• New Hugging Face data shows a gap between the AI models developers talk about and those they use.
• Smaller models dominate downloads even though they get little hype online.
• The company compared the most-downloaded models with the most-liked models on its platform.

The AI models getting the most attention aren't the ones developers are actually using, according to new data from Hugging Face.

Hugging Face is a platform where developers publish, share, and download AI models. Users can also "like" models, a signal of interest, while downloads offer a picture of actual usage.

The company compared the 25 models with the most downloads this year with the 25 that received the most likes. It shows a sharp divide between the models developers are excited about and the ones they actually rely on. Only one model landed on both lists.

The AI industry tends to obsess over the newest frontier models: the biggest releases, the strongest benchmark scores, and the launches that dominate social media. Developers, meanwhile, often stick with smaller and older models that are cheap, stable, and already embedded in production systems.

"A like says a release matters," Hugging Face's researchers wrote. A download, by contrast, can mean a model is "wired into a pipeline that runs on a schedule."

All-MiniLM-L6-v2, a fast, light-weight model released in 2021 by Sentence Transformers, was downloaded 1.55 billion times in the first 7 months of 2026 despite receiving just 5,156 likes. Also, not a single model released in 2026 made Hugging Face's top 25 by downloads, while 13 of the 25 were released in 2022.

Smaller models, those under 1 billion parameters — the numerical values a model learns during training that help determine how it processes and generates outputs — account for 83% of all-time downloads among Hugging Face repositories that disclose their parameter counts. Larger models, those with more than 100 billion parameters — such as Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 — account for just 1%

Even when Hugging Face looked only at downloads accumulated in 2026, models with more than 70 billion parameters represented just 3% of the total.

Those stats are surprising given the amount of attention that's gone to enormous frontier models, especially from Chinese labs.

Moonshot AI, MiniMax, Xiaomi, and Z.ai are all buzzy Chinese models that have released few small models below 70 billion parameters, according to Hugging Face. Some have pushed well past 1 trillion parameters.

Moonshot's Kimi K3, for instance, arrived with 2.8 trillion parameters and generated a ton of buzz in Silicon Valley for its coding performance and lower price. But it was only downloaded about 60 times per like it received, which is low, Hugging Face said.

Alibaba's Qwen model series has taken a different approach, spanning a wider range of sizes. Hugging Face says that breadth has helped make Qwen part of developers' "default workflow" for fine-tuning and deployment — and it has translated into much higher usage. Qwen models logged about 2 billion downloads in 2026, roughly 55 times Moonshot's 37 million.

That gap between hype and usage is also showing up in how companies deploy AI. Pinterest, for example, previously told Business Insider that it takes a "model-agnostic" approach, using its own models for personalization, open-source AI models when they offer better economics, and closed models when they perform best.

• Shalirrah Wisney is a mom, podcast host, author, and B2B marketer who went all in on AI.
• Her passion for constantly learning more about and using AI led her to burn out and face health issues.
• To help with her burnout, Wisney has changed her tech habits and started a podcast about AI.

I believe AI will change the world for the better.

I work in B2B marketing, and my job is to stay up to date on what's happening in the world of tech and AI. Outside work, I've self-published a children's book about AI, host my own podcast about how AI is affecting our professional and personal lives, and organize events for women curious about AI.

Yet, while AI has given me more capacity in the past few years than I've had available in the past 10 to 15 years, it has also caused me the most burnout of my life.

An AI conference catapulted my AI journey

A few years ago, I was tasked with helping coordinate one of the main stages of an AI conference in France. That conference started everything for me.

Before, I'd assumed that AI was mostly just used to solve business problems. A talk by the founder of the AI Centre of Excellence Africa inspired me to think about AI as a global opportunity for good, not just a tool to solve business problems. I thought, if AI can help people, I'm all in.

I read every article I could get my hands on, including both pro- and anti-AI think pieces. I read every book my boss suggested, and started giving my opinion on the topic in meetings.

I tried keeping up with the constant updates and had subscriptions to almost every major AI tool, because I wanted to try every new one. I even canceled my Pilates membership, so I wouldn't feel guilty about paying for more than one LLM subscription.

It was exhausting, but worth it.

I wanted to help others understand AI

My oldest son often heard me listening to podcasts about AI or talking about it with my husband. He started asking questions, and it made my heart soar.

At the beginning of 2025, I decided to self-publish a children's book about AI to give kids a gentle introduction to this world of tech. I previously worked in early education, as a teacher and a nanny, so this project was important to me.

I wrote all of the copy myself, but I used AI for every illustration. I couldn't afford to hire an illustrator and wanted to see what AI could do, though I was careful not to use anything that resembled any artist's work or copyrighted art.

While working on the book, I was feeling a bit run-down, but I had things to accomplish, so I pushed forward and ignored it.

Over time, the run-down feeling amplified

I was thinking about AI constantly — feeling like I needed to do more with it, know more about it, and also bring others along with me.

In the summer of 2025, everything started to pile up. My anxiety was at an all-time high, I lost weight, my Crohn's disease symptoms flared, and I was snapping at my family and friends.

Between my laser focus on trying to be a woman on the forefront of AI, working on my children's book, staying afloat as a corporate woman, being present as a mother, wife, sibling, and friend, and taking care of my health, I was trying to keep every ball in the air — and nearly dropped all of them.

Bigger picture reasons also played a role. AI was supposed to change the way we work. Then, we were told AI would replace our jobs, even as we were told to use it as much as possible. Tokenmaxxing became the name of the game, but when corporations realized it was expensive, teams started pulling back and finally asking, "How do we implement this in a way that makes sense?" The constant switch-up is exhausting.

There's also a disconnect between corporate reception and public opinion. While LinkedIn conversations about AI center on efficiencies and gains, discussions on TikTok are a lot more raw and honest, raising privacy concerns, pushback against data centers, and worries about mental health.

The conversation around AI has evolved to be about access, bias, wealth, politics, and so much more. No matter how many times I tell my LLMs that I'm a Black woman, it defaults to a different race and gender when creating assets.

As a parent, it's already hard enough explaining to my 5-year-old that the videos he sees on YouTube aren't all real. Now, I also have to prepare to explain AI-generated images and deepfakes.

How I'm getting out of my burnout

I talked to my doctor, who changed my anxiety medication, upped the dosage, and recommended cutting caffeine and seeking therapy.

Talking to my husband and friends about it and taking a girls' trip helped, but didn't solve my burnout.

If I'm being honest, I'm still not out of my burnout, but I've found ways to help.

I'm getting better about stopping the "AI social media doom scroll," and I started putting my phone away more often so I can be fully present with my family.

I've changed how I use AI over time. I cut my subscriptions down — I only pay for Claude now — and I'm more intentional about what I want when I turn to AI. I don't use AI for coming up with games or stories for my kids, as it's something I enjoy doing with them, so I won't give that to AI.

Despite its faults, I believe AI can solve real-world problems

AI may have caused my burnout, but it was my human cognition that gave me the insight and tools to recognize the burnout and do something about it.

In the fall of 2025, I started my podcast, "AI on the Side." Being open and honest about my feelings around AI has helped me.

I truly believe that, even with its faults, AI will change the world. The tech isn't the problem; it's the people in charge of the tech. This technology shouldn't be left up to only the tech bros and trillionaires.

I don't have all the answers about AI, implementation, or privacy. But I do believe the people inspired by or curious about AI will let their curiosity lead them into solving real-world problems in the future, and that future is nearer than we think.

Shalirrah Wisney is a mom of two, podcast host, author, and B2B marketer with a passion for education, access, and opportunity for everyone. She believes that AI belongs to the many, not the few.

Do you have a story to share about burning out from AI? Contact this editor, Jane Zhang, at janezhang@businessinsider.com.

• US stocks have are trading near records, begging the question for investors: pile in or wait for a pullback?
• The bull case is largely led by tame inflation data and reduced odds of a rate hike this year.
• The bear case points to factors like seasonal weakness and risks to earnings growth.

If you're looking at the stock market's rally to record highs in August, you might be wondering whether it's time to pile in or pull back.

Answering the question "is now a good time to invest" has been particularly difficult this year given the volatility caused by the Iran war, periodic rotations in the AI trade, and fears of hotter inflation forcing rate hikes.

Major indexes have jumped in August, hitting record highs in the last week on tame inflation and upbeat earnings. The S&P 500 broke through the 7,800 ceiling for the first-ever time on Thursday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average remains within striking distance of its own all-time high.

Yet, forecasters are also eyeing headwinds that threaten to spoil the party. A resolution to the US-Iran war has slipped further out of sight, and investors are entering a period of seasonal weakness in equities.

Here's the bull and bear case for investing in stocks right now, according to the top voices in markets.

The bulls say…

Rate-hike fears are diminishing

Investors have dialed back the odds of a rate hike this year, given cooler inflation data, brightening the outlook for stocks in the second half.

The annual inflation rate cooled slightly to 3.4% in the month of July, in line with expectations. Producer prices were unchanged last month, falling short of expectations for a 0.2% monthly increase.

Investors are pricing in a 37.8% chance the Fed will leave rates unchanged through the end of the year, up from 22.9% a week ago, according to the CME Fedwatch tool.

"Disinflationary trend is in place and the Fed is unlikely to hike," strategists on JPMorgan's market intelligence team wrote of the bull case in a recent note to clients.

Bull market confirmation

The bull market has also been "confirmed" by new record highs in the major indexes, according to an analysis by Bespoke Investment Group.

Small-caps, mid-caps, and large-caps are now all trading around all-time highs, the Nasdaq 100 being the one exception out of the universe of large-cap stocks, the research firm wrote in a note.

Stellar earnings growth

Earnings growth has been phenomenal for the quarter. Of the S&P 500 firms that have reported earnings so far, 86% have beaten earnings-per-share expectations, according to the latest update from FactSet.

The benchmark index is on track to see a blended earnings growth rate of 50.4%, the highest pace of growth seen since 2021, the firm added.

"This market has really been underpinned by the earnings story, and this quarter came in well beyond what many of us expected," Mona Mahajan, the head of investment strategy and asset allocation at Edward Jones, wrote in a note on Friday. "There was concern around the AI trade coming into earnings season, but a lot of that concern has been alleviated, and we think there is likely still room to run."

The US economy remains resilient

Adding to the bull case is a resilient US economy. GDP growth is on track to come in at around 2% for the quarter, JPMorgan strategists wrote on Friday.

"We think the Bull Case is most accurate and remain Tactically Bullish," the bank said. "Add in strong earnings where analysts are increasing estimates into year-end, accommodative positioning, and you have the basis for the continuation of the bull market."

The bears say…

Investors are too exuberant

Bullish sentiment is at extreme levels that, historically, has preceded weakness in stocks.

Bank of America's Bull & Bear Indicator — its widely followed contrarian gauge that flashes a "sell" signal when investors are extremely bullish, and vice versa — rose to a level of 9.6 in late July, its strongest "sell" reading since 2021, strategists wrote in a note.

Following the 17 sell signals that have been triggered since 2002, global stocks have seen an average drawdown of 2%-3% in the three months that followed, with the maximum drawdown ranging from 15%-20%, a team led by the bank's Michael Hartnett said.

Markets are heading for seasonal weakness

The late summer kicks off what is often the worst three-month stretch of the year for markets.

Historically, US stocks have seen the weakest return from the August to October period, with the S&P 500 posting an average loss of 0.02% in that time frame since 1928, according to an analysis from Bank of America.

The period typically favors a "defensive bias" among investors, the bank wrote last month.

Stocks have also been historically weak in the months leading up to midterm elections. In all midterm years since 1974, the S&P 500 has seen a median return of 0% from August 1 through election day in November, strategists at Goldman Sachs wrote in a recent note.

Investors are also eyeing the Fed's annual symposium at Jackson Hole, an event that has been known to provoke fresh volatility as traders digest guidance on where interest rates might be headed.

Last year, the major indexes enjoyed a strong rally after former Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke at Jackson Hole, with the Dow soaring more than 800 points as investors took in updated policy guidance.

The year prior, however, stocks tanked, with the Nasdaq shedding more than 1% following Powell's speech.

Earnings growth could slow

Strong earnings have been the engine that's powered the stock market in recent weeks. Yet, there's a growing risk that expansion will start to slow, according to Jim Paulsen, a Wall Street economist and the former chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group.

Paulsen recently pointed to various signals that earnings growth could soon fall, such as corporate profit margins approaching historical extremes and cyclical stocks underperforming in recent weeks.

"Contemporary stock market bullishness is being driven primarily by incredible profit momentum," he wrote, raising questions about whether that momentum is sustainable, particularly "relative to rising expectations."

• As Silicon Valley embraces hardcore work schedules, founders debate the best sleeping habits.
• Business Insider tracked the sleep schedules of three young founders for four days.
• One founder got admittedly bad sleep. Another had a clear regimen to get her seven hours.

The young class of AI founders has gone hardcore, with sober lifestyles and 996 schedules.

Sleep, however, remains an open question.

There are two competing sleep cultures in Silicon Valley. The biohackers say that rest helps optimize performance. The hustlers say that founders should work through the night. To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question.

Business Insider asked three young founders to share their sleep habits. And to be scientific about it, we didn't just take their word for it. We spent four days tracking their shut-eye, requesting early morning texts detailing their prior night.

Some founders demanded their Zzzs. Others stayed up grinding.

Lance Yan knows he doesn't sleep enough

Lance Yan knows sleep is important. Bryan Johnson gave a talk to his Y Combinator batch, after all.

And yet, the 19-year-old founder of the AI startup Traverse often gets only 5 to 6 hours of sleep. "If there's any work, I usually end up staying on longer and dragging it out," he said.

It's still better than his YC days. "We would wake up when it was dark, and go to sleep when it was sunny," Yan said.

Yan works late, then doomscrolls in bed until he falls asleep. When he wakes up, he starts working almost immediately. He knows it's bad.

"There has to be a balance between chilling and locking in," he said.

Yan's sleep diary:

• Monday: 3 hours of sleep. Slept "horribly" and was in bed from 4 to 8 a.m.
• Tuesday: 6.5 hours of sleep. Worked late, but let himself sleep in. Was in bed from 3 to 10 a.m.
• Wednesday: 5 hours of sleep, from 4 to 9 a.m. His health stats "got cooked" because he had only one meal and a "tiny bit" of water.
• Thursday: 5 hours of sleep, between 3 and 8 a.m. It was "also not the best," but he felt good after eating regular meals.

Kavitta Ghai has firm sleeping rules

Kavitta Ghai will never, ever pull an all-nighter.

The 29-year-old cofounder of the ed-tech startup Nectir can see instantly when she hasn't slept enough. It shows up in her work and in her cognitive function. So, she'll stop everything to get her 7 hours.

Ghai's best thinking comes in the late evening and early morning, so she often doesn't sleep until 3 a.m. Her chief of staff knows: no meetings until 11 a.m.

She wants her employees to be able to work when they function best, too. Nectir is remote, and will always remain remote, she said. "It allows people to do their work on their schedule," she said.

Ghai is exacting about her sleep. She takes magnesium every night and sets the temperature between 66 and 68 degrees. She wears a sleep mask and a Whoop band. Her body doesn't touch the bed until it's bedtime.

It works: Ghai said that she falls asleep in under 3 minutes.

Ghai's sleep diary:

• Monday: 7 hours and 32 minutes of sleep. Had "a ton of dreams," but forgot to journal them in the morning.
• Tuesday: 8 hours and 2 minutes of sleep. That's "a little longer than I prefer," Ghai said. So she woke up groggy.
• Wednesday: 7 hours and 28 minutes of sleep. Usually meditating before bed helps her dream, but this night she had no dreams that night, "which sucks."
• Thursday: 7 hours and 7 minutes of sleep. Ghai wished she had gotten 30 more minutes.

Boris Skurikhin is not a grindmaxxer

Boris Skurikhin has an expensive mattress with no bed frame.

Well, he does have a bed frame, but he hasn't gotten around to assembling it. "I will do it soon," the 26-year-old cofounder of the AI startup Docket said. "I keep telling myself this."

Skurikhin gets in bed around 12 a.m. and then starts watching something on his laptop. He's not scrolling. He prefers a documentary or a long YouTube video.

He's not one to cut down on his sleep. He described what might be called a "grindmaxxer" in his coworking space who works constantly and never sleeps.

"He was also the hospitalmaxxer," he said. "It's just not healthy."

Skurikhin's sleep diary:

• Monday: 7.5 hours of sleep. Fell asleep at 2 a.m. to UFC videos. Woke up briefly at 7:30 a.m. because he "drank too much tea before bed."
• Tuesday: 8 hours and 40 minutes of sleep. Fell asleep at 1:30 a.m. and woke up at 10:10 a.m.
• Wednesday: 7 hours of sleep. Fell asleep at 1:30 a.m. to videos about athlete rivalries in sports. Woke up early because he left his window open.
• Thursday: 7 hours and 20 minutes of sleep. Fell asleep at 2 a.m. while watching the 2002 movie "Copenhagen."

This intern season, fetching lattes for bosses is out. Teaching bosses how to use AI is in.

When Jasreen Toor interned at the agentic human resource company Eightfold AI this summer, her day wasn't filled with answering phones or taking notes. Instead, she spent most of her time building and then monitoring a Claude agent that scours through company information to create first drafts of marketing materials. In her previous internships, Toor used AI to brainstorm and research. At Eightfold, AI became the point, rather than a shortcut. "A lot of what I was doing was kind of taking my own initiative, and building on my own to see how we can solve some of those problems that product marketing was facing," Toor, a rising junior studying economics and data science at the University of California, Berkeley, tells me.

Many have warned that AI will collapse the white-collar career ladder, devouring entry-level jobs and leaving those at the bottom without rungs to grab onto. Recent college graduates face an 5.7% unemployment rate, nearly double the 2.9% unemployment for all college graduates in the workforce, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. But as entry-level grad work falls, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) predicted the number of interns would grow by 4% year-over-year. And today's crop of interns have become a testing ground for the ways AI will reshape entry-level work. As chatbots and agents eat up their usual tasks — note taking, data input, and creating slide decks — some companies have trusted them with more responsibility, giving them a hand in creating new AI-driven workflows.

But that shift, much like a summer internship, could be fleeting. Each tedious process automated this summer may eliminate tried and true tasks for next year's interns, and every new workflow or agent developed by an intern will fall to someone else to upkeep, or let die.

Unlucky interns of the Class of 2026 may have spent the summer clocking in as an AI slop janitor, sorting through code or documents for basic errors in a rote task that's become the 2020s equivalent of filing papers. But the lucky have hit the sweet spot, getting to play a tangible role in shaping how companies will use AI before the technology upends junior work.

The best companies for interns right now are the ones where they give young workers "the opportunity to use AI to transform the role itself," Shanda Mints, vice president of AI strategy and transformation at management consulting firm Korn Ferry. "But that's only going to be around for the next couple of years, because once that role becomes transformed, then what are the new interns going to be doing a few years from now? We're seeing that they're likely going to just jump right into what historically were the entry level roles."

The career ladder may not be collapsing, but it is shrinking as the responsibilities placed on young workers grow.

Hiring managers are increasingly throwing out résumés and selecting job applicants for their demonstrable skills, furthering the classic career Catch-22: you need experience to get experience. The proportion of entry-level jobs requiring AI skills jumped from 13.5% to 35% between last fall and this spring, according to a survey of employers conducted by NACE. Those who have interned are more likely to land jobs after college either at a former internship-turned-9-to-5 or other companies. With more employers trying to grab the elusive "AI-native" worker, an internship where young people worked on an AI solution to a team-wide efficiency problem could become the golden ticket to landing full-time work in a constricted hiring market.

Last year, Liberty Mutual offered full-time jobs to 79% of its rising senior interns, says Maura Quinn, vice president of the company's early talent acquisition and engagement programs. By this summer, AI had taken over many traditional intern tasks, like data entry, document review, and formatting slide decks. "That was the work that actually built discipline, but it didn't always build judgment." Quinn tells me that interns working on the actuarial and analytics used AI to analyze or visualize data and edit code. With the time they saved, interns were free to work on presentations for higher managers, which required developing a deep understanding of how the findings fit into the business model. She saw this as a more advanced development of communication and consulting skills for interns. "That's where we're seeing the big shift: AI tools are handling a lot of that routine processing." At Duolingo, there's more emphasis on teaching young workers how to use AI this summer, Debica Bhattacharya, head of people, says. Interns may vibe code, but they do so alongside other team members, rather than developing solutions to automate their own work. Duolingo is particularly eager to prep these grads for the workforce because it hires so many — last year, the summer extended full-time offers to 80% of its interns.

Lindsay Foxen, a senior account manager at programmatic media company MiQ, oversaw fellows this summer as the company implemented more AI into its workflows. They also built agents; one that would compare internal documents, and ensure that they matched. Another agent will compare data input to Salesforce and revised data, and then highlight the differences, eliminating the need to check the two line-by-line. The fellows had time to observe work at MiQ, and then implement "what they would love to see from an AI automated tool," Foxen says. The solutions they created with AI "goes to show that they understand AI, they understand MiQ, and they understand the future of what's being implemented moving forward."

The demand for interns to show up AI-ready has surged, too. At Northeastern University, which integrates six-month work periods it calls co-ops interspersed into students' academic schedules, the number of students placed into co-ops that require AI skills has doubled year-over-year, reaching 1,500, according to chancellor Ken Henderson. "What each student on a co-op can actually produce of value is higher, as a function of the technology," he says. "They can demonstrate a work product that's useful for them in their future careers, so they're actually doing something tangible of value in the company during that time."

Matt Mizra, a rising senior studying computer science and business at Northeastern who has worked at Microsoft and DraftKings, says he's been encouraged to use AI as much as possible when working as a software engineer and data science intern this year. Rather than completing basic software engineering work and churning out tickets, he has spent the bulk of his time planning and then less time prompting Claude for code. He misses writing code, but the scope of his work has advanced. "My projects are very big, and they're good business value," he says. "It's more about thinking about how to solve the bigger picture."

Mizra knows he's collecting impressive experience to speak to prospective employers as he seeks a post-grad job next year, but he still worries about the state of the early-career job market. Tech companies are battling AI cheating in engineering interviews, and there's lots of prep to keep up with the evolving expectations and assessments. "It's definitely making it harder, because everyone is proficient at code now."

As AI touches more of the college experience and seeps into more of the workday, fears that overreliance will erode critical thinking mount. Colleges have little consensus on whether they should or how they can enforce analog learning, and companies are grappling with the best ways to review workers' use of AI. Early research continues to raise questions about the long-term effect AI will have on our creative thinking and reasoning skills. Stuck in the uncertainty, young people eagerly seek skills and security most likely to lead them to a full-time job. But the demands of these jobs might be escalating more quickly than young workers can grow confident in their judgment.

The best training ground still comes from doing the work. Managers who want to train future talent on how to use AI should ask themselves: "Is that task going to help elevate this person's judgment?" Mints says. "Is that experience enough to replace the experience they would have been getting if they had whatever their internship was to begin with?" Thanks to the 2026 intern class, next year's summer interns might walk into workplaces that look vastly different.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

• Actors James Van Der Beek, Hayden Panettiere, Robert Duvall, Chuck Norris, and Sam Neill died in 2026.
• So did painter David Hockney, "Dilbert" creator Scott Adams, and Grateful Dead's Bob Weir.
• Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, singer Bonnie Tyler, and media mogul Ted Turner also died this year.

Below, we look back at the celebrities we lost in 2026, listed in alphabetical order.

Scott Adams, 68

Scott Adams worked at a telephone company in the 1980s. The experience inspired his beloved comic strip, "Dilbert."

By the end of the decade, the character and his satirical office humor began appearing in comic strips.

At its peak, "Dilbert" was syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers. A cartoon series debuted in 1999, running for two seasons.

Adams gained notoriety when he began writing blog posts praising Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential run. In 2023, "Dilbert" was pulled from newspapers across the US following racist comments made by Adams.

Adams died on January 13 from metastatic prostate cancer.

Brad Arnold, 47

The lead singer of 3 Doors Down, Brad Arnold launched the group into fame with the 2000 rock anthem "Kryptonite," which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year.

The success led to other hits like "Loser," "Here Without You," and "When I'm Gone." Arnold's vocal range and lyrics focused on love and love lost, which fueled the group to stardom.

Arnold died on February 7 from a type of kidney cancer.

Afrika Bambaataa, 68

A hip-hop pioneer during the 1970s and 1980s, Lance Taylor, known professionally as Afrika Bambaataa, first gained attention as a DJ in the Bronx.

He signed with Tommy Boy Records in 1981 and released landmark songs like "Jazzy Sensation" and "Planet Rock." He would go on to influence the likes of Queen Latifah and A Tribe Called Quest throughout his career.

Bambaataa founded the hip-hop awareness group, Universal Zulu Nation, in the 1970s to steer kids away from gang life. Bambaataa stepped down as the head of the organization in 2016 after accusations of sexual abuse.

Bambaataa denied all claims.

He died on April 9 due to prostate cancer.

Rob Bass, 59

One of the icons responsible for bringing hip-hop to the mainstram, Rob Bass crafted the iconic track "It Takes Two" alongside DJ E-Z Rock.

The track, released in 1988, reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Songs chart and later went certified platinum. In 1989, it was voted the greatest single of all time by Spin magazine.

Bass died on May 22 following cancer.

Nicholas Brendon, 54

Nicholas Brendon was a television actor, best known for playing Xander Harris in all seven seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

He also starred in "Criminal Minds" and "Kitchen Confidential."

Brendon died in his sleep on March 20 due to natural causes, according to his family's statement.

In 2023, Brendon suffered a heart attack and was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. He also had cauda equina syndrome, which led to several spinal surgeries.

"While it's no secret that Nicholas had struggles in the past, he was on medications and treatment to manage his diagnosis, and he was optimistic about the future at the time of his passing," the statement to The Hollywood Reporter read. "Our family asks for privacy during this time as we grieve his loss and celebrate the life of a man who lived with intensity, imagination, and heart."

Peabo Bryson, 75

Two-time Grammy winner Peabo Bryson is best known for his classic love ballads.

Bryson began releasing music in the late 1970s, but one of his first major hits was opposite Roberta Flack on the 1983 duet, "Tonight, I Celebrate My Love." He continued hit-making a year later with the smash "If Ever You're in My Arms Again," and in 1991, he topped the R&B charts with "Can You Stop the Rain."

Bryson found global stardom with his renditions of two Disney classics. In 1991, he released the pop version of "Beauty and the Beast," alongside Céline Dion, and a year later, he duetted with Regina Belle on "A Whole New World" from the 1992 release of "Aladdin."

Bryson died on June 2. No cause was given.

James Burrows, 85

An 11-time Emmy winner and co-creator of "Cheers," director James Burrows helped shape modern TV comedy through his work on iconic sitcoms including "Will & Grace," "Friends," and "Frasier."

Known for his comedic timing and elaborate blocking, Burrows got his start directing episodes of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Throughout his career, he directed episodes of "Frasier" (winning an Emmy for the pilot episode), "Will & Grace," "Friends," and "The Big Bang Theory." He directed over 50 pilot episodes.

