• Flip phones, portable CD players, and point-and-shoot cameras — what's old is new again.
• Meet the 28-year-old founder of Kickback, a brand that sells retro-inspired and refurbished gadgets.
• London Jackson runs a full-time business around nostalgia for the earlier days of tech.

London Glorfield isn't a Luddite — he just wants tech products to feel a little less soul-sucking.

"Tech is a sea of sameness right now," Glorfield, who goes by London Jackson professionally, told Business Insider in an interview. "It's so boring."

Young people are hungry for retro tech, especially in the AI era. Analog has taken on a new meaning. It's often not used literally, but instead as a blanket term for any tech that feels slower than what we've grown accustomed to. Digital point-and-shoot cameras? Analog. CD player? Analog. Wired headphones? Analog.

"I call it dumb tech," Jackson, a 28-year-old based in New York, said. He's built a business around it called Kickback, which he cofounded in 2024, after years of working as a musician.

The business started with cassette tapes, then a record player (which sells for $500), and then a portable CD player (which goes for $99 and has been stocked at Urban Outfitters and the MoMA Design Store). Kickback's business is one part re-imagined retro tech and another part refurbished gadgets. For the latter, Kickback works with a network of resellers and takes up to a 40% cut.

Late last year, Jackson dropped a limited collection of refurbished Motorola Razrs, a cellphone you may remember from the 2000s. The phones are sleek and colorful, and they bring back memories — at least for me — of flipping the phone open to hit speed dial.

The collection — 100 phones — sold out within minutes. A set of MP3 players also sold out.

Most recently, Kickback launched a line of $70 point-and-shoot cameras modeled after 2000s designs, in a collaboration with the musician Brent Faiyaz.

"It's just as much of a fashion flex as it is a way to unplug," Jackson said of the company's products.

Nostalgia is paying off.

In 2025, Kickback's total revenue surpassed $750,000, and it sold over 7,000 products, according to documentation provided by Jackson. Kickback brought in a gross profit of roughly $460,000.

Nostalgia as a marketing engine

Yearning for the early 2000s is shaping Kickback's design choices and marketing.

Whether it's rebooting Y2K gadgets or reviving the aesthetic of disposable film cameras, nostalgic marketing messaging is all about bringing people back to an offline world.

"It allows us to tell the story of this elusive, simpler time," Jackson said.

"I don't actually know if it was simpler," he added. "I was a baby. But when I look back at a time without constant notifications and constantly being expected to be online … that sounds like a vacation. To me, that sounds like a luxury."

Ironically, being online is also part of the business. Jackson's own presence on Instagram and TikTok is the crux of Kickback's marketing strategy.

Jackson is one of many young founders turning to the content creation engine. Between posts about brand building and design aesthetic, Jackson promotes Kickback's products — like its portable CD player — by talking about wanting to get offline.

"I'm trying to spend less time on my phone, man," he said in a February video.

Old tech, new business

Selling physical products direct-to-consumer isn't a gold rush, though it has become Jackson's full-time job.

"There's months where I've had to tap into savings," he said. "It's totally changed month to month, and that's something we're really trying to stabilize this year."

Kickback raised about $300,000 in venture capital funding in 2025.

Jackson wants to grow Kickback's team. So far, he has primarily run the business by working with third-party factories, a designer based in Copenhagen, and a network of refurbishers. In April, he hired a chief operating officer.

"This cultural shift away from wanting to be on your phone all the time has been hugely beneficial to us," Jackson said.

• Business Insider is compiling its third annual list of VCs funding social startups.
• We want to hear from you about who the standout VCs are in 2026 — and where they're placing bets.
• Please submit your ideas through this form (or below) by June 4.

With AI taking over feeds and the biggest social media platforms feeling less social than ever, there's an opportunity for a breakthrough startup.

Business Insider wants to know: Who is backing those companies?

Some venture capitalists are on the hunt for the "next big thing" in consumer technology — even as VC interest in the broader consumer category is in flux.

