in New Jersey and Connecticut, and employees or Ubers would courier them across state lines, the health department said.

Schaffner, who declined to comment, received at least $95,000 worth of alloClae initially shipped to addresses outside of New York, according to invoices filed in court records.

Some boxes went to the New York City office of plastic surgeon Matthew Schulman, the FedEx records show. In a YouTube video posted last fall, he gleefully unpacked 287.5 cubic centimeters of alloClae as the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited" played in the background. Schulman's name, with McGee's home address, was visible on a shipping label.

If Schulman's boxes were typical — as a review of more than a dozen plastic surgeons' unboxing videos on Instagram suggests — a total of 15,840 cubic centimeters of alloClae could have been sent via McGee's home. The prices on 11 of Schaffner's invoices filed in court average $86.29 per cubic centimeter; at that price, more than $1.3 million worth of alloClae could have been shipped through McGee.

Schulman did not respond to requests for comment.

Tiger has asked that the state's allegations be struck from the court record because, among other things, they argue, the health department could be cherry-picking from its investigative file to benefit their case.

Some New York surgeons are still using alloClae

Doctors who received alloClae say they ordered the product from Tiger and didn't know the route it took.

"He had no idea that this was a challenge, or how stuff was showing up, or any of that," said Ken Sterling, an attorney for Dr. Jason Emer. Sterling said Emer has not been contacted by medical authorities.

Samira Shamoon, a publicist for Dr. Darren Smith, said in an email that "when Dr. Smith was using AlloClae, he purchased it directly from the company and had no knowledge of irregularities." Smith is no longer offering the product, she said.

ME Plastic Surgery, which has locations on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and in Queens, recently updated a blog post to say that it is not offering alloClae.

Several New York doctors said in early June that they're still using alloClae. Tiger has said it's suspending distribution to New York, but the product can still be "legally sold." In the meantime, doctors in the state continue to promote it.

Emer posted an Instagram video on June 12 showing himself injecting alloClae into a patient's buttocks.

"Don't be left behind," the caption reads, along with a peach emoji. The geotag: New York City.

• Buying rental properties is a popular way to get into real estate investing, but it's not passive.
• Experienced real estate investors are shifting from rentals to more passive strategies.
• Two popular, more hands-off strategies are real estate syndications and private money lending.

A popular way to get started in real estate investing is by buying a rental property. After finding and closing on a deal, investors place a tenant and ideally collect more in rent than they owe each month on the mortgage and expenses. Whatever is left over is cash flow.

It can be a lucrative income stream, but real estate investors are upfront about one caveat: It's not passive. Owning rentals means dealing with tenant turnover, maintenance requests, vacancies, repairs, and, in some cases, evictions.

That's why some experienced investors are using rentals as a launching pad. Once they've built capital and experience, they're shifting to more passive strategies that allow them to keep exposure to real estate without taking on the day-to-day responsibilities of being a landlord.

Two such strategies have come up repeatedly in Business Insider's conversations with financially independent investors: real estate syndications and private money lending.

Real estate syndications

A syndication allows investors to put money into a larger real-estate deal — such as an apartment complex, student-housing development, or boutique hotel — without personally buying or operating the property. A sponsor or operator manages the deal, while investors typically receive cash-flow distributions and, if the property is eventually sold for a profit, a share of the proceeds.

Cody Berman, who started with a house hack and later bought rentals that generated enough cash flow for him to live on, said much of his real-estate exposure today comes through syndications.

"My return on effort in my main business, my digital-products business, is a lot higher than my return on effort in real estate," he said. "I still want the real-estate exposure, but I don't want to go out there and just buy a 20-unit apartment building myself and then have to get it tenanted and figure out how to set up all the maintenance stuff."

In a syndication, Berman said, he might invest in a 100-unit apartment complex in another part of the country — a property he has never seen in person — because he trusts the operator running the deal.

"I will invest a chunk of money with them for some set period of time, usually somewhere from three to seven years," he said. "I'll make money every quarter on cash-flow distributions based on the rent the property is generating. And then if there is a sale event, which is usually the goal of a syndicator, then I'll get all my money back and some more in the form of a check."

He described it as "owning rental properties without actually having to own rental properties."

There are trade-offs. Investors in syndications generally do not have the same control or upside as the general partner running the deal. Their money is also typically locked up for years.

Choosing the right operator is crucial, added Berman, who relies on referrals, interviews, and research.

"Pretty much everyone that I've ever invested with has been through a word-of-mouth referral plus an interview, talking to the person, doing my research."

Private money lending

Another strategy experienced investors use to keep real estate in their portfolio without owning additional property is private money lending. Instead of buying or renovating properties themselves, they lend money to other investors who need capital for deals.

To get started in private lending, you need capital and, ideally, a presence within your local real estate community. Real estate is a relationships business, and typically, the broader your network, the more opportunities you'll encounter.

Carl and Mindy Jensen, who grew their net worth to more than $5 million and retired early, have tried a variety of investment strategies, including live-in flipping. They said that private lending is one of their favorite strategies.

"The private lending generates such a nice return that it's difficult to be like, 'No, we don't want to have the easy money. Let's go do another live-in flip,'" said Mindy. "But we're also in a much different financial position now than we were when we started live-in flipping, and I think that's important to note: You could still make money live-in flipping, and if you have more time than money, it can be a really great way to turn your home into an investment."

Josh and Ali Lupo, another financially independent couple, started lending to other real-estate investors in 2025, and it's resulted in double-digit returns.

"There are some industry standards," Josh said. "In the private money lending world, 10 to 12% interest is very common. That's the baseline."

The lender generally determines the terms of the loan, he added, and the rate can vary depending on the deal's length.

Private lending is not risk-free. One of the main risks is that the borrower fails to repay the loan, which makes vetting both the borrower and the deal essential. That due diligence takes time, but once the Lupos have completed their research and decided to fund a deal, the process itself is relatively hands-off, said Josh.

"It takes us 30 minutes driving to the bank, wiring the funds, and then the investor that is borrowing the money sends us updates, and that's the extent of it."

• Cooley is joining a sudden rush of law firms creating their own AI technology, with help from Legora.
• Cooley Go Lab is an online portal built to help startups with routine contract review and drafting.
• The portal will be available exclusively to founders in Y Combinator's summer cohort to start.

Law firms know more clients are asking chatbots for advice before ever calling a lawyer. So legal giant Cooley is building technology that it hopes founders will use instead.

Cooley plans to give select startups access to Cooley Go Lab, an online portal where founders can upload files and ask questions about their documents, Matt Bartus, global cochair of Cooley's emerging companies and venture capital practice, told Business Insider.

To build it, Cooley teamed up with Legora, a fast-growing legal technology startup that sells to law firms and corporate legal departments. Last year, Legora entered a new line of business with what it calls "portals" — white-labeled workspaces where law firms and their clients can work together on legal matters.

Cooley Go Lab is aimed at catching a common startup problem early, Bartus said. Founders often handle routine contracts themselves to avoid outside counsel's hourly rates. That can leave startups with a trail of messy agreements that their first in-house lawyer has to unwind later.

Legora founder Max Junestrand knows the problem well. When he started the company at age 23, he said he used an early version of ChatGPT to rewrite contracts. Junestrand, a software engineer, not a lawyer, said he let some early contracts include an unlimited liability clause — a provision that can leave a company exposed to damages far beyond the value of the deal.

"When our general counsel started, she freaked out," he said.

Cooley is now trying to give the next crop of founders a way to use artificial intelligence to move faster, but with a law firm's guardrails around it.

Cooley Go Lab will have a limited rollout to start. It will be available first to startups in Y Combinator's summer cohort.

Much has changed for startups since Legora's turn in the famed startup accelerator. Teams can write code and release technology faster with coding agents. They are signing customers and growing revenue earlier, and the hottest companies seem to be raising funding nonstop. But moving faster also means legal work that once came later in a startup's life is being pulled closer to the beginning.

At Y Combinator, partner Gustaf Alströmer is seeing that shift play out in real time. In the last batch, a record 14 startups reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue — the amount of revenue a company expects to collect over a year. Alströmer said giving founders access to tools like Cooley Go Lab could help them keep that pace without creating contract-slop.

The portal includes features that review documents like nondisclosure and contractor agreements and flag issues for founders to consider. The tool also draws on Cooley Go, the firm's central hub of standard startup forms, templates, and guidance.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

Law firms like Cooley are facing a new reality. The better the frontier models get at legal work, the more founders and in-house lawyers may decide they can handle situations themselves rather than send them to outside counsel. Anthropic is trying to make that easier with new tools built for contract review and drafting.

Law firms are now figuring out how to stay relevant as more legal work becomes software-enabled. Some are building their own tech. Kirkland & Ellis has tapped Palantir to help it build tools to manage parts of the firm's private funds practice, while Freshfields is working with Anthropic on software that could eventually be sold to other law firms. Harvey, a leader in legal technology, says it's getting into training custom models for law firms.

Taken together, the moves point to a new attitude spreading across Big Law: If clients are going to use artificial intelligence anyway, law firms want to shape how they use it.

Bartus doesn't seem especially concerned about losing business to in-house legal departments. Cooley has been on a hot streak. Profits rose 6.7% to $922 million last fiscal year. The firm also scored a fair use win for Meta in a copyright case involving its model Llama last year, and it advised Jony Ive's hardware startup Io in a $6.5 billion sale to OpenAI.

Bartus is confident that companies will continue to depend on law firms for the important work. Cooley Go Lab, he said, is meant to help founders handle routine legal work more cleanly, not replace lawyers.

Cooley says the tool is not protected by attorney-client privilege, so founders will need to be careful about what they upload because those materials could be turned over in litigation.

"If you want actual legal advice," he said, "you need to talk to a lawyer."

• Rankin Carroll emphasizes the enduring value of entertainment in marketing strategies today.
• Mars shifts focus to personalized, engaging content to better connect with consumers.
• Snickers' UEFA Euro 2024 campaign showcases Mars' innovative approach to consumer engagement.

After more than two decades at Mars, overseeing iconic brands like M&M's, Skittles, and Twix, the company's chief brand officer, Rankin Carroll, says one of the biggest mistakes marketers make today is forgetting a simple idea: entertainment still matters.

As marketers race to embrace AI, data, personalization, influencers, and new measurement tools, Carroll told Business Insider in an interview for its "CMO Insider" podcast that the industry sometimes loses sight of what consumers are actually looking for.

"I think what's critical to cut through is it's still a game of compelling stories," Carroll said. "People are still looking for content that captures their attention."