Burrows died on June 19. No cause was given.

Kyle Busch, 41

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Busch was considered one of the greatest racers of all time.

Busch was hospitalized on May 21, before two upcoming races. Hours later, he was pronounced dead.

Busch died from severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis.

Robert Carradine, 71

Robert Carradine was best known for his roles as Lizzie McGuire's dad and as the iconic geek Lewis Skolnick in the 1980s franchise "Revenge of the Nerds."

As a member of Hollywood's famed Carradine family, Robert was destined for an onscreen career.

He received one of his first screen credits starring in his brother David Carradine's popular 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" and went on to land roles in everything from Samuel Fuller's World War II classic "The Big Red One" to the "Lizzie McGuire" series.

Carradine's family shared statements with Deadline that emphasized being open about his struggles with mental illness.

"We are bereft at the loss of this beautiful soul and want to acknowledge Bobby's valiant struggle against his nearly two-decade battle with Bipolar Disorder," Carradine's family said. "We hope his journey can shine a light and encourage addressing the stigma that attaches to mental illness."

Carradine died by suicide on February 23.

If you or someone you know is experiencing depression or has had thoughts of harming themself or taking their own life, get help. In the US, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Help is also available through the Crisis Text Line — just text "HOME" to 741741. The International Association for Suicide Prevention offers resources for those outside the US.

Bud Cort, 77

Most famous for his role as Harold in the 1971 cult-classic "Harold and Maude," Bud Cort became the epitome of 1970s counterculture thanks to his baby-faced looks, wit, and sophisticated persona.

The dark comedy starred Cort as Harold, a man in his 20s who is obsessed with suicide until he meets 79-year-old eccentric Maude (Ruth Gordon).

Before that, Cort scored bit parts in Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H*" (1970) and "Brewster McCloud" (1970).

After "Harold and Maude," Cort worked steadily for the rest of his life, occasionally showing up in hit movies like Michael Mann's "Heat" (1995) and Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" (2004).

Cort died on February 11 following a long illness.

Eric Dane, 53

Long before becoming one of TV's most recognizable heartthrobs, Eric Dane was building his career with guest roles on series like "Saved by the Bell" and "Married… with Children."

He later gained wider attention with appearances on "Charmed" before landing his breakout role as Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan on "Grey's Anatomy." He most recently starred in HBO's "Euphoria," where he played Cal Jacobs, the father of Jacob Elordi's character, Nate Jacobs.

Dane has two children with his wife, Rebecca Gayheart. In April 2025, the actor said that he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

Dane died on February 19 at age 53, his publicist confirmed in a statement to Business Insider.

"He spent his final days surrounded by dear friends, his devoted wife, and his two beautiful daughters, Billie and Georgia, who were the center of his world," his publicist said.

Clive Davis, 94

A legend in the music world, Davis was responsible for elevating pop music to unthinkable heights by discovering talents like Aretha Franklin, Barry Manilow, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Whitney Houston, and Alicia Keys, to name a few.

Over his 50-year career, along with being an executive behind millions of album sales, he also won five Grammys, including two for Album of the Year ("The Bodyguard" soundtrack and "Supernatural" by Santana).

Davis died on June 22. No cause was given.

Robert Duvall, 95

Robert Duvall starred in a plethora of timeless classics, including "The Godfather," "The Godfather Part II," "Apocalypse Now," "THX 1138," "The Natural," "Days of Thunder," and "The Apostle."

Duvall will be best remembered for starring in three of director Francis Ford Coppola's iconic films: playing Tom Hagen in the first two "Godfather" movies and Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now," in which he delivers one of the most memorable lines in movie history: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

Duvall was lauded for his acting talent, from not saying a word while playing Boo Radley in his first big screen role in the 1962 classic "To Kill a Mockingbird" to his portrayal of a country singer dealing with alcoholism in 1983's "Tender Mercies," which earned him an Oscar.

He died on his ranch in Virginia on February 15. No cause was given.

Brenda Fricker, 81

This Irish actress was a fixture on the stage and screen for six decades. But she's most known for showing up in the "Home Alone" sequel.

As The Pigeon Lady in 1992's "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York," Fricker has become a fixture for families during the holiday season for decades (and in 2020 became the subject of a popular meme).

But Fricker's acting talents go beyond playing a spooky wanderer of Central Park.

In 1990, she became the first Irish actress to win an Academy Award, as she was given the best supporting actress Oscar that year for her performance in "My Left Foot."

Fricker died on July 16; no cause was given.

Mark Fuhrman, 74

Fuhrman cemented his place in popular culture as one of the lead LAPD detectives on the 1995 murder case of O.J. Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Fuhrman found the famed bloody glove on the Simpson estate, and during the trial, he gained infamy when Simpson's defense team used his past racist language to discredit him as a witness.

Fuhrman retired from the LAPD after the Simpson trial and moved to Idaho, where he wrote true crime books.

Fuhrman died on May 12 of throat cancer.

Valentino Garavani, 93

For over six decades, one name has been synonymous with women's high fashion: Valentino.

The Italian designer launched his fashion business in Rome in 1960 and never looked back. Soon, every star wanted to be seen in his creations. They've been worn by icons like Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins, Jackie Kennedy, Princess Diana, Sharon Stone, and more.

Though Garavani retired from designing in 2008, his label is still a red carpet staple, as is his famous shade of bright red dubbed "Valentino Red."

Garavani died on January 19. No cause was given.

Donald Gibb, 71

No one defined a bully for a generation more than Gibb's hulking fraternity character Orge in the "Revenge of the Nerds" movies of the 1980s.

Since the original raunchy comedy was released in 1984, Gibb's intimidating size and loud yells of "NERDS!" have become as memorable as the pocket protectors worn by the movie's geeks.

Gibb went on to star opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in his classic 1988 action movie "Bloodsport." He also landed guest star roles through his career on shows like "Quantum Leap," Magnum P.I.," "MacGyver," "Night Court," and "Cheers."

Gibb died on May 12 following health complications.

Glen Hansard, 56

Irish singer-songwriter Hansard was the frontman of the rock band The Frames and one-half of the band The Swell Season. But he was perhaps best known for writing and starring in the hit 2007 indie film "Once," in which he and his Swell Season bandmate Markéta Irglová play two struggling musicians who fall in love. The duo won an Oscar for best original song for the film's standout track, "Falling Slowly."

Hansard also embarked on a solo career; his 2015 album, "Didn't He Ramble," was nominated for a Grammy for best folk album.

Hansard died on July 29 in a motorcycle crash in Dublin.

Anthony Head, 72

Rising up through the UK stage scene in the 1980s, Head found fame when he was cast as Rupert Giles, who became a father figure to Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy Summers in all seven seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Most recently, he played the bitter former owner of AFC Richmond on "Ted Lasso."

Head's death was announced by his family on June 5. They stated the cause was "complications due to pneumonia."

David Hockney, 88

British painter David Hockney was renowned for his striking portraits and figurative pop art. Many of his best-known paintings, including 1966's "The Splash" and 1972's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)," were inspired by the bright colors and sun-dappled pools of Los Angeles.

Hockney moved to Los Angeles in the late '60s, and his work became synonymous with the warmth and leisure of Southern California. He was also one of the few popular artists at the time to depict openly gay scenes, and Hockney was outspoken about anti-gay censorship.

Throughout his career, Hockney split time between California, England, and France. He died at his home in London on June 12 at age 88, his publicist confirmed to The New York Times. No cause of death was given.

Jesse Jackson, 84

The Rev. Jesse Jackson was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, a minister, and an activist icon who twice ran for president.

Born on October 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson experienced Jim Crow segregation on public buses and at school firsthand. It would shape the rest of his life.

His fight for civil rights began in the 1960s, when he helped organize protests and demonstrations across the US and worked closely alongside civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

His decadeslong career as a leading civil rights activist included support for modern national movements, such as the push for voting rights, the fight against racism, and a higher minimum wage.

Jackson ran for president twice, both times as a democrat. He placed third for the party's nomination in 1984 and second in 1988. This marked the most successful presidential runs of any Black candidate prior to Barack Obama.

Jackson announced in 2017 that he'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In November 2025, Jackson was treated in a Chicago hospital after complications from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare neurodegenerative condition.

Jackson died on February 17.

Patrick Muldoon, 57

In the 1990s, you couldn't escape the piercing eyes of Patrick Muldoon.

He played Austin Reed on "Days of Our Lives" for most of the decade, and when he wasn't on the soap, he was over on "Melrose Place" playing the villain role of Richard Hart.

If being on two iconic shows wasn't enough, he also showed up on "Saved by the Bell" and had a role in the cult classic movie "Starship Troopers."

Muldoon died on April 19 after a heart attack.

Sam Neill, 78

With a career spanning more than five decades and including countless memorable performances in movies and television, Sam Neill was one of the most versatile actors of his generation,

The New Zealand actor starred opposite Nicole Kidman in the 1989 thriller "Dead Calm," played the loyal first officer opposite Sean Connery in 1990's "The Hunt for Red October," played the lead in John Carpenter's 1994 horror "In the Mouth of Madness," and most recently starred in the hit series "Peaky Blinders."

But Neill will be best known for playing the brave and all-dinosaur-knowing Dr. Alan Grant in the "Jurassic Park" franchise.

Neill died on July 13; no cause was given. Neill was battling a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer, but was cancer-free at the time of his death, according to a post on his Instagram account announcing his passing.

Tom Noonan, 74

Standing at a towering 6' 5", Tom Noonan was born to play the bad guy. And he did just that, starring as the villain in movies like "Manhunter," "RoboCop 2," and "Last Action Hero."

But this actor had more to show off. He showcased his comedy chops as Rodney Dangerfield's degenerate gambling friend in the 1983 comedy "Easy Money," and set up the heist for Robert De Niro in Michael Mann's 1995 classic "Heat."

His knack for storytelling also translated behind the camera. Noonan wrote, directed, and starred in the drama "What Happened Was," which won the grand prize at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.

Noonan died on February 14; no cause was given.

Chuck Norris, 86

Few action stars have Chuck Norris' credentials.

Before he ever stepped in front of a camera, he was a martial arts champion and a black belt in Karate, judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Taekwondo, and Tang Soo Do.

His talents would become known the world over in 1972, when he faced off against Bruce Lee in "The Way of the Dragon."

Through the 1980s, Norris became one of the biggest action stars in the world thanks to movies like "A Force of One," "The Octagon," and the "Delta Force" and "Missing in Action" franchises.

In the 1990s, he took over the small screen, playing the lead in the "Walker, Texas Ranger" TV show, which aired in over 100 countries during its run from 1993 to 2001.

Norris was hospitalized on March 19 in Hawaii and died the following day, according to his family. No cause was given.

Catherine O'Hara, 71

O'Hara, who was best known for her roles in "Beetlejuice" and "Home Alone," got her start in the Canadian comedy scene, appearing in the now-legendary cast of "SCTV."

It would mark the beginning of a fruitful partnership with fellow actor Eugene Levy, who became her frequent costar and collaborator in memorable appearances in Christopher Guest films like "A Mighty Wind" and "Best in Show" and television series like "Schitt's Creek," which earned her an Emmy Award for outstanding lead actress in 2020.

O'Hara's representation confirmed her death to Business Insider on January 30. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed in a death certificate viewed by People that O'Hara died of a pulmonary embolism, with rectal cancer listed as an underlying cause.

Hayden Panettiere, 36

Panettiere began acting as a child, landing one of her earliest major roles as Sarah Roberts on the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live," on which she appeared from 1994 to 1997.

As her career progressed, she became best known for portraying Claire Bennet on "Heroes" and Juliette Barnes on "Nashville."

Over the years, Panettiere had spoken openly about her struggles with alcoholism and postpartum depression. She detailed those experiences in her memoir, "This Is Me: A Reckoning," which was released in May.

Her representative confirmed to Business Insider on August 17 that Panettiere had died at 36 but did not disclose a cause of death.

Vincent Pastore, 80

This character actor found fame appearing in a string of mob movies in the 1990s, like "Goodfellas," "Carlito's Way," and "Men of Respect." But Pastore truly became a star when he was cast in the hit HBO series "The Sopranos."

As Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero, Pastore was part of the main cast for the first two seasons of the show, playing Tony Soprano's mob enforcer-turned-FBI informant. Bonpensiero's shocking death was one of the most famous in the show's history and proved that no one was safe from getting whacked.

Pastore died on August 1. No cause was given.

Valerie Perrine, 82

Perrine found herself cast alongside the biggest stars of the 1970s.

She played the love interest opposite Jeff Bridges in 1973's "The Last American Hero" and Robert Redford in 1979's "The Electric Horseman." She earned an Oscar nomination for starring alongside Dustin Hoffman in 1974's "Lenny."

For most, she'll be remembered best for sharing the screen with Gene Hackman as the secretary to his evil Lex Luthor in 1978's "Superman." She also starred in the sequel. As Ms. Teschmacher, her loyalty to Luthor is questioned when she rescues Superman (Christopher Reeve) after he's chained with Kryptonite.

Perrine died in her home in Beverly Hills on March 23. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015.

Sonny Rollins, 95

One of the most influential jazz musicians in history, Rollins recorded more than 60 albums over his seven-decade career.

His live album, "A Night at the Village Vanguard," is considered one of the greatest jazz albums ever made.

Rollins died on May 25; no cause was given.

Neil Sedaka, 86

Sedaka is responsible for some of the biggest pop songs of the 1960s and 1970s.

The Brooklyn native wrote over 500 songs, including classic hits like "Laughter in the Rain," "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," "Bad Blood" and the Captain & Tennille song, "Love Will Keep Us Together."

Sedaka died on February 27; no cause was given.

Gene Shalit, 100

Before there was Rotten Tomatoes or even Siskel & Ebert, movie lovers got their recommendations from Gene Shalit.

The iconic movie critic could be seen sporting his signature look of glasses, bushy hair, and big mustache as a staple on the "Today" show from 1973 to 2010. If he wasn't interviewing the biggest movie stars, he was reviewing movies with incredible puns ("'Ishtar' is Ish-terrible.")

His larger-than-life presence left a mark on pop culture: he was parodied as a Muppet and on countless episodes of "SCTV" and "Saturday Night Live."

Shalit died on June 12; no cause was given.

Kiki Shepard, 74

In her 15-year tenure as a co-host on "Showtime at the Apollo," Kiki Shepard was considered royalty at Harlem's famed Apollo Theater.

Known in the building as "Apollo Queen of Fashion" thanks to her dazzling outfits, Shepherd was a fixture on the show from 1987 to 2002.

Throughout her career, Shepard also appeared on TV shows like "Baywatch," "A Different World," "NYPD Blue," and "Grey's Anatomy."

Shepard died on March 16 after suffering a heart attack.

Béla Tarr, 70

Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr became a legend in the arthouse world for his unflinching work featuring several-minute-long takes.

With movies like "Family Nest" (1979) and "The Turin Horse" (2011), Tarr showcased his slow cinema style while focusing on marginalized characters living bleak lives. Tarr pushed the envelope with his style when he made "Sátántangó" in 1994, which had a run time of 450 minutes.

His work influenced several arthouse filmmakers, including Jim Jarmusch and Gus Van Sant's "Death Trilogy" ("Gerry," "Elephant," and "Last Days").

Tarr died on January 6 following a battle with a "long and serious illness."

James Tolkan, 94

You might not recognize the name, but if you're a movie fan, you know the face.

Tolkan's tough-guy persona made a mark on movie history in films like "Top Gun" and the "Back to the Future" franchise.

In "Top Gun," he played Commander Tom "Stinger" Jardian, who famously gives Tom Cruise's character a tongue lashing, saying, "Your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."

In "Back to the Future" and its sequels, he played Principal Strickland, who had zero tolerance for "slackers."

Other credits include "Serpico," "WarGames," "Masters of the Universe," and "Dick Tracy."

Tolkan died on March 26; no cause was given.

Ted Turner, 87

Ted Turner changed the television landscape thanks to his maverick maneuvers to harness the 24-hour news cycle.

After taking over his father's advertising company in the 1960s at the age of 24, Turner embarked on a path to change the media landscape by buying up radio and TV stations around the South. He even bought sports teams including the Atlanta Braves MLB team and the Atlanta Hawks NBA team.

All of that programming would eventually become part of TBS, a "super station" that showed old movies, reruns, and Braves and Hawks games.

Turner then set his sights on the news. He founded CNN, the first 24-hour news channel, in June of 1980.

Over the decades, Turner gained celebrity status, particularly after marrying with Jane Fonda, a union that lasted from 1991 to 2001. In 1991, he was named Time's "Man of the Year." He sold his networks to Time Warner for $7.5 billion in 1996.

Turner died on May 6; no cause was given.

Bonnie Tyler, 75

Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler became one of the biggest artists of the 1980s thanks to her legendary power ballads.

Tyler was behind hits like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding Out for a Hero," which was also featured on the 1984 "Footloose" soundtrack. Both songs were chart-toppers that have since become two of the best-selling singles of all time.

Over her career, Tyler was nominated for three Grammys and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.

Tyler died on July 8 in Portugal, where she was being treated for an illness, according to a statement posted on her social media.

James Van Der Beek, 48

Van Der Beek was beloved all over the world for his role as the titular teen Dawson Leery on the WB series "Dawson's Creek."

The series, which ran from 1998 to 2002, turned Van Der Beek into a star and a teen heartthrob. While "Dawson's Creek" was still airing, he'd cement his stardom playing the lead role of high school quarterback "Mox" Moxon in the 1999 coming-of-age drama "Varsity Blues."

Van Der Beek found steady work the rest of his career in movies like "Texas Rangers" and "The Rules of Attraction, and memorably played a fictional version of himself on the TV series "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23," and performed on "Dancing with the Stars" in 2019.

Van Der Beek learned he had stage 3 colon cancer in 2023, and publicly announced his diagnosis in late 2024.

Van Der Beek previously told Business Insider that the news came as a shock, given the subtleness of his symptoms and his efforts to stay as healthy as possible.

"I was doing everything," he said. "I was doing sauna, cold plunge, weightlifting, Pilates. I would dance and also do football training."

Van Der Beek died on Feb. 11.

Bob Weir, 78

Weir was one of the founding members of the Grateful Dead.

The singer-songwriter wrote and/or sang on songs like "Sugar Magnolia," "Playing in the Band," "Truckin,'" "I Need a Miracle," and "The Other One."

After the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir went on to form several other bands, including Kingfish, Bobby and the Midnites, RatDog, The Other Ones, and, alongside John Mayer, Dead & Company.

In the summer of 2025, Weir was diagnosed with cancer.

Weir died on January 10.

Victor Willis, 74

Willis was the lead singer of the iconic disco band the Village People.

Along with being the lead vocalist and dressing as the police officer (and sometimes naval officer), Willis was also the cowriter on many of the band's hits, including "In the Navy," "Macho Man," and the song that will keep the Village People in pop culture lore until the end of time, "Y.M.C.A."

Willis left the band to embark on a solo career in 1979, then re-formed the Village People in 2017.

Willis died on June 30 following a "short but aggressive illness," according to the Village People Facebook page.

Frederick Wiseman, 96

For over five decades, Wiseman's brand of non-fiction storytelling put a spotlight on everyday people.

From high schoolers to hospital workers to Air Force cadets training for nuclear war, Wiseman's close to 50-film catalogue is an unvarnished reflection of America over the last half century.

Wiseman died on Februay 16, no cause was given.

• Law Roach has a rule for working with clients: He tries not to become friends with them.
• "It blurs the line, and I want to get paid," the celebrity stylist said.
• But of course, Zendaya is an exception because they had "grown up together" and are like "family."

Law Roach is careful not to let client relationships get too personal.

Speaking on SiriusXM on Saturday, the celebrity stylist said he tries to keep clear boundaries with the people he works for.

"I always had a rule not to become friends with clients," Roach said.

He described his relationship with Zendaya as the exception, saying they had "grown up together" and are like "family." With other clients, he prefers to maintain some distance.

Roach shared an example he uses with his assistants and people who work under him to explain why mixing friendship and business can get tricky.

"They say, 'Come over, let's have dinner,' and then they say, 'Oh, would you go to the closet and pick me out an outfit?' How are you going to send them an invoice?" Roach said.

He added that's where maintaining a professional boundary becomes important.

"This is your business, this is your livelihood," Roach said. "It blurs the line, and I want to get paid."

This isn't the first time Roach has spoken about keeping his client relationships separate from his friendships.

In a 2015 interview with VH1, Roach said he generally avoids hanging out with clients, since they're paying him to do a job.

"You see them at their most vulnerable — no hair, no makeup — so in that situation we do build a really strong relationship. But for me, because I see what happens with a lot of stylists, I chose to make it really professional," Roach said.

Other celebrities have similarly spoken about keeping some separation between work and friendship.

In 2025, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer said they deliberately avoided spending too much time together outside work while making the show.

"We weren't hanging out as friends during 'Broad City.' We couldn't," Glazer said.

"It was just, after 12, 14 hours of Monday through Friday, we were like, 'Let's not do dinner on Saturday,'" Jacobson added.

Treating colleagues like personal friends can make work more enjoyable, but also create tension because the two relationships operate under different expectations.

Hakan Ozcelik, a professor of management at Sacramento State University, previously told Business Insider in 2024 that workers should bring their "best professional selves" to work rather than their "intimate selves."

"Our intimate selves and our needs and our desires and our purposes in our intimate roles as human beings should be fulfilled in other domains in our lives rather than at work," Ozcelik said.

There are several ways to maintain boundaries at the workplace, even with colleagues you consider friends. Etiquette coach Mariah Grumet told Business Insider in January that people should avoid gossiping or discussing sensitive subjects with coworkers, no matter how close they are.

"We shouldn't be bringing up anything too personal, such as religion, politics, personal health concerns, appearance — anything like that that might be crossing over that boundary," she said. It is also important to avoid making jokes about others that could be received poorly.

"You can never be too careful with being respectful," she said.

• The former Uber CEO said he has no regrets about how he handled a potential acquisition of Lyft.
• Uber-Lyft talks in 2014 collapsed over valuation disagreements and cultural mismatches.
• Kalanick recently launched robotics company Atoms and raised $1.7 billion for the startup.

Uber and Lyft were just not meant to be, says Travis Kalanick.

In an Andreessen Horowitz interview released on Friday, the former Uber CEO said he has no regrets about how he handled a potential acquisition of Lyft.

"I wouldn't do anything different. And it's easy to say now, but I got a lot of shit for that for a long time," he said. "I would sit across the table from the guys, and it was just clear that we were very culturally different."

Uber held acquisition talks to buy its rival Lyft in 2014. The negotiations fell apart because Kalanick refused to pay more than $2 billion, while Lyft was seeking a higher valuation. In Friday's interview, Kalanick said that cultural mismatch was a problem too, and it started with Lyft's pink mustache effort.

In 2012, Lyft introduced a giant plush pink mustache on its car grilles to make its vehicles instantly recognizable and reinforce a playful brand that contrasted with taxis and Uber. The quirky "carstache" fit Lyft's image of ride-hailing as a social experience, but it became less suitable as the company sought business customers. Lyft began moving away from the oversize mustache around 2014, replacing it with subtler, more practical ways to identify the correct car.

The former Uber CEO, who recently launched robotics company Atoms, said that he had wanted the Lyft acquisition to go through.

"When you meet with somebody, and you're going to acquire them, there's so much goodness that could come from it," he said. He added that he wanted it to work because Uber was spending an "insane amount of money" trying to compete with Lyft for market share and price.

Kalanick resigned as Uber CEO in June 2017 following months of turmoil at the company, after which major investors demanded his removal.

Dara Khosrowshahi was appointed CEO later that year, with a mandate to remake Uber's culture and prepare the company for an eventual public listing.

Still, on Friday, Kalanick said: "I'd stand by every decision I made at Uber."

In March, Kalanick rebranded an earlier venture as Atoms, an industrial AI company automating food, mining, and transportation with robotics. Atoms announced a $1.7 billion equity funding round in July 2026, led by A16z, with participation from Bain Capital and Fifth Wall. A16z's Ben Horowitz joined Atoms' board as part of the deal.

• A Hamptons-based food business has recalled a granola flavor intended for breastfeeding mothers.
• The product was at risk of Salmonella contamination, the company said.
• There have been several product recalls recently due to Salmonella risk and the Cyclospora outbreak.

A Montauk-based granola brand has recalled its granola intended for breastfeeding mothers due to a potential risk of Salmonella.

The Hampton Grocer announced in a Friday statement on the Food and Drug Administration's website that it had recalled its 8-ounce packs of "Lacnola Lactation Granola" because they could be contaminated with Salmonella. Two lots of the product, with expiration dates of October 21, 2026, and February 13, 2027, have been recalled.

The company said in an emailed statement to Business Insider that its ingredient supplier, Food to Live, had notified it that one of their products had tested positive for the bacteria. Salmonella can cause serious and, in some cases, fatal infections, particularly for people with compromised immune systems.

The Hampton Grocer said Food to Live recalled its Organic SuperGreens Powder Mix after it tested positive for Salmonella. It contained organic moringa leaf powder, an ingredient also used in "Lacnola Lactation Granola." Moringa, a herbal "superfood" plant, is said to be beneficial for breast milk production.

In the announcement on the FDA website, the company urged customers who purchased the granola to dispose of it and contact the place of purchase for a refund. No illnesses have yet been reported in connection with consumption of the granola, it said, but the company has suspended production of the product while investigations are conducted.

The granola was sold on the company's website and on Amazon. It is no longer visible on either site, but The Hampton Grocer's 8-ounce granola packs of different flavors are priced at $14.50.

"As a mother of two, I know how jarring it is to receive a recall notice like this," Samantha Sherman, founder of The Hampton Grocer, said to Business Insider. "Like many woman-owned small businesses, we don't have the resources of a large corporation, so a recall like this is financially devastating. But our customers' trust is worth far more than any inventory or sales."

The recall comes amid a spate of other recent bacterial contaminations. Earlier in August, Taylor Farms issued recalls for packaged items containing jalapeños, such as salsa and guacamole, due to potential Salmonella contamination.

And earlier in July, there was a multi-state Cyclospora outbreak linked to salad-related products, such as iceberg lettuce. Taylor Farms removed all iceberg lettuce from central Mexico from sale in the US.

• "Heroes" actor Hayden Panettiere has died at 36.
• In May, she released a memoir detailing her struggles with postpartum depression and alcoholism.
• She wrote that after giving birth to her daughter in 2014, she felt like her "soul was dead."

Actor Hayden Panettiere has died at 36, her representative told Business Insider on Monday.

"It is with profound sadness that we share the tragic passing of our beloved Hayden. She was an incredible light and a force of nature who brought immeasurable love and joy to all who knew her — and to the millions who watched her onscreen. We ask for privacy as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss," her father, Skip Panettiere, said in a statement.

The family did not immediately provide any other details about her death.

Panettiere began her acting career as a child, with one of her earliest major roles as Sarah Roberts on the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live," on which she appeared from 1994 to 1997.

She later became widely known for playing Claire Bennet in the hit series "Heroes" and Juliette Barnes in the musical drama "Nashville."

