• Almost 10 years ago, my husband and I bought a house and invited my parents to move in.
• At first, I was worried it would be an awkward adjustment — but the benefits outweigh the cons.
• The extra childcare has been life-giving, and we've been able to share resources and cut costs.

I left home for college at age 17, then spent over a decade living several states away from my family.

By my late 20s, I had built a life in San Francisco with my husband while my family was settled back in the Pacific Northwest.

However, after four years in the Bay Area — with a 3-year-old and another baby on the way — we decided to move closer to family. A lot closer.

Coming from big, close-knit families ourselves, my husband and I wanted our children to grow up with their cousins and grandparents nearby. Plus, worn out by the demands of working full-time while parenting small kids, we dreamed of having more childcare support.

We bought a house with two separate living spaces in Seattle and invited my parents to move in with us. They have the ground-floor mother-in-law apartment, and my husband and I live upstairs with our two boys.

Now we're coming up on our 10th year in a multigenerational household — and it's been wonderful.

When we first moved in together, I worried about giving up some level of autonomy. In the years when I lived far away, I might go a month without speaking to my parents; now, they'd be able to hear my footsteps in the kitchen if I got up for a midnight snack.

But I hoped the benefits of moving back in with my parents would outweigh the potential drawbacks, and they have.

Our kids love the living setup

First and foremost, our living arrangement is great for my kids.

They often stop by the downstairs apartment after school for a graham cracker slathered in Nutella, a grandparents-only treat they call "Snack of the Day." They might play a game of Uno with my mom or shoot some hoops out back with my dad before they head upstairs to our house.

My husband and I benefit from grandparent time, too: on weekends, my dad often invites his early-rising grandkids down for pancakes so that we can sleep in. My mom also provided regular childcare for my younger son when he was a baby, after I returned to full-time work.

The close connection with my parents was especially meaningful during the COVID-19 pandemic. Keeping my parents in our quarantine "bubble" meant that all of us felt less isolated.

Even when we did practice social distancing at times, we could easily wave through the window, drop off a meal, or even meet in the front yard to chat or toss a Frisbee — and when my parents got sick around this time, we were close by to lend a hand.

We're able to save money and share resources

Before we moved in together, my parents had been renting an apartment, but were slowly getting priced out of Seattle's booming housing market.

This arrangement makes housing more affordable for all of us. Along with our lower monthly housing costs, we share everything from certain chores to an internet account.

We're glad to be able to use their lawn mower and other yard equipment, things we never acquired as renters in San Francisco. In turn, we help my parents with matters from heavy lifting to technical support. (Recently, I showed my mom how to upload files to Google Drive.)

We occasionally borrow each other's cars, easing the pressure for either family unit to buy a second vehicle. Also, as my parents age, we'll be able to check in on them easily and provide more support when they need it.

Living with your parents as an adult probably isn't for everyone, but it's been life-giving for me

It helps that we're not constantly stepping on each other's toes, either literally or figuratively. We come and go through separate entrances and have full lives independent of each other.

My parents also stay busy with work and community involvement. They have a wide social network in Seattle, as well as five other adult children and six other grandchildren.

Sometimes, several days go by without us even seeing each other — and when we do, we are eager to catch up.

I'm glad I left home in my 20s and explored the world on my own terms, putting some temporary distance between myself and my family. I think that experience helped me to come home again — not as a child returning to old habits but as a mature adult, choosing a life of connection for herself and her own children.

• More than 200 top economists, execs, and researchers warned about AI's potential impact on jobs.
• An 88-word letter published on Monday calls for stronger guardrails as AI becomes more powerful.
• Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark are among the signatories.

More than 200 top economists, executives, and researchers — including over a dozen Nobel Prize winners — have signed a letter warning about AI's potential threat to jobs.

The 88-word-long letter, titled "We Must Act Now," says that AI could become "radically more powerful" in the coming decade, and argues that policymakers worldwide need to do more to build guardrails for the technology or risk "large-scale job displacement."

Signatories include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz, Daron Acemoglu, and Simon Johnson.

Google AI lead Jeff Dean, Anthropic cofounder Jack Clark, and OpenAI finance boss Sarah Friar also signed.

Read the full text of the letter, organized by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab and subtitled "A Statement on AI's Transformation of the Economy," here:

1. AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years.
2. This could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame. It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.
3. Economists, policymakers and technology leaders must act now to understand the economics of transformative AI and to build the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.

• An outbreak of cyclosporiasis has hit the US, with cases reported in 31 states since May 1.
• Symptoms of the intestinal illness include diarrhea, nausea, and fatigue.
• The source of the outbreak is unknown, but past culprits have included raspberries and lettuce.

There's an outbreak of a parasite that causes diarrhea in the US, so you may be wondering if your go-to summer salad is safe.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cyclosporiasis, an intestinal illness caused by a microscopic parasite called cyclospora, has been reported in 31 states since May 1. It confirmed 843 cases and 86 hospitalizations as of July 9, with a further 1,500 cases under investigation.

People get cyclosporiasis from eating food or water contaminated with human feces, typically during growing, harvesting, and processing. The source of the current US outbreak is unknown, but in the past, it has been linked to raspberries, basil, cilantro, snow peas, green onions, and mesclun lettuce.

There have not been any product recalls as officials investigate the outbreak. Local media reported that some Taco Bell restaurants had stopped serving certain items to prevent the bug from spreading.

A spokesperson for Taco Bell told Business Insider on Monday: "We are aware of the Cyclospora investigation and at this time, we don't believe the ingredients we source are associated. We are monitoring the situation closely and evaluating any new information as it becomes available. The health and safety of our guests and team members is our highest priority."

Outside of business hours, Business Insider asked McDonald's, KFC, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Wendy's, Chipotle, Burger King, Subway, and the National Restaurant Association if any procedures had changed in light of the outbreak. We didn't immediately receive a response.

How to prevent cyclosporiasis

Health officials and food safety experts have advised people to consider avoiding eating foods that have been previously linked to the illness, while the outbreak is investigated. Such foods include lettuce, raspberries, green onions, and herbs.

In general, it is advisable to wash, rinse, and scrub produce thoroughly, removing outer leaves where possible. However, evidence suggests that rinsing or washing fresh fruits and veggies isn't enough to get rid of cyclospora entirely, as it's sticky and resistant.