There are new social networking startups vying to be the next generation's Facebook, Tumblr, or TikTok. The space is also brimming with new companies trying to disrupt dating and day-to-day life with AI assistants that help you navigate your in-real-life relationships and plans.

We're publishing our third annual list of investors funding innovative startups building technology that's advancing the internet, and meeting the needs of people who want to feel more connected (whether that's online or IRL).

In 2025, the investors Business Insider highlighted were placing bets in categories like IRL social, vibe coding, and platforms for niche interests or communities.

This year, we want to know which leading investors are backing social and consumer-facing internet startups, and where they are placing their bets.

Please submit your ideas through this form (or below) by June 4:

• Two internet relics are rising from the dead this week: Friendster and Vine.
• DiVine, backed by Jack Dorsey, launched a decentralized version of the short-form video app, Vine.
• Friendster, an early social network, is back with a new founder and a different experience.

It's time to welcome back two social networks we once loved: Friendster and Vine.

After shutting down in the 2010s, the two social media platforms are rising from the dead this week.

Both of the apps, however, are Frankenstein versions of their predecessors. Neither is being resurrected by its original founders, and the app design and experiences differ from the original platforms.

Nostalgia for a simpler internet, especially for those who remember the early days with rose-colored glasses, is partially fueling this resurgence.

Evan Henshaw-Plath — who goes by Rabble — is the early Twitter employee behind the Vine reboot, DiVine.

He said that "people look back" at the era of social media before everything got so darn big. People not only miss the features and feel of these old apps, but also that time period.

"It's very telling that in the beginning of the year, people were looking back to 2016," he said, referring to a social media trend of people romanticizing that year.

Vine officially shut down in 2017 after being acquired by Twitter in 2012, paving the way for the rise of TikTok and other short-form feeds.

Its remake, DiVine, revived hundreds of thousands of old Vine videos from digital archives. Users can post new Vine-style six-second videos. The content must be filmed directly within the app, and DiVine has a firm anti-AI-slop stance. The project is also decentralized and built on Nostr, an open-source protocol not owned by a single company.

DiVine is funded by And Other Stuff, a nonprofit that received a $10 million grant from Jack Dorsey.

Meanwhile, Friendster, a social network that predated Myspace and Facebook, was rebuilt by startup founder Mike Carson as a no-frills mobile social app for your real-life friends. For example, users can only add new friends by tapping their iPhones in person. (So far, I have a grand total of one friend: Business Insider's Katie Notopoulos, who told me she was an OG Friendster fan.)

Carson told Business Insider that he paid about $30,000 for the Friendster domain and trademark.

After being overtaken by the rise of Myspace and then later Facebook, Friendster rebranded as a gaming company in 2011. By 2015, it shut down its website.

The new app — which doesn't resemble the former version much other than its shared name — quickly jumped to No. 12 in Apple's App Store social networking category on Thursday.

Unlike DiVine, the new Friendster doesn't have access to any of the prior version's data or content.

What's old is new again on the internet

I'm not old enough to be on the original Friendster, but I remember the Vine days well. I'm also not alone in feeling nostalgic for the earlier days of the internet (or particularly, the 2010s).

Carson wrote in a Medium post this week that while today's social networks "foster a lot of negativity," he remembers the original days of Friendster as "a positive and enjoyable experience."

DiVine and Friendster aren't the only internet relics that have been resurrected recently.

Last year, Digg, once a rival to Reddit, was revived by its original cofounder, Kevin Rose, and Alexis Ohanian (a cofounder of Reddit). In March, however, the company said it was downsizing its team and rethinking its strategy.

Building any new social platform is an uphill battle, even if you have a recognizable name from a previous era.

People are loyal to the platforms they've already dug their heels into, and getting them to migrate can be challenging, Digg's CEO Justin Mezzell wrote in a letter shared to the platform's website.

Friendster and DiVine could face similar challenges.

What's abundantly clear is that there's an appetite among founders to build alternative social platforms — especially those that strike a nostalgic chord. Newer startups, like Perfectly Imperfect or Cosmos, are leveraging nostalgia to build platforms that feel reminiscent of Tumblr.