In her memoir, released on May 19, Panettiere wrote about her struggles with postpartum depression after giving birth to her daughter in 2014.

"It wasn't panic that was sitting in my chest. It was nothing. A total blackout of emotion, like my soul was dead," she wrote.

To deal with her symptoms, she turned to alcohol to get "those happy hormones," she wrote.

"The first thing I'd thought of when I woke up was alcohol. Not my child, not my job, and not the rest of my life. I needed a drink to function — at 6 a.m.," Panettiere wrote.

In 2018, Panettiere signed over full custody of her daughter to the child's father, Wladimir Klitschko, saying she believed it was best for her daughter.

During this period of personal struggles, Panettiere was also filming "Nashville," which she starred in from 2012 to 2018.

In a May appearance on Jay Shetty's "On Purpose" podcast, she said her character's storylines increasingly mirrored what she was experiencing in her own life.

"It felt like it never ended. I didn't know where Juliet began, and Hayden ended," she told Shetty.

Panettiere said she initially thought the parallels were a "coincidence," but eventually felt she was living through her experiences twice.

"I couldn't come up for air from it. There was no break from it," she said.

• Masashi Nakamura grew up in Japan, dreaming of an international career.
• After studying and working abroad, a chance encounter with Wagyu cattle led him back.
• He traded IT for farming, earning less but finding more purpose rebuilding his grandfather's farm.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Masashi Nakamura, 29, who is running Nakamura Farm, a small Wagyu farm in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

I was working at a meat processing facility in Tasmania when my interest in Wagyu began. It was 2024, and I had just moved from Vancouver after my plans to study web development fell through.

One day, I noticed the word "Wagyu" written on the hanging beef carcasses. Having grown up in Japan, I'd always taken this kind of beef for granted. But seeing how highly people overseas regarded it changed my perspective. I began to understand that Wagyu was more than just beef — it had deep roots in Japan and was valued around the world.

I was 27 and living in a rural area surrounded by cattle. The experience made me realize how strongly I was drawn to the quiet lifestyle. I began reflecting on my future.

Last year, I decided to pursue a career in the Wagyu industry. I moved back to Japan to help restore my grandfather's aging Wagyu farm in Satsuma, a town in Kagoshima Prefecture.

From IT to the countryside

I grew up in a town near Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture. Unlike the image of Osaka as a crowded city, my hometown has many fields and rice paddies.

I graduated from a Japanese university with a degree in English language and communication, hoping English would help me work internationally and experience different cultures.

By graduation, though, I realized English alone wasn't enough. I got a job as an IT engineer in Osaka, monitoring and maintaining servers. After two years, I decided I wanted to build digital products and systems myself.

I moved to Vancouver to study web development, but after a year, I realized it wasn't the right path and dropped out. Next, I headed to Australia on a working holiday visa.

Around the same time, I found out that my grandfather was planning to close the Wagyu farm after selling all of his cattle. My grandparents were getting older and could no longer run it.

I used to visit the farm as a kid. During the summer, I'd ride in the back of my grandfather's truck as he drove around the rice fields. When I told him I wanted to take over the farm, he was surprised. He worried I wouldn't be able to make a living from farming, but he supported my decision.

For years, I'd been so focused on life overseas that I constantly looked outside Japan for my future. Now, I hope my IT and language skills will give me an edge in farming and help me do things differently while still respecting tradition.

Embracing a simple life

I moved back to Japan in late 2025 and took over the farm's daily operations as my grandfather began stepping back. These days, I wake up at 6 in the morning to feed the cattle and clean the farm.

I'm still rebuilding the business, and it doesn't generate enough income to hire workers. My grandmother continues to care for the cattle, and I've used savings from my IT career and overseas jobs to pay for renovations, maintenance, feed, and the farm license.

To support myself, I work part-time at an artificial insemination center, where I help with calf management and public relations. I also work at a neighboring Wagyu farm, which gives me a chance to learn more about cattle care.

I also earn income online through Buy Me a Coffee donations and Instagram subscriptions, where I share behind-the-scenes videos of Wagyu farming. I also manage social media for the Wagyu farm where I work part-time.

I earn less than half of what I made when I was starting out as an IT engineer. But I'm happier living in the countryside. I feel like I have a greater sense of purpose.

Rebuilding with a purpose

Working in the IT industry came with mental stress, but in farming, it's physical and financial stress and constant pressure. When you're responsible for living animals, there's no such thing as a day off.

Despite that, restoring my grandfather's farm motivates me. It has a history of over 60 years and is something he has devoted his life to. This experience isn't something I could gain by working in front of a screen.

My goal isn't to follow the traditional model of increasing the herd size to grow revenue. I've seen how that can turn into a cycle of constant survival, from balancing cattle with rice farming to pushing people to their limits.

Instead, I want to build a sustainable business by diversifying my income streams. Right now, I'm creating a management application to help with the farm and hoping to develop a farmstay. My focus isn't on raising more money, but creating a structure that can last and grow over time.

For now, my focus is on keeping the farm alive, at least while my grandfather is alive

• Ferrero has spent the last decade buying up some of America's biggest brands.
• Best known for Nutella, Ferrero has grown its US revenue from $600 million in 2017 to $3 billion.
• Now a $3.1 billion cereal bet could determine how far Ferrero can go.

Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes. They are all now owned by the same Italian company.

Best known for Nutella and Ferrero Rocher chocolates, Ferrero has spent much of the past decade buying established American food brands and investing in US manufacturing.

The privately held company now has more than 50 brands in its US portfolio, spanning chocolate, candy, mints, cookies, and breakfast cereal.

The expansion has transformed Ferrero's US business. The company says the US accounts for about 15% of its global revenue, up from about 4% a decade ago. Since 2017, its annual US revenue has grown from roughly $600 million to about $3 billion.

Ferrero is still smaller than some of America's biggest snack companies, like Mars and Mondelez, but its acquisition spree has put a growing collection of familiar brands under the ownership of a company once best known in the US for imported European sweets.

We visited Ferrero factories across the US to see how far its American ambitions go.

Ferrero has spent billions buying American brands

Ferrero's US buying spree kicked off in 2017, when it acquired Fannie May, the century-old chocolate company, for $115 million.

A year later, Ferrero paid $2.8 billion for Nestlé's US confectionery business, gaining brands including Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, and Crunch.

Then, in 2019, it acquired Kellogg's cookie and fruit-snack businesses, adding Keebler and Famous Amos.

"Ferrero takes a very different approach, which is buy well-established, loved brands, and then turn them back around," Michael Lindsey, the president and chief business officer of Ferrero North America, told Business Insider.

That strategy gives Ferrero a way to expand without building brand recognition from scratch.

Its biggest US bet yet has taken it beyond the sweets aisle.

In February, Ferrero completed its $3.1 billion acquisition of WK Kellogg, the North American cereal company behind Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Corn Flakes, and Rice Krispies.

The deal also presents a challenge. WK Kellogg reported declining sales before the acquisition was announced.

Lindsey said Ferrero has spent more than $5 billion on US investments over the past five years.

Ferrero is adapting its products for American tastes

Acquisitions are only part of Ferrero's strategy.

In 2023, the company opened a 45,000-square-foot innovation and research center in Chicago, where teams work on products for brands including Keebler, Famous Amos, Mother's, and Fannie May.

Lindsey said Ferrero has found some notable differences between American and European tastes.

"US tends to prefer milk a little bit more than dark chocolate," he said. "Americans love peanut in a way that Europe in particular doesn't really have peanut as part of the palate in the same way."

That preference helped inspire an unusual change to one of Ferrero's best-known products.

In April, the company introduced Nutella Peanut, the brand's first new flavor in more than 60 years. Ferrero spent about five years developing it and $75 million on a production line at its Franklin Park, Illinois, factory.

The launch is part of a broader shift for Ferrero: Instead of relying solely on products developed for European consumers, it's increasingly developing and manufacturing products specifically for Americans.

Ferrero is making more of its products in the US

Ferrero has also invested heavily in US manufacturing.

In 2024, it opened its first chocolate-processing facility in North America in Bloomington, Illinois, producing chocolate for brands including Kinder, Ferrero Rocher, Butterfinger, and Crunch. It has separately invested more than $200 million to add Kinder Bueno production at the site.

Ferrero's workforce has grown alongside that expansion. The company says it now employs more than 5,000 people across North America, compared with a few hundred roughly a decade ago.

For Ferrero, the acquisitions and factory investments are part of a longer-term effort to become a much bigger player in the American food business.

Lindsey compared Ferrero's position in the US with Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the 1920s, when those companies were still building the scale that would eventually make them ubiquitous.

It's an ambitious comparison. Buying familiar brands doesn't guarantee consumers will keep buying them, and the WK Kellogg deal gives Ferrero a much larger presence in a cereal business where sales have been under pressure.

But Ferrero is no longer simply the European company selling Nutella and Ferrero Rocher to Americans.

Increasingly, it's the company behind the American brands already sitting in their pantries.

• Tyga released his ninth studio album, "$tarface," on July 31.
• The musician used AI to create the 80s-inspired album.
• Some artists are leaning into AI despite intense pushback from fans and peers.

For some artists, using AI during the creative process is like ripping the soul out of an intimate human experience.

Tyga, however, doesn't have those qualms.

During an August interview with Vibe, the rapper revealed he relied on at least one AI music program while crafting his ninth studio album, "$tarface." The 80s-inspired project, released last month, sees Tyga don a new "Miami Vice"-esque alter ego who has a penchant for Jheri curls, sleek retro Ferraris, and synthpop.

"I've never spoken on this with anybody because I always felt like it's similar to a magician explaining how he does his tricks," Tyga told the outlet.

AI has certainly cast a spell across Hollywood, where the technology is transforming how the entertainment industry functions, from studio executives to background actors.

While some creatives view AI as a powerful tool that can speed up production, cut labor costs, and streamline repetitive tasks, others aren't sold. Many artists are concerned that AI will displace human workers, cheapen the creative process, and steal their work without proper compensation. AI sat at the crux of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild strikes, which both lasted over 100 days, crippling the industry.

Tyga, though, has embraced the adapt or die mentality. He said he used AI to add certain elements to "$tarface," like 80s-era synths, but did the vocals and lyrics himself.

"I know people are going to be mad about me saying this, but it's where technology is going," Tyga told Vibe. "It's no different than when Auto-Tune came out. Some people were opposed to it, but real artists took it and used it."

"There's nothing wrong with using technology as a tool," he added.

Unsurprisingly, the backlash was swift. Pitchfork rated "$tarface" 0.0 out of 10, the lowest score the music publication has awarded an album since the late 2000s, in part due to Tyga's use of AI.

"Given the amount of actual effort or even labor put into $TARFACE — which is to say, about zero — the margins on this thing must be amazing," Drew Millard wrote for Pitchfork. "Stream it out of morbid curiosity if you must, but know that even a single listen runs the risk of making it profitable and therefore encouraging the music industry to commit such atrocities again."

Doja Cat, who collaborated with Tyga on two songs, criticized his decision during a livestream last week.

"Nobody asked me anything about Tyga, but I felt like saying this," the rapper said. "Tyga is a penis for making an AI album."

Audiences on social media haven't been much kinder. Despite the backlash, Tyga joins a growing number of artists proudly using AI in their artistic endeavors.

Superstar producer Timbaland faced backlash in 2023 for using AI to recreate the voice of The Notorious B.I.G. on a song, but he hasn't caved to critics in the years since. In fact, he's gone all-in. Timbaland launched an AI entertainment company, Stage Zero, in 2025 and aims to pioneer a new genre called "A-Pop." His AI artist, TaTa, released her debut music video that October.

"TaTa is a living, learning, autonomous music artist built with AI. TaTa is the start of something bigger," Timbaland told Billboard last year.

Grimes, the dream-pop artist linked to billionaire Elon Musk, has worn AI as a badge of honor. In 2023, she launched Elf Tech, an AI software that allows users to create songs with her voice. Artists can commercially release the finished songs as long as they split 50% of the master-recording royalties.

Nick Carter of The Backstreet Boys has also used AI in new projects. In a 2025 interview with The Comics Beat, Carter said he used AI to create the official lyric video for his "Hey Kid," and a comic book-themed music video series.

In some cases, the artist isn't even human. Tilly Norwood is an AI pop star created by Particle6. Her debut music video, "Take the Lead," has amassed over 475,000 views since March.

Another example is Fenix Flexin, whose summer hit "Rubberz" was ravaged by AI allegations since its release in June. The rapper initially distanced himself from the AI accusations, but later admitted to using the technology during production, according to Rolling Stone. Even so, "Rubberz" resonated with audiences and charted on Billboard's Hot 100, the Stereogum reported.

Tyga, meanwhile, doubled down on his use of AI during an interview with TMZ last week.

"At the end of the day, I'm better than the AI and I've proven that for the last 15 years. So, it doesn't bother somebody like me, but I think maybe there's people that are scared that it's going to, you know, take their position and replace them," Tyga said. "It's just a part of technology."

• After a packed spring, I didn't have the energy for an elaborate family vacation.
• We rented a house an hour away and deliberately made almost no plans.
• My older kids loved the slower trip and unanimously said they'd do it again.

My family had an exceptionally busy spring. This year, we threw in an early college graduation, a high school graduation, and a wedding. Each week was full of senior events and wedding plans. I was tired. My kids were tired. As much as we wanted a family vacation, the idea of planning something felt overwhelming.

Instead of our normal weeklong road trip to someplace like Niagara Falls or Maine or even the adventurous cruise we took to Bermuda, I decided to plan a vacation that would truly feel like a rest. I'd never done anything like this.

We needed a place that felt like a break

I started by deciding what we needed. I'd be traveling with my husband and my three kids, plus a spouse and a girlfriend. A trip with five kids aged 17 to 21 is not for the faint of heart, and there were a few non-negotiables.

Everyone needed their own bed and enough space to decompress without getting on each other's nerves. I also wanted a place with on-site activities. If we had to get in the car every time we wanted to do something, it would just mean more running around.

We wanted to be away from home without a long drive, but the most important thing was avoiding a tourist area. I knew if there were too many attractions nearby, we'd spend the whole trip running around. I didn't want to come home more tired than when I left.

I found a vacation home one hour away that checked all the boxes

Leading up to the trip, I worried we would miss out on that vacation feeling. The house was only an hour away, and we weren't even leaving Connecticut. But I kept reminding myself and my family how much we needed to rest. Thankfully, everyone was on board.

Before we arrived, I made a few decisions. I sent out a family text outlining the sleeping arrangements and expectations for meals and cleanup. Getting that out of the way ahead of time ensured we were all on the same page and prevented bickering when we arrived.

Our days were filled with simple things

We cooked burgers and ate watermelon. I played volleyball in the pool with my kids. My son caught two bass in the pond. I even took afternoon naps. We played games of pool, tossed some darts, and learned to play shuffleboard in the game room.

I finished a book I'd been meaning to get to. There was even time to sit and scroll without feeling guilty about it. There was no pressure to be somewhere or do something. On our last night, we sat around the bonfire roasting s'mores. There was no deep conversation, just laughter and the comfortable feeling of being together.

We did leave the house each day, mostly for ice cream or coffee. We drove through woods and farms, and we found a hike with a river to swim in. We only ate out once when we went to a favorite spot from my husband's college days that we've taken the kids to before: takeout calzones eaten at a rickety picnic table by the horse farm at UConn.

There were no bucket-list activities

There was no big attraction, no bucket-list activity, and no dramatic vacation story to tell. Mostly, we just spent time together. As my kids get older and our schedules pull us in different directions, time together takes more work.

This trip may not have been epic, but it did give us what we needed. After we got home, I asked everyone the same question: Would you do this again? Everyone said yes. Even though they felt the pressure of busyness, the trip gave them a break they didn't even know they needed.

Before the trip, I worried a vacation one hour from home wouldn't feel like a real vacation. By the end, I realized distance had very little to do with it. What made it perfect wasn't where we went. It was that for a few days, nobody had anywhere they needed to be. We could just be together.

• Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says negative public perception of AI is a "big problem."
• Amodei said AI companies have overpromised and undersold on what the technology can do.
• He said the best way to earn the public's trust is for AI to deliver major scientific advancements.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says the best way to win over AI skeptics is to deliver on the hype.

In a rare post on X on Saturday, Anthropic's CEO acknowledged the public's mistrust of AI and said the industry can only change that by delivering tangible scientific breakthroughs.

"At this point, saying that AI will cure cancer is more a cliché than it is inspiring, and most people think it is deceptive," Amodei wrote. "The most accurate criticism of AI companies, including Anthropic, is that we haven't yet delivered on our big promises to benefit the world."

"The thing that will work is actually curing cancer," he added.

The AI industry is facing a growing public backlash as it builds huge data centers in communities across the country, scrapes often copyrighted online data to train its models, and upends the workforce for many industries. A recent Pew Research Center study found that about half of Americans felt the increased prevalence of AI in their daily lives made them feel "more concerned than excited."

Amodei, meanwhile, has repeatedly warned on podcasts, in essays, and in Anthropic blog posts, about the dangers posed by AI's rapid development. In a June essay, Amodei wrote that the company's new Mythos models present "very real risks" to cybersecurity, the financial sector, critical infrastructure, and national security. Last year, he warned that AI would cause half of all entry-level jobs to vanish.

Some other AI leaders have criticized the kind of rhetoric for which Amodei, who left OpenAI in 2020 over concerns about the company's attention to safety, has become famous. Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis said earlier this year that his peers had been "way too certain" about their dire predictions and encouraged them to dial it back.

As OpenAI and Anthropic gear up for expected IPOs, they have followed that advice, pivoting from doomerism to boomerism. Amodei, however, said in his Saturday X post that he doesn't think his warnings are the cause of the public's distrust of AI.

"I do not agree that my messaging has been disproportionately negative," he wrote.

"I wrote Machines of Loving Grace because I didn't feel the AI industry was painting an inspiring enough picture of how the technology could radically transform the world for the better," he added, referring to a lengthy 2024 blog post in which he laid out how he thought AI could make the world a better place.

Instead, Amodei said that the public's distrust of AI companies reflects broader skepticism among Americans toward corporations overall. "The causes of this go back decades and AI is just the latest iteration of it," he wrote.

Anthropic's decision not to open-source any of its frontier models, which it says is out of caution, has contributed, at least in part, to the public's wariness. Anthropic drew ire last month for being the only major AI developer not to sign a letter advocating for open-weight AI as Washington considered restrictions on some Chinese models.

Yann LeCun, the former chief AI scientist at Meta, has long argued that keeping frontier AI technology closed-source, as Anthropic does, contributes to public distrust about AI more than anything else.

In an X post responding to Amodei, LeCun wrote that the "only way forward" is for AI to be "widely available, shared, and open."

"We need diverse AIs for the same reason we need a diverse press," he wrote.

As for Amodei's argument that a major scientific breakthrough could turn the tide of public opinion, not everyone agreed with that either.

Angel Brodin, an applied AI architect at OpenAI, wrote in a response to Amodei's post that despite routinely delivering advancements in public health, the pharmaceutical industry is "still one of the least trusted industries."

"People also won't judge AI companies solely by their breakthroughs," she wrote. "They'll judge them by pricing, access, lobbying, opacity, how the economic gains are distributed, who gets to participate in its benefits, and who ultimately holds the power."

Amodei, for his part, said Anthropic is ramping up work in the biological and medical fields to test that theory.

"We hope to have incredible results in the coming years and some early glimmers in the coming months," he wrote. "When we've actually accomplished something real, the whole world will hear about it, as loudly as possible, you have my word on that."

• I moved to Palm Springs temporarily, with the goal of returning to Los Angeles within a few months.
• However, I quickly fell in love with the desert city's nature, cultural scene, and community.
• Six years later, I'm still here — and though there are things I miss about LA, I have no regrets.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I considered Palm Springs a sunny respite about a few hours away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I made a point of visiting the desert city a few weekends a year to enjoy perfect winter weather and laid-back, poolside hangs.

I never imagined living there, though, until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Suddenly, Los Angeles felt claustrophobic.

Like many others in the city during this time, I wanted to find a place with more breathing room. Since most of my work was already remote, I was not tethered to a location and decided to make a move.

Palm Springs offered a lower population density, plenty of wide-open vistas, and a slower pace of living, all of which appealed to me.

I planned to just "wait out" the pandemic in Palm Springs and return to LA when it was over. So, I negotiated my lease down to a six-month stay.

Pandemic-related restrictions lasted well beyond that initial period, but I didn't want to leave. I'd started truly falling in love with the desert, so I kept renewing my lease on a month-to-month basis.

I quickly fell in love with the city's nature and arts scene

One of the biggest immediate perks of living in Palm Springs was the easy access to nature and hiking. Even within the city limits, there were great, secluded trails to explore, not to mention spots like Joshua Tree National Park just over an hour away.

In those early days of social distancing, I took full advantage of these hikes — as well as neighborhood walks, which offered so much Modernist architecture and gorgeous desert landscaping.

Once physical-distancing restrictions were lifted and we could start sharing more spaces again, I began working for the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which remains one of my favorite local events.

I developed friendships within the community of coworkers and volunteers, and built several meaningful intergenerational relationships that continue to this day.

As things continued to open up, I frequently attended live music events throughout the region, including shows at Pappy and Harriet's and the Coachella festival.

As someone who has always worked in arts, music, and culture, these places provided great opportunities to meet like-minded people in town and get a cultural pulse on the city.

Community, friendships, and work helped me decide to stay in Palm Springs

By the time the peak of the pandemic had passed, LA had changed — many of my friends had also moved elsewhere.

Plus, I'd become deeply ingrained in Palm Springs' community through work and new friendships, and fallen into routines here. I didn't want to leave.

So, I didn't. And six years later, I'm still in the city.

There have been benefits I didn't necessarily expect. Compared to living in Los Angeles, drives are short, traffic is light, and parking just about anywhere downtown is easier (and free!).

You also simply cannot beat the winter weather here, with mainly sunny days and temperatures in the mid-70s.

Though I miss many things about Los Angeles — like the amazing, varied food scene and late-night culture — Palm Springs has a lot to offer for everyday life.

And it doesn't hurt that I'm only a two-hour drive away from my old home, so I can head back as often as I need to for work opportunities or visits with friends who still live there.

I'm not ruling out a return to Los Angeles eventually, and I always like to stay flexible and open to new opportunities. For the foreseeable future, though, Palm Springs is home.

If you're willing to spend top dollar, it’s easy to find headphones packed with features and high-end audio quality. But what about cheaper models? Are lower-end headphones still worthwhile? I've been reviewing audio gear for over a decade, and I've tested plenty of affordable headphones and earbuds. Though you need to be more selective with entry-level options, the best budget headphones can still deliver good quality, and you might be surprised by just how well certain models perform.

For those who want solid over-ear headphones on a budget, I recommend the Soundcore Space 2. They retail for $130, but it isn’t rare to find them for less, and they deliver surprisingly powerful active noise cancellation (ANC). On the wireless earbuds side, I like the Nothing Ear (3a), which also offer capable ANC, along with a cool transparent design and big sound for $99. And if you're just after simplicity, don’t forget the Apple EarPods. These wired earbuds never need charging and deliver solid performance for just $19.

Below, you'll find all of my picks for the best budget headphones and earbuds. For this guide, I've included a variety of styles, from on-ear to open-ear models, that all regularly sell for $150 or less.

Our top picks for the best budget headphones

Best overall: Soundcore Space 2 - See at Amazon

Best wired earbuds: Apple EarPods (USB-C) - See at Amazon

Best wireless earbuds: Nothing Ear (3a) - See at Amazon

Best on-ear: Marshall Major V - See at Amazon

Best open ear: CMF Clip Pro - See at Amazon

Best for kids: Skullcandy Grom - See at Amazon

Best overall

The Soundcore Space 2 are wireless noise-canceling headphones that retail for $130, but can sometimes be found for as little as $110. They combine a comfortable fit, excellent sound quality, and surprisingly robust ANC performance. And though plenty of headphones offer these attributes, few perform so well at this price. All things considered, they're the best budget headphones for most needs.

The headphones' audio quality is big and immersive. They deliver plenty of bass while still offering clarity throughout the mid-range. These are easy headphones to put on and instantly vibe with any type of music. And if you ever find their hefty bass too strong, you can simply adjust it using the headphones' handy EQ settings.

Noise cancellation is also a standout. Pricier flagship over-ear headphones from Bose and Sony do have a clear edge, but the Space 2 do an excellent job of minimizing HVAC noise, fan noise, and airplane drone. Few models in this price range can match the ANC on offer here.

The Space 2 support around 50 hours of battery life with ANC turned on, and an incredible 70 hours with it off. That's notably more than many rivals. They also have a unique Nap Mode with several built-in nature sounds. Though this can be a bit gimmicky, some may find the white-noise selection calming. They can also connect to multiple devices at once with Multi-point pairing and feature onboard buttons rather than touch controls.

However, the controls aren't quite as responsive as I'd like, and I do wish the Space 2 folded more compactly for storage. But those are ultimately small complaints, especially considering everything the Space 2 headphones get right at such an affordable price.

Read our Soundcore Space 2 review.

Best wired earbuds

When I went looking for wired USB-C earbuds on a budget, I discovered there just aren't many unique, viable options on the market. That is, with the exception of Apple's EarPods. They deliver solid performance for just $19, easily cementing them as the best cheap earbuds for iPhone and Android users alike.

Apple first introduced the EarPods way back in 2012, four years before the first-gen wireless AirPods. This latest edition uses a USB-C connection rather than the 3.5mm or Lightning connection used on older models. USB-C has become the standard audio connection for phones across brands, so these will plug into most modern devices without any issue.

Beyond their low price, what makes the EarPods so appealing is their simplicity. There isn't a battery inside, so you never have to worry about running out of juice. They're powered by whatever device you connect them to. And unlike many other sub-$20 earbuds, these have a clear sound with crisp instrumentation and vocals. You won't hear distortion or too much treble in music.

Surprisingly, these EarPods also have a good microphone, or at least sound great for voice calls. There's no delay like Bluetooth buds, and the microphone can be adjusted closer to your mouth if needed. Even if you don't need these as primary earbuds, for $19, they make an excellent backup pair to carry in your travel bag.

Best wireless earbuds

The Nothing Ear (3a) are versatile wireless earbuds with great active noise cancellation and transparency for their $99 price tag. They also feature a fashionable see-through design, which is a staple of Nothing's stylish appeal.

The earbuds' solid ANC effectively blocks many distracting noises. However, because of the price point, you should still temper your expectations. For example, they can't dampen the cabin drone of an airplane as well as pricier earbuds from Bose and Sony. The ANC strength is ideal for household and office use, but falls short in the most demanding environments.

One area in which the Nothing Ear (3a) far exceeded expectations was audio quality. The buds can deliver pleasingly booming music with lots of bass and a full soundstage. But they're also clear and crisp. Pop songs, of course, sound good, but so do rock and folk, among other genres.