Also try to cook your produce instead of eating it raw, as cyclospora can't survive in food with an internal temperature of at least 158 degrees Fahrenheit.

It is also important to observe standard food safety rules, such as washing your hands with soap and water before and after handling fresh produce, and regularly cleaning chopping boards and utensils.

Explosive diarrhea is one of several cyclosporiasis symptoms

Cyclosporiasis usually causes watery diarrhea with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements. Other symptoms can include loss of appetite, weight loss, stomach cramps, bloating, gas, nausea, fatigue, vomiting, body aches, headaches, low-grade fever, and other flu-like symptoms.

The true number of infections is likely much higher as most people are able to recover from the illness at home, and those who do see a doctor may not get tested for cyclosporiasis as it is expensive and involves giving multiple stool samples over a number of days, Katelyn Jetelina, assistant professor adjunct of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, wrote in her public health newsletter, Your Local Epidemiologist, July 11.

Not everyone infected with cyclospora experiences symptoms, and they typically only start to appear about a week after exposure to cyclospora, making infections hard to trace. Severe cases can be treated with antibiotics.

• Tom Holland, actor and star of 'The Odyssey,' was interviewed by Tom Holland, his namesake historian.
• In the interview, the actor discussed the difficulty of filming the first-ever entirely Imax movie.
• Last week, the pair's shared name caused internet confusion when Elon Musk insulted the historian.

Tom Holland walks into a room for an interview to promote "The Odyssey." Waiting for him is his interviewer, Tom Holland.

Last week, Holland, the actor who plays Telemachus in Christopher Nolan's blockbuster adaptation of the Greek epic, joined Holland, the British classicist and podcaster who shares his name, to discuss the much-hyped and highly divisive movie.

In the interview for "The Rest is History" podcast, Holland, the 30-year-old actor, said starring in the first feature-length movie filmed entirely with Imax cameras left him "nowhere to hide."

"Imax is a very different beast," the actor said. "There's a huge difference between acting onstage to acting on screen. And then there's an even bigger difference between acting on screen and acting on Imax."

"You just can't hide anything in Imax. The resolution is so good. There are no secrets. There's nowhere to hide," he said, adding that the format promotes "a more subtle version of performance because it can very quickly become too much."

There are practical reasons the format looms so large for actors. Imax cameras shoot on large-format film, and a single magazine holds only about three minutes of footage at standard speed before it must be swapped.

The cameras are also notoriously loud, a long-standing obstacle to filming dialogue, which is why Imax built a new, quieter generation of camera, developed with Nolan in mind, that made an all-Imax production possible for the first time.

The interview marked the first meeting of the two Tom Hollands. Their shared name has been a long-running joke between 58-year-old historian Holland and his podcast co-host Dominic Sandbrook.

During the interview, the pair jokingly recreated the famous "Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man" meme, while historian Tom Holland referred to the actor as "the real Tom Holland." He also joked that the actor's existence had made it harder to Google himself.

The pair's shared name caused chaos online last week, when historian Tom Holland found himself at the center of a clash with Elon Musk after defending the film against critics who dismissed it as "woke."

The world's richest person then insulted Tom Holland in a post on X without specifying which one he meant, briefly leaving users unsure whether he meant the historian or the film's star.

The pair's interview was filmed before the Musk spat, though the historian shared similar praise to the comments that sparked it, telling his guest he thought it was "the best adaptation."

At one point, the historian asked the actor, who has played Spider-Man since 2016, whether the film had traces of the superhero genre.

"Epic is not exclusive to swords and sandals and ancient text," the actor said.

"At the end of the day, what I love about Chris [Nolan] is Chris lives to entertain. And this movie is challenging. It has topical themes. And I think it's very relevant in today's society. But his main focus is not to educate, it's to entertain."

• SK Hynix's Nasdaq listing euphoria faded fast as shares tumbled 15.4% in South Korea.
• The South Korean memory chip maker raised $26.5 billion in its US offering on Friday.
• Hynix's Monday decline spread to US markets, with chipmakers AMD and Nvidia dropping in premarket trade.

Memory chip giant SK Hynix plunged more in South Korea on Monday, just one trading day after its blockbuster Nasdaq debut.

Shares listed on the Korea Exchange closed 15.4% lower — the stock's steepest decline on record — as investors locked in profits following a months-long rally and the company's closely watched US ADR listing. The event raised $26.5 billion — topping Alibaba's IPO more than a decade ago.

SK Hynix's American depositary receipts began trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, opening at $170 — about 14% above the $149 reference price — before ending their debut session up 12.8%.

Meanwhile, rival chipmaker Samsung Electronics lost over 10%.

Losses in the two index heavyweights sent the benchmark Kospi index sharply lower, triggering a 20-minute trading halt after a circuit breaker was activated for the seventh time this year. The index later closed nearly 9% lower.

The sharp drop in SK Hynix looked set to spread to Western chipmakers, with shares in US-listed companies like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel all down in premarket trade.

Monday's sell-off also came as Asian markets broadly retreated amid renewed tensions in the Middle East and concerns about whether the AI-driven rally had outpaced fundamentals.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell about 2% while hot memory chip stock Kioxia slumped nearly 13%.

All three major US stock futures were lower early on Monday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down 1% as of just before 7 a.m. ET. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones saw smaller losses of 0.3% and 0.03%, respectively.

Despite the sharp pullback, analysts remain broadly constructive on SK Hynix. The company's Korea-listed stock has nearly doubled this year.

Morningstar values the company's ADRs at $160 and its Korea-listed shares at 2.4 million won each, implying the stock is fairly valued.

"The current memory upcycle is tracking substantially stronger than expected, but our base case continues to assume normalization in cycle dynamics, limiting upside at current levels," Morningstar analyst Lorraine Tan wrote in a note on Friday.

SK Hynix's stock rout in South Korea on Monday means that its ADR in the US is now trading at about a 37% premium — a valuation gap analysts are watching closely.

"Companies with both US and home-market listings often trade at a premium in the US, benefiting from broader investor access, deeper liquidity and stronger valuation support, as seen with TSMC," wrote James Ooi, a market Strategist at Tiger Brokers, on Monday.