Carroll's comments come as Mars undergoes a major transformation in how it markets its brands, shifting toward more personalized advertising powered by data and technology.

Yet Carroll says all of those tools matter only if they help brands create entertainment that consumers actually want to spend time with.

Consumers don't want brands talking at them

Carroll says one of the biggest changes in marketing is the growing expectation that consumers participate in brand experiences rather than simply receive messages.

"We can get caught up in the data, we can get caught up in all the technology side of this, but at the end of the day, it's compelling stories well told in engaging ways that they can participate in," he said.

For Carroll, that is where entertainment comes in. Instead of interrupting consumers with ads, Mars increasingly wants to give them experiences they choose to engage with.

That philosophy has shaped several recent Mars campaigns.

Carroll pointed to a Snickers activation built around the UEFA Euro 2024 soccer tournament.

The campaign partnered with Meta and WhatsApp to let consumers send personalized messages to friends using an AI-powered José Mourinho character. Users entered prompts about mistakes their friends had made, and the system generated custom responses in Mourinho's voice.

Rather than simply promoting Snickers, Mars built the campaign to tap into behavior that it already understood about soccer fandom.

"We know the behavior around the Euros around football is banter," Carroll said. "You want to banter with your mates."

The result was an entertaining experience that consumers could actively participate in and share. "It just exploded," Carroll said.

Mars says personalization works best when it's entertaining

Carroll believes personalization has become an expectation, particularly among younger consumers.

"What we know is that consumers now, especially younger consumers, expect personalization from brands," he said.

But he does not view personalization as simply delivering more targeted advertisements. Instead, Mars is trying to build experiences that allow consumers to participate in the creation of content itself.

The Snickers campaign was one example. Another was the "Twix Harmonizer," a tool that allowed users to send voice notes to friends that would soften bad news through AI-generated audio.

Again, Carroll says the appeal was not the technology itself but rather giving people something entertaining to do.

"You cut through by creating an experience that they can actually participate in," he said.

Why Mars thinks many marketers are overcomplicating things

Carroll says that digital platforms have made it harder for brands to break through. Social media feeds are crowded, algorithms constantly change, and consumers have more content choices than ever.

Still, he says marketers sometimes focus too heavily on data, technology, and optimization while overlooking the importance of creating something people genuinely enjoy.

"I think that's the word that we've slightly forgotten about. Entertainment," Carroll said.

That thinking also influences how Mars approaches culture.

Whether it's Skittles creating unusual campaigns, Snickers building interactive experiences, or M&M's responding to controversy through humor, Carroll says brands need to find ways to participate in culture without losing their identities.

"We can bring something to you," he says of consumers.

For Carroll, that remains the foundation of effective marketing regardless of how technology evolves.

"At the end of the day," he said, "it's compelling stories well told in engaging ways that they can participate in."

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kymm Dracup, a 56-year-old based in Toronto. It's been edited for length and clarity.

My daughter says, "Don't worry, Mom, you'll get a job. I've seen your résumé, you're great." I don't think my daughter realizes the effect that my age, 56, has on my confidence and finding work.

I was unemployed for 22 months before landing a temporary consulting job a few months ago. There's no guarantee for a transition to full-time work, and I'm really scared about my future.

I've been rejected countless times, and I recently got evicted from my home. Unfortunately, I think my confidence took a hit, and my desperation for a job is coming through in my interviews.

I never learned why I lost my last job

I was the head of the management team for a group travel company for three years. In 2024, my job was terminated.

I asked for a reason, but I was never given one. In Ontario, you don't legally need to give a reason, so that was it.

It was very tough on my confidence to get let go. I still don't know the reason, but my best guess is that they were bringing in younger people with fresh eyes and innovations to replace me.

It's difficult to prove that age is hindering my job search

After losing my job, I started applying wherever I could, mostly for travel jobs, and later, any sales job. I received rejection after rejection.

I've been stood up for interviews, received automated rejections, and even had recruiters find excuses to end calls after seeing my face on camera.

Have you ever felt your age was a factor in a job rejection? Scroll down to the comments and share your experience.

It feels obvious to me that age is a factor in why I can't find a job, but the tricky thing is that there's no real way to prove that any of these rejections are due to my age. It hurts, and I don't feel as though recruiters see my value.

Applying to jobs felt different 5 years ago

When I was on the job market five years ago, I don't think AI was being used to sort through résumés.

Additionally, I've never interviewed online before now, and quite frankly, it's a bit intimidating. Therefore, I may not come across as confident, as there is an insecurity factor lending to the video.

I know how to sell myself in person, but I find it difficult, especially at my age, to do so over Zoom. You can be vibrant, brilliant, and all these things, but it's tricky because my generation is so geared to meeting people face to face. That is where we shine.

There are also only so few jobs available. I applied for an entry-level receptionist role for a yoga studio, and they stood me up for my interview. So many people are looking for jobs, and I think older people might not be the first to get hired.

I think my desperation for a job is making it harder to get one

As a single woman in my 50s, I don't have a partner to financially support me during this time. I feel desperate to find a job, and though I don't want it to come across that way to hiring managers, I think they can feel it.

When I get another rejection, the self-doubt that I'm worthless, too old, and that nobody will hire me comes back up, and the desperation intensifies. It's a vicious cycle. I try to tell myself, "Kymm, pull up your socks. Let's go. Go on to the next interview," but in the back of my mind, the doubt is still there.

Sometimes I'm joining an interview after not leaving the house or speaking to people for days. When I get an interview, I can't just snap my fingers and get out of that dark place.

I got evicted from my home and moved in with my daughter

My daughter has offered to let me stay in her home since I now have an income. I'm helping her pay bills while I figure it out.

I think it's very difficult for her to have a parent who is all of a sudden in need. I raised her as a single mom. I was strong, and now I just crumpled to the ground.

I've been in a really dark place, and I know that's not easy for her. What is helping me through this time is turning to God. I have to believe in something.

I wish I had been more prepared for unemployment in my 50s

Most people coming out of university these days are learning AI and are up to date with modern technology. When you bring in someone my age, it's different because the technology we had in school was pretty archaic.

I had no idea how difficult it would be to navigate the job market. I wish I were more prepared for all of the "no"s because it can be really hard on your self-esteem.

I wish that life experience were viewed as a more valuable asset in the workplace. It's been very hard to get out of that dark mindset when I keep receiving rejections. My advice is to find a way to believe in something better for yourself.

Sometimes belief is all you have, so you've got to hold onto it.

Are you navigating a career change in your 50s? Contact this reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com to share your story.

• Elon Musk sounded the alarm about Taiwan's vulnerability to a Chinese invasion, per a new book.
• He told Trump and tech CEOs that the US was "headed for disaster" in the event of a Chinese invasion.
• Musk was in a meeting where the CEOs discussed the possibility of bringing chipmaking to US shores.

Elon Musk expressed grave concern about Taiwan's dominance in the chip market — and the possibility of a Chinese invasion — in a tech CEO meeting at the White House last year, according to a book published on Tuesday about President Donald Trump's second term.

The book, "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump," by The New York Times' Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, reported that the SpaceX owner had met with Trump and the CEOs of firms such as Dell, Qualcomm, and Intel on March 10, 2025.

Haberman and Swan wrote that Musk told the gathering in the Roosevelt Room that he was "shitting bricks about our vulnerability to China."

But Musk had grown increasingly alarmed in recent years, especially over the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which would jeopardize the supply of high-end chips that Musk's companies depended on.

And now, with these CEOs as his audience, Musk was frantically sounding the alarm about the fact that an island country roughly the size of Maryland, floating eighty-one miles off mainland China, produced around 70 percent of all the semiconductors on earth and 90 percent of the most advanced chips. He was lecturing a gathering more familiar with this problem than perhaps any other group of people in the world. But Musk kept banging away.

"If we don't start building chips outside the zone of confrontation," he said, "we are headed for disaster." He reiterated the point: "Somebody's got to build the damn fabs [fabrication plants] outside the battle zone!"

According to the book, Trump said China's leader, Xi Jinping, had given assurances that Beijing would not launch an invasion of Taiwan while the former sat in the White House.

But Haberman and Swan reported that Trump added a caveat: "Could be lying. Taiwan is the apple of Xi's eye, just like Ukraine was for Putin."

The group of CEOs, alongside Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, then discussed how the US might claw back some of the world's semiconductor supply chain and shift factories from Asia to American soil.

"The United States will only have thirty percent of TSMC's capacity in 2029. If China invades Taiwan, the entire economy crashes," Musk said, per the book.

In May, Musk and other American tech CEOs, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Apple's Tim Cook, accompanied Trump on an official visit to China.

Musk was widely regarded as a figure who could help stabilize Beijing and Washington's economic ties.

Tesla operates a major factory, Gigafactory 3, in Shanghai that employs roughly 20,000 workers. The American automaker enjoys the rare arrangement of wholly owning the factory without needing a joint venture with a Chinese firm.

The White House and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

"Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump" is available for purchase on Amazon.

• The age of freewheeling AI spending may be coming to an end.
• Consulting firms are rethinking how much they, and their clients, spend on AI.
• Tell us how spending at your consulting firm has changed.

Companies are learning that there's such a thing as spending too much on AI.

As the cost of AI tools grows, executives are recalibrating. Amazon recently removed its employee-made leaderboard for tracking AI token usage because it encouraged excessive spending. Walmart, which developed a vibe-coding tool for employees, recently set limits on the use of tokens. Uber COO Andrew MacDonald said it's hard to justify the money his company is spending on AI.

Cisco Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel also pushed back on the cost of tokens. He said at an event recently that the price is "far higher than the actual value these tokens are generating at scale."

For the consulting industry, the rise of AI was a near-existential threat. At first glance, chatbots can do a lot of the work of consultants, particularly those early in their careers. Most firms moved quickly to attract clients who needed help integrating the technology into their own companies. And they quickly adopted it themselves.

KPMG, for example, has built a dashboard to track how often employees in its US advisory division use AI tools, part of a broader effort to move from basic adoption to more sophisticated use. McKinsey plans to go further. CEO Bob Sternfels said in January that the firm uses roughly 25,000 AI agents alongside its 40,000 human employees, and hopes one or more agents will eventually support every employee.

The surge in spending, however, has raised a question: Are companies investing in AI strategically or simply spending to avoid being left behind? It's something consulting firms are working to answer for both their clients and themselves.

Tell us how AI spending has changed at your consulting firm:

For now, the answer appears to be: keep spending, but more strategically.

In a recent report on corporate AI investment, Boston Consulting Group found that companies expect to more than double their AI spending in 2026, from roughly 0.8% of revenue to about 1.7%. For large enterprises, that shift represents billions of dollars flowing into AI strategies that remain, in many cases, experimental and difficult to measure.