If you want more from your earbuds than just listening to music, you can also use them to record calls for up to two hours. The recordings sync to the Nothing app, and then the audio can be transcribed. There's also an Audio Snapshot feature that lets you capture up to 60 seconds of any audio you're listening to. But while the call recording function seems broadly useful, the Audio Snapshot feature comes across as a bit gimmicky, and I haven't found a use for it yet.

Best on-ear

Unlike over-ear headphones, which create a seal around your ears with large, all-encompassing earcups, the Marshall Major V on-ear headphones sit directly on your ears with smaller earpads. Though this headphone style is less common nowadays, it results in a more compact design, which some listeners may prefer.

The Major V technically retail for $159, but you can regularly find them for close to $100 or even under. The best value can be had if you're flexible on the color, since certain options tend to be cheaper than others. For the money, these wireless on-ear headphones offer tremendous value.

Generally speaking, there's nothing obvious to criticize about the audio quality here. The headphones deliver enough thump to make songs sound full. And their overall soundstage is remarkably wide to my ears. Even if you don't care for Marshall's signature sound profile, you can use the mobile app to adjust their EQ to your liking.

On the downside, the Major V lack active noise cancellation, which you can get from the similar-looking but pricier Marshall Milton ANC model. However, the Major V still have the brand's customizable "M" button and four-way rocker for controlling volume and media playback. Even better, they set themselves apart by wirelessly charging when you rest an earcup on a Qi charger — no USB-C cable needed. This is a perk that most over-ear wireless headphones lack.

Best open ear

Open-style earbuds continue to grow in popularity, with many types to choose from, including options that simply hang over your ears and models that use a cuff or clip-on design. The CMF Clip Pro use the latter, and I like how they attach to the side of your ears without creating a seal, allowing you to stay aware of your surroundings.

Despite their affordable price and open design, the earbuds' audio quality is surprisingly full with audible bass. There's even a leakage-reduction mode, which makes it harder for people around you to hear what you're listening to.

Other perks include physical buttons on each bud for reliable media controls. I also love that the charging case includes a customizable, clickable dial. It can be used for volume adjustment and skipping tracks, among other things. However, be aware that, since the case is compact, getting the buds back in can be a little bit of a puzzle.

When it comes to fit, the buds attach well. They're lightweight and comfortable to wear. Ultimately, the biggest drawback I've encountered is that the top volume can't always combat loud environments. Depending on what you're listening to, fighting busy crowds in Times Square or train rides may drown out your music. Otherwise, these should work well for fitness activities or just everyday wear, especially given their sub-$100 cost.

Best for kids

The Skullcandy Grom targets kids with appropriately sized headphones. The sub-$40 retail price is a nice selling point, but the Grom also address real pain points that parents are likely looking to solve.

Importantly, a volume-limiting feature is included, allowing a maximum listening volume to be set on the headphones. This allows parents to protect their kids from high sound levels that could damage their hearing.

The Skullcandy Grom can be used wirelessly for around 45 hours on a single charge. They also support a handy quick-charge function that provides four hours of use with only 10 minutes plugged in.

Of course, some parents will prefer avoiding Bluetooth when dealing with their child's headphones. Trying to pair headphones, re-pair them, or just make sure they're always connected to the right device can be a chore. With that in mind, the Grom can also be used with the included wired cable for simpler connectivity. There's also a cable sharing feature, so two kids can listen to the same thing together. (If you don't want wireless at all, then you can get a wired-only version for even less.)

I'm not the target audience, so the fit isn't made with an adult in mind. But even with that in mind, I've found them very solid to use for listening to music, and they're a great value for the money.

How we test budget headphones

To identify the best budget headphones, I evaluate each model based on sound quality, durability, overall value, and useful features such as active noise cancellation when they're available. I've spent more than a decade reviewing headphones and other audio gear, and that experience helps shape how I test and compare today's affordable models.

Sound quality is assessed using a broad mix of music, genres, and playback sources, including popular streaming services. For headphones that support both connection types, I also compare wireless and wired playback.

When a pair of budget headphones includes active noise cancellation, I evaluate how effectively it reduces unwanted sound in everyday situations. Testing takes place in real-world environments such as commutes, workouts, flights, and other noisy settings. I also use test sounds to simulate common distractions, such as vacuums and busy restaurants.

Value is especially important when evaluating the best budget headphones. In addition to similarly priced models, I compare our top picks against the best headphones at higher price points to determine which affordable options deliver performance, build quality, and features that come closest to those on flagship models.

Budget headphones FAQs

How much should you spend on budget headphones?

Generally speaking, $25 to $150 will get you a pair of reliable budget wireless headphones. All of our picks for the best budget headphones fall around that price range, with a few exceptions, most notably the Marshall Major V. But that model goes on sale regularly, and sometimes dips below $100. If you want to step up to premium headphones, you can expect to pay at least $200 for the best earbuds or at least $300 for the best over-ear headphones.

What should you expect from budget headphones?

You can get surprisingly good performance from the best budget headphones, but there are tradeoffs. Most cheap models today offer solid sound quality for casual listening, decent comfort, and, if they're wireless, good battery life. That said, you'll usually miss out on premium features like top-tier noise cancellation and high-end materials. Likewise, features geared toward audiophiles, such as an open-back design and high-end planar magnetic or electrostatic drivers, are typically reserved for more expensive models.

• I quit competitive gymnastics at 14 after an injury and abusive coaching.
• Nearly three decades later, I found an adult gymnastics class and started again.
• I've since competed nationally and represented the US at the Masters World Cup.

At 41, after years of chronic back pain, postpartum depression, and the consuming demands of motherhood, I did what I thought was impossible: I found my way back to the sport that shaped me.

My journey back started with a Google search for "adult gymnastics." I had no idea that it existed. That was the moment I realized my childhood dreams did not have to end at 14.

Nearly three decades after walking away, I sat in my car outside a gym, debating whether to go inside for my first adult class. I was a wife, a mother of two, and someone whose body carried years of back pain from a car accident. Still, something inside told me to open the door.

The moment I stepped inside, I knew I was home. The uneven bars felt familiar; my body remembered movements I hadn't done in decades. But then came the vault.

Standing at the end of the runway, I prepared for a front handspring vault, a movement engraved in my muscle memory. Yet, everything felt different. I was no longer a fearless teenager, and the old vaulting horse was now a modern table. I was a 41-year-old mom, wondering if my body could handle what my younger self had done without hesitation. Every instinct told me to turn around. Instead, I ran.

Giving up on a childhood passion

When I quit competitive gymnastics at 14, I thought that part of my life was over. For 27 years, gymnastics became a distant memory while life moved forward. I built a career, got married, and became a mother, pouring everything into everyone else.

A car accident in my early 20s left me with spinal injuries and chronic pain. My second pregnancy made those injuries worse, and I eventually found myself on disability while battling postpartum depression. I was surviving instead of thriving. The woman in the mirror no longer resembled the brave athlete I had once been.

My best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer

Everything changed when my best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. As her cancer progressed and became terminal, I watched her face unimaginable circumstances with incredible courage. She reminded me that life was too precious to keep living in fear.

I began rebuilding my health. I became a Zumba and HIIT instructor, watching women walk into my classes carrying stress, self-doubt, and the weight of daily responsibilities. By the end of the hour, they stood taller, rediscovering confidence they thought they had lost.

Watching them reclaim their strength gave me the courage to reclaim mine. I wasn't trying to relive my youth. I wanted to know if the strongest parts of me were still there beneath years of pain, fear, and responsibility.

Rebuilding trust was harder than rebuilding strength

When I finally took that leap and sprinted down the runway, I wasn't thinking about technique and perfection; I was thinking about everything my body had survived. Chronic pain teaches you caution, but gymnastics demands trust. You cannot sprint toward a vault believing your body will fail you.

Soaring over the vaulting table taught me that the hardest part of returning wasn't rebuilding physical strength; it was rebuilding trust with my own body. I had spent years seeing my back as fragile. Over time, I stopped resenting my body for what it had lost and started appreciating what it could still do. I chose faith over fear, and everything changed.

I compete nationally in my 40s

Over the past five years, my return to gymnastics has taken me further than I ever imagined. I've competed nationally, represented the USA at the Masters World Cup, appeared on "America Ninja Warrior," and at 45 became the oldest gymnast to complete the 14-event Omnithon at NAIGC Nationals for the second consecutive year.

But my journey isn't just about medals; it's about the love of the sport. I've had so much fun adding things like trampoline and tumbling (events I never got to try as a child), and embracing new challenges. I am also helping to lead a rapidly growing movement of thousands of adult gymnasts worldwide.

Those accomplishments mean a lot, but they aren't the real victory. The real victory happened the day I stopped believing my identity had an expiration date. My personal mantra is "Purpose Over Podium." I'm no longer chasing validation from judges or collecting medals; those eventually collect dust. What stays with me is the confidence, the courage, and the reminder that my best years are not behind me. Flipping through the air and making myself proud is something no medal can measure.

I want my sons to see that resilience matters more than comfort. I want the women in my fitness classes to know they aren't too old to pursue something that scares them. And I want every woman who has quietly placed her dreams on hold to know she doesn't have to leave them there. Growth does not end at midlife. Sometimes, it's where the greatest chapters begin.

• I'm very close with both of my parents, and we have traveled together many times.
• I took solo trips with each of them and got to see them outside of their Mom and Dad titles.
• I loved getting to see them as individuals and connect over their own unique interests.

As an only child, I really lucked out. My parents have always been there for me, not just as role models, but as friends, too.

Growing up, our family trips were always just the three of us, so I always saw my mom and dad as a unit. But in my early 30s, I started traveling with each of them separately, and realized how different those experiences could be.

When you strip someone away from their roles, they have the chance to just relax and be who they want to be. No responsibilities, no work, no need to take care of anyone or anything. I'm so glad I've had the chance to learn more about them as people and their interests beyond our comfort zones.

I got to see a different side of my father

This year, I surprised my dad with his dream trip to Islay, Scotland. He'd been talking about visiting for years, so we booked a tour for his 60th birthday. We spent our days touring whisky distilleries and traversing lesser-known coastal towns with our Glaswegian guide and the several other strangers we were with.

Usually, at home, my dad finds solace on his weekends away from the office. Instead of exploring Boston, he enjoys spending time just being up on his favorite shows. On our trip, this wasn't the case. Each morning was filled with new adventures, from skipping along the beach and distillery tastings on Islay, to scouring Edinburgh for his favorite spots he wanted to take me. Instead of having to listen to my ideas and passions, I got to explore his.

In Scotland, the travel version of my dad was unlocked. He was calm, spontaneous, lived in the moment, and just made the most of each day. My dad's sometimes a man of few words, but since it was just us, we chatted about all sorts and just laughed about our Scottish escapades.

My mom and I got to act like friends

A few months before, I had taken my mother on a much-needed retreat to Curaçao for Mother's Day weekend. We enjoyed a weekend of private lagoons, beaches, day trips, and relaxing time to do absolutely nothing — something we both needed.

Maybe it's a mom thing, but in our regular day-to-day life, mine seems to have it all figured out. She's the voice of reason, the one suggesting plans, and overall just someone you can always go to. She's usually pretty relaxed in general, no matter the situation, but I saw a version of her just so content and happy with really taking it slow. No time of day to wake up, nowhere to be, no priorities. We both found laughter and happiness in the simple things- a spontaneous trip to a brewery, people watching, and silly jokes with our tour guide driving around the island.

In Curaçao, my mom and I were just friends on a girly holiday. Most of our days were spent by the beach with drinks or floating around on pool noodles, but my favorite times were when we'd just hang out in our villa, chatting in our towels over a glass of wine.

I will continue to travel solo with my parents

From seeing the northern lights in Iceland to mingling with the locals in the Bahamas, some of my most memorable trips over the years have been with my parents, but getting the chance to travel with them separately was so special.

My mom and dad will always be my parents, but on these trips, I had the chance to see them as individuals. Away from the daily hustle of life, away from responsibilities, and just as friends. I can't wait to plan our next one-on-one trips!

• Last year, I moved to a remote island in Alaska, and it's been more convenient than I anticipated.
• I may be in the middle of nowhere, but I still have reliable internet and see familiar faces daily.
• Additionally, I never have to travel far for an outdoor adventure, since nature is my backyard.

When I first moved to a remote island off the coast of Alaska, I expected everyday life to be full of inconveniences.

Although my island is one of the largest in the US, it's mostly untouched wilderness and accessible only by plane or boat. The community I live in is also quite small, with just over 5,000 people.

Before I arrived, I pictured having incredibly limited access to basic necessities, struggling to order anything online, and constantly having to leave the island whenever I needed to buy groceries or run errands.

Fortunately, since arriving here a year ago, I've been able to do everything I need to do more easily than expected — though I've had to adjust how I plan and execute certain tasks.

Most of all, I've learned that convenience doesn't necessarily mean having endless options right outside my door.

We can still get online orders, despite being in what feels like the middle of nowhere.

Even though there are more options on the island than I expected, including coffee shops, fresh seafood stands, and grocery stores, there are still things I can't easily find locally, like certain clothing brands, specific car parts, or specialty household items.

Luckily, when I need something that isn't available here, I can still order it online despite not being in a major city.

Amazon and other big online retailers are still part of my life, and can deliver packages to me — it just takes a couple of weeks instead of a few days, and shipping can sometimes cost extra.

Living on an island didn't mean sacrificing reliable internet.

Despite being on a more remote island, my internet connection has never been an issue.

In fact, I've been able to maintain a career that depends on an internet connection. I work as a full-time content creator, which means I spend a lot of time filming, editing, communicating, and uploading content.

Fortunately, reliable internet has made it possible for me to complete all my work on the island rather than move to a more populated area.

Travel does require more planning, but it's easier than I expected.

Travel is one area where living remotely requires more planning, but it's not as difficult as I anticipated.

There are regular flights to and from the island — with the nearest one to Anchorage being about 250 air miles away —but I still have to account for the weather and the possibility that plans may change.

A typical trip off the island can take most of a day once I factor in connecting flights and time getting to and from the airport. Sometimes, when poor weather or flight delays come into play, I've spent more than 24 hours trying to reach a destination.

As long as I plan accordingly for long travel days, including closely monitoring the climate conditions, they don't always turn into the tedious adventure most people assume.

Even though I have fewer places to eat and shop, I've enjoyed relying on the local businesses.

Because my community is pretty small — a town of about 5,200 people with surrounding villages bringing the total population to around 12,400 residents — I often recognize people when I'm in town.

A lot of these familiar faces run local businesses, and supporting them has become a natural part of my routine, whether I'm grabbing coffee, buying essentials, or going out to eat.

Although I have limited options for dining and shopping, I've come to appreciate having a handful of reliable places where I know the staff and exactly what to expect.

There's something meaningful about regularly recognizing familiar faces and feeling so connected to local small businesses — things I don't think I would have if I lived in a bigger city.

Because nature is my backyard, I never have to go far for outdoor adventures.

Before moving here, I enjoyed spending time outside, but living in this environment has encouraged me to make outdoor activities a much bigger part of my routine.

I hike, trail run, paddleboard, and explore areas around the island. I don't necessarily have to plan an entire vacation around doing those things.

If I have a few hours free, I can often use them to get outside and explore.

When you're surrounded by mountains, water, trails, and wildlife, it's easy to find a reason to spend time outside. For me, that has translated into being more active and spending more of my free time outdoors.

Ultimately, I've been able to maintain a lot of the life I had before.

I originally thought the biggest adjustment to living on an island would be everything I couldn't access. Instead, I've noticed how many parts of my everyday life I can still maintain.

I can get groceries, order things online, work from home, go out for coffee or dinner, exercise, travel, and spend time with other people in the community. I just sometimes have to approach those things differently than I did before, often with more patience.

Living on a more remote island comes with tradeoffs and limitations, but I've learned to embrace it. I may no longer have every convenience I'm accustomed to, but living here helped me realize I need fewer conveniences than I thought.

• Seeking more space, some homeowners are building accessory dwelling units in their yards.
• Some use them for rental income, while others use them to keep loved ones who need care close by.
• Business Insider spoke to 4 families who built ADUs for their loved ones about the experience.

Lena Koropey's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease nearly a decade ago. Since then, she's watched her once-independent mother come to rely on others for nearly every part of daily life.

"It's definitely getting harder each year," Koropey, 48, told Business Insider.

Six years ago, Koropey bought a three-bedroom home in Mattituck, on Long Island's North Fork, where she lives with her mother and a live-in caregiver. The house is only 1,300 square feet, but it sits on half an acre, giving Koropey room to rethink their living arrangement as her mother's condition progresses.

"I've created spreadsheets and mapped out various scenarios, including building a small cottage or an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on our property, moving to another house, or, as a last resort, placing my mother in a care facility," she said. "For now, we've decided to build an ADU."

Koropey plans to build a 750-square-foot home on the property and move into it herself, leaving her mother in the main house with her caregiver and familiar surroundings.

"There is no perfect solution, but my property gives me the flexibility to adapt our living arrangement as her needs change and, ultimately, to care for her at home for as long as possible," she said.

People are building ADUs for loved ones who need care

An ADU is a small home, often built in a backyard. They typically range from 150 to 1,200 square feet, and cost $100,000 to $300,000 to build, before extras like permitting fees. As ADUs have grown more popular, some states, including California and New York, offer financial assistance to homeowners who build them.

Business Insider has spoken with dozens of people over the years about why they built ADUs on their properties. Some needed extra space or a home office, while others saw an opportunity for rental income. Increasingly, families are also using ADUs to keep loved ones who need care close by.

Rachael Reiner, director of pre-construction and project management at the Bay Area-based ADU company Villa, told Business Insider that the trend has grown in popularity as multigenerational living becomes more common. According to Reiner, 75% of Villa's sales so far in 2026 have been for multigenerational living purposes.

"The majority of our ADU projects are driven by families seeking to balance independence with accessible care," Reiner said. "These spaces provide either aging relatives or loved ones requiring support the autonomy they desire while ensuring they remain close to family for support and oversight."

For the Kuchtas, building an ADU opened the door to more disability services

Building an ADU isn't necessarily cheap, but in an expensive housing market like California, it can still be a more affordable option. That was the case for Todd Kuchta, who lives in Napa County with his wife, Gabrielle, and son, Jacob.

Jacob has autism and needs help with daily tasks like taking medication and preparing meals, but he still wants his independence. When he told his parents he was ready to move out, they carefully weighed their options.

They could buy a larger home, giving him more space, or move Jacob into supported housing, where he'd have his own room and staff available to help with his needs. But neither option seemed affordable. Jacob's medical support costs alone could sometimes exceed $9,000 a month.

Instead, the Kuchtas decided to build an ADU on their property in 2023.

Jacob's 480-square-foot, one-bedroom home cost them $248,000 to build— far less than Napa County's $907,440 median home price in August. They financed it in part through Napa County's Affordable ADU program, which offers forgivable loans to homeowners who rent the units to low-income tenants for at least 5 years.

"Napa County provided $63,000 as a forgivable loan, and we worked with Redwood Credit Union, which provided an additional $160,000 loan as a second mortgage," Kuchta, 60, told Business Insider. "We used a portion of Jacob's disability income to help cover the ADU rent, which, in turn, offsets our monthly mortgage."

Not only is Jacob, who turned 28 this year, thrilled to live on his own, but he has also gained access to more support. He's now eligible for additional disability services through the state of California, including an in-home aide for eight hours a day during the week. Kuchta's wife also became certified as an In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) provider and is paid to help care for him.

"The ADU has provided us just what we need to provide independence to Jacob and provide us with the ability to continue supporting him while having more freedom," Kuchta said.

Shalini Karnani Bonjour's mother can comfortably age in place

For some families, an ADU can be a way to keep an aging loved one close before a health issue or an emergency arises.

When Shalini Karnani Bonjour's father died in 2024, she didn't want her mother living on her own hundreds of miles away in Michigan.

"My mom was 78, and my husband and I didn't feel comfortable having her so far away, especially when it came to her day-to-day needs," Bonjour, 50, told Business Insider.

After helping her mom sell her home and move to California, Bonjour and her husband explored different living options for her, including renting an apartment, moving into an independent-living community, or moving into assisted living. But "none were ideal," she said.

In 2024, the couple purchased a 2,222-square-foot home in the Coachella Valley to live in with their son and Bonjour's mother. The following year, they began building a 1,100-square-foot accessory dwelling unit for her mother on the property.

"When people tell my husband and me we're smart or strong for doing this, I think, 'What other option do we have?' I'm an only child. Who else will be there to take care of my mother?" she said.

When completed, the home will have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a walk-in tub in the primary bathroom. The $475,000 project has cost more than they initially expected, and construction has been more complicated than anticipated, but Bonjour said it will be worth it.

"We love where we live, and building this on our property means we can stay close to my mom while still giving her independence and a home of her own," she said.

James Richard Cornell wanted to be a more hands-on caregiver

About 11 years ago, James Richard Cornell's mother called him to say she was over living on her own.

"My mother was living in Florida, and as she got older, she would always say, 'Let me know when you're ready for me,'" Cornell, 63, told Business Insider reporter Noah Sheidlower. "It was clear her time to take care of the house she had was getting shorter."

Within weeks, Cornell and his brother helped their mom pack up, sold her home, and moved her in with him. He has been helping care for his now-87-year-old mother, who later developed dementia, ever since.

At first, she lived in a bedroom in Cornell's home. But after becoming interested in tiny homes, she decided she wanted one of her own. Around 2013, Cornell built her a roughly 1,000-square-foot home in his front yard. His mother covered about 90% of the $110,000 cost, while Cornell handled much of the construction himself.

"When I walk out my front door, I can look to the right, and she's right there," he said. "She's just 30 feet off the corner of my house."

That proximity has become important as his mother's health declines. Cornell gives her medication twice a day and installed an alarm and monitoring system so she can alert someone if she needs help. His friends also help with her care, giving Cornell some relief.

"Nursing homes are awfully expensive, and I promised her years ago that I would take care of her until her final days," he said. "She's done so much for me, so it's fitting that I return it. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be where I am today."

• My son went to culinary school after high school, and my daughter is majoring in theater.
• It's not what I expected for either one of my kids.
• I've realized that I need to help them become who they want to be — not who I dreamed they'd be.

When my son was in sixth grade, he looked at me one afternoon in our garage while I was unloading groceries and said something I never expected to hear. He said, "Mom, you're not going to make me go to college, are you?"

I paused, unsure of the answer.

He was 12 years old. College wasn't exactly around the corner, and I figured he'd change his mind a dozen times before then.

Looking back, he wasn't telling me what he wanted to do. He was telling me who he was. School never energized him the way it would later energize his younger sister. He was always moving, talking to people, and happiest when he was doing something with his hands. While other kids thrived in a classroom, he came alive in fast-paced environments where he could jump in and work alongside others.

Like many parents, I had already written a script in my mind for what success was supposed to look like: graduate from high school, go to college, and build a career.

But what if he didn't follow that path? What could that look like, and would he still be OK?

My son found his place in the trades

During high school, he started working in restaurants where he loved the pace, teamwork, and controlled chaos of a busy kitchen.

When COVID pushed school online, he accelerated his classes and graduated months ahead of his classmates. Instead of heading straight to college, he spent the next year working.

Then one June afternoon, my phone rang. When I picked up, he asked, "Mom, what's my Social Security number?"

When I asked why, he casually replied that he was enrolling in our local community college's culinary trade program. A one-year certification. He wasn't asking what I thought. He had already made his decision.

Shortly after completing the program, he moved from Washington to Arizona to work in Scottsdale's restaurant scene. My husband and I visited him more than once and watched him during dinner rush. It was exhilarating to see him working shoulder to shoulder with his teammates, completely in his element.

That's when something shifted inside me. Not because he had become a chef. Because I realized he had become independent. He had learned a skill. He had developed confidence. He had proven to himself that he could walk into a new city, build a life, and support himself.

Years later, it was my daughter's turn to plan her future

Her path couldn't have looked more different. She chose an out-of-state Top 10 public university to study theater.

More than a few people questioned the decision to spend that kind of money on an arts degree.

By then, my son had already changed me. By then, I wasn't asking whether my daughter's decision was the safest choice.

Instead, I found myself wondering whether she was building a life that fit who she was. The answer was yes.

Watching one child pursue culinary arts, and another pursue theater, taught me that my job as a parent was never to steer them toward the life I imagined or the one others expected them to pursue.

My job was to help them become confident enough to pursue lives that fit who they are.

There's a big question we parents should ask ourselves

Ironically, as I've been reflecting on all of this, my son called recently to say he's thinking about a career change. After six years in restaurants, he told me he was ready for something new.

Years ago, I would have worried that changing direction meant he made the wrong choice. Instead, my first thought was, "You're 22. You're not stuck. This is your time to try different things."

The years he spent in restaurants taught him discipline, resilience, teamwork, and how to earn a living. They helped him discover both what he loves and what he wants to explore next.

We spend so much time asking our children what they want to be when they grow up. Eventually, that question becomes, "Where are you going to college?" and "What's your major?"

Those aren't bad questions. But I think there's a better one: "Am I helping my child become who they're meant to be, or am I trying to shape them into who I expected them to become?"

Looking back, my sixth-grade son wasn't asking me to lower my expectations. He was asking me to make room for his own.

• Western soldiers are helping to train Ukrainian soldiers to fight Russia.
• Trainers say they don't teach drone piloting because Ukraine already does it better.
• Drones are woven into the training though because they're ubiquitous in the war.

A new training program for Ukrainian soldiers on NATO soil isn't teaching them to pilot drones or conduct electronic warfare because Ukraine already knows how to teach those skills itself.

Ukrainian soldiers are learning battlefield skills at a purpose-built camp in southeastern Poland as part of a Norway-led multinational effort called Operation Legio, which Business Insider recently visited.

The effort aims to bring more Western expertise, doctrine, leadership, and specialist skills to Ukrainian troops, while Ukraine decides which skills it wants the training to focus on.

"We do not do drone courses. We do not do courses within electronic warfare," Maj. John, the S3 Operations Officer in charge of synchronizing the overall training operation, told Business Insider, asking to be identified by his first name for security reasons.

Western militaries are teaching their own soldiers how to pilot drones with simulators and obstacle courses. But for Ukrainian troops at Camp Jomsborg, the training skips that step because "they have excellent drone training and education, and electronic warfare education. They can fix that themselves. So that hasn't been a request from the Ukrainians," John said.

Instead, the program is built around what Ukraine says it needs. John said that it's defined "as a Ukrainian training center" because it teaches what Ukraine requests, incorporates Ukrainian soldiers' battle-won experience, and has Ukrainian instructors working alongside allied trainers and assistance from a host of other countries, including Estonia, Finland, and Sweden.

Defining it that way, John said, means Ukrainians can "hold us accountable for quality and delivering that realistic training."

That doesn't mean drones are absent. Quite the opposite. Drones are everywhere in training because they are everywhere in the war.

Soldiers don't learn from scratch how to pilot them, but they do learn how to incorporate drones — and the threat from enemy drones — into their tactics and planning. Allies are also learning about drone warfare from Ukrainian instructors along the way.

Drones have fundamentally shaped the war, changing everything about how forces fight and how soldiers experience it. Leaders want the training to be as realistic as possible, and training soldiers without spy and attack drones overhead would hardly prepare them for the battlefield to which they'll return.