• My family loves multigenerational travel, and we often center our trips around my 9-year-old son.
• However, I recently went on a weekend trip with just my parents and left my son with his dad.
• At first, I felt guilty, but I'm grateful for the trip. It reminded me I'm someone's kid, too.

Family trips, at least for me at this stage in my life, are very kid-centered. We are big multigenerational travelers, but on a recent trip, I left one generation at home. My 9-year-old wasn't happy about this — he loves spending time with his grandparents.

The weekend getaway with my parents was the first time in over a decade that I'd traveled anywhere overnight with both of them and without my little one. We didn't go far — just an hour north of San Francisco to Healdsburg — but the experience felt new. We dined at a restaurant with no kids' menu, lingered over Zinfandels and Rhone-style blends, and watched a detective drama in our pajamas.

My parents asked what I wanted to do and where I wanted to eat, just like I do with my son. The weekend was a feel-good reminder that I'm still someone's kid, too.

I felt so guilty leaving my son behind

Our trip centered on a wine tasting. I've been to wine country enough times to know that it isn't my 9-year-old's favorite place. I don't blame him — it's boring watching adults sip wine and chat about tasting notes.

So, I left him with his dad to do things he'd much rather enjoy, like going to the Exploratorium and dining on burgers and fries. Still, it felt strange packing a bag for a vacation without him.

We had fun, and I also learned more about my parents

We kicked off the weekend at Limerick Lane Cellars. I enjoyed the varietals, but more importantly, the vineyard-side seating was the perfect place to hear stories about my parents I'd never heard before. From dating to immigrating to tales about their recent travels, I learned a lot.

On any typical afternoon with my family, attention is on my son and nephew. My mom sketches with the kids, and my dad takes them on walks when they're feeling bored or a little antsy. Seriously, they're the best (which is why my son was mad I went on this trip without him). But this time, the three of us settled in, stayed in one place, and had a chance to really chat, without distractions.

I got to be the kid again

After wine tasting, my parents and I went out to dinner in downtown Healdsburg. My parents let me pick the restaurant. The food was full of flavors my son probably wouldn't have enjoyed, and we took our time ordering round after round of tasty tapas.

At night, we stayed in a restored farmhouse on the vineyard where we'd spent the afternoon wine tasting. My parents cozied up on one couch, and I lay down on the other to wind down with a new TV show before bed. I don't even remember the plot, but I do know we didn't find it on the Disney Channel.

I fell asleep halfway through, knowing my mom and dad would wake me up so I wouldn't get a sore neck, just like I do for my son. I didn't have to double-check that the doors and windows were locked or make sure all the food was put away. I was taken care of. It felt so good to truly be the "kid" again, just for one night.

The next morning, my dad and I grabbed coffee and went outside. We passed a family of quail chatting beneath an orange tree and stepped into the vineyard. The dirt was surprisingly soft — almost sandy — and the vines, some planted as early as 1910, were dotted with self-pollinating buds. We sipped and strolled between the rows until my coffee was gone.

I couldn't wait to get back to my son, but I had so much fun — and I felt so grateful for the time away with my parents.

• Dr. Jinsy A. Andrews says emotional health can influence Alzheimer's risk.
• Quality social interactions boost brain health more than superficial connections, he says.
• Certain creative hobbies enhance brain activity and reduce stress.

A record number of people are living past 100 years. It's also why preserving brain health is more important than ever.

Because people are living longer, neurologists estimate over double the cases of dementia by 2050, according to a 2022 Lancet study.

Dr. Jinsy A. Andrews, a neurologist at NYU Langone specializing in neuromuscular medicine, told Business Insider that people who follow a typically American lifestyle, which can be more sedentary and involve eating more ultraprocessed foods, may have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

"Among us neurologists, we're really trying to think about ways to protect the brain and have modifications in your lifestyle that can hopefully delay or prevent dementia," Andrews said.

While diet and exercise are already crucial components of brain health and overall longevity, Andrews said an under-appreciated factor is your emotional health.

One 2024 study found that social isolation and depression were associated with a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's.

Emotional wellbeing is trickier to track than daily steps or the amount of protein and fiber in your meals, though.

Sometimes, when Andrews asks patients what makes them happy, they draw blanks. "It's amazing how many people don't even actually think about it," she said. "They have to leave the visit and come back and tell me; I give them homework as to the things they could derive joy from."

While everyone's happiness regimen is different, Andrews shared two tips for increasing your emotional health — and keeping your brain sharp in the process.

Quality socialization matters more than filling your calendar

Socializing has long been credited with improving longevity and brain health. However, defining quality social interaction and how much you personally need to be happy is less straightforward, Andrews said.

For example, he pointed to evidence that relying on social media for socializing might decrease your emotional wellbeing. "Especially when there are negative interactions online, it can increase social isolation and depression," Andrews said.

When it comes to in-person interactions, keeping a stacked social schedule also might not be the answer. One 2022 study of over 160,000 participants found that while low to moderate social interactions improved wellbeing, a lot of socializing, even when positive, had diminishing returns.

"The big picture is that social interactions really rely on the quality of that interaction rather than the quantity," Andrews said.

Creative downtime keeps your brain active and helps you de-stress

Stimulating the brain is a key part of dementia prevention. Luckily, it doesn't mean you're beholden to daily crossword puzzles.

Andrews said even simple, low-lift activities like listening to music or reading a book have brain benefits. "All of these activities activate different areas of the brain," she said, aiding in neuroplasticity, or a reshaping of the brain. A good range of activities, such as socializing and crafting, "provide input, enhance the circuitry, and keep things fresh and new."

Relaxing hobbies also have the added benefit of stress reduction. "Long-term chronic stress can play a role in increasing inflammatory markers and cytokines that can be damaging to the nervous system — and the brain, especially," Andrews said. One 2024 study found that a decrease in brain volume was associated with participants being under high levels of stress.

When it comes to brain health, the best thing you can do is add variety to your life. "It's the act of stimulating all parts of the brain in different ways that really helps to prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease," Andrews said.

• After hundreds of job applications and no offers, Cristina Estupiñán decided to leave tech behind.
• Her discomfort with AI made a brutal job hunt even harder as employers embraced the technology.
• Now 33, she's retraining as a nurse and finding hope in starting over.