Russell Fradin, CEO and cofounder of Larridin, a platform that helps companies — including major consulting firms — measure the returns on AI usage, said the spending trend will continue.

"We haven't seen anyone talking about spending less in AI next year," Fradin told Business Insider. "They're just talking about instrumenting to understand where it goes."

Companies, Fradin said, are coming to the consensus that they "can't 10x spend every year forever."

• The US restricted Anthropic's new cybersecurity AI models, prompting the company to suspend all access.
• The restrictions are creating winners and losers in the red-hot AI race.
• Mistral and DeepSeek could benefit as sovereignty concerns boost the appeal of open-weight models.

One company's headache may be another's opportunity.

The White House's restrictions on access to Anthropic's new AI models have created winners and losers across the AI industry.

On Friday, US officials restricted access to Anthropic's cybersecurity-focused models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, after concluding safeguards designed to prevent misuse of Fable 5 could be bypassed. The restrictions block foreign nationals from accessing the systems. In response, Anthropic shut down access for everyone.

The move has dealt a direct blow to Anthropic. But it may also strengthen the position of AI companies providing more open models that their customers can deploy and control themselves.

Here are the biggest winners and losers.

Mistral

The verdict: Winner.

Why: The French startup has spent more than a year making the case that Europe should not become dependent on American AI providers.

Unlike Anthropic, whose most advanced models are accessed through company-controlled systems, Mistral has championed open-weight models that customers can deploy on their own infrastructure and customize using their own data.

The Anthropic restrictions gave its CEO, Arthur Mensch, a real-world example of the risk he has been warning about.

In an X post on Tuesday, Mensch doubled down on Mistral's sovereignty pitch, saying the company's upcoming models would be open-weight because users should be able to "own, inspect, audit, or improve" the AI systems they use.

The timing couldn't be much better for Mistral.

France announced this week that its domestic intelligence agency would replace Palantir's AI data tools with those of a French provider, with Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu warning against "strategic dependencies" on foreign technology.

DeepSeek

The verdict: Winner.

Why: Like Mistral, DeepSeek's open-weight approach may suddenly look more attractive.

Unlike Anthropic's Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models, which are controlled by the company, DeepSeek's models can be downloaded, modified, and deployed by customers themselves.

That makes DeepSeek a beneficiary if governments and businesses begin prioritizing control and sovereignty over access to the latest closed models.

The episode also gives China an opportunity to argue that reliance on US AI providers comes with geopolitical risks, giving it a boost in an increasingly narrowing AI race. During an Anthropic event last month, its CEO, Dario Amodei, said Chinese AI models were roughly 6 to 12 months behind leading US AI systems.

Anthropic

The verdict: Loser.

Why: Anthropic is the company directly affected by the restrictions.

The export controls block foreign nationals, including Anthropic's own employees, from accessing Mythos 5 and Fable 5, which limits the company's ability to distribute some of its most advanced systems internationally.

More importantly, the episode highlights a potential weakness of closed AI models. Because Anthropic controls access to its systems, governments can, in turn, exert greater influence over who can use them.

The episode is also the latest headache for Anthropic in a monthslong spat with the White House after the AI firm said its technology should not be used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems.

In response, the US government designated Anthropic a supply chain risk, then Anthropic challenged the move in court.

US AI companies with closed models

The verdict: Short-term winners, long-term losers.

Why: While the restrictions may give a short-term boost to Anthropic's US rivals, it also raises uncomfortable questions for them down the road.

Companies including OpenAI, Google, and xAI primarily distribute their most advanced models through platforms and services they control.

Meta is a partial exception. While some models in its Llama family are open-weight, the company has increasingly been moving towards closed models that it has tighter control over, such as Muse Spark.

For governments and businesses, the Anthropic episode serves as a reminder that access to AI can ultimately depend on decisions made by providers and the governments that oversee them.

That dynamic could strengthen the appeal of sovereign and open-weight alternatives in Europe and elsewhere.

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• For the past four summers, my family and friends have taken a summer vacation to Colorado.
• But the kids go to summer camp during the day, so we parents get to have fun.
• I think it's important our kids see us be adults outside being parents.

For the past three summers, my friends and I have driven our families to Colorado to work remotely, be playful adults, and, in some ways, mildly neglect our children.

My friends and I work hard to nurture our relationships. Whether it's a constantly changing technological landscape or a precarious job market, the world around us continues to evolve quickly.

Maintaining a sense of interconnectedness in our friend group helps us to feel more stable, but it also allows us to find communal joy, for ourselves, explicitly outside our kids.

To further connect on trips, we take it a step further and send our kids to day camp so we can get some respite from our typical demands.

Sending our kids to camp gives us parents a break

Parental expectations seem endless these days. Under the umbrella of intensive parenting, there seems to be an implicit message: we need to be constantly available to our kids.

There's a steady stream of emails coming from schools, applications to download for every sport, and a birthday party scene that is, at times, unbearable. To avoid burnout, we need to strike a balance; to thrive, we need enjoyment.

To do so, our children attend a very reasonably priced day camp in Colorado while my friends and I take our own vacation.

It is a much-needed escape from commuting to an office, rushing to the school pick-up line, and making it to another early-morning sports game. A lingering benefit of the pandemic is that we are all able to slip into remote work for a short time; we take full advantage of the setup. Consolidating our work so we can enjoy our downtime is the goal for the two weeks in Colorado.

We commit ourselves to having fun and strengthening our bonds, hoping that our kids pick up on the importance of connectedness, friendship, and enjoying life in the face of unpredictability.

It's important our kids see us as real people — not just their parents

It's a nice byproduct that our children see their parents as their own people — adults who pursue fun and find ways to play.

We certainly field many comments about how "it is not fair" that we do fun stuff without them. But this does not deter us.

In fact, last year, during a hike through the scenic Rocky Mountain National Park, we ran into our children while they were on their own camp-sponsored hike.

That evening was full of more demanding questions about how we spend our time.

The fun doesn't end when we pick the kids up from camp

We have been intentional about picking an area where we can also let the kids roam a bit.

After-camp hours are filled with self-guided play and time spent outside. So, our evenings feel like a nice balance between connecting with our kids and giving them time to play with one another.

Through these trips, we also hope to instill a sense of independence and love of nature. The whole experience ends up allowing our kids to learn from each other in ways they won't when we are around, and the grownups get space for uncensored adult time, leaving us with more gas in the tank.

We are all set for our fourth annual trip. While the kids are excited to escape the Texas heat and get to the mountains, we adults have been planning for our own adventures. There has been talk of our favorite pastries for breakfast, tennis, hiking, and white-water rafting…none of which our kids are invited to.

• After traveling to all 50 states solo, I've narrowed down the best cities to visit in the summer.
• Places like Taos, New Mexico, and Anchorage, Alaska, experience milder temperatures in the summer.
• Lubec, Maine, and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California feel like they're straight out of a fairytale.

When the weather gets warmer and the days get longer, I think it's the perfect opportunity to explore new parts of the United States.

After visiting all 50 states solo, I can recommend dozens of places to visit in the summer, but some stand out for their solitude, outdoor activities, accessibility, or great weather.

These are the seven cities and towns I've been telling my friends to visit this year.

Chicago really comes alive in the summer months.

Growing up in Illinois, I spent many summer days in Chicago. But, honestly, it wasn't until I'd visited all 50 states that I understood just how magical the city becomes in the warmer months.

Each summer, Millennium Park hosts a packed calendar of free outdoor concerts and festivals, and the Riverwalk comes alive with outdoor dining and kayakers.

Plus, the lakefront beaches are among my favorites in the country.

Lubec, Maine, is one of my favorite places to visit.

In my opinion, Maine feels like a fairytale in the summer months. With lush forests, rocky coastlines, and quaint fishing villages — you really can't go wrong.

However, the place I find myself recommending most (and dreaming about visiting again) is Lubec. Home to the easternmost point in the contiguous US, this town feels like a Hallmark movie.

I love hiking at West Quoddy Head State Park, staying at The Inn on the Wharf, eating lobster at Fisherman's Wharf Restaurant, and hiking or biking on the Cobscook Shores Trail.

There's so much to do in Taos, New Mexico.

The temperatures in Taos, New Mexico, stay surprisingly mild in the summer months, with highs in the mid-80s and lows ranging from the high-40s to low-50s. This makes it a great destination if you're looking to escape those hot summer nights.

Plus, there's so much to do. I like to visit Taos Pueblo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America. Here, visitors can take guided or unguided tours of the Native American village.

When I want to spend some time outside, I hike the Williams Lake Trail, a beautiful 3.8-mile round-trip trek to the lake at the base of Wheeler Peak.

Jackson, Wyoming, is the perfect home base for outdoor adventure.

Summer is absolutely high season in Jackson, Wyoming, but to me, it's still worth battling some traffic to experience.

The town sits right outside Grand Teton National Park, and the outdoor recreation options in the area are almost overwhelming — hiking, fly fishing, rafting the Snake River, and kayaking across beautiful lakes.

Jackson's Town Square is worth an evening of its own for exploring the shops, grabbing dinner or a drink, or attending one of the summer festivals or markets.

Another perk? Jackson Hole Airport is the only commercial airport in the country located entirely within a national park — so you can fly straight into one of the most stunning places in America.

I think Anchorage, Alaska, is a must-visit destination.

I think everyone should experience the magic of Alaska in the summer. The days are incredibly long, the weather is mild, and everything feels more accessible.

Although there are lots of cities I love visiting in the state, Anchorage is my top pick because there's so much to do. I love visiting the Anchorage Museum, hiking the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, eating at Moose's Tooth Pub and Pizzeria, or grabbing brunch at Biscuitclub.

The town is also a good basecamp for day trips to Seward, the Kenai Peninsula, and Girdwood.

Brevard, North Carolina, is the perfect place to stay if you want to see waterfalls.

I think Western North Carolina is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. However, my favorite town to visit is Brevard.

Located in Transylvania County — known as the "Land of Waterfalls" for its more than 250 cascades — Brevard is the perfect home base for exploring the area.

Within the town itself, I love attending the concerts put on by the Brevard Music Center, a summer training institute for young musicians.

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, feels like a fairytale.

Even though I've lost count of how many times I've visited Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, I'm still not tired of it.

The downtown area genuinely feels like stepping inside a storybook, with whimsical cottages built in the 1920s, and 41 hidden courtyards and passageways filled with shops and restaurants.

I love staying downtown and just walking between the 17 wine-tasting rooms — it's one of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon.