The big question: Can they actually build a community?

Tech founders can build new spaces, or reimagine old ones, but getting users to stay, return, and create a culture is what gives an app life (or breathes life back into one).

"It is not the software, it is not the founder, it is not the team," Henshaw-Plath said. "It is the community of users that makes these things work."

• Meta and YouTube were found negligent in a landmark social media addiction trial.
• The case centered on a woman who said social media harmed her mental health from a young age.
• The case is viewed as a key test of how juries may see dozens of similar pending lawsuits.

Meta and Google were found negligent in a social media addiction trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday, potentially setting the stage for dozens of similar lawsuits that have been brought against Big Tech companies.

The case centered on a 20-year-old woman, identified as KGM, who said her use of social media from a young age was detrimental to her mental health and accused the companies of knowingly engineering their products to addict kids.

After nine days of deliberation, the jury found Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, negligent. In a 10-to-2 vote, the jury also ruled that the two companies knew their design was "dangerous" but failed to warn the plaintiffs.

The jury awarded the plaintiff $6 million. That's $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $3 million in punitive damages.

The jury determined Meta was responsible for 70% of the harm, while YouTube was responsible for 30%. That means the total damages owed by Meta is $4.2 million, while YouTube owes $1.8 million.

The plaintiff's lead counsel, the Lanier Law Firm, called the verdict "a referendum" in a statement. "For years, social media companies have profited from targeting children while concealing their addictive and dangerous design features," the statement said.

Spokespeople for Meta and Google both said the companies disagreed with the verdicts and plan to appeal.

"Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app," a Meta spokesperson said. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online."

"This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site," the Google spokesperson said.

The Los Angeles state court trial has been viewed as a bellwether, offering a key test of how juries may see similar personal injury lawsuits brought by over 2,000 individuals. Meta has said potential damages in certain cases could reach into the "high tens of billions of dollars."

TikTok and Snapchat were also defendants, but settled the lawsuit before the trial began.

Meta executives testified at the trial last month, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, drawing large crowds of media and concerned parents, including some involved in other social media addiction lawsuits. YouTube's VP of engineering, Cristos Goodrow, also testified.

The companies have argued that plaintiffs' struggles are due to myriad reasons and can't necessarily be linked to social media.

During Meta's closing argument at the Los Angeles trial, Paul Schmidt, one of the company's attorneys, said the plaintiff needed to prove that if Instagram were taken away from KGM, her "life would be meaningfully different."

"The evidence has shown just the opposite," Schmidt said.

In January, Meta warned investors that its mounting legal battles related to youth safety could "significantly impact" its 2026 financial results. Attorneys for more than 100,000 individual arbitration claimants have "sent mass arbitration demands relating to 'social media addiction'" since late 2024, the company said in a 2026 10-K, specifically noting the case in Los Angeles, as well as a separate case in New Mexico.

The New Mexico case, which occurred at the same time as the Los Angeles trial, addressed different legal and technical issues.

On Tuesday, a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million after a verdict came down in the state's lawsuit against the company about sexual exploitation.

Meta said it would appeal the case.

• Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos wants AI to help Hollywood make "better" movies and TV shows.
• Sarandos said AI won't move the needle by just making content faster and cheaper.
• Netflix recently acquired Ben Affleck's AI editing company, InterPositive.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos doesn't think AI slop will rule the entertainment world.

"I don't think faster and cheaper matters if it's not better," Sarandos said of using AI in a new interview with POLITICO, which, like Business Insider, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. "This is the most competitive time in the history of media. So you've got to be better every time out of the gate."

AI startups building tools for entertainment companies and creatives — from special effects to content generation — have been a growing presence in Hollywood.

For instance, Netflix recently acquired InterPositive, an AI startup that develops tools for filmmakers, founded by actor Ben Affleck.

"My focus is that AI should be a creator tool," Sarandos told POLITICO. "The same way production tools have evolved over time, AI is just a rapid, important evolution of these tools."