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with 33-year-old Cristina Estupiñán of New Providence, New Jersey. Her identity and background have been verified. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I got a Bachelor of Arts degree in computer science from Boston University in January 2017. I had gone to college to study chemical engineering, but I took a computer science class and ended up switching majors.

After graduation, I moved to San Francisco. A friend helped me get some temporary nontechnical work at a large tech company, but when that ended, I didn't have a clear path forward. The computer science classes I took in college taught me a lot, but didn't actually prepare me to work as a software engineer.

Then another friend told me she'd attended a three-month coding boot camp and had quickly landed a job afterward. I decided to sign up, and after I finished, I got hired by a startup as a front-end software developer. I stayed there for a few years before moving into similar roles at three other companies.

In December 2024, I got laid off. In the past, it had never taken me more than six weeks to find a software engineering role. But this time was different. Six weeks turned into six months and eventually a year.

AI overload

As I was job hunting, I noticed that every single company was an AI company of some sort. Either you had to use AI as part of the job, or the product itself was AI, which was a problem for me.

I don't think AI is needed for everything, and I'm concerned about its environmental impact. But in job interviews, recruiters would always ask, "What excites you about AI?" I always thought to myself, well, I have to make up something because, frankly, nothing really excites me about AI.

Overall, I applied to more than 700 jobs and made it to several final rounds, but I didn't get any offers. I kept hearing that I wasn't senior enough, and some companies told me halfway through the interview process that they were going on a hiring freeze.

There was one company in Europe that I interviewed with at the beginning of this year that I really thought I was going to get. It was hands-down the best interview I'd ever had. I felt I had really connected with the hiring manager, but a few days later, I received an overnight email with a generic rejection message.

That email was the culmination of everything. My mental health was at an all-time low. I had gained a ton of weight and moved back home with my parents in New Jersey. I was isolated from my social network.

Changing careers

By this point, I was questioning whether I wanted to work in tech anymore. My parents encouraged me to consider a career in healthcare, and I did. I figured I might not make as much money as I did in tech, but I'd probably have more job stability, so I decided to go for it. Once I make a decision, it's made. I'm not turning back.

In May, I started taking nursing classes at a local community college. Once I complete 10 prerequisite courses, I can apply to Rutgers University's accelerated nursing program. My ultimate goal is to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner and have a private practice.

Meanwhile, I'm working part-time in retail, and it's been great. I'd never worked a service job before, so I'm gaining customer-facing skills. I'm also more active because I'm on my feet a lot. I really like the people I work with.

Starting a new career at 33 isn't easy, but I felt like I had no other choice. It is a little hard to look at LinkedIn because all of my connections are people in tech, and I sometimes feel like I'm missing out. They're doing all this cool tech stuff, and that's not really my life anymore.

Still, I don't have any regrets about my decision. When I think about becoming a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I get excited. I've had a lot of experience dealing with my own mental health issues. Knowing I'll get to help people in the future is what's keeping me going.

• British tech star Tom Blomfield said he's taking a leave of absence from Y Combinator to join Anthropic.
• Blomfield, who cofounded the digital bank Monzo, said he's joining Anthropic's compute team.
• It's the latest big-name move in the AI talent wars, following Anthropic's poaching of Google researchers.

The AI talent wars aren't letting up — and neither is Anthropic's big-name hiring spree.

The AI startup has hired Tom Blomfield, the cofounder of British fintech company Monzo, and one of the biggest names in UK tech.

Blomfield said on Monday that he is taking a leave of absence from Y Combinator, where he has served as general partner since 2023, to join Anthropic's compute team.

"Powerful AI has the potential to improve the life of every human on earth and, as we enter the early stages of recursive self-improvement, availability of compute becomes one of the most important issues to solve," Blomfield said in a Monday X post.

Blomfield joins Anthropic as a member of technical staff — the catch-all job title Anthropic uses for senior employees — according to his LinkedIn and X profiles.

Blomfield cofounded Monzo, a digital bank, in 2015 and was CEO until 2020. He left Monzo entirely in early 2021 after a short stint as president. Blomfield told TechCrunch at the time that he stopped enjoying the role after Monzo was no longer a "scrappy startup."

He then turned to investing, joining YC in 2021, initially as a visiting partner.

Blomfield is the latest notable name in tech to join Anthropic as the AI talent wars enters its celebrity era.

Earlier this year, Andrej Karpathy, an OpenAI cofounder, joined Anthropic to lead its pre-training efforts.

More recently, Anthropic poached several researchers from Google DeepMind, including John Jumper, whose work on AlphaFold won him and CEO Demis Hassabis a Nobel prize.

• Brothers Kirk and Jacob McKinney started Junk Teens with a $4,000 pickup truck.
• A turning point came when they reinvested early profits into an $80,000 dump truck.
• They now operate in multiple markets and are on track to top $5 million in revenue in 2026.

Kirk McKinney was riding bikes near his Massachusetts home about six years ago when he came across a goldmine: A dump filled with plenty of junk, sure, but also speakers and electronics.

"Someone had thrown away this perfectly good pair of speakers," he told Business Insider. "I asked the guy at the dump if I could take them and he said yes. I just couldn't believe that."

McKinney, a high schooler at the time, kept returning to the dump in search of more speakers for his collection. Eventually, he built a sound system in his bedroom that "shook the entire house," he said.

"My mom was not happy about that at all."

When his mom told him he needed to get rid of the speakers, he decided to try reselling them.

"I sold my first radio on Facebook Marketplace for $50," he said. It was the most money he'd ever made for an hour's work. "That's when I discovered what entrepreneurship was."

From selling junk to removing it

The more time McKinney spent at the dump, the more he got to know the people who did junk-removal jobs. Eventually, he started working for them. After learning the ropes, he figured he could do the same thing himself.

"I was basically doing the whole job for them," he said. "The guy was paying me pretty well, and he was still walking away with money at the end of the job. I eventually realized, I'm already transporting junk items from the dump back and forth. Why not just provide this service for people on my own?"

To start, he needed two things: another set of hands and a vehicle. He enlisted his younger brother, Jacob, who had his own small side hustle splitting firewood, and the brothers pooled their savings to buy a $4,000 Ford F-150. That was in 2021.

Their first job, which came through a referral from the junk-removal workers Kirk had helped, was small but encouraging.