• A nutritionist uses a simple diet strategy to boost energy, improve gut health, and curb cravings.
• Her 'triple 30' rule makes it easier to get enough protein and fiber without overdoing it.
• It's all about adding healthy foods to your diet, including treats like dark chocolate and popcorn.

Forget proteinmaxxing — a simple three-part rule can help you hit your goals without overdoing it, says a top nutritionist in the UK.

Dominique Ludwig has been helping people eat healthfully for three decades. She said most diet trends offer contradictory advice, wasting your valuable time, money, and energy.

"In a world where nutrition is very confusing, it can actually be really simple," she told Business Insider.

Ludwig's new book, "No Nonsense Nutrition," offers a road map for healthy eating principles that work for both her and her clients.

One of her favorite tips is the "triple 30" rule: eating 30 grams of protein at each meal, 30 grams of fiber each day, and at least 30 different plants in your diet each week.

Ludwig said that within four weeks of following the triple 30 rule, her clients can cut back on processed foods without feeling deprived or relying on complex or strict eating plans.

As a result, they often have reduced cravings and "food noise," better digestion, lower inflammation (which may translate to fewer aches and pains), better mood, and more energy.

"Sometimes you don't need to jump down every rabbit hole. If you just start with the foundation, you suddenly see that food actually can be one of the most transformational things we can do to our health," Ludwig said.

Eat protein at every meal

You're probably already getting enough protein, Ludwig said, but timing it correctly can help you feel full throughout the day.

"It stabilizes your blood sugars. It keeps you feeling fuller for longer," she said. "Having your protein in the morning is really important because if you get breakfast right, it sets the bar for the rest of the day."

She recommends aiming for around 30 grams of protein at each meal through sources like Greek yogurt, fish, chicken, or legumes.

That's about 90 grams of protein per day, although you may need more if you're larger or highly active. Research suggests that adults benefit from around 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (or 0.7 grams per pound) daily.

Getting the right amount of protein is also important for a long, healthy life, and we generally need more as we get older to prevent age-related loss of muscle tissue and promote a healthy metabolism.

"Proteins are not only for our muscles, but they're also for repair, they support our immune system, and our neurotransmitters. They're really important," Ludwig said.

Aim for 30 grams of fiber a day

While protein gets all the attention, Ludwig said fiber is an underrated nutrient that supports gut health, weight loss, and more.

"We're living in this massive fiber gap at the moment," she said. "It's the missing link."

Getting enough fiber helps slow digestion, which can promote steadier blood sugar and energy levels, helping you feel more satisfied after meals.

"Protein and fiber are like this dynamic duo; together they're bulky, and that means they switch on all these satiety mechanisms," Ludwig said.

She recommends 30 grams a day, slightly more than typical dietary advice, based on research from the American Gut Project, a study of more than 15,000 people led by the University of California San Diego, that analyzed health and eating habits.

High-fiber diets — rich in foods like beans, nuts, and whole grains — are also linked to a lower risk of chronic illnesses like heart disease and colorectal cancer, making fiber a key nutrient for longevity, too.

Include a variety of plants in your diet

The final 30 in Ludwig's formula refers to including 30 different types of plants in your diet each week, to provide a wide range of nutrients for gut health.

Your digestive system hosts colonies of beneficial bacteria, your microbiome, which play a key role in health, from your mood to your energy levels.

Ludwig compared the microbiome to a zoo: just as giraffes prefer different foods from lions, each type of gut microbe thrives on different micronutrients found in different plants.

Loading up on 30 plants a week is easier than you might think: every little bit counts, from the herbs and spices in your pantry to your morning coffee or tea.

And, she said, don't forget to treat yourself: fresh fruits, popcorn, and dark chocolate all help support a healthier gut in the long term.

• A version of this post appears in the CMO Insider newsletter.
• Sign up for Business Insider's weekly marketing newsletter.

Modern CMOs are getting the promotion they've long wanted: job titles like CGO that reflect their revenue and growth responsibilities. The catch? They're not getting more power.

That's a sharp tension at the heart of a new study shared exclusively with CMO Insider by the brand consultancy Lippincott. The study analyzed a survey of 541 global CMOs or equivalents.

"There is more responsibility but less of that autonomy in terms of getting a strong sense of alignment across the organization," Michael D'Esopo, Lippincott CEO, told me.

Nearly 80% said bureaucracy commonly got in the way of decision-making, while 84% said it was at least "somewhat difficult" to align their management team, senior peers, and other stakeholders around a marketing vision. Fewer than half (44%) said marketing operated with high autonomy.

One unnamed CMO quoted in the report put it this way: "What often happens is that a strong, well-founded idea gets gradually diluted. Someone senior, like a CFO or CCO, adds input that doesn't align with the evidence, and people hesitate to challenge it."

Part of the issue is that many CEOs aren't confident in marketing's ability to demonstrate a financial impact.

"There is a huge trust problem for marketing in the C-suite," former Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar told me in a recent interview.

Plenty of studies over the years have suggested marketing has a credibility problem in the corner office. A report released in April from the communications firm Boathouse, for example, found only 13% of CEOs were confident in marketing's ability to demonstrate a financial impact.

Those long-held tensions are being exacerbated by technological shifts, D'Esopo said.

The abundance of AI-powered dashboards and analytics tools has made marketing performance more visible across organizations, D'Esopo said. That can help CMOs appeal to finance leaders by showcasing short-term wins, but it can also reinforce a focus on immediate results at the expense of long-term brand building.

These new tools have also boosted marketing leaders who are steeped in data. Lippincott said 35% of marketing chiefs come from performance- or growth-marketing backgrounds. Around 20% of the senior-most marketing decision-makers don't even have "marketing" in their job title, reflecting the rise of chief growth, chief revenue, and chief commercial officers, per Lippincott.

That can have both good and bad effects.

The rise of performance-minded leaders may bring more analytical rigor to balance out softer marketing metrics. However, Rajamannar said they can use a brute-force approach, likening it to "running constantly on the treadmill." It can lead to chasing the next click, lead, or conversion rather than building the underlying consumer demand.

Short-termism is also creeping into new areas, such as AI search visibility. CMOs surveyed said their companies are spending more on AI while cutting investment in websites and content — the very assets AI systems use to understand and surface brands.

So if that's the diagnosis, what's the antidote?

Lippincott said in the report that CMOs need to use the language of business growth without losing the fundamentals of long-term brand building, which may require translating marketing's impact differently for each separate stakeholder, whether that's the CEO, CFO, or the board. And organizational alignment should be treated as a growth strategy in its own right.

PepsiCo's Jane Wakely, who has possibly the longest job title in the marketing profession — executive vice president, chief consumer and marketing officer, and chief growth officer for international foods — said CMOs should stay focused on the marketing principles that don't change. New technologies such as AI and diverse data sources just give marketers more ways to achieve their goals, she added.

"If I'm reaching a billion people every day, to grow I've got to reach more than a billion — it's quite simple," Wakely said. "That is not going to change."

• A neuroscientist worries some people are letting AI do too much of their thinking.
• Over time, she says, that could weaken cognitive reserve, a key defense against dementia.
• "How you use AI, not how often, will determine its impact," Vivienne Ming told Business Insider.

AI doesn't cause dementia, but how you use it could weaken one of the brain's core defenses against it.

That's the warning from Vivienne Ming, a theoretical neuroscientist, the chief scientist at the Possibility Institute, a metascience research group, and founder of Socos Labs, an AI and education firm.

"Your chatbot is not giving you Alzheimer's," Ming told Business Insider.

"My worry is the cumulative impact of chronic substitution: when you stop doing the cognitive work because something will do it for you, you stop building the reserve that protects you later," she said.

As AI has swiftly become an integral part of people's lives and careers, AI researchers and some tech leaders have been releasing warnings about its deskilling effect, the slow erosion of job skills, and the decline in independent thinking.

Ming went a step further, saying that repeatedly outsourcing mental effort to AI, especially among young people, could have real implications for long-term brain health.

"That's the group from whom I'm most concerned," she said. "How you use AI, not how often, will determine its impact."

Over the long term, Ming worries that routinely outsourcing thinking to AI could reduce cognitive engagement and make it harder to build cognitive reserve — the brain's ability to adapt and remain resilient in the face of damage or aging.

"The mechanism I'm describing is the classic 'use it or lose it,'" Ming said.

'GPT is the new GPS'

To drive her point home, Ming compared the effects of using GPS and an AI chatbot.

Researchers at McGill University in Montreal found in 2020 that people with greater lifetime GPS experience have worse spatial memory during self-guided navigation.

In a four-month small study conducted over four months last year, MIT's Media Lab found that people who used a large language model to help write essays showed weaker neural connectivity than participants who used search engines or no external tools, and often couldn't accurately quote passages from essays they had written minutes earlier.

These two examples, Ming said, are cases of cognitive offloading and surrender, or, as she put it, "delegating the effortful part of a task to an external system so your own networks never have to do it."

Her concern in both cases is that people may be engaging key brain functions less frequently, including the hippocampus, the part of your brain that is responsible for memory and learning, and the prefrontal brain networks that help with attention, self-control, and decision-making.

"The hippocampus and prefrontal networks doing that work are precisely the systems that matter for cognitive aging," she said.

"GPT is the new GPS," she added, referring to OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT, which she said could erode cognitive skills if people increasingly rely on it to think for them.

A matter of cognitive reserve

Research has consistently linked mentally stimulating activities to higher levels of cognitive reserve and lower dementia risk.

One analysis conducted by the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) in 2020 on 12,280 adults aged 50 and older, found that older people with higher cognitive reserve can expect to have a 35% lower risk of developing dementia compared to those with lower levels.

"The principle that lifelong mental engagement delays cognitive decline is some of the most replicated research we have," Ming said.

Importantly, Ming said no biomarker study linking AI use to dementia pathology has been conducted yet. Most of the data right now is "correlational or short-term," she said.

However, she thinks now is the time to start analyzing this cohort, "while the behavior is still taking shape."

"By the time we have the dementia data, a generation will have already formed the habit," she added.

• Ukraine's fast-moving fight means once-cutting-edge defense tech can quickly lose relevance.
• An official said counter-drone tech no longer ideal for Ukraine could still help allies.
• Partner nations want defenses fast as they prepare for Shahed-style drone threats.

A Ukrainian official said the country's earlier counter-drone technology, even if it's no longer sufficiently cutting-edge for its own fight, could still be useful for partner nations worried about similar threats and searching for good-enough solutions now.

Ukraine is in a constant innovation race with Russia, with both sides trying to rapidly develop drones and counter-drone defenses to beat the other side. Technology that was once key can rapidly become obsolete on the battlefield, yet still be a better option than what many allies have available now to meet the challenge.