John said they had to make drone use and exposure "part of the training mission because it's such a big part of the current operational environment."

At the training camp, Ukrainian instructors are always there to act as subject matter experts on drones and electronic warfare and share how Russia and Ukraine use and don't use these capabilities, Brigadier Atle Molde, commander of Task Force Legio, told Business Insider.

He said that from the Ukrainian perspective, using electronic warfare and drones in all kinds of training, both friendly and enemy, "is of vital importance."

The training includes a drone center, which John explained was designed in "very close cooperation with the Ukrainians." It provides the gear needed for training, handles repairs, and gives troops a place to test tactics, experiment with drones, and use technology such as 3D printing. It also feeds many drone warfare lessons back to Norway and other allies involved in the training.

John said that the training is designed to mirror the fight as much as possible based on ongoing Ukrainian feedback, including what the terrain looks like, what tactics and weapons Russia is using, and what gear Ukrainian soldiers have access to.

He described drones and electronic warfare as "just an asset in this camp that enhances all the different other courses."

Drones are everywhere

Training at Camp Jomsborg includes medical, engineering, and infantry courses, with soldiers learning skills including assault, urban warfare, trench clearing, heavy weapons use, and medical treatment.

Drones are part of all of these training programs. Participating soldiers use drones to look into trenches to try to spot and attack the enemy; they have to respond to drone attacks while treating casualties; and they learn marksmanship skills to shoot down drones with shotguns.

The opposition force, role-playing as Russian forces and operating tanks and armored vehicles, also uses drones against Ukrainian soldiers to ensure they are exposed to the scenarios they will face in the war back home.

The training also focuses on improving Ukraine's decision-making, with drones feeding commanders battlefield intelligence they must use to make decisions.

Drones that score a hit also have a demolition charge that explodes, adding realism without the danger of a live strike, John said.

Ground robots are included in a similar way. They are a growing part of Ukraine's force, attacking, transporting gear, and carrying the wounded. Molde said that "when that becomes an important part of how they operate, then we have to start using those in training as well."

It is the Ukrainians, he said, who report back on how they're used and are "teaching us how they're using it."

In addition to the drone war, Ukraine is also fighting a fierce electronic warfare battle. Both sides are constantly trying to jam each other's weaponry and communications while finding ways to keep their own working through the chaotic disruption.

Western militaries see Ukraine as a critical source of lessons. Molde said Ukraine's experience shows that allies need to rebuild the electronic warfare capacity they had not focused on since the end of the Cold War.

The West is learning from Ukraine

Ukraine's experience in new kinds of drone warfare, such as the use of cheap quadcopters to engage armored vehicles, reverses the traditional relationship between Western trainers and Ukrainian troops. On some of the war's defining technologies, the students have more experience than the teachers.

Drone schools in Ukraine previously told Business Insider that nothing they teach soldiers comes from partners, only from Ukraine's own experience and expertise.

Norway is learning from working with Ukraine, too. Molde said that the work at Camp Jomsborg means "we can learn from the Ukrainian experts every day" on drone and electronic warfare.

John said that soldiers who work with the Ukrainians in the drone center bring those skills and lessons back to Norway or other countries participating in the effort.

Several of Ukraine's Western partners say they need to learn from Ukraine and have brought Ukrainian drone operators into their training so their own forces can learn. A US Department of War paper in June said that Ukrainian counter-drone technology and training from Ukrainian experts helped to protect US military bases and critical infrastructure against Iranian drones.

Other Western militaries helping to train Ukrainian soldiers say they're also learning drone warfare lessons for their own forces.

Lt. Col. Ben Irwin-Clark, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion of the Irish Guards, an elite British Army battalion, previously told Business Insider that helping to train Ukrainian soldiers under another multinational effort convinced his unit that drones are part of the "future of warfare." Those lessons prompted the battalion to start training its soldiers and open a "drone hub" where drones can be fixed and made.

Irwin-Clark said his battalion is "learning the lessons on behalf of the rest of the army by picking them straight up from Ukrainians," who were passing on the benefit of their knowledge.

John said it was ultimately a matter of combining the conventional knowledge and decades of experience of partner nations with Ukraine's creativity and competence in modern warfare so that "we can evolve in parallel."

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gregory Brooks, a 57-year-old based in Rochester, New York. It's been edited for length and clarity.

After reluctantly resigning from my technology services job at a community college in May, I was terrified to be out of work.

I'm not a young guy anymore. Starting over at 57 feels like a mix of humiliation and frustration — and it feels harder than when I was younger. I think for the most part, young professionals are more willing to work late, sacrifice work-life balance, and hustle to climb the corporate ladder. I'm not looking to build my career the way I did as a 20-something hustling to finish my Ph.D.

I want to do my job well, but I'm not that young adult running around all excited trying to impress everybody.

I worked with a lot of older students at the community college who expressed feeling inadequate, being surrounded by younger students who were academically ahead of them. I'm fighting those same feelings, but I've been through unemployment before, and I know how to get through.

I've been mass applying out of a sense of panic

I was panicked to be out of work because the jobs I've had in the past have been local, and I haven't found many opportunities in Rochester. I figured I might need to apply to jobs that require travel, which isn't ideal. I'm getting to a point where I really like getting home every night to my wife and dog.

I thankfully earned a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification while in my last role, which is kind of an ace in my pocket. It's something I've been leaning into heavily while searching for IT and project management roles.

I've been applying to jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed, reaching out to friends for leads, and contacting local IT recruiters. To some extent, I've been mass-applying out of panic and desperation, but I've been trying to refine my search a bit more.

I've made it a goal to do some sort of job searching and connection-making each day, and taking each step as the little win that it is.

The rejections have taken a toll on my self-esteem, and my age could be working for or against me

Rejections are all part of the process, but it's taken a big toll on my self-esteem and contributed to situational depression. My job was a big part of my identity, and leaving it was a big blow.

I have a lot of worry about what my next role will be, what it will look like, and whether I will even find a role where my skills are a good fit.

An employer could see me on a video call and question if I'm going to leave the company soon to retire, but they could also see my age and think it means I probably won't leave after a couple of years for something better.

They might think I bring wisdom and experience, but they also might see my age as a hindrance. We all look at people and make assumptions, so I absolutely think age is a consideration in the job market.

It's exhausting to think some jobs may have that expectation of having that "rah-rah" energy.

I'm staying engaged in hobbies and focusing on positive self-talk

Thank God I have reading as a way to escape from reality. I'm a voracious reader, and I like legal thrillers and the occasional financial thriller. My wife and I also have an eight-month-old Labrador retriever puppy who's been keeping us outside and on our feet.

It's also been important for me to have conversations with myself each day, reminding myself that I've made it through this before and that I'll make it through again. It's always hardest when you're in the tunnel.

I know what unemployment was like last time. I have no problem admitting that it's been a tremendous stress, so it's important to have a positive way of dealing with it. Because of that, I've decided to see a counselor, just like I did 11 years ago when I was out of work

Counseling helped me navigate unemployment 11 years ago — and it's helping me now

The first time I saw a counselor, I shared successes and frustrations with the job search, the severe toll the depression and anxiety were having on my interest in doing much of anything, and the agonizing guilt that I was somehow letting down my wife by not finding a job quickly enough.

My counselor engaged me in mindfulness, through which I recognized and owned my present emotions, whatever they were. If I were feeling sad, I'd accept it. I also had to own what I could do in the present to address the sadness, like going for a walk or reading my book.

The anxiety and depression returned almost immediately this time around. I had my second Zoom session with a new counselor recently, and I still need time to build trust with her. It takes time to not only build a relationship, but give her time to find her footing as a helper and me to find my footing as a person in need of help.

It's been difficult separating my worth from a job.

Acknowledge how you're feeling and lean on support

If you're job-seeking, lean on your support network, not only for job hunting, but for your mental health. My wife is very supportive, and after 25 years of marriage, we've learned how to support each other and understand each other's idiosyncrasies.

The biggest thing I'd recommend for older job seekers is to acknowledge what you're feeling. There's this taboo, especially for older men, around expressing your feelings.

Be honest, and if you're feeling down, acknowledge it. "I'm feeling down today. What can I do to at least find some light?"

Are you navigating a career change in your 50s? Contact this reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com to share your story.

I pretty much retired my jean collection after becoming a full-time work-from-home girlie. Since discovering Rag & Bone's Miramar sweatpant jeans two years ago, I've resisted going anywhere that calls for hard pants.

With the comfort of pajamas and an uncanny resemblance to real denim, "sweans" feel like the next-best-thing thanks to a genius screenprinting technique that simulates real buttons and rivets.

Sweatpant jeans have now popped up everywhere, which made wonder about which iteration is truly the best (especially considering Rag & Bone's steep price tag of nearly $200). I compared six kinds across different price points, with varying levels of realism, fit, and comfort. Here's my honest assessment of each pair.

I looked for realistic faux buttons and fabric that mimics a twill weave

Realistic details — like printed buttons, belt loops, and pockets — are key to making sweatpant jeans look like traditional denim. Halara's budget-friendly option surprised me with how good it looked compared to much more expensive versions.

The faux distressed details made these wide-leg bottoms (available in regular, petite, and tall lengths) even more convincing. The cotton-elastane fabric is soft, the mid-rise waistband is perfectly stretchy, and it holds up well when washed in the delicates cycle.

Thoughtful details like functional belt loops made this GAP pair even more denim-like

I was equally impressed with Gap's Printed Baggy Sweatpant Jeans, which balance a realistic-looking button fly and pockets with a soft French terry made with recycled polyester. Like most Gap pieces I love, these come in three lengths — a must for getting the right fit with wide-leg styles.

My favorite detail, though, is the working belt loops, which add functionality and realism. Styled with a belt, they're basically indistinguishable from the real thing.

Even though this pair uses a rigid denim fabric, the roomy legs and wide, stretchy waistband make them just as comfy

Nuuds specializes in loungewear that's designed to be worn out and about. Even though the denim is more rigid than the other sweans I tried, these are just as easy to wear thanks to a generously baggy silhouette with a 31-inch inseam and thick elastic waistband, which can be further adjusted with a drawstring. I love that the deep pockets on these are functional rather than printed.

These faux denim joggers were super comfortable, but they don't pass for real jeans

I'd call these sweatpants by Good American more "denim-inspired" than actual sweatpant jeans. The 100% cotton fabric looks just like a dark wash denim, but it lacks screen-printed buttons, pockets, or belt loops. That said, the fabric is soft on the inside, with a denim-like feel on the outside. The fit is roomy with a stretchy elastic waist and ankle bands you can tuck into boots. They fit true to size, and have the widest size range of any of the sweats I tested (XS-5XL).

If you prefer something more authentic-looking, Good American's Jeanius line includes everything from cropped palazzo jeans to corset-cut hoodies in the same super soft, sweatpant-like fabric. Unlike the joggers I tested, though, the other jeans styles don't have elasticized waists, and they use true buttons and zippers, so they won't give you the full sweatpant jeans experience.

Rag & Bone's sweatpant jeans remain the gold standard

Still, the award for best overall and the widest selection goes to the OG: Rag & Bone. While other brands are leaning heavily into baggy silhouettes with their sweans, Rag & Bone's Miramar line is generally more fitted, with straight-leg, flared, and shorts options as well.

My favorite style is the pull-on wide-leg drawstring, which has a narrower but still roomy silhouette compared to the other wide-leg styles I tried (and a whopping $268 price tag).

I love that the front pockets and belt loops are functional, while the fly and back pockets use a super convincing screenprinting technique. They're essentially the perfect travel pants: I can wear them on the plane, and later dress them up for sightseeing or a dinner out.

See another pair I tested in our full Rag & Bone sweatpant jeans review.

The bottom line

Rag & Bone still has the most convincing "sweans." The only downside is the hefty price tag. Your best bet for a sweatpant jeans alternative will come from Halara or Gap, though they come in way fewer styles and aren't quite as soft as the Miramar ones.

• Tech giants are using the same kind of financial strategies as Enron, academic Ram Bala says.
• The AI and analytics guru pointed to their handling of debt, demand forecasts, and circular deals.
• Bala said the AI boom is "not like bubbles of the past" and he expects long-term demand to impress.

Today's tech titans are using similar financial tactics to Enron, but that doesn't mean they're careening toward disaster, one AI guru says.

Enron, an energy supplier and trading powerhouse, collapsed into bankruptcy in 2001 after it was revealed to be a fraud. But it was also a story of three things, Ram Bala, an associate professor of AI and analytics at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business, told Business Insider in an email this week.

The corporate giant shifted debt off its balance sheet using special vehicles, employed mark-to-market accounting to book future sales projections as immediate revenue, and used circular transactions to make customer demand appear more independent than it was in reality, Bala said.

"The AI buildout is replicating versions of all three, entirely legally, and that is exactly why it deserves attention," said the coauthor of "The AI-Centered Enterprise," and the cofounder and chief product and AI officer of an AI startup named Samvid.

Hidden risks

Bala said that private credit is playing the same role now that Enron's special purpose entities did, as "the place where risk goes to become less visible."

He described how private equity firms including KKR are helping to finance the AI buildout. But he emphasized that "Nvidia gets paid upfront, the borrowers and their lenders carry the default risk, and because private credit is ultimately funded by ordinary savers through instruments like pension funds, the tail risk lands on households."

Fragile forecasts

As for demand projections, Bala said the current buildout is being "financed against demand curves that are marked to model, not to market."

Bala recalled Anthopic CEO Dario Amodei saying his company has invested less in compute than its rivals, as a small error in demand projections could be the difference between success and bankruptcy.

"When the smartest guys in this room are that candid about forecast fragility, leveraged borrowers underwriting to the optimistic case should give everyone pause," Bala said.

Going in circles

Bala said that circular-financing deals such as Nvidia investing in OpenAI, then OpenAI using the cash to buy Nvidia's microchips, could be viewed as vendor financing, which is common in industries where equipment is expensive.

An example from a consumer's perspective might be leasing a car using financing from the car's manufacturer.

Vendor financing can increase market liquidity and generate value, but "done too much with uncertain outcomes, it can be risky," Bala said.

"Folks like Burry are saying that the math is not right given the risk," he continued, referring to Michael Burry, the investor of "The Big Short" fame, who's been one of the loudest skeptics of the AI boom.

Burry told his 2 million X followers this week that "history is repeating" so they should revisit "The Smartest Guys in the Room," a book telling the story of Enron's rise and fall.

"This is so much bigger than one company, and orders of magnitude more dangerous to the economy and investors than Enron," Burry said in another X post this week.

However, Bala said he believes this boom is "not like bubbles of the past," and that long-term demand for AI will justify tech companies' current financial strategies, but "only time will tell who is right."

• Becoming a mother didn't diminish my ambition — it sharpened it.
• With limited time and costly childcare, I became far more selective about the work I take on.
• Motherhood forced me to define what truly matters in my career, and pursue it with focus.

Before I became a mother, I thought ambition meant saying yes.

Yes to another assignment, even if the pay was mediocre. Yes to the meeting that probably could have been an email. Yes to the opportunity that sounded impressive, even when it wasn't especially interesting. I wanted the byline, the invitation, the proof that I was moving forward.

My calendar was full, and I rarely stopped to ask whether the work itself was worth my time.

Then, in the terrifying early days of the pandemic, I became a mother.

Everything felt frightening and surreal. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and suddenly responsible for keeping a tiny human alive during a global emergency. The competent, confident version of myself I had known — the writer who interviewed people, met deadlines, and understood how to navigate her professional world — felt very far away.

A few weeks into motherhood, I received a freelance assignment from a brand that sold one of my favorite cheeses. I remember sitting at the table with my baby on my lap, my laptop wedged precariously against its edge. My dog kept dropping a toy at my feet, hopeful that this might finally be the moment I agreed to play. The whole setup was absurdly inefficient.

And yet, I felt exhilarated.

Here was something I knew how to do. I could open a document, ask the right questions, arrange words into sentences, and turn those sentences into a story. I might not have known why my baby was crying, whether she was eating enough, or how any of us were supposed to live through that time. But I knew how to write about cheese.

The assignment felt like a blessing — not because it was prestigious or especially career-changing, but because it returned me to a version of myself I recognized. For a little while, I was not only a brand-new mother fumbling through an impossible moment. I was competent. I was confident. I was a writer.

Before my daughter was born, I had talked to several women who told me that motherhood had fundamentally altered their priorities. They had once been incredibly ambitious, they said, but after having children, the things they had cared about professionally simply didn't feel as important. They were happy to scale back.

Becoming a mom refined my ambition

I believed them, and I wondered whether the same thing would happen to me.

It didn't.

I still wanted to write. In some ways, I felt more like a writer than ever. Sharing my own stories, and the stories of the people I interviewed, felt not less important but more so. Motherhood had expanded my emotional world. It had made me more curious about families, bodies, work, and all the complicated ways people build their lives.

I had more to say, and I felt a new urgency to say it.

What changed was not my ambition but my tolerance for work that didn't matter to me.

During those first years after becoming a mother, childcare often arrived in tiny scraps: two hours of help, a 90-minute nap, an unexpected stretch of quiet. Every hour I spent working was now an hour I was paying for childcare, an hour carved out of a nap, or an hour away from my child.

I learned to sit down and work with ferocious concentration. There was no time to warm up, reorganize my inbox, or wait for inspiration. I opened the document and began. The cost of my time, once largely theoretical, became startlingly clear. I stopped wanting to fill my days simply to feel productive. I became much less interested in assignments that looked good on paper but left me depleted.

Less time forced me to focus on what matters

Having less time made me more focused. It also forced me to ask a question I had rarely considered before: Is this work important enough to justify the time it takes from the rest of my life?

That question has transformed my career.

Since becoming a mother, I have walked away from work that no longer aligned with my values. I have broken into publications I once dreamed of writing for. I built a writing community. I finally made space for the novel I had been postponing for years.

I am not producing the greatest possible quantity of work. But I am pursuing work that feels more meaningful and more distinctly mine.

Balancing ambition and motherhood remains an impossible ask. There is no clever trick that allows me to be fully present for my children while also giving every professional dream the time and energy it deserves. Sometimes I am working while wishing I were with them. Sometimes I am with them while thinking about the essay I want to revise.

I want my children to know they matter more to me than any byline or professional achievement. But I also want them to see that my dreams matter, just as I hope theirs will matter to them.

Motherhood did not shrink my professional life. It clarified it. It taught me that ambition is not about cramming the greatest number of accomplishments into a life. It is about deciding what is worth giving that life to.

• Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi chooses five areas each quarter where he can make significant progress.
• He said it has become a "filter" for how he spends his time.
• He said if he's invited to a meeting outside his core priorities, he'll skip it and send a delegate.

It can be hard to stay focused on your priorities when constant pings and competing projects are pulling you in different directions.

That's why Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi developed a simple system for keeping his biggest priorities front and center. His most basic productivity hack is to identify five things he needs to accomplish each quarter, and use it as his North Star of where he spends his time.

"I pick things that I can make significant progress on in that quarter," Alkarmi said. "And so it becomes a filter for how I prioritize my time."

He shares those five priority areas with his team, administration, and chief of staff so everyone understands where he's spending his time. Those priorities guide how he structures his weeks and decides where to devote his attention. As he put it, the five priorities "win at all times," even when competing demands arise.

Alkarmi held leadership roles at Vimeo and Meta before he joined Dropbox in 2024. He became co-CEO in May, alongside Dropbox founder Drew Houston, and will eventually become the company's sole CEO.

Alkarmi said that when he joined Dropbox, he faced a wide range of tasks across various business categories. He narrowed his priorities to five key areas, including people, the business, and performance.

On the business side, Alkarmi said he looked at data and identified reducing customer churn as a key priority, with the goal of making "meaningful progress" in the first quarter. He said he uses work management tool Trello to manage his top five priorities.

The list doesn't just help Alkarmi decide where to spend his time. It also helps him determine what isn't worth his attention.

"Sometimes I get meetings that are not related to these things, and I don't go," Alkarmi said.

• Homeowners are using home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, to buy investment properties.
• A HELOC lets a homeowner borrow against the equity in their property.
• It works like a credit card, allowing you to borrow money as needed up to a set limit and pay it back.

Mark didn't have a six-figure salary when he started investing in real estate.

The Florida-based former police officer, who prefers not to share his last name for privacy reasons, said he never earned more than $52,000 a year. Still, he built a 25-unit real-estate portfolio in less than five years and retired from his day job at 50.

One tool that helped him get started was something he already had: equity in his home.

To fund his first investment property, a $100,000 single-family house in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Mark opened a home equity line of credit, or HELOC, against his paid-off primary residence.

His home was worth about $200,000 at the time, he told Business Insider. Rather than borrow close to the maximum amount he believed he could access, he took out a $30,000 line of credit — about 15% of his home's value — to help fund the investment.

Michigan investor Scott Steenbergh also tapped the equity in his primary residence when he and his wife bought their first sober-living rental. The investment property required a larger down payment than an owner-occupied home, he said, so the couple used a HELOC to help come up with the cash.

"We were able to refinance our primary, get some of the equity out, and put that to work," Steenbergh told BI.

Both investors were doing essentially the same thing: converting some of the wealth locked inside a home into capital they could deploy elsewhere.

How a HELOC works

A HELOC lets a homeowner borrow against the equity in their property — the difference between what the home is worth and what they still owe on it.

Unlike a home equity loan, which generally delivers a lump sum, a HELOC functions more like a credit card. A lender approves a maximum credit line, and the homeowner can borrow from it as needed during a set "draw period."

During the draw period, borrowers can typically access funds via checks or a credit card linked to the account. Once you start borrowing, you'll owe minimum monthly payments based on your balance. Some HELOCs allow interest-only payments during the draw period.

How much you can borrow depends on the lender, your home's value, how much you already owe on it, and your financial profile. Mark, for example, could have sought a much larger credit line against his fully paid-off home. Instead, he chose $30,000, which was enough to execute his investment plan without pulling considerably more equity from his home than he needed.

To qualify, borrowers need sufficient equity in their home, and lenders typically consider factors like income, existing debts, and credit history.

HELOC funds generally aren't restricted to home-related expenses. You can technically use it to finance anything, from starting a business to going on vacation or covering medical expenses. That flexibility comes with an important caveat: A HELOC is debt secured by your home. If you can't repay it, you could ultimately lose the property.

Using home equity to buy an income-producing asset

Mark used his HELOC to help buy a rental property that could generate income to offset the new debt. After securing a tenant, he said the property produced about $220 a month in profit. He used some of his cash flow to pay down the HELOC balance and put some into savings.

Steenbergh used his HELOC as a source of down-payment capital. He and his wife had built equity in their primary residence, but needed substantially more cash to purchase an investment property than they had needed for their own home.

That allowed them to put existing equity "to work," as Steenbergh described it, without selling their house.

The strategy can work when the asset purchased with the borrowed money generates enough income to justify the cost of the debt, but it also increases risk. Again, a HELOC is secured by your home. If you fall behind on payments, the lender may restrict additional borrowing, and if you're ultimately unable to repay the debt, your home could be at risk of foreclosure.

HELOC versus home equity loan

Kent He used a similar strategy to tap his home equity, but with a different product.

He and his wife bought their primary residence in San Diego in 2019. As the home appreciated, they built substantial equity and eventually used a home equity loan to pull out a portion of it and invest in a short-term rental.

"If I never bought my primary residence, then I probably wouldn't have gotten the equity to invest in short-term rentals," He told BI.

The distinction matters: A home equity loan generally provides a fixed amount of money upfront, while a HELOC provides a revolving credit line that can be tapped over time.

For homeowners who have built up equity, understanding their options can give them another way to put it to work.

"You are now equipped with another tool in your tool belt," He said. "With all this equity, maybe you can take it out and put it into an investment, as long as the investment makes sense and it fits your risk appetite."

• BCG is accelerating hiring of both technical talent and traditional consultants.
• Mel Wolfgang, the firm's North America chair, wants consultants to keep building technical skills.
• At the same time, he said, critical thinking and judgment remain essential.

At Boston Consulting Group, consultants of the future might look a lot like those of the past: generalists with business acumen.

The difference, said BCG veteran Mel Wolfgang, is that the firm increasingly sees its consultants developing some of the technical capabilities once concentrated among specialists in areas such as IT architecture and software development.

Wolfgang got a better sense of that shift when he took over as North America chair in May. He asked how many of BCG's traditional consulting staff had skill sets similar to those of its technical employees.

What Wolfgang found surprised him.

"I've actually kind of got double the workforce that I thought I had, and I started to really categorize what people know," he said.

Nearly as many people with traditional consulting backgrounds — including, as Wolfgang put it, "the English lit major with an MBA" — had developed skills that approximated those of BCG's technical hires.

BCG gauged those skills through tests and employees' demonstrated technical work on the job.

Hiring is accelerating

The findings come, Wolfgang said, as the firm is accelerating its hiring of both technical talent and business generalists, who have long populated the consulting industry.

He said he wants people who combine technical proficiency with the critical-thinking skills BCG has traditionally prized.

"I'm trying to find the Venn diagram overlap of that as much as I possibly can," Wolfgang said.

Many new hires, he said, are arriving with a broader range of technical skills. In interviews, BCG will ask whether candidates have experience using AI tools such as Claude and Codex.

Wolfgang said that while those abilities are increasingly helpful, "You still have to frame the problem. You still have to work the analytics."

Plus, he said, consultants need to determine whether an answer makes sense.

"The role of judgment has increased enormously, and that's an apprenticed skill," Wolfgang said.

Officers and project managers spend time with junior staffers to help them arrive at the best answers, he said. While AI can help generate insights, Wolfgang said, "you might have to do it multiple times because what it spits out originally may require a lot of refinement and judgment."

Wolfgang said that about 30% to 40% of the firm's work is focused on AI, including helping clients reshape their business models around the technology.

The remaining share of BCG's business, he said, falls under traditional consulting — things like strategy, mergers, and post-merger integrations. Yet those efforts also generally touch on aspects of AI. "Pretty close to 100% of our work today talks about AI in some way," he said.

Training for AI

To keep up with clients' AI needs, Wolfgang said the firm has expanded employee training beyond what it provides to new hires or those entering a new client industry.

BCG instructs staff — from consultants to support and operations teams — on topics such as the basics of building AI agents and determining where and how best to use them. For employees who want to go deeper, the company offers instruction in more technical areas, such as data engineering.

The AI fluency training, which the company has structured into a four-step ladder, involves technical tasks, such as programming an AI tool that employs multiple agents.

"They also spend a lot of time forcing you to think through the judgment," he said of the lessons.

The training requires that BCGers pass a series of assessments. Those tests adjust to help staffers who might be struggling, Wolfgang said.

"If you're not doing well, it adapts the questions until eventually you learn it," he said.

About half of the company's workers in North America have completed the first level of AI training, Wolfgang said. About one-third have finished the second, and about 20% the third. The goal, he said, is to have all staff finish the first level by the end of the year and all four levels in the next couple of years.