"We got hired to move a couch for, like, 100 bucks," Kirk said. "Took us 15 minutes. That was pretty good."

Their earliest customers came mostly through word of mouth. They also posted on Nextdoor, in local Facebook groups, and leaned on family and friends to help spread the word.

Not every job went as smoothly as the first one. One early house cleanout took them about nine days, they said — a job they estimate would take the company about half a day now. They had to rent a U-Haul and a dumpster because their pickup truck couldn't handle the volume.

"In the very beginning, we were literally doing whatever we could to make it work," Kirk said. "We were just a couple kids in a pickup truck with couches hanging, like, three feet over the top of our truck, strapped down."

They learned through trial and error, and by asking questions. They called other junk-removal companies, explained that they were young and trying to learn the business, and asked how they priced jobs. Over time, they got better at estimating, loading, and sorting.

"We started to become masters at stacking, breaking things down, sorting it," Kirk said. "It was almost like Tetris, where you would just have to fit everything perfectly where it needs to go."

Growing to a seven-figure business operating across multiple markets

The first major turning point came around early 2022, when the brothers reinvested most of what they had made into a dump truck. It cost a little more than $80,000.

The purchase changed the business immediately. The dump truck could hold about eight times as much as the pickup, they said, allowing them to take on more jobs, reduce trips to the dump, build more efficient schedules, and begin hiring friends to help.

By the end of 2022, with the pickup truck, the dump truck, a few employees, and a small amount of paid marketing, they did just over $200,000 in sales, according to a P&L viewed by Business Insider.

In 2023, they bought another dump truck and rented a warehouse after outgrowing their parents' driveway. The warehouse gave them a place to park trucks and store items they could donate, resell, or repurpose. That year, they brought in nearly seven figures.

In 2025, they hit $3 million in revenue. They're on track to bring in more than $5 million in 2026.

Junk removal is relatively easy to start, but the low barrier to entry also makes the industry competitive. One way Junk Teens stands out, the brothers said, is through speed and communication. Most customers want junk removed the same day or the next day, so responding quickly can determine whether they win the job.

They also leaned into what made them different: their age. The company was initially called K&J Removal, but Kirk said he realized customers were hiring them because they were teenagers working hard and hustling. That became the basis for the Junk Teens brand.

"I just took the thing that made us stand out, our competitive advantage, and built a brand around that," he said.

Today, Junk Teens has expanded beyond its main location in Norwood to Cape Cod, the North Shore, and Rhode Island. The company has about 25 employees and five dump trucks, and the brothers said they eventually want to expand nationwide.

Kirk said the brand has also helped them build an audience online. Junk Teens has more than 500,000 followers across social-media platforms, which the brothers said has helped with visibility and recruiting young workers.

Their advice: start small and get good with people

Jacob said one of the most important skills for young entrepreneurs is learning "the people game" — how to communicate, ask for help, find mentors, and build relationships.

"At the end of the day, business is business, but the whole world is made out of people," he said. "If you want to get into business, I feel like you really have to get into that whole people game first."

Kirk's advice is to simplify the first step. He said many people overcomplicate entrepreneurship by waiting for the perfect idea, the perfect plan, or the right amount of money. Junk Teens didn't start with a national vision. It started with one sale, then one truck, then one job, then one reinvestment decision.

"It takes one realistic goal at a time being met over and over, slowly and steadily, and it compounds," Kirk said. "That's how the greatest things are created."

• Lloyd Blankfein says to be accountable, respect your colleagues, and guard your reputation.
• The former Goldman Sachs CEO shared his advice to partners in his recent memoir, "Streetwise."
• Blankfein urged his colleagues to call out bad behavior and remember that first impressions count.

Care about your company, your colleagues, and your reputation, Lloyd Blankfein says.

In his recent memoir, "Streetwise," the former Goldman Sachs CEO recalled three pieces of advice he gave to the firm's partners, which could be helpful to anyone building their career:

1. Take responsibility

Blankfein's first tip centered on the need for collective accountability.

"Our job is the source of our wealth and a big part of our identity," he recalled telling Goldman's partners at forums around the world. "So we need to be conscious of what's happening at the whole firm, not just in our small corner of it."

Blankfein underscored that Goldman had businesses across the world but "only one reputation," so a "screwup in trading in New York" would hurt its investment bankers in Japan, and vice versa.

"If you saw anything that threatened your family, you would act on it immediately and ruthlessly — please bring that mentality to the job," Blankfein would tell the partners.

"If you hired a nanny who left one of your kids alone in a bathtub to take a phone call, you would fire her immediately, no questions asked," he continued. "There shouldn't be any tolerance for bad behavior you observe at your company either, whether in your line of report or not."

Blankfein's words are reminiscent of Warren Buffett's famous warning to Salomon Brothers employees, which he shared in testimony before Congress in 1991: "Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless."

2. Respect your peers

Blankfein's second piece of advice was to value one's colleagues, both older and younger.

He would tell partners that their reports were undoubtedly talking about them at home with their loved ones, because their bosses were important people in their lives, and their jobs were important to them.

"When you think about it in that light, what do you want them to be saying? More than being liked, you should want to be appreciated. You can like a clown, but you appreciate the person who invests in you and improves you, even if he's not much fun," Blankfein would say.

He also reminded partners that their younger coworkers might well be smarter than they are, and could have bigger careers than they do.

"Younger people aren't less worthy, they're just younger," Blankfein wrote.

3. First impressions count

Blankfein's third tip was aimed at Goldman's new recruits. He would tell them they might be embarking on long careers and could go on to do great things, but how they came across to their cohort mattered.

"Even after 30 years, the impressions they had of one another, formed as analysts at Goldman, would stick," Blankfein recalled explaining to them. "So keep that in mind and act accordingly, even with your peers!"

• I interviewed more than 100 job seekers about navigating today's labor market.
• They shared the lengths they've gone to find work and the financial hardships they've encountered.
• Together, their stories reveal how much job searching has changed — and how stressful it's become.

I've spent years talking to job seekers. Their stories have gotten sadder — and stranger.

One former accountant woke up at 3 a.m. every day to apply for jobs. Eventually, he applied to be the Chick-fil-A cow mascot.

A laid-off Gen Zer used an AI tool to submit more than 1,300 job applications in a month before landing a job.