Davyd Aloian, the deputy secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said some Ukrainian drone technology, including some early designs for interceptor drones built to shoot down incoming attack drones, may no longer be an ideal solution for Ukraine's needs but could still work elsewhere, where the weapons race is moving more slowly.

In the event of attacks against other countries in Europe, for example, he said "it would be better to have at least the solutions that showed their efficiency months ago."

Aloian's idea aligns with a key lesson NATO nations are learning from the war in Ukraine: having a lot of good-enough weapons available today beats a limited arsenal of perfect ones that come too late.

The deputy secretary said that this dynamic was visible in the Middle East during the Iran war, when the US and its Gulf allies faced attacks by Iran's Shahed drones. Though Tehran used some newer jet-powered one-way attack drones, like Moscow is increasingly deploying, it relied heavily on propeller-driven Shahed designs — the kind that Ukraine had been battling since early in Russia's war.

During the Iran war, Ukraine sent roughly 200 military experts to the Middle East to help nations strengthen their air defenses. It also sent troops and Ukrainian anti-drone solutions, which were used in combat. The fight triggered a sharp increase in interest in interceptor drones.

Aloian said that designs that were a year old and less relevant at home still proved effective in the region.

"We are ready to share our operation, technologies, and experience, and everything that will be needed in order for our partners to achieve the same level of defense deterrence that we have in Ukraine," Aloian said.

A starting place could be gear that Ukraine no longer has use for but could still prove practical for another operator in another kind of fight.

Aloian said it would be useful for allies to have "access to those solutions that are efficient." Even if they're not used in a fight, they could hold value as training tools, he said.

Ukrainian officials have said that Kyiv is willing to send partner nations defense technology, including interceptors, when it can do so without hurting its fight. It is also planning to export some systems, including long-range drones, that are no longer useful on its battlefield but still interest partners.

Aloian said that in the war with Russia, "speed is essential," and the defense industry has to work much faster than what allies are used to. Within months, "solutions will already be outdated."

Ukrainian officials have said that interceptor drone designs can change so quickly that the advantage of a new model may be negated within months. Companies are constantly upgrading platforms while swiftly phasing out obsolete systems. There are possibilities for those systems, though, in regions like the Middle East or elsewhere in Europe.

NATO countries are increasingly concerned about drones, especially after several Russian long-range drone incursions, but they are not under the same immediate pressure as Ukraine, which faces bombardments regularly. Officials have argued that, as they prepare for future drone threats, there is real value in defenses that are available now.

Ukraine has shifted from being a country many expected to be quickly overrun by Russia and urgently seeking help from cautious partners to being a source of new battlefield technology and tactical lessons that many Western militaries now want to study.

Aloian said Ukraine has "the experience, and we have the knowledge, we have the solutions" that it's already sharing "with our, not even partners, but with friends."

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Bose wants a bigger chunk of the music business.

The audio-equipment maker has created Bose Studios, an in-house content studio designed to help it shift from campaign-driven marketing, the company exclusively told CMO Insider.

One key differentiator is the launch of a new record label, Bose Records. Bose CMO Jim Mollica said in an interview that the plan isn't to go toe-to-toe with the "Big Three" label conglomerates, but rather to help break underappreciated or new artists and — crucially — not have to pay for music rights when they feature in Bose commercials. (Mollica said Bose wouldn't look to own the artists' masters, the company wouldn't take a share of their record sales or streams, and that they would be free to sign with other labels.)

Other big projects include commissioning original TV series and films "attached to some legendary Hollywood names," Mollica said. Bose is also planning a YouTube series, podcasts, and live music events — and could perhaps even buy a music media company. Some of those properties will generate their own ad revenue.

The launch of Bose Studios reflects a reality most CMOs face. Ad prices are higher, even though audiences are more fragmented and, in the case of TV, smaller. Consumers are actively avoiding advertising. Social media algorithms and the rise of AI search are disrupting the old ways that brands were discovered. Brands need to entertain to cut through.

"Our category, music, has a bunch of rituals baked into it," Mollica said. "If we have the opportunity, not to sell products, but become part of that ritual, then ultimately Bose is not an audio-equipment business anymore. We're about deepening people's relationship with music."

Much of Bose's prior marketing already focused on forging partnerships with music artists. Last year, for example, it teamed up with Blackpink's LISA to create customized earbuds, which it launched at a pop-up store in Los Angeles. This past February, it collaborated with the Grammy-nominated Twitch streamer PlaqueBoyMax, who created music on the spot during a livestream that aired during the NBA's All-Star weekend.

The record label and film productions signal Bose's expanded ambitions. Other brands, including Red Bull and Starbucks, have launched music labels in the past, though they were eventually retired.

Alexandra Annable, founder of Holl'r Music, an artist management and booking agency, said competition is fiercer than ever for emerging artists. For Bose to succeed, it might want to consider aligning itself with a specific genre, she added, pointing to Wingstop, which created its UK Freestyle Series for emerging drill, rap, and hip-hop artists.

"I think the only way brands can effectively engage with music fans is to create unique, content-led experiences, but these must be really authentic and culturally relevant," Annable said.

Steve Ackerman, a board advisor and consultant to media and entertainment businesses, said Bose Studios needs to ensure the content comes before promoting its products.

"The graveyard of branded content is littered with brands that have gone down this route and not understood what it means to be a content creator," Ackerman said. "They often defaulted to advertising agencies that don't understand how to engage with audiences; they just understand how to create content that gets in the way of the thing that audiences want to engage with."

Mollica, who previously worked at Disney and Viacom, said he understands the assignment. He said Bose Studios is not working with ad agencies and is recruiting and partnering with talent across the film, TV, podcast, and publishing industries.

"This isn't product placement; this isn't a long, 30-minute commercial," Mollica said. "These things are truly about how we are taking this authentic love of music and elevating the content that's out there today for true music fans to experience more."

• Panera Bread CEO Paul Carbone hopes to reverse the chain's slumping sales with a new strategy.
• The effort, named RISE, addresses customer complaints about food value and in-store service quality.
• The chain's latest menu launch, featuring new summer drinks and bowls, builds on the momentum.

As Panera Bread's chief financial officer, Paul Carbone once signed off on a change that looked good on a spreadsheet.

The chain swapped its salad base from 100% romaine lettuce to a mix of romaine and iceberg in the summer of 2024, a move he said was intended to save money.

Now, as CEO, Carbone says Panera is trying to undo that kind of thinking.

"No one really likes iceberg lettuce," Carbone told Business Insider. "No one looks at that white salad and says, 'Now that's worth it.'"

For Carbone, the lettuce decision — which was fully reversed in June 2025, shortly after he became chief executive — has become shorthand for a broader problem at Panera: Years of small cost-cutting moves, menu changes, and operational tweaks chipped away at the experience customers remembered loving.

Panera is now rolling out a summer launch tied to its broader "RISE" transformation strategy, an acronym for the steps of the turnaround effort, which stands for "refresh the menu," “ignite value," "serve guests with excellence," and "expand the network."

The latest evidence of that effort arrives this week in the form of new shrimp-topped bowls, upgraded salads, bacon-and-cheese breakfast frittatas, frozen coffees, and fruit-forward beverages — a menu overhaul intended to remind customers why they fell in love with Panera in the first place.

Carbone said Panera began developing the strategy last year after multiple years of negative same-store transactions. Sales sometimes rose, he said, but that growth was driven by pricing and mix, not by more customers coming in.

"The lifeblood of a restaurant company is transactions," he said. "So that's where we started to develop Panera RISE."

At its core, RISE is Panera's attempt to fix the complaints customers raised most often: food that no longer felt worth the price, fewer affordable options, weaker in-store service, and growing competition for diners' attention. The company spent months talking with thousands of customers to determine its areas of focus.

Carbone said many still had warm feelings toward Panera, but had stopped visiting because the chain had gotten too expensive, removed favorite menu items, or simply fallen out of their routines.

That's a tough place to be in a restaurant market where consumers have become increasingly selective. Business Insider has previously reported that diners are splitting along income lines, with lower-income consumers cutting back while wealthier households keep spending. Restaurants have responded with discounts and limited-time offers to improve value messaging, but analysts have warned that value alone is not always enough to bring customers back.

Panera's own traffic remains under intense pressure. Foot traffic has declined year over year every month from January through May this year, according to data from the foot traffic firm, Placer.ai.

R.J. Hottovy, Placer.ai's head of analytical research, said sandwich chains in particular have seen fewer visits than other concepts as consumers push back on menu price increases and embrace healthier eating habits.

Carbone's diagnosis goes beyond food. Panera also cut labor at cafés to cut costs, he said. The company has since added a front-of-house role, the Guest Experience Champion, to greet customers, answer questions, and help maintain dining rooms.

It is also rethinking how technology fits into the business.

"There was a time that if you talked to folks here, they would tell you that we were a technology company that sold food," Carbone said. "I will tell you emphatically, we are a restaurant company that uses technology to enhance the guest experience. We're not a technology company."

That does not mean abandoning digital ordering, kiosks, or loyalty tools. Only about a quarter of Panera's business is now eaten inside its cafés, Carbone said, but two-thirds of customers still walk into a restaurant, whether they are dining in, picking up, or ordering to go.

That means the in-store experience still matters.

Under RISE, Panera is adding new menu items and drinks, but the bigger bet is that customers will notice when the chain starts optimizing for experience again, not just efficiency.

Carbone said Panera's priorities now are simple: "Transactions, sales, profits — in that order."

After years of trying to drive growth through price cuts and efficiency, Panera is betting that getting more customers through the door again will take something simpler: giving them a reason to come back.

• Allbirds has been rebranded as Smartbird. Instead of selling shoes, it's an AI infrastructure provider.
• Nadia Carlsten, the new CEO, spoke exclusively to Business Insider about her plans.
• She wants to build custom, single-tenant AI infrastructure for mid-market enterprises.

A few years ago, Allbirds was Silicon Valley's favorite sneaker company. Now it's betting its future on AI infrastructure.

After selling off its footwear business and shedding most of its workforce, the company formerly known for its eco-friendly wool sneakers has reinvented itself as Smartbird, an AI infrastructure provider led by a CEO who has never worn its signature shoes.

The transformation is one of the most dramatic pivots of the AI boom and a test of whether a struggling public consumer company can transition into an AI company.

"I'm more of a high heels person myself," Nadia Carlsten told Business Insider in an exclusive interview. "I'm blissfully unaware of all things Allbirds."