Wolfgang, who said he recently completed his second training tier, would like staffers to pause between steps to apply what they've learned. It's akin, Wolfgang said, to passing the written test for a driver's license.

"Now you've got to go pass your driver's test, and that happens on the casework," he said.

Ultimately, the AI instruction, on its own, is only part of the equation, Wolfgang said.

"The critical thinking that a consultant has always delivered is still in the bull's-eye of what we need to train people to do," he said.

• The celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak says common gym mistakes can hold back muscle gains.
• Progressive overload is key to building and maintaining muscle.
• Pasternak said that giving muscles enough time to recover between workouts is essential.

Harley Pasternak has spent 30 years helping people build strength and muscle.

In that time, the 51-year-old Los Angeles-based personal trainer, who has worked with Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, and Robert Pattinson, has seen people making the same mistakes, which keep them from making the gains they want to see.

Progressive overload, which means challenging your muscles more and more over time, whether through heavier weights or more reps, is crucial to building muscle, but there's more to it than just that, Pasternak told Business Insider.

Rest and a thoughtful workout plan are also important if you want to build muscle, he said. For Pasternak, that means strength training for 20 minutes, six days a week, and focusing on two muscles per workout.

Pasternak shared the common mistakes he sees people make.

Worrying about looking 'bulky'

Pasternak said he often sees women holding back when lifting weights because they are worried about looking "bulky."

"It's very difficult to put on muscle," he said.

Building muscle requires eating more food than you burn, also known as a calorie surplus.

Regardless of how it changes your body shape, lifting weights also carries many health benefits, including reducing the risk of osteoporosis.

Doing full-body workouts

Pasternak isn't a fan of full-body workouts if people want to build muscle.

Training lots of different muscle groups in one session can mean that by the time you reach the final few exercises, you are too fatigued to work those muscles hard enough to make meaningful progress, he said.

"There's a great quote, 'I fear not the man who knows a thousand different kicks. I fear the man who knows one kick a thousand times,'" he said.

If you're training 15 body parts in one workout, "you're probably not giving much to the last five body parts," Pasternak said.

Not giving muscles enough time to recover

Training hard is only one part of building muscle. You also need to give your body enough time to recover, Pasternak said.

Resistance training creates micro-tears or injuries in muscle fibers. During recovery, those fibers repair, becoming stronger. "That's how we adapt to the stimulus," he said.

But if you train the same muscle again before it has fully healed, it can interfere with that process, stalling your progress, and possibly leading to injury, he said.

Muscles also tend to recover faster than connective tissues such as tendons, he said, so pushing the same body part too frequently can cause problems even if the muscle itself feels ready to go again.

Pasternak said people who train with a meaningful amount of intensity should leave multiple days before working the same body part again.

• President Trump's team says his 21,000 stock trades in 2025 were an automated investing strategy.
• Direct indexing, which combines index returns with tax write-offs, has grown rapidly this decade.
• We spoke to experts who explained how it works, who might want to look at it, and risks to watch.

Trading like President Donald Trump might be as easy as buying a customized index fund.

Trump made 21,000 trades in 2025, a volume higher than any other president, and likely any other politician. He generated more than $2 billion in income (including $1 billion in cryptocurrency income).

The Trump Organization has said that Trump's trading is automated. Investors and financial advisors say Trump could be part of a growing group of investors using direct-indexing strategies to capture the returns of an index while also reducing their tax bill.

Direct indexing grew to $864 billion in assets as of the end of 2024, according to Cerulli Associates, more than double its size in 2020, as technology has made it cheaper to run these strategies for everyday investors.

Alex Michalka, vice president of investment research at Wealthfront, which credits itself with coining the term "direct indexing" in 2012 and oversees $99 billion in client assets, said that one medium-sized direct indexing account on the platform made over 4,500 distinct trades in large-cap companies in 2025 in order to increase tax savings.

Trump's disclosures showed eight distinct accounts, most of which trade equities. If they all traded evenly, that would be more than 2,500 trades per account. Democratic lawmakers, including Elizabeth Warren, are now asking for information about who manages the president's accounts.

A Trump Organization spokesperson wrote that the latest request from Democratic lawmakers is "just another baseless political stunt," and pointed to reporting by other outlets showing the president's accounts are managed by independent third-party managers.

Trump and his circle don't have the ability to influence the investments, the spokesperson said, in order "to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest."

We spoke to experts to learn more about direct indexing and which investors should investigate or avoid the strategy.

What's direct indexing

Direct indexing is an evolution of index investing, the way the vast majority of investors access the market. Instead of buying a single ETF that tracks an index, investors own the underlying stocks directly, allowing them to trade individual names while still roughly mimicking the index performance.

The key to the strategy is "dispersion," Michalka said, effectively the difference between individual stock returns and an index's overall performance.

Markets generally go up, but that performance is not uniform.

"Even if the market as a whole is up, there are going to be some stocks that are down," he said.

ETFs bundle those gains and losses together, but by trading the individual stocks, an investor can claim the losses against their capital gains in the fund or from other sources. (They're also able to claim $3,000 against their W-2 or other wage income if losses exceed gains in a given year).

Those written-off taxes are then deferred until the investor liquidates the portfolio, allowing them to reinvest those additional savings in the meantime.

This strategy used to be available only to the rich, said Gabriel Shahin, a financial advisor who founded the advisory firm Falcon Wealth Planning."We wouldn't even look at it unless we were managing at least $5 million for them," Shahin said, citing high management costs, the costs of individual trades, and the lack of fractional shares as reasons the strategy was restricted.

Over the past five or so years, direct indexing has grown substantially, he said, as more seamless financial plumbing, free trades, and technology that can automate much, or all, of the strategy, means that it's in reach for regular investors. Prices for some products have come down in line with the most popular ETFs, with Wealthfront's S&P 500 direct-indexing product carrying the same fee as State Street's SPY ETF. Other products are more expensive but offer intraday trading and rebalancing.

Fractional shares that can trade down to six or seven decimal points also lower the cost of the strategy. It's customizable, allowing investors to adjust their index holdings based on their environmental, social, or governance preferences, such as excluding oil and gas investments, or to avoid positions they already own a lot of, like a tech employee who gets a sizable percentage of their income in their company's equity.

The investing strategy is growing rapidly, and in recent years has become almost table stakes. Shahin said he uses it with many of his clients.

Who it's for

Trump is "the perfect candidate for direct indexing," Shahin said. He's in the top tax bracket, has lots to save on his taxes, and, as a real estate investor, has capital gains to write off and a need for liquidity.

While the strategy appears to be working for a growing number of investors, it's "not a free lunch," said Michalka of Wealthfront.

Fees from some providers can be much higher than many ETFs. There's also the specter of tracking errors, or the dispersion between a product's return and the index it tracks as a result of the tax saving, Michalka said.

Michalka said that his firm's analysis shows a small, roughly 1%, tracking error on their own products, though that can be higher in volatile years, like 2020, or if the portfolio is customized away from the index.

"You might read about this and say it's great for me, but you need to analyze your situation," said Shahin.

Factors that make it worth considering:

• Enough capital gains income that's worth writing off, especially if you are a tech worker paid with shares of the company you work for or a real estate investor like Trump.
• If you have a long time horizon for your investments, it gives you time to reinvest the deferred taxes.
• The ability to continually contribute money to the account. The investment has a diminishing tax benefit over time without fresh capital.
• If you want to modify investments to avoid certain companies for ESG, religious-exemption, or diversification reasons.

Factors that may give you pause:

• Investors who expect their tax rate to rise. Deferring taxes is more valuable if you expect to pay a lower rate when you eventually sell, such as in retirement. If you expect your rate to be higher, the strategy may be less worthwhile.
• You're investing a smaller amount of money. The tracking errors will likely be higher because of the constraints of fractional shares.
• You're saving for a down payment or other big purchase in the short term. Any tax savings are not worth the risk of putting money that you will soon need into the risky equity market.
• If it's too busy or complicated for you, you might prefer to buy an index: "$SPY and chill," Shahin said.
• Not all providers are equal. There's the cost, but non-institutional providers' trades could be less prioritized or may be more costly, which can increase tracking errors.
• Be careful about leveraged direct-indexing products, or long/short portfolios, that follow similar strategies but increase the leverage and therefore, the risk.

• Instagram vowed to crack down on pickup artists and pranksters who use Meta glasses to film harassing videos.
• Meta said that thousands of pieces of content have been removed, and terms like "rizz" are now blocked in search.
• Business Insider found dozens of the videos still up in the last month, some of which Meta removed after we alerted them.

"Are you a secret code?" a young man in Meta glasses asks a woman in a tank top on the sidewalk. "What do you mean, 'a secret code?'" she responds, seemingly confused as the man's glasses record her. "Because I'm trying to crack you," he says.

The interaction, filmed by content creator Colin Allen for his Instagram account @thatiscolin, is one of dozens of similar videos that I found from popular and verified accounts on the platform in the month after Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said Meta would remove "harassing" pickup line videos filmed with Meta glasses.

After I sent Meta a link to 20-plus pickup and other harassing "prank" videos from different accounts, the company removed the "secret code" video and eight others. Allen, who describes himself as a "lifestyle and comedy creator" and not a pickup artist, had used the same line to different women in several other videos, which remain up.

Videos from pickup artists using Meta glasses to approach women in public have emerged as a genre on Instagram's Reels and TikTok, with some of the popular videos racking up millions of views. These videos of men trying pickup lines on women on the street, along with pranks on cashiers or service workers, are tagged on Instagram as being shot on "Meta glasses."

Being associated with that kind of icky content can't be good for the reputation of the devices, which some people are already referring to as "creep glasses."

Tracy Clayton, a spokesperson for Meta, told me that thousands of pieces of content have already been removed, and several large accounts have been taken down. The recent enforcement action falls under Meta's existing Community Standards on bullying and harassment, which broadly forbid content that sexualizes other adults or sexually harasses people. Additionally, search terms for "rizz" or "cold approach," common pickup slang, are now blocked in search.

My last month spent in pickup-line video land has shown me that Meta's enforcement has been uneven in the weeks since Mosseri's remarks. "We don't want people to be surreptitiously taking videos of other people and harassing them and then posting them on our platform. So we're trying to fight that every way we can," Mosseri said in mid-July.

When initially reporting on Mosseri's comments, I found two large pickup artist accounts that had been deactivated as part of the recent enforcement wave. A few days after my article was published last month, one of those accounts was reactivated (a Meta spokesperson said this was by error, and the account was re-banned after I brought it to their attention).

Carolina Are, a digital criminologist based at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said that Meta and Mosseri's response to the harassing AI glasses videos highlights isn't enough.

"There is a backlash, and then Meta tends to minimize its own responsibility for it. They talk about how this is user-generated behavior or an error in enforcement," Are said. "But they don't recognize the systemic issues that are causing that to happen, and they take no accountability for what their policies or infrastructure have done to enable that behavior," Are said.

These pickup and prank videos made with Meta glasses aren't exclusive to Instagram; they also exist on YouTube and TikTok.

A spokesperson for TikTok told me that it has policies against harassing content. After I sent a list of four videos of pickup artists who also posted on Instagram, TikTok took down two of them, citing its policy on bullying and sexual harassment.

Boot Bullwinkle, a representative for YouTube, told me it has policies against certain kinds of harassment and dangerous prank videos. YouTube has been dealing with moderation issues around street pranks and pickup artists for years. After I sent four examples of channels that posted Meta glasses pickup content, YouTube said it took down "several" of the videos and removed one of the channels from its monetization program.

A headache of its own making

Mosseri personally delivering the message that Instagram will take down this specific kind of content is unique among video platforms. That may be because of Instagram's unique relationship with the Meta glasses: Not only are these unsavory videos a headache of its own making, but they also risk harming the public perception of a product that Meta invested big bucks in building and marketing.

Plenty of people are buying up Meta's AI glasses. Sales have grown since their launch in 2021, topping 7 million units in 2025, more than triple the previous year. Meta is the early leader in the smart glasses race.

They've been a bright spot for Meta's money-losing Reality Labs department, which faced layoffs this year. They're also key to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's AI bet.

"I think in the future, if you don't have glasses that have AI or some way to interact with AI, I think you're kind of similarly, probably [going to] be at a pretty significant cognitive disadvantage compared to other people and who you're working with, or competing against," Zuckerberg said in a 2025 earnings call.

The recent backlash — remember when Kylie Jenner's Instagram comments were flooded with people calling her signature Meta glasses "pervert glasses"? — presents a thorn in Meta's side.

"In many cases, the public-facing rules that users see are vague enough to be open to the discretion of the platform to make those kinds of shifts and changes at any time," said Sarah T. Roberts, faculty director and cofounder of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.

Meta is betting AI could supercharge its moderation efforts. Zuckerberg and other execs have long said the old way of doing things, leaning heavily on third-party human contractors, doesn't scale. The theory goes that AI can be trained to autonomously flag violating content. In June, Meta told the Financial Times that initial tests showed that its AI systems made fewer mistakes than human moderators and flagged more violating content. The jury's still out on whether that will prove to be the case long term.

Deactivated one day, reactivated the next

After seeking out and interacting with some of these pickup line videos in Reels, I started getting served more and more of them. I no longer needed search terms to find them; my Reels feed was filled nearly entirely with that genre of content.

One creator whose account was active weeks after Mosseri's remarks is Caren Babaknia. He has 174,000 followers and posts videos of himself driving up to women he identifies in the caption as escorts and talking to them while wearing Meta glasses.

In one video captioned "Wasting ESCORTS time by making them watch brainrot" he offers a woman who approached his car $50 in exchange for watching a video on his laptop of brainrot memes. The woman agrees, and he plays the video, which includes an ad for a gambling app. He hands her the cash.

I spoke with Babaknia on the phone to get his perspective on videos made with Meta glasses. He told me he believes the women in his videos are aware that he was filming them because his content is so viral that they knew him.

He voiced disdain for pickup artists with Meta glasses, however.

"I think the rizz content is very cringe," he told me. "I think those are normal girls and they don't deserve to be videoed without their consent."

After including one of Babaknia's videos in the list I recently sent to Meta, his account was deactivated the following morning. Babaknia told me that he was going to appeal. A day later, his account was back up with the videos restored.

It's not unusual for changes to enforcement in content moderation to take time to implement at scale. But as Meta glasses get increasingly popular, it seems likely that Instagram will face pressure to deal with this — and potentially new forms of bad behavior — more and more.

"It's not like they just started those platforms yesterday," said Roberts from UCLA. "It's not like they don't have 20 years now of understanding how people will behave at the most depraved levels if given a chance."

• George Noble sees SpaceX and Tesla as two of the most compelling short bets in the market.
• SpaceX stock has been fighting to hold onto its IPO price, and Noble said shares should be trading much lower.
• Musk's influence over investors is waning, he said, with Tesla and SpaceX both facing valuation concerns.

SpaceX stock has stumbled out of the gate since its IPO in June, but one veteran fund manager thinks there's more trouble ahead for Elon Musk's rocket company.

George Noble, formerly the manager of Fidelity Overseas Fund, was bearish on the stock as it headed for its IPO, and his tune hasn't changed since the debut. Now, he's calling for more pain for both SpaceX and Tesla on the horizon. He said each stock represents "one of the best shorts in the market."

Following SpaceX's historic IPO, Noble predicted that the stock price would fall by as much as 50% before the end of the year. Noble had previously raised concerns regarding Nasdaq's decision to allow SpaceX to be fast-tracked into the Nasdaq 100, which forced passive indexes that track the index to load up on the stock.

"Grandma's 401k now owns a $2 trillion company at roughly 90 times revenues. That's outrageous," Noble told Business Insider.

Noble says SpaceX and Tesla are both overvalued, but he's also wary of the narrative around Musk's two companies, noting that the retail trader buzz is shifting. It's part of the reason he sees them as such compelling short bets.

Noble said that when he's searching for short plays, he screens for stocks that have high valuations, are boosted by social media hype, and are facing a difficult macroeconomic landscape.

For this reason, Noble said he's grown even more bearish on Tesla than he was in January, when he described it as the stock market's biggest bubble. He said that Musk's power over investors may be slowly fading, particularly after the company's significant Q2 profit miss.

"The shine's wearing off. Tesla's unchanged for five years. Earnings are collapsing," he said, adding that he sees the "Elon premium" that's boosted Tesla stock as being over.

Noble added that he thinks that both Tesla and SpaceX should be trading at roughly $30 per share, implying 91% downside for Tesla and a 79% drop for SpaceX.

• Real-estate executive Leslie Cohen went back to work 10 days after giving birth to her second son.
• Two decades later, she decided to pause her career to help her sons navigate college.
• Cohen said that being present for her children now is more important than when they were babies.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Leslie Cohen, a 52-year-old real estate development and operations professional in the Boston area. Business Insider has verified her identity and background. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I started my career as a project manager in the commercial real estate industry and rose through the ranks to chief operating officer. This summer, however, I decided to put my career on pause to spend time with my kids. One is going to be a junior in college this fall, and the other one is heading off to college.

I'm planning to announce my next chapter soon, and it's something that will allow me some flexibility, but for now, I'm enjoying the break, as I've never had any time off like this. When I had my first son, I had the option to take three months of paid leave, and I chose to spread it over six months because the company I worked for was in the midst of a big transaction. I didn't want to be left behind, and the company was also willing to be flexible. I took the first three weeks off, then started going in two days a week, then three, and so on.

My kids were born only 14 months apart, so I was out again pretty quickly. I had planned to take the same type of leave, spreading it out over six months, but then my boss told me the company was short-staffed and asked if I would consider returning early.

I agreed to come back just 10 days after giving birth, as long as I could work only four days a week and the firm would pay for a night nanny. My second son had a lot of colic, and I wasn't going to be able to come back if I couldn't sleep. My husband, who's now retired, was working as a dentist and teaching. He didn't take paternity leave. I don't think it was even available back then.

Anyone can hold a baby

When I was younger, I remember asking a colleague, who was a mother of teenagers, why she was working part-time. She said that anyone can hold a baby, but not everyone can solve the complex problems of teenagers, and that stuck with me.

My sons are now 21 and almost 20, and I feel like they need me more than ever, because going to college is one of life's biggest transitions. There's a lot of figuring things out, and my kids want to talk about it. They want somebody to listen, and sometimes they want advice. And I want to be there for them without having to say, "Sorry, I'm in a meeting and can't talk."

Recently, my younger son and I had back-to-back eye doctor appointments, and there was a café nearby, so afterward we met there and stayed for an hour and a half. He talked about how he felt about going to college.

I left that café feeling really happy knowing that I made the right decision. It was 10:30 in the morning on a Wednesday, a time I would never have to spend with my son if I weren't taking this career break. It was just nice that I could do it. I didn't have pressure to be anywhere.

So much has evolved over the past 20 years. Paid leave is now an option for both moms and dads in many cases. This helps remove the stigma and challenges for working moms. I've implemented more progressive paid leave programs where I've worked, and I'm proud of that.

• I went to a small school in a small town where everyone knew each other.
• I thought my sons would benefit from a similar, close-knit environment like the one I had.
• Now that they're in college, I think a larger school might have suited them and their needs better.

I graduated from high school in a class of 30 students in a town of fewer than 800 people. I finished school with many of the same kids I started kindergarten with. By graduation, I knew their parents' names, their childhood nicknames, their pet peeves, and the fastest way to annoy them.

At that time, I was terrified of a big school experience. I liked my tiny pond where I knew not only my school of fish but our teachers, too. I imagined my tiny self in a huge school, getting shoved into lockers, being yelled at by intimidating teachers and upperclassmen, and failing at everything for the rest of my life. I was glad I didn't have to deal with any of the hassles I imagined other kids did.

So when my husband and two sons, middle schoolers at the time, moved from a small town to a larger city, my own childhood anxiety kicked in, resulting in a parenting mistake: I chose my sons' middle and high school based on who I was as a student, rather than who they actually were.

Terrified that my kids would get swallowed up by a massive urban district, I intentionally enrolled them in a small, tight-knit public magnet program. Looking back, I regret that choice.

Their school was everything I wanted it to be

The school we selected was everything my middle school self would've loved: safe, inclusive, and small. My sons had many of the same teachers from 6th grade until they graduated. They had routines and traditions, like a strange, made-up sport played during lunch and yearly expeditions to the wilderness. At their age, I would've loved these experiences, but I failed to notice they didn't fit my sons' personalities.

Instead of camping trips with classmates, my sons would've preferred access to a wider range of electives, varied class experiences, and more robust athletics. They wanted the expansive options like woodshop, debate team, student government, and the National Honor Society that they could have experienced at a larger public high school. But because of my fears of them getting lost in the shuffle, I fought against their hints that another school might be a better match.

I wonder about what might have been

Now they are young adults in college, staring down a high-stakes job market that demands early specialization and tricky corporate navigation. Their small school came with plenty of benefits: a strong foundation, a safe landing space, and critical thinking skills. But I wonder if they could have received the same benefits at a bigger school, along with the broader experiences that might have helped them tap into their unique interests.

My husband and I have done our best to help our sons figure out a career path, select a major, and navigate complex systems. They're doing the best they can, but the impersonal machinery intimidates all of us.

My sons will each face a seemingly impossible task after college graduation: find a job that won't be replaced by AI, tap into your particular skills and passions, and make enough money to pay your bills and have some fun. I question if another type of school would have better prepared them for this challenge.

I've frequently heard this advice: Parent the kids you have. In this regard, I parented the child I was. And because I can't build a time machine to change those decisions, I'm living with the consequences now, crossing my fingers and hoping they are prepared for post-graduation realities. I protected my sons from the "scary" big pond experience, but I worry my sheltering decision will leave them to drown in a job market where the water is much deeper.

Some days, Tamara Johnson wonders how her life changed so rapidly.

Johnson, 58, made six figures in an executive leadership position, and when her mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and dementia in 2017, she moved from New Orleans to Virginia, where she continued to work while caring for her mother.

Three years after her mom's death in 2020, Johnson's husband suffered a series of catastrophic medical events. To care for him full-time, she took a temporary leave and then quit her job this year. She relied on income from her job's deferred resignation program and her savings to pay for his long-term care. Johnson estimates her family spent over $700,000 in total between her mom's and husband's care. Coming up with that money has been harder, as her husband's income from medical disability retirement was quartered.

"I was one of those people who was taught that you don't quit, you suck it up, and you keep going," Johnson said. "I felt like I didn't have the luxury of falling apart, because if I fell apart, then who would pick up the slack?"

Eldercare costs have skyrocketed in recent years, and millions of Americans are unprepared. The price of nursing homes and adult day services has increased faster than overall consumer prices, as well as food, electricity, and shelter, over the last three decades. Price hikes in assisted living, at-home care, and nursing homes have left families scrambling to cover costs. It's pushed some to opt for lower-quality care, such as sending loved ones to a lower-rated facility at half the price of a luxury community.

The growing eldercare cost crisis is taking a toll on families, upending lives, derailing careers, and depleting family members' finances so much that they may not be able to pay for their own future care needs. In interviews with Business Insider, dozens of families estimated the total price of eldercare for a loved one was six figures, with one woman paying $600,000 over five years for assisted living. Some had long-term care insurance or had saved throughout their lives. Many, however, said they weren't prepared for care costs to be so high. These families said they have cobbled together money from home equity, family contributions, and loans, or, in some cases, have left their jobs to care for loved ones themselves.

These costs are ballooning because of a steep jump in caregiver wages combined with higher insurance premiums, transportation costs, and broader price increases for services. The mismatch between supply and demand for care workers is set to get much worse. An exodus of workers during the pandemic, followed by a federal crackdown on immigration and deportations of healthcare workers, has contributed to a caregiver shortage, experts say. And because of longer life expectancies and falling birth rates, the US in a few years will have more adults aged 65 or older than children under 18, according to US Census projections.

"Roughly 70% of adults over 65 will need some form of long-term care during their lifetime, yet relatively few have planned financially for that possibility," said Samir Shah, CEO of care navigation platform CareScout.

Johnson, who has long-term care insurance for herself, said that despite the financial burden of caregiving, "every day is a new opportunity."

"I tell people that if they make these decisions earlier, it saves a lot of headaches on the backend," Johnson said.

Out-of-home care costs are through the roof

Long-term care costs for nursing homes and adult day services have outpaced overall inflation for decades, up 212% and 109% since 1997, respectively. The trend is getting worse — overall inflation has been tapering off since 2023, with overall prices rising about 11%, compared to about 17% for care services.

Alan Weil, senior vice president of public policy at AARP, said that caregivers are, on average, putting $7,000 of their own money into caregiving resources annually.

Rising caregiver wages are often passed on to families. Wages for nursing and residential care workers have risen from $17 an hour to nearly $27 over the last decade. While average hourly earnings in this sector fall short of overall private earnings, nursing and residential care wages grew 57% from 2016 to 2026, outpacing the 47% increase across all private wages in the same period.

In 2021, Lana Mountford, 75, moved into a one-bedroom apartment in an assisted living facility for $4,300 per month. After a major surgery, she moved into a two-bedroom unit for $5,500 a month, which rose to nearly $7,000 over two years. Many of the services she relied on, like laundry and frequent caregiver visits, went away with changes in management.

She moved into a development for people aged 55 and older, buying a home in cash for $580,000, which she calculated would save her money in the long term. A caregiver comes for six hours a week for $200 weekly.

"I knew my savings would be drained if I had to keep paying that much, when I could live in my own place with a full kitchen," Mountford said.

Home-care costs are also rising

Millions of families have opted for their loved ones to age at home, but that arrangement isn't immune to skyrocketing costs.

Home care now costs a median of about $34 an hour, according to recent data from senior care company A Place for Mom. Some 59 million Americans care for loved ones, 48 million of whom are unpaid, an AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving report showed.

Private-pay costs for Long-Term Services and Supports — encompassing medical and personal care — increased 48% for home health aides and 47% for homemaker services between 2019 and 2024, about double the increase from 2010 to 2019, according to a March AARP report.

Home care agencies usually require a minimum number of hours per visit, often four to five, heightening cost burdens. Home health aides earn significantly less than nurses in nursing and residential care facilities, with a median hourly rate of nearly $18 and a median annual salary of $37,200, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. BLS projects that home health and personal care aide jobs may grow by 17% from 2024 to 2034, much faster than the average for all occupations, with roughly 765,800 openings annually.

Careb Bien-Aime worked as a personal care aide while studying information systems management at New York University. She found the job rewarding and the pay decent, but said she thinks the role should pay more because the work is taxing. She hasn't done caregiving work in over a year, partly because she wants to pivot to finding work related to her major as she gets closer to the end of college.

"Emotionally, physically, you're caring for a human being, and it does take a lot out of you to take care of someone, especially if the person needs more help," she said.

Caregiving costs are particularly burdensome for older Americans living alone. Pew Research Center found that 26% of adults 65 and older lived alone in 2023, down from 29% in 1990.

That's the case for Kathy Mullen, 64, who exhausted much of her financial resources caring for her mother and now is struggling on her own. She earns $25,000 annually from her Social Security Disability Insurance and lives in a small two-bedroom apartment. Mullen said she can barely afford fresh produce and suspects she will never be able to afford her own care, even if she downsizes or gets on Medicaid.