A third job seeker took an interview from his car while waiting in line at a food pantry. Over the course of a 16-month search, he applied to more than 6,000 roles.

Looking back through more than 100 conversations, I realized these aren't isolated anecdotes. Together, they paint a picture of how job searching in this low-hire, low-fire environment has become more time-consuming, financially stressful, technology-driven, and, at times, downright bizarre.

Here are some themes that stood out.

Planning for unemployment

When Michael Permana was put on a performance improvement plan, he worried his days at Amazon were numbered. So he used his paternity leave to look for another job, figuring it could take a while to land one.

"I was desperate," he said. "I took the opportunity while I could."

I was struck by how many people began planning for unemployment before it happened. Some cut back on spending, while others secretly took on multiple jobs.

A quality assurance professional was on track to earn about $800,000 last year by secretly working six remote jobs, until he lost four of them in a matter of weeks. He soon rebuilt his income to roughly $900,000 across five remote roles — but kept applying for more to hedge against future layoffs.

"Even if you have two or three jobs, they could be gone tomorrow before your coffee's cold," he said.

Searching for an edge

Many job seekers said looking for work felt like walking a tightrope. They worried that one false step in an application or interview could cost them the job. Nearly everyone I interviewed had pieced together their own job search playbook from online advice, networking conversations, AI tools, and plenty of trial and error.

While some strategies — like applying as soon as a job is posted — were backed by career experts, others blurred the line between proven advice and lore. Job seekers debated everything from whether to apply through LinkedIn or a company's website to the value of AI tools and whether referrals really mattered. A persistent debate was over résumés — how to write them, and what belongs on them.

When Malhar Shah began looking for work, he repeatedly asked ChatGPT and Gemini to grade his résumé on a scale of one to 10, revising it until both gave it at least a nine. He credits the process with helping him land a six-figure role.

One San Francisco millennial struggled to find work after his roughly $120,000-a-year contract role in communications at Amazon ended. After a year of unemployment and food stamps, he broadened his search, eventually finding work as a ghost tour guide and a US Postal Service mail carrier, earning a combined roughly $55,000 a year.

He's still searching for communications roles, but you won't find his tour guide or mail carrier gigs on his résumé. Instead, he lists a comms consulting business that generates little income because he worries employers will judge him for working outside his field.

"I have to keep this charade up that my independent comms company business is healthy and successful and that I'm not hustling as a letter carrier," he said.

When the money runs out

Eventually, many conversations stopped being about résumés and interviews, and turned to money. Some job seekers had enough savings or severance to buy themselves time. Others drained emergency funds, worried about losing their homes, and feared they'd never be able to retire.

After a year of unemployment, Jesse Jashinsky was supporting his family with SNAP benefits, help from their church, and mounting credit card debt. After their car broke down and they couldn't afford the repair, he created a GoFundMe and shared it on LinkedIn, writing: "I don't know if this is the right thing to do on LinkedIn, but I'm kind of desperate." Jashinsky said the post helped his fundraiser collect more than $3,800.

Others worried less about next month's bills than whether they'd ever be able to retire. After being laid off from her management role at Wells Fargo, Robin Peppers Daniel struggled to find full-time work and eventually turned to substitute teaching to earn income.

"In a perfect world, I would retire and get out of this work rat race, but right now, I unfortunately can't afford to," said Daniel, who's in her 60s.

For some, the stakes are bigger than just finances. After being laid off while working in the US on an F-1 visa, Aman Goyal had just 90 days to find a new employer or leave the country.

One of his first moves was spending $50 on an interview-prep book — not so much for the book itself, but because it unlocked access to a 20,000-member Slack community where he completed dozens of mock interviews. He credited the community and interview practice with helping him land his dream role at T-Mobile.

What's stayed with me

If there's one thing every job seeker I spoke with could agree on, it's that looking for work sucks. It's often lonely, financially stressful, and full of uncertainty — with much of it outside your control. A tough job market has only heightened those feelings.

But one theme that surfaced repeatedly in my interviews was how many people leaned on others during their job search — whether online communities, professional networks, or even strangers. Some believed it gave them a competitive edge. Others felt they had no choice.

At the end of nearly every interview, I asked job seekers what advice they'd give someone in the same position. One answer has stayed with me. It came from Oscar Cecena Fujigaki, who spent three months finishing a science-fiction novel after losing his job at LinkedIn.

His answer wasn't another job-search hack. It was about living with uncertainty.

"The past is gone," he said. "The future you're stressing about will likely unfold differently than you imagine. Focus on what you can control today, whether that's your project, applying for jobs, or networking. The present is all that really matters."

Do you have a story to share about looking for work? Reach out to the reporter via email at jzinkula@businessinsider.com or on Signal at jzinkula.29.

• Stocks are heading into another test as earnings season kicks into high gear.
• Bank earnings, which mark the start of Q2 earnings, are the next bar investors need to clear.
• Financials have gained steam lately amid a broader market rotation and expectations of higher rates.

The next big hurdle for stocks is coming this week.

Earnings season is about to kick into high gear, with a handful of banking titans on deck to report results for the second quarter. Here are the big banks due to report earnings on Tuesday:

Investors will be taking in the results alongside the critical June inflation report, which will be published at 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday.

The bank earnings are also coming at a critical moment for the broader market, which has seen some volatility in the hot AI trade lately amid growing nervousness among investors that firms could be overspending on AI. Memory and chip stocks — the hottest corner of the market this year — have been hit with waves of selling as investors rotate into less crowded trades.

The financials sector has been the best-performing corner of the S&P 500 in the last month, rising more than 7%, and it's an area of the market that's gained more attention as markets eye potential rate hikes this year.

Comments from the big banks with consumer businesses will provide important updates on the health of the US consumer as spending continues to be a major driver of the economy.

"The recent action in bank stocks is constructive (500-800bps of outperformance vs. S&P 50 YTD), as discounted valuations and fundamental momentum are allowing the rotation discussion to continue. 'Higher for longer' is firmly entrenched in market expectations," analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods wrote in a note previewing earnings last week.

The second quarter is expected to be a strong earnings season overall. All sectors of the S&P 500 besides healthcare on track to post year-over-year earnings growth, JPMorgan strategists wrote in a note on Friday.