For those unaware, Allbirds launched in 2015 and quickly became one of tech's hottest consumer brands, with its sneakers as much a part of the Silicon Valley uniform as hoodies and Patagonia vests.

After going public in 2021, Allbirds was worth nearly $4 billion. But the brand's cool factor faded almost as quickly as it arrived. By early 2025, Allbirds' market value had fallen below $20 million.

Then, in April, the company announced an only-in-2026 pivot: It would no longer sell shoes and instead become an AI infrastructure provider, going head-to-head with the likes of Amazon, CoreWeave, and Crusoe.

Some ridiculed the move as "bizarre," or even "ridiculous and concerning." Wall Street was more enthusiastic, with the stock briefly soaring 800% on the news, though it has since lost much of its gains.

The transformation became official on Wednesday as the company said that it has completed the sale of the Allbirds brand and footwear assets, changed its legal name to Smartbird, and appointed Carlsten as president and CEO. She replaces Joe Vernachio, who is resigning from the company and the board of directors.

Carlsten was previously CEO of the Danish Centre for AI Innovation. She also managed product portfolios at SandboxAQ and launched the quantum computing service at Amazon Web Services.

With nearly the entire company's staff gone, Carlsten is starting from scratch, except for the same BIRD ticker symbol that trades on the NASDAQ.

Business Insider spoke with Carlsten about her plans. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

BI: Did you ever imagine you would be working at Allbirds, and it would not be a shoe company, but an AI infrastructure play?

Carlsten: I've been around the block in Silicon Valley. It's not that unusual. Slack started as a game. Twitter started as a podcast. SpaceX started as a rocket company and is now doing AI infrastructure. So there's precedent for some of this.

Everybody's trying to be in the AI infrastructure space. This is probably not the most typical way to get into it, but we have a really good plan and strategy.

In a few months, people won't even remember the shoes.

BI: What does the company you're taking over look like at this stage?

Carlsten: The important thing to remember is that the shoe business has been sold, so anybody who was dedicated to the retail business is no longer part of the company. My first task is to hire the team. This is a brand-new company with brand-new people.

BI: Why not just start a new company?

Carlsten: In many ways, it is like a startup. I'm going to be growing a team, developing a new business model, approaching customers, and growing a pipeline of customers.

There are also some advantages to being a public company. One of them is access to capital. We have an easier time as we're looking at acquisitions and partnering with others in the industry. The liquidity makes it a lot easier to recruit.

In AI, speed is key. So why would you want to do things more slowly if you can do it faster?

BI: You're also now running a public company from day one, which brings a lot of scrutiny. Are you worried about that?

Carlsten: AI fluctuates, whether it's public or private. This is a business that is never static. AI is moving incredibly fast.

Customers are demanding things very differently than they were just a couple of months ago. So I don't think that makes much of a difference in how we will build the business.

BI: What exactly is Smartbird going to do?

Carlsten: We are an AI infrastructure company, and what makes us different is that we are focusing on the mid-market, such as enterprises that are in the pharma space or financial services space, and also countries that are interested in sovereign AI or having regional AI infrastructure accessible to them.

All of these players are doing more AI. They have more needs for persistent AI infrastructure, but at the same time, for whatever reason, they cannot use or won't use the public clouds. They are very interested in making sure their proprietary data does not enter a shared multi-tenant infrastructure system.

Right now, their choices are either shared infrastructure or building their own. And most of the people that I talk to in this space want to do more AI, but that doesn't mean that they want to build that AI infrastructure. Right now, they're doing it because they have to.

BI: You're going up against Amazon, Google, CoreWeave, and a lot of other established players. How do you plan to compete?

Carlsten: We're not competing head-on with hyperscalers like AWS or Azure or even large neoclouds like CoreWeave. Those guys are very good at building massive-scale shared infrastructure, which is the opposite of what we want to be doing.

We will focus on customers who need AI infrastructure at a smaller scale. Usually, they want single-tenant infrastructure, something that looks like a GPU cluster that they own and can fully control without having the disadvantages of managing the stack themselves.

BI: Where are you getting the GPUs from?

Carlsten: We'll be sourcing from multiple vendors. One of the things we'll be offering customers is the flexibility to build something specifically for their requirements.

BI: Are you going to buy the infrastructure or lease it?

Carlsten: We will purchase the infrastructure and build it out on behalf of the customer. We're not building ahead of demand. We are building something for specific customers.

We can be a lot more agile than the bigger players.

• As Americans use AI more they're trusting AI companies less, recent Morning Consult surveys show.
• At the same time, the popularity of nostalgic products like Lunchables and Capri-Sun is rising.
• The trend suggests consumers want the comfort of familiar brands in uncertain times.

The faster things change, the more we gravitate toward things that stay the same.

It's no secret that AI is disrupting many aspects of modern life, but recent survey data shows that the more people use the tech, the less they trust it.

The latest numbers from market research firm Morning Consult, released Tuesday, found that AI was one of the least trusted categories among US consumers, with seven out of 10 major AI brands seeing year-over-year declines in their net trust scores.

Google's Gemini managed to buck the trend and improve its score by six points to lead the pack with a net trust score of 24.

At the same time, some of the brands that saw the greatest improvement in consumer trust scores were decidedly low-tech and high-nostalgia: Capri-Sun, Lunchables, Hot Wheels, and Mr. Pibb.

"What unites them is that they belong to a specific register of American memory: the brand landscape of childhood, before adult complexity set in," Morning Consult said in the report.

The company has tracked trust scores for nearly 600 brands since 2018 and found that Americans' overall trust in consumer brands is higher than ever in spite of, well, everything.

Other high-ranking brands — Dawn dish soap, Band-Aid wound care, Heinz ketchup — are "reliable if not particularly exciting" and have "eliminated surprise from the consumer relationship," the report said.

The report also highlighted Gap's return to popularity, which it attributed to a heavy adoption of Y2K aesthetics, harkening back to a comparatively less complicated (or at least slower-moving) era.

Americans' fondness for decades-old standbys stands in stark contrast to their feelings about AI companies, many of which are evolving with head-spinning speed and driving eye-watering financial valuations.

A more detailed Morning Consult report on AI published in May found that more than a third of survey respondents do not trust AI "at all" — roughly matching the share of people who have a positive view of the tech.

Among ten of the leading companies, Meta AI, Perplexity AI, and xAI saw the sharpest declines in overall trust ratings since last year. One in five respondents agreed with the statement that AI companies' products present "a real risk" of ending human civilization.

"In 2026, a significant portion of consumers are in anchoring mode: seeking brands they can count on when other parts of their environment feel unstable," Morning Consult said.

Pylon CEO Marty Kausas had to make a difficult choice: scale back token spending, or stomach a $1.4 million bill.

Kausas said that his AI software company was fast approaching 150 employees on its Anthropic plan earlier this month, a point where the bill would more than triple. That realization got Kausas to declare the era of unlimited spending over — and he decided to set ceilings for tokens, the units of data that determine how AI is priced, for some of his non-technical employees.

Pylon's VP of finance is now exploring "where we should set caps," Kausas said. "This is just the start."

Leaders like Kausas are weathering a massive workplace shift, as more workers learn to love improved AI tools. Over the past few months, usage has moved from something bosses felt they had to incentivize to something they had to limit, due to skyrocketing costs and the realization that unlimited spending didn't always yield meaningful results.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said earlier this month he was blown away by how fast the conversation around AI budgets had changed. At the beginning of the year, "people were totally happy with the amount they were spending," he said. Now, these costs are "a huge issue."

It's not just CEOs and CFOs navigating these new corporate dynamics. For rank-and-file software engineers, part of their job now involves advocating for the compute they need to succeed. Meanwhile, some managers have to barter for their team's tokens, pitching like "Shark Tank." And, to poach red-hot AI talent, hiring managers are guaranteeing candidates tokens to spend.

A cutthroat Hunger Games for AI compute is fast approaching, one where everyone — from the C-suite to junior developers — is a player.

Token-fever whiplash

Max Kan's official job title is "tokenomics analyst."

At the data provider SemiAnalysis, Kan helps build token models for hedge funds and hyperscalers. When I called Kan in May, he was bullish on the impact that deep token budgets could have on the workforce. "It's basically true for everyone that, if you have an employee that's making $100,000 a year, you can probably make them 2x more productive with $10,000 worth of tokens," he said.

Those were the days of tokenmaxxing, when companies sent their engineers diving into token pools like Scrooge McDuck. Companies encouraged token leaderboards, where those at the bottom of the rankings felt pressure to use more AI, and executives across a range of industries couldn't stop talking about it.

The word "tokens" was used in 129 earnings calls in Q2 of 2026, up from 57 calls the prior quarter, according to an analysis performed for Business Insider by business intelligence platform AlphaSense.

Within a matter of weeks, the belt-tightening began. Companies began putting AI budgets on a diet and setting token limits. Coinbase set a cap; so did Walmart. Amazon shut down its internal token leaderboard.

Kan still advocates for big per-engineer allowances — and wonders what workers will think of the rapid discourse shift. He worried that engineers would think: "My boss is adamantly pushing me to do one thing, then I did that thing, and now I'm getting yelled at because I did that thing too well."

"I would definitely feel confused and angry if I were an engineer in those positions," he said.

Leaders across industries — from financial giants like JPMorgan to media conglomerates like Disney — are working to develop cohesive, effective AI policies.

Some firms have always been anti-tokenmaxxing. The enterprise software company Pega is one of them. When I hopped on the phone in May with its CFO and COO, Ken Stillwell, he called the trend an "incredibly self-serving" narrative by the AI companies. His company didn't set numerical token caps, but it did throttle requests that would spend in excess.

When we spoke a month later, as the discourse shifted, Stillwell felt vindicated. "We're quite happy that we're one of many talking about this," he said.

AI spending also continues to soar

Technology and media companies spent an average of $66.29 per employee on AI in May, up from $58.84 in April, according to Ramp's AI Index.

Ara Kharazian, its lead economist, told Business Insider he expected this metric to keep rising, but he spotted early signs of tightening, such as increased use of model routers, which can help better manage costs.

Some companies aren't cutting AI budgets just yet, but they are thinking critically about head count. For instance, MindFort, a Y Combinator-backed AI startup, has six employees. Its CEO, Brandon Veiseh, said the company would've needed 20 employees pre-AI to reach its current scale. Where have those funds gone? Tokens.

"We have to weigh our token-to-people ratio," Veiseh said. "It's not something we think is particularly comfortable or a great feeling to say."

Even though token costs are expected to come down as AI companies like Google increasingly compete on price by offering smaller, more efficient models, these sorts of tradeoffs aren't likely to go away. Often, the cheaper a resource is, the more of it is consumed.