Sarandos said that while AI can be useful for editing and production, good content "still requires writers and actors and lighting techs."

One category where Sarandos said AI hasn't been able to replace human talent is voice acting.

"The one thing that we find to be the most important part of dubbing is the performance. So good voice actors really matter," he said. "Yeah, it's a lot cheaper to use AI, but without the performance, which is very human, it actually runs down the quality of the production."

Still, he sees an opportunity in the voice category.

"I think what will happen is you'll be able to do things like pick up lines that you do months and months after the production," he said. "You'll be able to recreate some of those lines in the film without having to call everybody back and redo everything, which will help make a better film."

• Young tech startup founders are having a moment in the AI era.
• From teenagers to 20-somethings, these founders are raising millions.
• Take a look at the pitch decks some of these founders shared with Business Insider.

Tech is no stranger to young founders.

Steve Jobs was 21 when he cofounded Apple in 1976. Mark Zuckerberg was 19 when Facebook launched. Whitney Wolfe Herd was 25 when she unveiled Bumble.

Many of today's startup founders are still young and scrappy. And in the age of AI, they're even more empowered to barrel ahead.

Some are following the footsteps of tech titans before them and dropping out of college. Others are opting out of the undergraduate experience altogether, with a few ditching high school to pursue careers in tech.

Arlan Rakhmetzhanov, founder of AI coding startup Nozomio, told Business Insider that he dropped out of high school in Kazakhstan after getting accepted into the competitive startup accelerator program, Y Combinator (YC). At the age of 18, he raised $6.2 million for Nozomio.

Rakhmetzhanov isn't the only teenager finding success in AI. There's also Toby Brown, a UK teen who raised $1 million for his AI project. There's also Zach Yadegari, the teenage cofounder of Cal AI, a nutrition app.

College-aged founders are also building companies and raising capital, such as the Yale students behind Series AI, a new social networking startup.

The median age for YC participants is now 24 years old, compared to 30 in 2022, YC's Pete Koomen told The New York Times in August.

Business Insider has interviewed the founders of 12 startups who are 25 years old or younger and have raised millions in funding since 2024 about the pitch decks they used to impress investors.

Read 12 pitch decks founders who are 25 years old or younger used to raise millions:

Note: Founders were 25 or younger when Business Insider published the following articles.

Series A

• Posh, an events platform, raised a $22 million Series A when its founders were 23. Read the 12-page pitch deck it used.
• Clyx, a startup trying to connect people via in-person events, raised a $14 million Series A when its founder was 25. Read 22 pages of its deck.

Seed

• Ditto, an AI dating startup founded by UC Berkeley dropouts, raised $9.2 million when the founders were 23 and 24. Read its 12-page pitch deck.
• Lyra, an AI video call startup, raised a $6 million seed out of YC when its founder was 23. Read the 8-slide pitch deck it used.
• Nexad, an AI adtech startup, raised a $6 million seed after wrapping up A16z's Speedrun accelerator. Nexad's CEO was 25. Read the 10-page pitch deck.
• Orange Slice, a YC-backed sales tech platform, raised $5.3 million when its founders were 23. Read the 7-page pitch deck.
• Golpo, a generative AI video startup, raised a $4.1 million seed out of YC when its founders — who are also brothers — were 19 and 20. Read its 7-page pitch deck.
• Bluejay, an AI agent startup, raised a $4 million seed coming out of YC when its founders were 23. Read its 9-page pitch deck.
• Novoflow, an agentic AI startup building tools for medical clinics, raised $3.1 million when its founders were 18 and 19. Read its pitch deck.
• CodeFour, an AI police tech startup, was founded by two 19-year-old MIT dropouts and raised $2.7 million coming out of YC. Read the pitch deck.
• Cerca, a dating app that connects people with mutual friends, raised a $1.6 million seed when its CEO was 23. Read the 10-slide deck.

Pre-seed

• Series, an AI social networking startup, raised a $3.1 million pre-seed when its founders were 21.

This story has been updated with additional examples.