• Antons Davis left Nvidia after a decade to pursue meaningful work in coaching and entrepreneurship.
• Davis founded Touch of Humane and Osmo, aiming to revolutionize coaching with AI.
• Transitioning to solopreneurship brought him both challenges and rewards, but he's happy with his choice.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Antons Davis, the 40-year-old founder of Touch of Humane and Osmo, and a former Nvidia employee, based in the Bay Area. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a founder, entrepreneur, and life coach. I started Touch of Humane, an in-person life coaching business, and am the CEO of Osmo, an AI-assisted platform designed to help individuals become better coaches.

After seeing firsthand how little support coaches often have for themselves, I started Osmo in 2025 to turn coaching from a subjective, time-intensive practice into a measurable, scalable performance system that focuses on coaching mastery.

Before transitioning to coaching and entrepreneurship, I worked at Nokia and eBay, then spent more than a decade at Nvidia in Santa Clara, where I served as a product design lead until September 2022.

I quit my job at Nvidia to do work that felt much more human and meaningful

I spent more than 15 years in tech across engineering, design, and product development. At Nvidia, I was leading the user experience for one of the company's flagship software products, collaborating with teams across the US and India to build cutting-edge experiences for gamers.

On paper, it looked like I had reached a major career milestone, but internally I felt increasingly disconnected from the work I was doing. A big reason for that was realizing I had already achieved the financial goals I set for myself as a kid.

I wanted to own my own home, support my parents financially, and give my family the peace of mind that comes from never having to think twice about everyday financial decisions. At Nvidia, I achieved those things.

What surprised me was that once those goals were checked off, I expected to feel complete. Instead, I felt like something was missing. I realized financial security is different from true fulfillment. I explored new opportunities both within and outside the company, but the experience only reinforced my desire to build something of my own.

I decided to quit. I cared deeply about the company, but staying just for a paycheck no longer felt right.

Leaving Nvidia was scary and exciting

I had no idea how things would turn out, but the idea of stepping into the unknown and exploring something off the beaten path energized me in a way I hadn't felt in years. I knew I was walking away from a very comfortable career, so I wanted to do it responsibly.

I sold enough Nvidia stock to create a financial buffer that I hoped would last at least three years. My goal was to not put any financial pressure on my wife while I figured out what came next.

My close friends were supportive, though others questioned why I would leave such a high-profile, stable job. A lot of my confidence came from knowing I had already explored different paths and still felt pulled toward building something of my own.

My life now revolves around coaching people and building Osmo

The same rise of AI and technology that I once helped build at Nvidia is now causing more people to seek clarity and support through coaching. AI is going to make many kinds of work more efficient, especially repetitive or primarily knowledge-based work. Fighting that reality usually creates more anxiety than accepting it.

Instead, I encourage people to focus on developing the qualities that are uniquely human. The future is becoming less about what you know and more about who you are. Your ability to build trust, communicate with empathy, lead people through uncertainty, think creatively, and build meaningful relationships will only become more valuable.

In January 2024, I founded my in-person coaching business, Touch of Humane. Building Osmo felt like a natural next step, helping coaches support others during a time when human connection matters more than ever.

I essentially started from scratch

I work about six days a week. In the beginning, I wasn't earning any income as I built my coaching practice. The financial buffer I had built gave my family stability during that transition.

Because of that preparation, we didn't have to make any major lifestyle changes, which I'm really grateful for. It allowed me to focus on learning, building relationships, and discovering what kind of work I truly wanted to create, rather than constantly worrying about making ends meet.

I've realized that people put a lot of pressure on themselves to find their next big thing

For me, what mattered more was simply finding my next direction. I did not leave Nvidia with a master plan — I just knew coaching felt meaningful, so I leaned into it.

What started as virtual coaching evolved into in-person sessions, community spaces, and eventually Osmo. Sometimes the next chapter doesn't begin with certainty. Sometimes it simply starts with curiosity.

There are definitely things I miss about corporate life

Starting your own company can be surprisingly lonely. One thing I took for granted at Nvidia was simply having people around: Walking over to someone's desk to brainstorm an idea, grabbing coffee together, or sharing the ups and downs of a project. Those small interactions create a sense of belonging that's easy to overlook until it's gone.

I also have a greater appreciation now for the amount of validation built into corporate environments. There are managers giving feedback, teammates celebrating wins, performance reviews acknowledging progress, and people who notice when you're struggling. As a solopreneur, much of that disappears.

Emotional highs and lows are much more extreme as an entrepreneur. There are days when a partnership falls through after months of work, or when you spend weeks building something that nobody uses. Then there are moments that make it all worthwhile.

I keep in touch with some former colleagues. Those relationships have remained important to me. I will always be grateful for the people I worked alongside during my years at Nvidia.

• Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri looks for three things in every employee.
• No matter the role, Mosseri wants workers who are driven, self-aware, and quick studies.
• In the age of AI, Mosseri added that being adaptable is also a major asset.

AI is changing what teams look like at Instagram. If its CEO, Adam Mosseri, has his way, it won't change his employees' core traits.

"For the longest time, almost no matter what the function, I always look for three things," Mosseri said during a recent episode of "Lenny's Podcast."

Mosseri said he wants workers who are quick learners, gritty, and "ideally very self-aware." Self-awareness is key, the Instagram leader said, because it means "you can actually take feedback."

"If you are those three things, if you've got fire in your belly, you learn quickly, and you're self-aware, you can kind of get good at anything eventually," he said. "But if any of those things are missing, there's usually an issue."

Mosseri's focus on core traits is something that many other managers have said they want across tech at companies like Scale AI and Lovable.

"I care more about how fast someone learns and adapts than where they are today. If a conversation feels alive, if I walk away having learned something new, that's a strong sign they'll thrive in the team and push our ways of working forward," Lovable CEO Anton Osika previously told Business Insider last year.

Tech, including places like Instagram, is likely to change drastically over the next decade, Mosseri said. That's why he thinks the workers poised to thrive in a world remade by AI are likely to be the most adaptable.

"I think two things that I'm continuing to encourage myself to do are to stay curious and to put yourself out there," he said. "I just think you've got to try things."

Mosseri compared this openness to experimentation to learning a new language, especially early on, when someone is just getting a feel for the correct pronunciations.