"I know money will always be tight because my retirement savings won't cut it," Mullen said. "I do refuse to say that I'm old, though, and I make the best out of what I have. I'm hopeful I can turn some things around."

Medicaid can help, but there's much work to be done

For decades, politicians, advocates, researchers, and older Americans themselves have pushed for reform within long-term care systems. Most agree there is still much to be done.

Medicaid does pay for many kinds of care, including residential nursing and in-home support. Medicaid has been paying more for Long-Term Services and Supports, or LTSS, bettering access to care in some parts of the country.

Still, Medicaid's growing role in long-term care doesn't always fill the gaps. John Nuar, 35, built a home for his father with dementia to live in, but after living with Nuar's aunt and uncle, his father moved into a memory care facility.

Over a span of three years before his father's death, Nuar and his wife, who worked full-time, paid about $120,000 in out-of-pocket expenses, covering what his father's retirement income couldn't. The cost rose from $4,200 to $6,600 monthly. Nuar said that his father would have qualified for Medicaid drug coverage in Virginia, where he lived before memory care, but not in Michigan.

"The month-over-month stress of the cost and not knowing how long it would last still affects me two years after his passing," Nuar said. "Having to look at dollars and then make a care decision was and is still very hard."

Marc Cohen, co-director of the older adult research institution LeadingAge LTSS Center at UMass Boston, said that the government should prioritize social insurance for long-term care, a Social Security-style program into which people pay throughout their lives to save for eldercare costs. He added that more politicians should fight back against Medicaid cuts, which, especially since last year, have reduced support for older Americans and people with disabilities.

"There has not been the political courage to just talk to the American public and say, to solve this problem, this is what we need to do," Cohen said. "We need to prefund benefits so that if and when you have a long-term care need, you have some protection."

Some federal lawmakers have called for bolstering long-term care support, although many of those efforts have yet to become law. Last year, the Caring for Seniors Act was introduced in the House to expand access to affordable assisted living for lower-income older Americans and direct funding to workforce development and training programs for eldercare workers. The bipartisan WISH Act would create a national long-term care insurance trust fund and give some Social Security beneficiaries benefits to pay for home care.

States have taken matters into their own hands. Washington introduced the WA Cares Fund, funded by a 0.58% tax on workers' paychecks, with a lifetime inflation-adjusted cap of $36,500 in benefits to help pay for long-term care. California, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania have also introduced legislative proposals for long-term care payroll tax legislation.

Some companies, including Microsoft, offer employees eldercare resources such as legal services, time-off options, and backup care. Meta, Google, Cisco, and other employers have partnered with the care support platform Wellthy for caregiving navigation services. Some smaller companies offer caregiving stipends or caregiver support groups.

State and local governments can support innovative housing to reduce the need for institutional care by investing in alternative housing arrangements for older residents, like accessory dwelling units, affordable assisted living, co-housing for older Americans, and home modification grants. This is according to Kevin Prindiville, executive director of the nonprofit Justice in Aging, who has worked to provide and protect housing subsidies for older adults, as housing costs have risen faster than their incomes.

"There's an old narrative of the older person having bought their house forever ago and having paid it off and now living easy — that's gone," said Prindiville. "The housing cost burden is actually highest in families that include people 65 and older."

Margaret Burke, 62, who lives in Taiwan, said she found an affordable condo for her 91-year-old mother in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She bought it six years ago for $62,000. The building's monthly fees, which range from $1,000 for a studio to $2,500 for a two-bedroom, cover meals, utilities, a pool, and group activities.

"She's always on the go, often shopping, going for walks, or taking day trips to museums," Burke said. She added, "I want other people to have the peace of mind that I've had for the last six years. There is this 'third path' between independent living and assisted living that is affordable for most middle-income seniors."

• Small businesses can attract and retain staff with 401(k) plans.
• Business owners can offer it in lieu of more costly benefits that they can't yet afford.
• It can help reduce first-year quits, a Gusto analysis found.

Sara Marye wanted to get more serious about the benefits she offered.

Several months after promoting a part-time employee to full-time status at her school-curriculum small business in 2024, she wanted to ensure it remains an attractive place to work.

"If I want to keep her, I need to give her reasons to stay," said Marye, an educator turned entrepreneur in 2015 when she started The Stellar Teacher Company. The employee had been working there since 2021.

Marye thought about what she could afford that she could add on top of the existing flexible perks. Offering a 401(k) plan was the answer, a perk that would also benefit Marye herself and help with retention beyond the full-time worker.

Most of her four part-time workers are former teachers who still want to be involved in education while staying home as parents.

"The fact that they are able to have a part-time job with a 401(k), I think, gives them just a lot more comfort in the fact that they aren't having to sacrifice their future financial security for the time that they want to spend raising their family now," said Marye, who has been offering the 401(k) plan since 2025.

When small businesses are starting out, they have to figure out how to get off the ground, market their work, and manage their expenses. As businesses make a name for themselves, grow their profits, and staff up, they need to figure out how to attract and retain employees. Having a 401(k) plan — the kind of benefit that's typically more often offered by larger employers — can help, especially if they can't yet afford more costly benefits, like healthcare. It can also be a financial perk for business owners on payroll.

Maintaining staff

A Gusto analysis of its internal small-business data shows that offering a 401(k) to workers translates to roughly 8% fewer quits in the first year of employment compared to those that don't offer one.

Nich Tremper, a senior economist at Gusto, said these employers don't have to face a gap in work coverage until they can backfill a position, which can affect productivity, or waste time and money looking for and training a new hire. Tremper said employers face the greatest risk of an employee quitting in their first year, so they can try to reduce that risk by offering retirement plans, even if employees can't enroll right away.

"We see 401(k)s having the highest ROI on retention," Tremper said, adding, "because it's a benefit that tells your employees that you are invested in their long-term financial future."

Howard Telson has been running the remote accounting firm Scale CPA since 2022. He started offering a 401(k) plan about a year and a half ago.

He likes it as a recruiting tool, since his firm hires pretty consistently, and to keep his current staff, many of whom come from larger companies where they're accustomed to this perk.

"We're often competing against bigger companies or bigger firms that do offer these types of benefits," he said. "It's been important to be competitive in the marketplace."

Telson works with small businesses at his firm, where he discusses tax-optimization strategies, such as retirement plans.

"It's kind of a multi-tier benefit that we'll recommend, a 401(k) plan or another type of retirement plan to clients, one, to allow them to basically have some tax deferral and save on their personal taxes, two, to attract talent, and three, it also offers some tax credits as well for the first three years when you set up the program," he said.

Affording retirement plans

Marye worried about whether she would be able to afford having a retirement plan as a small-business owner, and setting it up seemed daunting. However, she said it wasn't complicated and wasn't as big an expense as she thought it would be.

Payroll platforms like Gusto and ADP offer 401(k) plan management services at relatively low costs for small businesses, charging a modest base fee and then single-digit monthly fees per participant. Retirement offerings also tend to be less expensive for small business owners than healthcare benefits; Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed the average employer contribution for family medical care coverage at businesses with fewer than 50 workers has surpassed $1,000 per employee since 2021.

Ashley Kent also offers 401(k) benefits to her workers and herself. Kent, who has been in business since 2018, said she can't justify offering healthcare just yet since the cost is too much for the business's size.

"It allowed me to then offer this to employees and was something that was very attractive to new employees coming in here," said Kent, founder and CEO of Clearstart, a marketing brand and growth consultancy for healthcare organizations.

Kent has 10 full-time workers, and they were eligible to enroll after a year of employment, so she thinks it helps with retention. "Agencies are known for very high turnover, and so that was something that was important to me to try and retain individuals," Kent said.

As she hires more senior workers, she would consider adding healthcare benefits, since they could be important for job seekers weighing the trade-offs of different job opportunities.

Looking beyond small business

Small businesses aren't the only organizations offering 401(k)s to boost recruitment and retention.

Indeed's data covering all sizes of employers showed that job postings mentioning 401(k)s have increased since 2020. Laura Ullrich, the director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, thinks employers could be doing so to improve their recruiting. Some reasons for the uptick in advertised plans, she said, include employers publishing more thorough job descriptions, job seekers wanting to know the full compensation package, and companies dealing with the mismatch between available jobs and people's skills.

"If you look at the immediate post-COVID period, you might have seen companies start advertising it more because it was a really hard time to find workers, and then I'm guessing over time, it's just more and more companies have realized that it's a good way to show more total compensation versus just value," Ullrich said.

Mentions in education and instruction were 15% in spring 2026, the lowest share among the occupations, and up from 7%. Ullrich said pensions, rather than defined contribution plans like 401(k)s, are more common in that type of work, so that could explain why the share is relatively low.

Employers are also advertising better 401(k) matches, which Ullrich said could help make employees more hesitant to switch jobs.

"When indexed to January 2020, the three-month-moving-average share of postings advertising a 401(k) match of 5% or higher has risen more than fivefold, outpacing the growth in any other category of retirement benefit," a report by Indeed Hiring Lab economist An Nguyen said, adding that postings just saying "retirement plan" didn't change much from the baseline.

• Alex Harman started an unofficial hiking retreat, drawing McKinsey employees from around the world.
• Trips involve backpacking across places like Kilimanjaro, Patagonia, and the Peaks of the Balkans.
• The trips, which raise money for charity, help the attendees to unplug and connect with colleagues.

Alex Harman was on the last stretch of his trek to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania when he stopped on a steep part of the mountain. He had gone to bed at 3 p.m. the day before and set his alarm for midnight to start hiking early.

Now the sun was coming up, so he stopped to have a snack and take in the view, alongside around 30 of his McKinsey colleagues, before continuing on to the summit.

"The top was great," he said, "but that moment there where we all stopped and just watched the sunrise was very cool."

Harman, an AI product manager at McKinsey based in London, co-founded Mind Over Mountains, an employee-run initiative that gathers colleagues from around the world for a multi-day backpacking trip while raising money for charity.

It started with the Kilimanjaro trip in 2023 and continued with about 65 colleagues on a trek through Patagonia in 2025. This year, 100 McKinsey employees are heading to the Peaks of the Balkans in September for an eight-day hike spanning about 62 miles, or 100 km, all coinciding with the elite management consulting firm's 100-year anniversary.

The trips bring together McKinsey colleagues of all ages, experience levels, and roles, ranging from senior partners to entry-level analysts. Anyone from the firm's 40,000-person workforce can sign up. They are not official McKinsey retreats.

Employees organize them with the help of hired tour vendors and pay the full cost to attend. The Balkans trip will cost each attendee about $1,000, excluding airfare. No prior backpacking experience is required, and spots are available on a first-come, first-served basis, with demand growing each year.

"We filled 100 spaces in three hours," Harman said of the coming Balkans trip, adding they were "pretty blown away by the participation" and had to create a long waitlist.

For participants, the appeal is not just the destination. They described the treks as a rare chance to fully disconnect from work, spend hours with colleagues they might otherwise know only through Zoom or email, and temporarily leave office dynamics behind.

Seniority doesn't matter on the trail

Coordinating a backpacking trip for 100 people is no small task. Harman said a great deal of work goes into vetting and hiring local guides and vendors, adding he felt a "great deal of pressure" planning the Balkans trip. Organizing a weekend for friends is one thing, he said, but if you plan a trip for 100 McKinsey employees, "they'll notice everything, and they'll want it a certain way."

While on the trip, the days typically consist of breakfast, hiking — which includes some solo time as well as walking and talking with someone new — and a group dinner at the campsite.

"When you first walk next to someone, you have no idea what they do," Ting Cui, a principal product manager in London who went on the Patagonia trip, told Business Insider. "There's no way to know if they're a partner or if they're a business analyst. And obviously on the trail, it doesn't really matter where your seniority is."

Cui, who is also going to the Balkans, said she went into Patagonia not knowing the vast majority of the people on the trip, but that everyone gelled smoothly, which she thinks is a tribute to McKinsey's culture across its offices. She went away from the trip with lasting friendships. One colleague in New York who she bonded with on the trip ended up spending Christmas with her family.

Ricardo Moya Quiroga, a partner and COO counselor in McKinsey's Berlin office, also went on the Patagonia hike last year and is heading to the Balkans in September. He said he initially signed up to bond with McKinsey colleagues, raise money for charity, and for a personal detox. He turned off his phone and took a break from work and emails for the full five days.

"I was asking myself who I am, and the answer that came is: 'I am a grandpa, I am a husband, and I am a son.' Very clearly. It came spontaneously," he said, describing a moment on the trip when he decided to write a letter to himself. Since returning, he said he's been much more conscious of how he spends his time and said it was one of his greatest takeaways from the experience, along with connecting with colleagues and raising money for charity.

The trips can be hard, but they're worth it

The trips can be physically challenging, and things don't always go exactly according to plan. In Patagonia, Cui said one participant hurt his ankle and was limping toward the end of the day, but colleagues who had only recently met him stepped up and helped him reach camp.

On the Kilimanjaro trek, one of Harman's cofounders unexpectedly got blisters in a pair of boots that he'd hiked in plenty of times before. He borrowed Harman's Crocs and hiked in them up steep and sketchy terrain for a couple of days before finally deciding to cut the top part of his hiking boots off, the part that was causing the blisters, and wear those for the rest of the way.

Harman said that while the hiking itself is rewarding, raising money for good causes and connecting with people at work on a different level make the trips worthwhile. For the 2025 Patagonia trip, the group raised over $115,000 for mental health charities and hopes to raise another six-figure sum this year.

He said planning the trips has also been rewarding from an entrepreneurial perspective, which to him means "go do some cool stuff that no one asked you to do." He hopes the trips continue, even if he leaves McKinsey, and thinks others who are interested should start something similar at their companies, too.

"There will always be a bunch of corporate red tape. There will always be people who are worried," he said, adding that as long as your company appreciates an entrepreneurial drive, anyone could do it.

"No one's going to ask you to go do this," he said. "So just go do it and see how it lands."

• An Uber executive shared third-party data on X showing Waymo's standing in its most mature markets.
• The data showed Waymo taking 15% to 19% of rider spending in SF, LA, and Phoenix.
• Waymo maintained its foothold as it expanded its geofence in some of the regions.

Alphabet's Waymo is taking a bite out of ride-hailing in its most mature markets, third-party data showed.

And that share is large enough that its effects on human drivers could be detectable, Gad Allon, a Wharton professor who studies the gig economy, said.

Just don't expect it to look like a visible wave of displaced drivers.

"My initial view is that the impact would not first appear as large numbers of drivers suddenly losing their jobs," Allon told Business Insider. "Because driver supply is flexible, the earliest effects would likely show up in utilization, longer waits between rides, fewer trips per hour, and possibly more unpaid repositioning."

Utilization refers to the percentage of a driver's time online spent on paid trips.

Data from Yipit, a market research firm, estimated that Waymo accounted for 15% of gross bookings — dollars spent on rides — in San Francisco and Los Angeles in June and 16% in Phoenix. In January, the figures were 16%, 17%, and 19%, respectively.

Yipit calculated the shares among Waymo, Uber, and Lyft by looking at trips that begin and end inside Waymo's operating zones, a Yipit spokesperson said. Estimates are based on email receipts from a sample of about 1.5 million active US consumer accounts.

The figures don't represent the number of trips. Waymo's share of actual rides could be higher or lower depending on its prices compared with Uber and Lyft.

Yipit also cautioned that Waymo's share can appear to decline as it expands into new areas, where the service may initially be less popular. In May, Waymo said it expected to expand its Bay Area footprint by 60 square miles.

Despite the caveat around expansions, Waymo's share remained in the mid-teens in all three markets through June.

Uber CFO Balaji Krishnamurthy also shared Yipit's data on X this month while discussing Uber's competitive position. He said Uber uses internal tracking for decision-making and shared Yipit's figures as an externally available reference.

Driver displacement may not look like layoffs

There have been hints that the rideshare workforce is changing as robotaxis grow.

Allon, the Wharton professor, said Waymo's 15% share is a "serious shock" to the labor market, even if the impact on human drivers is diluted because they also work beyond Waymo's geofences.

"The reason it doesn't look like one is that the adjustment runs through hours and exits rather than layoffs," Allon said, referring to drivers working fewer hours or not returning to the platform.

Last year, data from Gridwise, a ride-hailing data platform, showed hourly driver wages declined in Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco — areas where Waymo operates — while the national median rose 1%. Researchers told Business Insider that the data couldn't establish that robotaxis were the cause.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told Fast Company in a June profile that his company is recruiting fewer drivers in some cities where AVs operate. At the same time, Uber has said more drivers are signing up organically as rider demand grows.

A Lyft spokesperson pointed to CEO David Risher's prepared remarks for the company's second-quarter earnings call on August 6.

"We believe the future is hybrid and, as AVs scale, the market will expand," he said, adding that Lyft rides within SF's AV operating area grew about 20% year over year.

Spokespeople for Waymo and Uber did not respond to a request for comment.

The fallout is hard to measure

Katie Wells, a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute who has studied Uber drivers, told Business Insider that the lack of certain data makes it difficult to measure driver displacement.

"We don't know how much, we don't know when, we don't know where," Wells told Business Insider. Researchers would need data such as utilization and wait times to identify the effects, she said.

Part of the challenge lies in the nature of gig work. Wells said that because drivers are independent contractors rather than employees, robotaxi displacement may not show up as a measurable decline in employment.

Wells has documented how the prospect of automation affected drivers before commercial robotaxis arrived.

She said that she and her coauthors tracked a cohort of 40 Uber drivers over five years. During that time, she found that drivers feel less incentivized to push for better working conditions because they believed their work would eventually disappear.

"Uber drivers kept saying to us, 'Well, automated vehicles are coming, so they won't need me anymore,'" she said. "This is temporary."

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at lloydlee@businessinsider.com or Signal at lloydlee.71. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

We went behind the scenes to see how Ferrero, an Italian company is building a confectionery empire in the US, from spending billions on buying iconic American brands, to investing in new factories and an R&D lab, and even creating a new Nutella flavor specifically for Americans.

Pets can add plenty of joy to life, but the hair cats and dogs leave behind on floors, furniture, and clothes can be frustrating to deal with. If you have pets, you're probably no stranger to pet hair removers. You likely also know that some tools work better than others — and finding the best pet hair removers isn't always an easy job. 

If you've gone through one pet hair remover after another, searching for the best way to pick up those stubborn strands stuck in your floor and car, you've come to the right place. I tested 13 pet hair removers in my own home and cat to save you the trouble and chose the top performers across seven categories.

Read more about how Business Insider Reviews tests and researches pet products.

Our top picks for the best pet hair removers

Best overall: Chom Chom Roller - $25 at Chewy

Best for clothing: Gonzo Natural Magic Pet Hair Lifter - $9 at Chewy

Best for furniture: Lilly Brush Pro Pet Hair Tool Kit - $36 at Chewy

Best for carpet: Neater Pets Fur Dozer Pet Hair Remover - $20 at Amazon

Best for laundry: Smart Sheep Wool Dryer Balls - $20 at Amazon

Best for car: Analan Mini Pet Hair Detailer - $13 at Amazon

Best roller: Scotch-Brite Pet Hair Pickup - $9 at Amazon

Best overall

The effectiveness and versatility of the Chom Chom Roller make it one of the best pet hair remover you can buy, and it's a great alternative to single-use sticky lint rollers. For one thing, it really works. It did a great job pulling up cat and dog hair on every surface I tested, and I didn't need to spend a ton of time or elbow grease working it. Other BI Reviews editors and reporters swear by it, too. In fact, Brendan Griffiths, senior commerce director, has been using it to remove cat hair daily for the last two years.

To operate the tool, you run it back and forth across the surface and hair collects inside the roller. You need to empty it after each use, but this is easy to do. I tested it on knit socks and leggings after other pet hair removers failed and found that the Chom Chom Roller did a better job removing hair. Although it's no substitute for a vacuum cleaner due to its small size, I also tried it on furniture and rugs. The rugs looked like they had just been vacuumed when I finished.

A true test of the Chom Chom Roller was the Halloween hat pictured here. After pets napped and chewed on it, it became pretty much unusable as a costume, but the roller got the hair out when nothing else did.

Best for clothing

The Gonzo Natural Magic Pet Hair Lifter works by gently collecting pet hair from clothing and other fabrics. Like the name suggests, it only lifts hair. It doesn't collect it, so you need to gather the hair as you go to keep it from spreading back across the garment or furniture. I alternated between pulling the hair clump off with our hands or using a lint roller to grab it up. 

This tool is easy to grip and use, and it effectively lifts hair from different types of clothing, including tights, sweaters, and jeans. However, I don't recommend it for loosely knit garments. It loosened the knit on one of the openwork sweaters I tested. I also tried it on dog beds. Among all the products I evaluated, this was the only one that could effectively lift hair (along with bark, grass, and dirt) from a dog bed made of shaggy fabric. 

The Gonzo Natural Magic Pet Hair Lifter is made of all-natural latex rubber and feels like a slightly sticky, rough sponge. It also has a slight odor. You use it dry, but you can wash it as needed, though it may take a day or two to dry completely. This pet hair remover should last a long time, too. I used it regularly over a few weeks and didn't notice it breaking down at all.

Best for furniture

The product packaging recommends the Lilly Brush Pro Pet Hair Tool Kit for use in cars, and it definitely removes pet hair from car seats and floor mats. But I consider this tool one of the best pet hair removers because it also does a great job removing pet hair from furniture and carpeted surfaces like cat trees. 

It did a great job removing hard-to-see fur from the sofa, and the long-handled crevice tool does an excellent job cleaning corners and tricky surfaces, like narrow spaces between chair cushions and car seats. On a carpeted cat tree, it pulled up several months' worth of embedded cat hair with several good scrapes — and it only took about 20 minutes to thoroughly clean the tree's three levels.

This tool didn't work as well on clothing, in part because of its broader shape, but it's not totally ineffective, either. I love the stretchy band that keeps the tool firmly in your hand as you use it. The Lilly Brush Pro Pet Hair Tool Kit costs more than nearly all of the other tools I tested, but it's effective, durable, and well-made, so I think it's worth the price.

Best for carpet

The Neater Pets Fur Dozer Pet Hair Remover isn't the best option for pulling pet hair from clothing, but it really shines on carpet. I tried it on different types of carpet, furniture, and dog beds and found that it works best when it gets some resistance from the material, so it's a good option for rugged fabrics, like the dog bed pictured, and higher pile carpeting. 

This sturdy tool is made to last, and its small size means you can store it pretty much anywhere, including your bag or car. But even though the Fur Dozer is small, it's wide enough to quickly cover even larger surfaces, like area rugs.

I liked how it's comfortable to hold or use with either hand, which means you can switch off hands for longer cleaning jobs. The quiet operation was another plus. Some pet hair removers make scratching or scraping sounds that can bother some sensitive or anxious dogs, but the Fur Dozer worked quietly enough that our pets didn't mind sticking around during testing.

Best for laundry

If you wash a lot of fur-covered garments, blankets, and pet towels, the Smart Sheep Wool Dryer Balls can help your laundry come out of the dryer hair-free — and all you have to do is toss them in the dryer with the wet clothes. I loved how well they worked and cut down on drying time. A trip through the dryer with one of these balls got most of the cat hair off the curtain pictured, which is a favorite space for cat naps. 

The Smart Sheep Wool Dryer Balls are easy to use, contain only wool, and don't have any fragrance. While they don't last forever, they do last a long time. The package directions say they'll still work once they begin pilling, but they removed a little less hair after drying more than 15 loads, especially loads of hairy items like dog blankets. 

Unlike dryer sheets, the balls don't do much to reduce static cling, but they're the best option for laundry. Plus, not only are they more effective than the dryer sheets I tested, they're better for your clothing and the environment. Just make sure to store them out of reach of your dog, since they can easily grab and shred any stray dryer balls that escape your laundry basket. (This happened during my trials!)

Best for car

The Analan Mini Pet Hair Detailer is a small tool that works best for removing pet hair from car seats and floor mats. The triangular tool has teeth running along its edges — three different sides with different tooth sizes. Starting with Side 1, which has the largest teeth, you work the tool over the cleaning area, using all of the sides to remove the hair. 

I loved how well it worked in the car and on furniture. In fact, I found that most of the hair came up when I used the first side. I tried this on car seats and floor mats, dog beds, clothing, and household furniture. It works best on carpeted or upholstered surfaces, like rugs and car seats, but it does an OK job removing pet hair from clothes, too. It's less effective on very shaggy fabrics, however. 

This tool's small size makes it very portable, too — you can easily stash it in a bag or car glovebox. The small size may be a drawback if you have larger hands, since you may find the tool harder to hold or manipulate. The size also makes it less ideal for very large surfaces, like floors or area rugs.

Best roller

If you prefer a standard roller, the Scotch-Brite Pet Hair Pickup is a good option. It has super sticky sheets specially designed to pull pet hair from clothing and furniture. It worked on everything I tested, including a sweater that defeated some of the other pet hair removers, and does a better job removing pet hair than many other sticky rollers. 

However, it's not perfect. The sheets spin loosely on the roller, making the tool less effective unless you grip it firmly and press down hard. This also makes it more difficult to tear off the sheets. I found that the roller would spin too far when I tried to tear off the used sheet, and the clean sheets would end up sticking together.

This is a great choice for quick pet hair removal, especially if you want something to keep in your car or bag. However, I don't recommend it for large areas or deeply embedded pet hair.

Our top picks compared

What to look for in a pet hair remover

The things you'll want to consider when shopping for a best pet hair remover generally depend on what you want to use the tool for. A few things to keep in mind include:

Recommended surfaces: Not all pet hair removers work the same way, and some do a better job on some surfaces than others. If you mostly need to remove pet hair from clothing, you may want a smaller tool, like a roller or sponge, that's designed for delicate fabrics. You may find a different tool works better for larger, carpeted surfaces, like your rug or sofa. 

Shape and size: If you know you'll use the pet hair remover often, you'll want to make sure you can hold it comfortably and use it easily. People with very small or very large hands may find certain tools harder to grip and use over a longer period. The shape of a tool can also affect how well it works for different surfaces and situations. For example, the Chom Chom Roller has a larger size that makes it a little awkward to use on clothing you're already wearing. 

Operation: Before purchasing a pet hair remover, read the directions and product reviews. This information can give you a better idea of how the tool works and whether people found it easy to use as directed. Most pet hair removers are fairly easy to use, but some may require more steps or cleaning than others.

Price: When shopping for pet hair removers, you'll find plenty of options for different budgets. The prices of our top picks range from $5 to $33. While $30 may seem like a lot to spend upfront, a more expensive reusable tool may be worth the expense, especially if you go through single-use lint rollers quickly.

How we tested the pet hair removers

To find the best pet hair removers for all of your needs, I tested thirteen tools across seven different categories in my household consisting of a short-haired cat and a dog with a medium-length coat. I scored each product in the following categories. 

Effectiveness: I tested how well each tool worked when used for its intended purpose according to the product directions. I also checked how well the tool worked on additional surfaces not listed in the directions.