For now, companies are thinking more critically and sometimes taking strategic steps back — but they're hesitant to move too quickly. Kausas, Pylon's CEO, said he wants to prioritize making sure there's a return on investment — and avoid engineer backlash.

"If we told engineers that they were not allowed to use AI products, they would not work here," he said. "It would feel like you were in the Stone Age."

Dawn of the token Hunger Games?

As engineers increasingly learn they might have to battle for their token allocation, team infighting could grow.

Some have compared this to a survival-of-the-fittest scenario. "Coding is now cockroach protein bars and we're all fighting for crumbs," said one coder on X, comparing the dynamic to "The Hunger Games."

Developers are also asking more about tokens during job interviews. Kausas said that applicants had asked him about budgets. AI advisor and AWS alum Allie K. Miller had heard of interviewees getting into the nitty-gritty: "What tier of model will I have access to? Do you have partnerships with AI labs that get us relatively early access?"

It's a sign of a new era where tokens — or at least the number workers want — aren't guaranteed.

Max Christoff, the CTO of legal tech company Everlaw, made the case for giving engineers token caps, but letting them negotiate for bigger budgets. He compared it to using cellular data before unlimited plans. Sometimes you need to spend big on the data, but other times you mindlessly scroll, not realizing how much you're wasting. Christoff wanted all of the former and none of the latter.

"We want to make it easy to ask for more if you can actually use it," Christoff said.

If a company doesn't set token caps, it may also set model restrictions. Russ Fradin, the founder of Larridin, a platform for tracking AI use, was emphatic. "Of course, they will limit who gets to use these tools. It's not even a question," he said.

Fradin compared allocating model access to taking a trip on the company dime. Many are allowed to book an economy flight, but few — if any — are allowed to charter a jet, he said. Access to cutting-edge AI models may be equivalent to the private jet: so expensive that only a few all-stars can do it.

Engineers have good reason to fight for their tokens. Having limited AI access could hurt them in the long run, leaving them less skilled or less marketable in future job searches.

Brock Simon advised companies on AI for Bain & Company before he founded his own startup, Native. He watched as some companies were slow to adopt the technology or restricted access to specific tools and agents, leaving their employees behind the curve.

"It really hurt some people's careers," he said.

• Billions of dollars are riding on the promise that artificial intelligence can absorb legal work.
• Crosby, a tech-driven law firm, built a benchmark to measure how well models negotiate contracts.
• Redline Bench is meant to help lawyers answer whether they can trust the technology's work.

Legal technology wants its vibe-coding moment. But first, it has to prove the tools can think like a lawyer.

Taking up the task is Crosby, a startup-meets-law-firm that sells basic legal services to companies, including Cursor and Rogo. On Wednesday, it released the Redline Bench, a tool built to measure how well artificial intelligence models perform real-world legal tasks, starting with contract review.

Software engineers have spent the past few years watching these systems get shockingly good at writing code and debugging errors. Now legal tech companies are chasing a similar prize: artificial intelligence that can review contracts, spot risks, and haggle terms faster and cheaper than lawyers.

But law has a problem that coding does not, says Ryan Daniels, a former in-house lawyer turned Crosby founder. "It's really hard to define 'good' or 'bad,'" he said.

Models can write code that either runs or breaks. Legal work is a murkier target. A sales contract can be edited, or "redlined," in lots of defensible ways, Daniels explains. A change that one lawyer sees as prudent, another might call too aggressive.

That ambiguity has become a headache for companies racing to automate legal work, from the scrappy neofirms to the model labs themselves. Anthropic has spent the past few months courting in-house lawyers with tools built for them. That push has been closely watched by investors. Earlier this year, Anthropic's new legal plugin stirred a sell-off in legal tech stocks.

Benchmarks are one of the main ways companies track progress. The labs building frontier models use them as stress tests, measuring whether a new system is better at tasks than the last one.

Coding has hundreds of benchmarks for evaluating models. But the legal industry still lacks a shared way to answer the question: Is the AI's work any good?

Crosby has been working on a new yardstick. The company pulled its engineers and lawyers into a tactical unit called Crosby Intelligence to build agents for Crosby's law firm and a benchmark to grade them against. That team includes engineer Sharan Ramjee, who worked on transformer models to sniff out fraud at Stripe, and Ross Weiser, a lawyer who joined from elite law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.

Crosby also partnered with Micro1, a company that helps model-makers recruit expert workers, to find more lawyers who could help define what counts as good legal work.

To build the benchmark, senior lawyers simulated software deals and marked the contract changes they considered most important at each stage of the negotiation. Those changes were turned into weighted criteria.

When Crosby runs a new test, it gives models the same contracts and asks them to make their own edits. Then a panel of three judges compares these redlines with the lawyer-built rubric. The judges vote pass or fail on each item, and the final score shows how often the models made the kinds of edits that lawyers considered important.

Redline Bench will be made public so any lab can put its models through Crosby's paces. Crosby also plans to regularly release reports tracking how major models compare.

The first release of the Redline Bench put ChatGPT 5.5 at the top of the heap, with a score of 50.5%, meaning the model's redlines matched half of the edits that lawyers prioritized. Gemini 3.5 Flash followed at 45.1%, and Claude Opus 4.8 scored 44.4%.

Crosby was able to test Anthropic's highly capable new model, Fable 5, only once before Anthropic pulled it off the shelves. The results were promising, with a score of 47.3%. When access is restored, Crosby will run the benchmark again and update it.

Crosby isn't the only company trying to measure how the models stack up. Harvey, one of the best-funded legal startups, has released benchmarks for case law research and contract review.

Anthropic and OpenAI also build their own benchmarks to measure performance on real-world tasks. But Daniels said those results can be hard to trust. Over time, the labs eventually tune their systems to perform well on their own tests, he said.

The stakes are bigger than a scoreboard. Billions of investment dollars are riding on the promise that artificial intelligence can lower legal bills and absorb work that used to pile up on the general counsel's desk.

Lawyers will only use the tools if they trust them. Crosby wants to give them a reason to.

• Ukrainian troops on the front lines can earn up to $10,270 a month based on how much they fight.
• That's nearly 30 times the average salary in the country.
• The bonuses are part of a new push to overhaul Ukraine's pay and contract system.

Ukraine is implementing a new bonus system that rewards frontline troops with cash for feats in battle or carrying out combat missions.

The incentives are part of a salary and contract overhaul announced on June 12, after years of Kyiv struggling with recruitment and reports of absence without leave, or AWOL.

The defense ministry said on Tuesday that the new system would apply to combat missions or tasks from the start of June, with payouts to be received in July.

The highest bonuses vary based on performance, and primarily apply to troops in the most dangerous roles, such as assault infantry, combat medics, and gunners. Each frontline soldier gets a base monthly pay of 20,000 hryvnias, or $446, but could earn up to 460,000 hryvnias, or $10,270, a month based on their service.

The full payout would be nearly 30 times the average salary in Ukraine before the war began; government statistics from January 2022 said the country's average monthly salary was 14,577 hryvnias.

A day at a Ukrainian-held position earns the soldier another 10,000 hryvnias, while each day carrying out more aggressive missions, such as reconnaissance, evacuation, or recapturing friendly territory, nets them 20,000 instead.

The biggest daily bonus is 40,000 hryvnias for each day spent in assault operations that result in a Ukrainian advance. The bonuses don't stack, so a soldier can only earn one per day — whichever is highest.

Then there are bonuses for taking a Russian soldier prisoner, which is 100,000 hryvnias split among all troops involved directly in the capture, and destroying an enemy asset or killing a Russian soldier, which is worth 15,000 hryvnias.

Commanders and their teams can earn an extra 30,000 hryvnias a month for performing combat tasks, and 50,000 hryvnias for running operations from command posts, depending on the time they spent on missions that month.

The grand total of these payments is capped at 460,000 a month, the Ukrainian defense ministry said.

While stationed temporarily in rear areas, troops instead receive a minimum monthly pay of 30,000 hryvnias. Ukrainian soldiers regularly rotate between fighting near or at the front lines and resting in safer towns and strongholds.

Drone pilots' and specialists' salaries are different, with a scale that pays more the closer they are to the front lines, up to a maximum of 120,000 hryvnias. They can also get bonuses of up to 100,000 hryvnias for participating in combat or performing command roles.

The defense ministry said it was also implementing a new system that allows troops who have gone AWOL to return to the military under the best-rated units and immediately receive gear, meals, and clothing.

The measure seeks to fix a loophole that led dissatisfied Ukrainian troops to avoid the bureaucracy of applying for transfers and force a move by going AWOL.

Ukraine's defense ministry has embarked on an aggressive overhaul since January under Mykhailo Fedorov, who was appointed to lead the ministry after a stint as the country's minister for digital transformation.

The 35-year-old has pledged to address many of the systemic issues and gripes that have plagued Ukraine's forces for years, including low morale and lack of command transparency.

"This is only the first stage of the comprehensive transformation of the Defense Forces of Ukraine," the ministry said on June 12.

• UK-based business owner Sean McDonnell relies on AI for his web design business and SaaS website.
• The White House ordered Anthropic to cut foreign access to Fable 5 while McDonell was mid-task.
• McDonnell emphasizes importance of backup plans due to AI tool disruptions like the Fable incident.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sean McDonnell, 43, who lives in England. McDonnell is the founder of the web design company Kaizen and the SaaS website Consigns. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Developing my website would not have been possible without AI.

I started my web design business earlier this year, which also led me to create a website that provides software to help companies track their waste. I run both of these ventures with my partner, and we enlist contractors for some operations and software development.

We're a small team, and AI tools are a big help. Last week, I saw a few posts online showing the amazing things that Anthropic's new Fable model can do.

I was keen to try this new technology, but didn't get much of a chance to use it. A few hours in, I was mid-task when the US government forced Anthropic to cut off foreign access to Fable with little to no notice.

The rug got pulled from under me pretty quickly, but because I was well-prepared, it didn't have a hugely disruptive impact on my business. It's a reminder that you can't rely too heavily on AI as a founder, and you should always have a backup plan in case of unforeseen circumstances.

I was keen to give Fable a try, but it was short-lived

I like using OpenAI's Codex for repetitive, code-intensive work, and Claude for tasks that help design the product's aesthetics. AI has been able to completely change the architecture of our codebase in a day, whereas a task like that would've taken a developer weeks to do manually.

After seeing so much about it online, I wanted to use Fable to conduct a full review of our product for safety and security flags. The model was in the middle of making some key changes to our codebase when it got shut off instantly with a notice saying, "Claude Fable 5 is currently unavailable."