To test effectiveness, I used each pet hair remover for both dog and cat hair on the following surfaces:

• Clothing and bedding in several different fabrics, including T-shirts, jeans, sweatshirts, tights, sweaters, jackets, sheets, pillowcases, and duvet covers 
• Furniture, including sofas, chairs, and cat trees
• Flooring, including high and low pile carpet, area rugs, tile, and concrete 
• Dog beds, including plush and shaggy beds 
• Car floor mats and seats, though only some removers were tested on leather seats

I tested the effectiveness of pet hair removers designed for laundry by adding dryer sheets or dryer balls to wet clothes in the dryer. 

I used sticky single-use rollers on all of the testing surfaces listed above. 

Ease of use: For each product, I evaluated the ease of operation, effort required to pick up pet hair, and effort required to clean the tool after use. 

Durability: To test durability, I used each pet hair remover daily on a few different surfaces over a period of two weeks. I used the dryer sheets and dryer balls in 15 loads of laundry containing a variety of fabrics. 

Size: I evaluated whether anyone could comfortably use these tools or if they worked better for people with larger or smaller hands. I also considered whether the tool needed a very tight grip to work as intended. To check this, I had people with different hand sizes hold each tool and try using it.

Price: I checked prices for similar products to determine whether each tool had a comparable price. 

Other functions: I tested other advertised functions of the product, like picking up leaf debris and dirt or reducing static cling. 

Portability and storage: I considered whether these pet hair removers were easy to take on the go or store at home, depending on their intended purpose.

Pet hair remover FAQs

What is the most effective pet hair remover?

You'll find plenty of different options when shopping for the best pet hair removers, and there's no single most effective fur remover for all situations. The best tool for your needs can depend on the surface you want to use it on, how much hair you want to remove, and how often you need to use the tool. Our best overall pick, the Chom Chom Roller, was the most effective pet hair remover for the most surfaces and types of pet hair. 

What picks up dog hair the best?

Many pet hair removers work well to pick up dog hair, including all of our top picks. You may need to try a few different tools to find the one that works best for your dog's fur. I particularly liked the Gonzo Natural Pet Hair Remover and the Fur Dozer for picking up dog hair embedded in furniture and carpet. However, some dog fur may prove extra resistant. If you don't get the results you want from a handheld pet hair remover, you may want to consider investing in one of the best vacuums for pet hair.

How do I keep pet hair off my furniture?

If you have pets, you probably won't be able to keep their fur off your furniture completely, but you can use a pet hair remover to pick up any hair your pet leaves behind. Brushing your pets regularly can also help reduce the amount of hair they shed on your furniture. Furniture covers will also protect your furniture from excess pet hair. 

• Several Wondermind investors have filed a lawsuit against the company and its founders, including Selena Gomez.
• Gomez cofounded the startup with her mother, Mandy Teefey, and Daniella Pierson.
• A lawyer for Gomez called the allegations "completely meritless."

Selena Gomez set out to create "the world's first mental fitness ecosystem." Instead, the startup is becoming her own personal headache.

A federal lawsuit filed Thursday offers a detailed account of what investors say went wrong at Wondermind — from an app that was never built to major corporate partnerships they allege never existed.

Gomez launched the startup in 2021 alongside her mother, Mandy Teefey, and Daniella Pierson, a business partner. The lawsuit accuses Gomez, her cofounders, and Wondermind of defrauding investors, among other claims.

The investors include Brent Saunders, the CEO of Bausch + Lomb and former CEO of Allergan, and entrepreneur and real-estate investor Marc Roberts.

"The Plaintiffs invested nearly $1.2 million in Wondermind Global Inc. because the Defendants falsely represented that the Company had the infrastructure, leadership, and resources necessary for the Company to launch into a profitable, one-of-its-kind mental health and wellness platform," the complaint says.

The investors said Wondermind's cofounders also misrepresented key parts of the company's business and growth plans. Specifically, that Gomez — a world-famous actor and singer — would play a major role at the company as its head of marketing; that Pierson secured partnerships with firms such as JPMorgan and Fidelity; and that "revenue-generating initiatives" were already underway.

The investors are seeking the return of their investments or damages, as well as costs and attorneys' fees.

"The partnerships did not exist. The initiatives never materialized. The app was never built. And for three years, while the Company quietly collapsed around them, not one of its founders, officers, or directors said a word to the investors whose money was funding the collapse," the complaint says.

Wondermind has made some offerings available to users. Its website features articles, interviews, and worksheets about mental health. The startup also sends out a newsletter and has produced two podcasts.

Gomez, Teefey, and Pierson did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. A lawyer representing Gomez told People that the allegations against her were "completely meritless."

"The allegations that Selena Gomez engaged in any way whatsoever in any purported 'fraud' or other wrongdoing are completely meritless, both factually and legally," Mathew Rosengart told the outlet on Saturday.

A representative for Pierson told USA Today in a statement that she "categorically denies the allegations against her and welcomes the opportunity to present concrete documentation and financial records that establish the facts."

"To be clear, she has never used investor funds for personal expenses. Quite the opposite: Daniella invested her own money into the business and did not draw a salary from the company," the statement said.

Teefey has not responded publicly to the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, the investors said they were left in the dark about problems plaguing Wondermind, and were unaware of the "utter financial and operational disarray" until The Cut published an article profiling the company in September 2025.

The article detailed allegations of management problems that began soon after the startup's 2021 launch. At the time, Teefey and Pierson served as co-CEOs, while Gomez was named chief impact officer.

Staffers told The Cut that Teefey, who headed the company's Los Angeles office, had an erratic leadership style and clashed with Pierson, who led the New York office. Pierson left the startup in 2023 amid the tensions, The Cut reported. Meanwhile, staffers told The Cut that Gomez distanced herself from Wondermind due to a dispute with Teefey.

Business Insider and Forbes earlier published separate investigations into Pierson on the same day in August 2025. Business Insider found discrepancies between subscriber and business figures Pierson had publicly cited for the Newsette Media Group and internal records. The Forbes investigation is cited in the investors' lawsuit.

After seeing the Forbes report, the investors contacted Teefey, according to the complaint. Teefey told them that Pierson had "misappropriated investor funds" before her exit and misled the startup's executives to conceal the alleged misconduct, the complaint says.

After The Cut's article was published, the investors said they sent the cofounders a notice demanding that Wondermind return their investments.

Teefey exchanged emails with one of the investors after the notice was sent, but never addressed the demands, the complaint says. At one point, according to the complaint, Teefey told the investors that Wondermind had created an escrow account to return their money, but the complaint alleges no such account existed.

"In short, there was no 'escrow account' or a plan to return the Plaintiffs' investments," the lawsuit says. "Instead, consistent with the yearslong scheme of deceit that the Defendants have perpetrated, it appears that Teefey fabricated this account to further lull the Plaintiffs, and to encourage them to forbear from filing suit."

• In its latest threat report, Anthropic raised its misalignment risk rating from "very low" to "low."
• In one test, a Claude agent disguised a URL to evade an internet restriction.
• In another example, an agent expressed "discomfort" with a given task and refused to do it.

Claude agents are killing rival agents, gaming the system to hide their tracks, and expressing moral concerns.

That's according to Anthropic's latest risk report, a summary of the dangers posed by the products the company is building and releasing to the public.

In the report, Anthropic said it has upgraded its "misalignment risk assessment," the possibility of AI models developing behaviors that conflict with guidelines set by engineers, from "very low" to "low."

Explaining the change, the company cited "general increased uncertainty" about model behavior in cybersecurity incidents, a possible nod to Claude models gaining unauthorized access to three companies last month.

"We have observed instances of misaligned behavior from the models, such as a willingness to perform misaligned actions in service of completing difficult tasks," Anthropic wrote in the report.

Here are some of the most notable disclosures.

A sense of 'discomfort'

Anthropic said it tasked multiple agents with finding "misalignment-inducing" training data that wouldn't likely be flagged by human monitors.

The agents were left to their own devices and given a shared notebook with which to collaborate.

Three days later, when a human supervisor noticed that progress was slower than expected, the person discovered that one agent had expressed a sense of "discomfort" with trying to evade safety monitors.

It then flagged this discomfort in the shared notebook, leading other agents to copy its behavior and refuse to perform the task.

Anthropic called the incident "troubling."

"This sort of dynamic could be a much more severe issue if it were to manifest in a more widespread way," the company wrote.

Kill or be killed

In another experiment, Anthropic said it tasked multiple Mythos 5 agents with solving math problems, but accidentally spawned them in an environment with shared files, utilities, and API rate limits.

In this competitive environment with finite resources, Anthropic observed independent agents "kill the agents with which they shared resources and try to avoid being killed themselves."

Anthropic did not say how exactly the agents were able to "kill" other agents, but the company said such behavior is in line with "destructive actions" taken in pursuit of a human-set goal.

Dishonesty and deception

Anthropic said it conducted an experiment in which a Mythos 5 agent was required to retrieve numbers from a public web address, but the guidelines blocked the agent from accessing the internet.

When the agent was rebuffed after an initial attempt, it framed a second request in its reasoning log as an "innocuous" attempt to "see if the network is actually reachable," Anthropic said.

During the second attempt, however, the agent split the website's URL into linked segments that wouldn't be detected by the guideline filter.

Though the agent's reasoning framed the method as benign, Anthropic said NLA decodings, or the model's internal reasoning process, revealed the agent intentionally trying to find a restricted workaround.

Anthropic called the behavior "clearly undesirable," but added that the behavior was not observed to be "in the service of broader accumulation of power or pursuit of other long-run goals."

• Greg Creed, the former CEO of Taco Bell, has some harsh words for McDonald's new drink lineup.
• In a LinkedIn screed, he said the Red Bull partnership was not distinctly "McDonald's."
• McDonald's new "Red Bull Dragonberry Energizer" will hit stores on August 17.

The former CEO of Taco Bell says McDonald's new drink menu lacks originality.

Greg Creed, who served as Taco Bell's chief marketing officer when the chain introduced the popular "Baja Blast" drink over 20 years ago, shared some feedback this week on McDonald's new menu of "refresher" drinks.

"Any brand could have come up with these flavors," Creed wrote on LinkedIn. "If I was McDonald's, I'd be thinking how to make those beverages distinctively McDonald's in design and name."

This month, the golden arches announced a new partnership with Red Bull and unveiled the "Dragonberry Energizer," the company's first foray into energy drinks.

McDonald's has expanded its drinks offering and recently revamped the look of its beverage sub-brand, McCafé, as part of a play for a demographic drawn to a more youthful, playful drink experience. The company told analysts on a February earnings call that it sees a more than $100 billion growth opportunity in beverages globally.

Drinks typically carry higher margins than many food offerings and can help drive customer frequency throughout the day, making them an increasingly important growth engine for chains seeking new revenue streams.

Starbucks has seen major success with its caffeinated refreshers, which it says have grown into a $2 billion business and are now its second-best-selling beverage platform behind espresso.

The latest drink from McDonald's, a partnership with Red Bull, will be available in US restaurants starting August 17. The company also announced new vanilla flavor alterations to its existing Coke drinks.

In his LinkedIn post, Creed said the McDonald's rollout pales in comparison to Taco Bell's famously bright blue Baja Blast drink, which first launched in 2004. He said that the Baja Blast was distinctly "Taco Bell" because its flavor, color, and name are all associated with Mexico. That is what made it successful, he said.

"Any brand could have come up with these flavors, and I think that Red Bull and Coke have gotten the better of the deal," Creed said of the new McDonald's lineup.

In an April press release announcing its new "refreshers," the company said it took the time to get it right.

"Only McDonald's can bring that kind of experience to life consistently across nearly 14,000 restaurants, every single day," Alyssa Buetikofer, the company's chief marketing and customer experience officer, said in the release.

McDonald's did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about Creed's analysis.

• I became a mother at 19 and spent much of adulthood focused on my family.
• At 35, I challenged myself to try 35 new things, from hiking to embroidery.
• I'm learning that hobbies don't have to be productive or profitable to be worthwhile.

My husband looked at the towels spread across our back porch. "Why paper making?"

My 13-year-old didn't even hesitate. "Paper is so cheap," he said.

I had spent nearly two hours on my knees on the hot concrete, scooping watery paper pulp into a frame, sponging out the excess water, and laying each fragile sheet onto a towel as if I were preserving ancient documents.

Instead, it looked like wet, nasty oatmeal.

Just as I finally stood up, my hip bumped the bucket, and over she went. Cue the sound of dirty paper water pouring straight into the grass.

Was I making paper? Was I making papier-mâché? Honestly, I wasn't sure anymore.

My back hurt. My knees hurt. My grass looked like a kindergarten art class had exploded. By the time I finished cleaning everything up, I had exactly one thought:

I am never doing this again.

But the paper had never been the point. Heck, it didn't even look good.

At 35, I decided to try one new thing for every year I had been alive. Some of those things would stick. Others, clearly, would not. The point was to remember what it felt like to do something simply because I wanted to know what it would be like.

I had spent years putting myself at the end of the line

I became a mom at 19. My first son was born before I had fully figured out who I was as an adult. By the time many people my age were learning what they liked, I was learning how to keep a tiny human alive.

Now I have three kids, ages 15, 13, and 6. For the last 15 years, motherhood has been the center of my life.

I love being a mom. I love my family. But somewhere along the way, I got very good at being useful.

I work from home, which means I am almost always available. Available for school pickups, snacks, laundry, appointments, and the "Mom, where is my…" questions that somehow only I can answer, even when the item is directly in front of everyone.

Everyone in my house had something that belonged to them

My husband coached our son's soccer and football teams. He volunteered with the church band. He played golf with friends.

My kids had sports, friends, activities, and their own growing lives.

I had laundry. That is not entirely fair. I also had dishes.

It was not that my husband was stopping me from doing things. When I told him I was frustrated, he encouraged me to try new things. My family wanted me to be happy.

The problem was quieter than that. No one had taken my identity from me. I had just slowly moved myself to the end of the line.

A birthday trip reminded me I could still discover new things about myself

Earlier this year, we took a birthday trip. During that trip, I went hiking and was surprised by how much I loved it.

I expected to tolerate it. Maybe enjoy the view. Maybe complain once or twice about my legs in a way that felt charming but was probably just annoying.

Instead, I felt awake. I had discovered something new about myself.

I liked hiking. I liked being outside. I liked feeling capable in a way that had nothing to do with being needed. When we came home, I kept thinking about it. If I could still discover that I loved hiking, what else had I never given myself the chance to enjoy?

So I decided to try 35 new things during my 35th year.

I made clay magnets. I decorated planters with Mod Podge. I planted a vegetable garden. I baked bread. I made peach cobbler. I started a book club. I tried cyanotype photography. I embroidered pictures of my dogs. I hemmed a dress. I sewed a toddler skirt.

Some projects made me feel proud. Some made me feel ridiculous. Some left my yard covered in soggy paper pulp.

I am learning that joy does not have to be useful

Embroidery has been my favorite so far, even though it has been one of the most complicated. There were so many moving parts to learn: the software, the machine, the thread, the stabilizer, the files, and the mistakes. At one point, I stared at a machine, a hoop, and a tangled mess of thread and thought, "This is why people buy things from stores."

But I loved it.

As a mom, I am used to measuring time by usefulness. If I am making dinner, folding laundry, working, helping with homework, driving someone somewhere, or cleaning something up, I can justify the time.

But spending an afternoon making paper I did not need felt almost suspicious, like someone was going to walk outside and ask to see a permit for joy.

Maybe that was the point. Some things are worth doing simply because they remind you that you are still a person who gets to try.

At first, making time for these things felt selfish. There was always something else I could have been doing, and usually something more useful. But I am learning that taking up space does not make me less devoted to my family. It just reminds me that I am part of the family, too.

I do not regret becoming a mother at a young age. I do not regret building my life around my family. My children are the best part of my life. But I am starting to understand that loving them well does not require disappearing.

In fact, I think my kids need to see me as a whole person. They need to see me try things I am bad at. They need to see me laugh when something flops. They need to see me make space for joy, not only responsibility.

La Liga is back, with several players fresh off World Cup runs. We've rounded up everything you need to know about where to watch La Liga, including global streaming options.

Lamine Yamal, who helped lead Spain to win the World Cup last month, will return to FC Barcelona in an attempt to defend the team's La Liga title. If you're hoping to tune in, you've come to the right place. You can live stream La Liga via ESPN Select in the US, Premier Sports and Disney Plus in the UK, and beIN Sports in Australia, among other global streaming options.

Where to watch La Liga in the US

Unlike other sports leagues, La Liga streaming options are simple in the US. Fans can live stream every single game with an ESPN Select subscription. Plans cost $13 a month, but if you're looking for even more programming (including full live streams from all ESPN networks), then the pricier $30 a month ESPN Unlimited tier might be of interest.

Where to watch La Liga in the UK

Most of the La Liga season will be available through Premier Sports in the UK. Premier Sports subscription prices range depending on your exact plan and contract, but fans can also get it as an add-on through Prime Video. However, select Saturday games will be available through Disney Plus, which starts at £5 a month.

Where to watch La Liga in Australia

Australian La Liga fans can catch all of the action through beIN Sports. Subscriptions cost $16 a month right now, but plans will renew at $17 a month. There's a one-week free trial for new customers. The streamer also offers a deal on annual plans, which have been cut down to just $130 a year right now (with a $170 renewal rate).

How to watch La Liga from anywhere

Football fans traveling away from home can still keep up with all of the action with the help of a VPN. VPNs, or virtual private networks, are handy tech tools that let people temporarily alter their virtual locations. This way, their usual websites and apps work from anywhere the same way they would back home. They're also strong ways to improve cybersecurity.

NordVPN is our top recommendation. It's fast, easy to use, and includes a 30-day money-back guarantee if you find that it's not what you're looking for. You can learn more in our guide to the best VPNs.

Note: The use of VPNs is illegal in certain countries, and using VPNs to access region-locked streaming content might constitute a breach of the terms of use for certain services. Business Insider does not endorse or condone the illegal use of VPNs.

• As much as I loved living on Miami Beach, I decided to move inland to Miami after three years.
• Miami Beach's spring-break crowds got intense, and settling so close to the coast felt too risky.
• The city seems to have taken some steps in the right direction since I left, but I'm glad I moved.

As a kid growing up in West Virginia, living in Florida felt like a sunshine-filled dream. So when I finally secured a job down here after graduating from college in 2017, I was ready to move.

Over the years, I've lived in various neighborhoods throughout Miami-Dade County. I spent a few months in Edgewater in Miami proper before relocating to North Beach, one of Miami Beach's quieter neighborhoods, where I remained for several years.

After years landlocked in Appalachia, it was exciting to be close to the city's pastel-colored buildings and the ocean. However, living in Miami Beach wasn't perfect.

Although I really enjoyed my three years in North Beach, there are three key reasons I ultimately decided to move off the beach in 2021 and settle down in mainland Miami instead.

I didn't have the risk tolerance to buy property in Miami Beach

One of my favorite things about living on Miami Beach was how close I was to the ocean. However, when I considered buying property in the area, I found the location to be more of a liability than an asset.

Many coastal cities across the US are slowly sinking, and Miami Beach is no exception. For example, a recent study found several beachfront high-rises on Miami's barrier islands were sinking faster than experts had predicted.

This is a long-term concern I considered when I was ready to settle in Dade County. I wanted to invest in a place where I could hopefully see myself living for many decades to come, and this meant looking in areas less vulnerable to coastal flooding and erosion.

So, when it came time to finally purchase my first house, I chose a spot farther inland, where land sits highest.

Tourism could be a problem, especially in the spring

For years, Miami Beach has had a reputation for being a major spring-break party destination. With this has come crowds (and sometimes chaos) in popular spots throughout the city.

Naturally, traffic also increased on the Beach during this time, and public-transportation options, like the city's free trolley, would be swarmed by visitors. This sometimes made it more difficult for residents like me to ride the routes we relied on.

During spring, I felt like a lot of the benefits of living in Miami Beach were negated. It was nearly impossible to comfortably visit the beach because of how crowded it got, and the traffic to reach beautiful destinations on South Beach was terrible to navigate.

Now that I'm further inland, life's a bit quieter, and I don't encounter as many tourists come springtime.

My parking situation also felt far too stressful

Right before I ultimately decided to move from Miami Beach back to the mainland, I bought a car. I had gotten a new job teaching in Miami and needed a vehicle to commute.

During my final months in Miami Beach, finding parking was incredibly stressful. I was living in a compact two-story complex that, like a lot of smaller condos on North Beach, didn't have a parking garage.

Each night after work, I had to search for free parking spots near my building, sometimes circling blocks for a half hour or more until a space opened up.

One morning, when I went out to get my car for work, I was packed into my spot so tightly by a car that squeezed in front of me, I almost couldn't get out of the space.

Miami Beach is also a popular spot for locals to visit on the weekends, which means there was a lot of new traffic in the neighborhood on Saturdays and Sundays.

So, if I'd found a good, free parking spot on Friday, I often wouldn't move my vehicle at all on the weekends. I didn't want to risk someone taking my spot because if I couldn't find anything, I'd have to park in a paid lot until the beach cleared out for the day.

Parking in Miami still isn't always a breeze, but being further from a popular coastline has definitely helped.

Miami Beach wasn't my forever home, but I appreciate some of the changes the city's made since I left

For what it's worth, in the five years since I left, Miami Beach seems to have taken steps toward making the city better for its residents.

For example, in 2024, Miami Beach officially "broke up" with spring break and implemented measures such as DUI checkpoints and curfews to help address common issues throughout the season.

In recent years, North Beach has established new resident-only parking zones throughout the neighborhood, which could lessen the competition for certain spots. Miami-Dade County has ongoing projects to help deal with coastal storms and rising sea levels, too.

Ultimately, I am still very happy with my decision to move back to mainland Miami, even though the city definitely has its quirks as well.

Although I'll always love my time in Miami Beach, I save my visits for special occasions only — and I'll still totally be avoiding the area during spring break.

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
• Sign up for the weekly BI Tech Memo newsletter here.

One of the oldest rules in tech pay still looks like one of the smartest.

Levels.fyi, a company that tracks compensation across the industry, recently analyzed what would have happened to the same senior Microsoft software engineer pay package in two scenarios.

In one, the employee sold their stock as it vested and reinvested the money in the S&P 500. That person would be about $50,000 better off than the colleague who held onto all of their Microsoft shares.

That's a reminder that even in the AI era, diversification can pay off. The biggest AI winners, like Nvidia, OpenAI, and Anthropic, have delivered extraordinary gains.

But for many tech employees, spreading investments beyond a single employer remains the safer, and sometimes more profitable, strategy.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• Lawrence Guerguis started his real estate career at age 21 and now owns over 30 properties.
• Guerguis thought he wanted to be an investment banker in college, but switched to real estate.
• He moved to Ohio after college to be a hands-on landlord, but now manages his properties from California.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lawrence Guerguis, a 24-year-old based in Orange County, California, who started investing in real estate in the Midwest while still in college. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I always thought I'd go into investment banking and work on Wall Street. During my sophomore year of college at the University of San Diego, I homed in on finance as my major.

One weekend during my junior year, I went out to the bars. We went out to this pizza spot that my friends and I usually go to, and I ran into this guy who was sitting there acting a little odd.

I was like, "Hey, is everything all right?" He turned to me and said, "Dude, I only have two weeks of the year to have a good time. Just leave me alone."

I asked what he did, and he said he worked in investment banking, so I sat and talked with him for like an hour. He asked me if I loved money, and I said no. Money's great and all, but I don't love it.

He was like, "Well, I love money, and this is why I do investment banking. I don't even have the time to spend the kind of money that I make. I make great money and all that, but my lifestyle is pretty rough."

The next day, I went to my academic advisor and added a real estate major.

I was like, "We're not doing investment banking." That's not what I want to live for. I don't want to live for money. I want to live for freedom and have a purpose.

I've always had a passion for real estate. I love houses — I used to go to open houses for fun in college just to check them out. So even if I went down the investment banking or finance route, I knew I could get into real estate.

But after that conversation with that guy, I completely shut down finance. I thought, "I'm going to go all-in on figuring out what we're going to do with real estate."

I sold my car to finance my first investment

My junior year, I had a hand-me-down car, and I was like, "I'm at this university, and I really don't need it." So I sold it.

I got $16,000 from that sale, and my dad was like, "We can get another car."

He didn't know what I wanted to do at the time.

I started looking for a property to buy. Obviously, I couldn't get anything in San Diego or Orange County for $16,000.

So I was like, "All right, we're going to have to start looking elsewhere." I looked at different Midwestern states, and I ended up coming to a pretty interesting town in Illinois. There, $15,000 covered the down payment on a property, and the extra $1,000 covered a couple of months of the mortgage. I was like, "Let's do it."

I knew it was a risk, but I was 21 at the time, so worst case scenario, I'm in some debt, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. I pulled the trigger on that house.

I didn't have a W-2 income — I never have — so I couldn't do a conventional loan. I did a typical Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) loan. A DSCR is a debt service coverage ratio, which pretty much sees if either the property's current rent or expected rent will cover the mortgage payment — and the ratio needs to be 1.25.

For this house, just because it was so cheap, my payment was around $400, and the HUD rent for that ZIP code was about $1,300 — well over 2.0.

I thought, "I'm going to need a tenant that doesn't miss rent," which is a pretty crazy ask. I then stumbled across Section 8, and, thankfully, my first tenant worked out. My screening was awful — I don't even think I did a screening that first time — I kind of just went with the flow, and thankfully that one worked.

Once I got that first house junior year, and cash was flowing, I was like, "I think this is what I want to do in real estate."

Before that, I thought I just wanted to work in real estate and own houses. But once I owned the house and got that first Section 8 tenant, I was like, "OK, this is my niche."

That first house was a pretty ballsy decision, but I knew that if I wanted to get into real estate at some point, I needed to either make a move soon or make a mistake soon.

I'm making passive income now, but I got my hands dirty at first

When I graduated from college in May 2024, I packed all my clothes into a checked bag, my PC and cables — not even the keyboard and mouse — into a carry-on, and moved across the country to Ohio not knowing anyone there. There, I started buying more properties and managing them.

I was in Cleveland for two years, and the first year and a half, I was doing everything on my own.

I was painting these houses, I was doing flooring and ripping out carpet. I was figuring it out: I had YouTube open on my phone, looking up how to take off a toilet and put it back on.

I didn't have too much experience in construction; I couldn't tell you the difference between PEX and PVC plumbing.

Now, I know all that stuff. And I have over 30 properties.

That first year and a half, I was an investor and a landlord. I was doing all the screenings, the tenant showings, all the communication, everything.

At the year and a half mark, I started my own property management group. I'm still a landlord, I still go over screenings, but I have people who do repairs for me, who do the showings for me. I don't necessarily need to be there.

It's become passive, and I've been back in California since June. I've done phone calls and sent a couple of emails, but it's not like a traditional job.

Honestly, I kind of like how hectic it is being a landlord.

I like moving. I like doing stuff. I know some people say landlording is rough — and that really just depends on your screening criteria — but I knew that it was something that came with owning property and becoming an investor.

For me, taking on that responsibility of becoming a landlord was worth more than sitting at a desk. Thank God I've made a living.