I didn't realize until the next day that this had happened because the US government ordered Anthropic to block foreign access to the model. It's been a bit of a bummer, and I feel bad for the people at Anthropic for making a brilliant product and having the rug pulled from under them, too. I'm also quite annoyed we didn't get to do more with Fable. I think it could've propelled us so much further.

Being prepared helped us avoid a huge disruption

This isn't the first time we've had issues with using Claude. In the past, when we used Opus 4.6, it would stop mid-task because it hit the token limit so quickly. We didn't realize how token-heavy the tool was, and it left our codebase in a bit of a mess.

Because we'd learned this lesson with 4.6, we made sure we were more prepared for unforeseen circumstances with using AI.

When we started our product review last week, I asked Fable to create a guide that both Claude or other AI models could follow. This enabled us to pass the remaining tasks to other agents when we lost access to Fable. We passed some to Codex and others to Claude 4.8. If we hadn't been prepared this way, the Fable issue could've resulted in lots of work being out the window.

Fable getting pulled didn't have a major impact because we were ready for it, but it ruined our momentum. We're working on a deadline, and every minute counts, so delays like this can be quite disruptive.

Always have a plan B

This Anthropic incident has solidified my conviction that you can't depend completely on AI.

If the government were to shut off AI access completely, our business wouldn't end, because we've already built out our platform, but we are quite dependent on AI. A situation like that would likely increase our costs, partly because we'd have to switch to the old-school method of hiring developers.

In today's AI era, it's important to always have a plan B. Don't just rely on one AI tool. It's good to understand the strengths of different models.

Make sure you're documenting things as you go by keeping records that exist outside your AI tool. If Claude knows all about our code base, but it gets pulled tomorrow, would I be able to give that over to a developer? At this stage, I think I could, because I've been documenting everything as I go. It's a fail-safe.

A spokesperson from The White House told Business Insider, "The Trump administration is collaborating with AI industry leaders to balance cutting-edge innovation with national security concerns that affect both the United States and our allies."

Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Do you have a similar story to share? If so, you can reach out to one of the reporters at aapplegate@businessinsider.com and ccheong@businessinsider.com.

Last June, fashion models for the fashion retailer Rainbow received a warning: AI was ramping up, and the number of workers needed would be ramping down.

"You may have already seen some changes taking place both within the studio and on the site," wrote Rainbow's studio manager, Phil Caraway. The company had started "styling certain products, and generating avatars, with the assistance of A.I," he explained, and while he couldn't say for certain whether any freelancers would lose their jobs, he wanted them to "plan accordingly."

"Fewer people will be needed in the long term," Caraway wrote in the previously unreported email. "It is very likely that this Fall will see a huge increase in A.I. use."

Thus began what several models described as a year of anxiety and, later, anger. They could see the company using AI to create synthetic models within view of where they worked, the models told Business Insider. At the same time, the models' days in the New York office began to dwindle, they said, leaving many without work. Nearly a year after that June email, Rainbow has begun rehiring some models — though many remain out of work.

In March of this year, the models began noticing Rainbow marketing images that looked like them, but posed in positions or locations that differed from the photo shoots they had participated in. Many suspected the doppelgängers were the result of AI. The lookalike models cropped up across Rainbow's site, social media, and newsletters. A flurry of emails to Rainbow followed, along with a lawsuit by one model.

As AI technologies improve, workplaces across the country are experimenting with how to use them — and navigating the thorny question of their impact on human jobs. Creative industries like modeling are especially exposed as AI-generated photos and videos improve in quality.

AI is growing more common within the fashion industry. In a 2025 study from the Worker Institute at Cornell University ILR School and Data & Society in partnership with the Model Alliance, researchers said that e-commerce gigs were "more vulnerable to displacement by AI technologies."

Business Insider spoke to multiple Rainbow employees and contractors, all of whom requested anonymity, and also reviewed dozens of email exchanges and images, as well as modeling contracts.

"Rainbow is responsibly evaluating emerging AI technologies in the marketplace, and has and is committed to doing so in a proper manner," David Cost, Rainbow's chief digital officer, wrote in a statement to Business Insider.

In a follow-up email, Cost wrote that "Rainbow's dealings with its employees and independent contractors are private" and that the company disagreed with "much of the purported 'facts.'" He declined to comment on specific questions sent by Business Insider. "Rainbow has acted appropriately and in accordance with its commitments, including contracts signed by models," he added.

Here's how Rainbow's AI model experiment got messy, according to its workers — from a slowdown on human modeling work to contract disputes and hiring some of the models back.

Rainbow, founded in Brooklyn over 90 years ago, has over 800 stores nationwide and is privately owned. The retailer caters to thrifty consumers with steep discounts, similar to Fashion Nova or PrettyLittleThing. It also operates the similar brand KissDon'tTell.

For its e-commerce shoots, the Rainbow team looked for models without agency connections, one former stylist who helped recruit models said. Two models said that they were found on Instagram and had little paid modeling experience. Fees varied by model, though many said they made around $50 an hour.

Three models said that one Rainbow employee told them to be available for five days of work a week. The former stylist said that Rainbow asked its freelancers to be available Monday through Friday, but that it wasn't written into their contracts. Two models said they left their prior jobs for the company.

Partway through 2025, the models began to notice something different in the studio: AI training. Employees would lay out the clothes on a flat board, take photos, and upload them to an AI program called Lica, one employee said. Lica generated fully synthetic AI models — not duplicates of human models — for Rainbow, the employee said.

The AI training caused significant anxiety among the models, they said. Trying to lighten the mood, some models said they would crack dark jokes about the system replacing them. Two models said that they recalled instances where the fit of a garment on their body was compared to an AI avatar, pointing out where the avatar needed to be more realistic.

After Carraway's June email a year ago, the models braced for their work to drop off. For months, several models said that they continued to get consistent bookings. Then, they slowed down, the models said, and by mid-March of this year, the work dried up. Some models submitted their availability but said they received no response.

During that period, two Rainbow employees who are not models said that they went weeks without seeing any human models in the studio.

Meanwhile, the models started spotting their doppelgängers on Rainbow's social media.

The models had previously participated in product shots wearing Rainbow apparel, such as a long floral dress, while photographed in front of plain backgrounds.

The doppelgängers they later noticed looked strikingly similar — the same builds, facial features, and outfits they had worn — but were pictured with their bodies in entirely different positions. The models texted these images back and forth in a group chat. Business Insider viewed over a dozen such images.

The second clause of the contracts many of the models had signed allowed Rainbow to use their images "whether intact or in part, composite or distorted in character or form, cropped or altered, without restrictions as to changes or transformations."

One image that sparked conversation in the group chat showed what the models suspected was an AI lookalike that altered the model's original skin tone. The model and the suspected AI lookalike had some similarities — the hairstyle and placement of the hair part, as well as the accessories and shoes — but also some differences, such as the nose shape.

None of the employees Business Insider spoke to had directly seen the creation or editing of these doppelgängers.

Several of the models who suspected that Rainbow was modifying their likenesses with AI raised issues with the company via email.

One of the models, Francheska Pujols, sued Rainbow on May 22, alleging the images defamed her and caused confusion over her endorsement of the company's products, among other allegations.

Pujols wrote in an affidavit that her contract only covered images captured in photo shoots, and "does not in any way authorize the creation of entirely new images, scenes, poses, or compositions that did not exist in the original content."

Rainbow posted photos of what Pujols said is her AI doppelgänger; in one, she straddles a barstool. Another shows her seated, wearing a short skirt, with one leg raised.

Pujols wrote to Business Insider that she would "never pose with my legs open or position myself in a sexualized manner for the world to see."

"I am extremely emotional and have many sleepless nights with the thought of the altered images of me," Pujols wrote. "I sought a professional aide to help with sleep and reconciliation."

Pujols withdrew her suit on May 29 to pursue a private settlement, her attorney wrote in an affidavit. She refiled the lawsuit on Monday.

"As Rainbow has stated previously in relation to this matter, Ms. Pujols' images were used properly and in accordance with the agreement she signed," Joan McGillycuddy, Rainbow's chief legal officer, wrote in a statement to Business Insider. "There is no violation of her rights."

Rainbow's contracts said the models would receive double their day rate for image use outside that second clause. Some models requested compensation for the suspected AI images but were turned down, according to their messages, which were viewed by Business Insider.

Then, the contract back-and-forth began.

On March 10, amid the work slowdown, Caraway sent an email to the models. "To account for today's rapidly-changing technology and expectations of use, Rainbow has come up with an updated Model Release," Caraway wrote.

One clause in the new contract was particularly controversial — one that the models interpreted as granting Rainbow sweeping AI rights.

The new clause allowed Rainbow to use "various technologies, tools, or production methods now known or later developed, including automated or computer-assisted techniques." The clause should be interpreted "broadly" as long as the company was not "materially misrepresenting the model," the contract read.

Some of the models said they refused to sign it. On March 28, Carraway emailed the models that Rainbow agreed to remove a non-compete clause, but the technology usage clause was presented as a dealbreaker.

"Rainbow cannot adjust the AI clause," Caraway wrote. "In order to continue to be hired, this must be agreed to."

It's not clear if the contract negotiations contributed to or prolonged the work slowdown.

Cost, Rainbow's CDO, hyped up the AI program Lica in an April video reposted by the startup's cofounder.

"It's amazing what the people at Lica have been able to do," he said. "We're using them for product photography. We're also using them for editorial or things that you'd see on a homepage or in an email."

Two staffers said the tool was buggy. Some of the synthetic models' legs were too short, one said; the AI repeatedly generated one synthetic model with a white cardigan over her clothes. Creating an AI image would also take long stretches of re-prompting, they said, often around 15-30 minutes.

Rainbow is no longer using Lica, one staffer said. Lica told Business Insider in a statement that it is "focused on foundational AI research for multimodal design models."

"As part of our research efforts, we provided interested enterprise partners with early access to emerging AI capabilities and model technologies," a Lica representative wrote. "We do not direct, supervise, or control our customers' implementation decisions, and we do not publicly comment on specific customer use cases."

Rainbow began bringing some of its human models back at the end of April, employees said.

This time around, some of the models received an agreement with the following clause: "Company will not create digital replicas, train AI on Model likeness, or generate synthetic images not based on original Content."

Rainbow is still producing images of the AI avatars, one staffer said, but not with Lica.

Cost, the company's chief digital officer, referenced the state of AI experimentation at Rainbow in his LinkedIn job description.

"Every experiment designed to replace a person with AI failed," Cost wrote. "Every experiment designed to give a talented person more capability won, and won bigger than expected."