"Are you willing to sound like an idiot?" he said. "Are you willing just to say it and be corrected and not be offended and then just get better and better? You just have to put yourself out there. And with all of these new tools and models and technologies, I think you just have to be willing to try stuff."

Beyond the three traits, Mosseri repeatedly emphasized the importance of taste. It's why he said that he's bullish on the future of designers, who often have a great feel for what should be the focus.

"In a world where it's easier to build things," he said, "it's more important to make sure that your time is spent figuring out what you should be building in the first place."

• 1X unveiled new hands for NEO, its humanoid home robot.
• The hands can pour tea, plug in a charger, and communicate in sign language, the company said.
• 1X product head Dar Sleeper said the company has cracked the long-standing robotics "hands problem."

The race to build useful humanoids is coming down to the hands.

1X, which builds the home humanoid NEO, unveiled a new robotic hand last week that it says matches or exceeds human performance. The company said the hand can pour tea, sort grapes by color, plug in a USB-C charger, and communicate in sign language.

Humanoid companies have been gunning to solve what Elon Musk has called the "hands problem," the challenge of building a mechanical equivalent of the human hand by replacing skin and muscle with sensors, motors, and software. It's a big challenge because human hands are exceptionally complex, combining strength, agility, and flexibility. Seemingly simple tasks like zipping a jacket or washing dishes demand intricate movements that robots have long struggled to master.

When Business Insider asked Dar Sleeper, 1X's head of product, if the company has finally solved the problem, he said, "The short answer is yes."

"This is by far the closest hand to human-level dexterity," Sleeper added.

1X's new hand has 25 degrees of freedom, just shy of the 27 degrees of freedom in the human hand. That range of motion allows it to pinch, twist, grasp, and use tools. Its fingers can move extremely quickly and bend beyond the range of human fingers.

The system is also waterproof, meaning the robot can wash its own hands, and it is strong enough to carry grocery bags and suitcases.

In a bizarre moment in the launch video released by 1X, the robot's hand does not break even after being repeatedly struck with a hammer. It then opens a bag of Funyuns and hands one to its human attacker.

A 1X spokesperson said the robot in the video worked with a mix of autonomous operation and remote control "to show the upper limit of the hardware's capabilities."

1X raised $100 million in 2024 and has been backed by OpenAI and Samsung. The NEO robot costs $20,000 upfront or $500 a month.

Sleeper said 1X will soon announce when it will start shipping robots and has identified early customers who will receive NEO in 2026. He declined to say how many robots the company plans to ship this year.

How 1X built its robotic hand

Before the interview, Sleeper gave Business Insider a quick video tour of 1X's manufacturing facility in Hayward, California. In the background, NEO robots stood on the floor, their heads slumped, while robot parts sat arranged on shelves.

Sleeper sat at a table with six versions of 1X's robotic hand behind him, showing the progression from the earliest prototype to the final product. The newer versions rotated their wrists and flashed peace signs.

1X began working on the hand about a year and a half ago, Sleeper said. One of the biggest challenges was making the hand small enough to be useful. The first version, he said, was way too bulky.

"We jokingly called that robot Popeye, because the hands were huge, heavy, and bigger than the biceps," he said.

Sleeper said shrinking the hand also meant simplifying it enough to manufacture at scale. It can now be assembled almost like a Lego kit, he said, and 1X has already built hundreds of them.

Motors sit in the forearm and pull tendon-like cables to move the fingers, similar to how muscles and tendons move a human hand. 1X said the novel system makes the fingers lighter, easier to control, and able to give way when they hit something.

Sleeper said the company's Hayward facility can produce 10,000 robots a year. 1X has also opened a facility in San Carlos, California, that Sleeper said will eventually produce 100,000 to 250,000 robots a year.

The company said it received 10,000 preorders of NEO within a few days after releasing a 10-minute demo last year showing the humanoid vacuuming, folding laundry, and unloading a dishwasher.

Why 1X focused on robotic hands

1X focused on building a human-like hand because of how much humanoid robots can do with them.

"So much of human intelligence comes from our ability to probe the world for truth and to really figure out how the world works through our hands," 1X CEO Bernt Børnich said on TBPN on Thursday.

He added that while the hand is complex, it is the simplest design capable of doing everything a humanoid hand needs to do.

A human-like hand could also make it easier to train robots from videos of people doing everyday tasks. If a robot hand moves like a human hand, it could learn more easily from footage of human hands cleaning, folding laundry, and cooking.

"If you get all these details right, you can take all the video that's out there on the internet, and you can train huge world models based on this," Børnich said. World models are AI systems that help robots understand how the physical world works.

1X is competing in home robots

1X faces competition from a handful of robot companies racing to enter the home.

Weave Robotics has said it will ship Isaac 1, its $8,000 robot that folds laundry and tidies up, to California homes this fall. Sunday Robotics is also preparing to launch Memo, a wheeled robot that can do the dishes, fold laundry, and pull an espresso shot, through a beta program this fall. Tesla plans to eventually bring its Optimus humanoids into homes.

Unlike 1X, Weave and Sunday's robots have grippers instead of human-like hands. They're also building machines with wheels instead of legs.

Some Silicon Valley investors question whether copying the human form adds unnecessary cost and complexity. Sleeper defended 1X's approach.

"The human form factor is uniquely perfect for the world, mostly because we built the world around ourselves," he said.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter at rjetha@businessinsider.com or on Signal at rjetha.07. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device. Here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Ultrawealthy Americans are seeking foreign citizenship as wealth taxes gain support in the US.
• Advisors to the ultrawealthy say second passports are like "insurance" plans.
• Golden passports and visas, requiring investments of up to millions of dollars, are on the rise.

As taxes on extreme wealth gain traction in the US, the ultrawealthy are planning escape routes — even if they never end up using them.

Californians are set to vote in November on a measure that would levy a one-time 5% tax on the state's 200-plus billionaires. Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page moved assets out of the Golden State ahead of the potential tax, while scores of other wealthy Californians have relocated to places like Florida, which has no state income tax.

Outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom, who opposes the measure and is widely seen as a likely 2028 presidential contender, has argued that taxes on extreme wealth are better handled nationally because billionaires can move between states to avoid them. Federal billionaire-tax legislation proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ro Khanna is unlikely to pass in the near future.

Now ultrawealthy Americans are increasingly seeking citizenship or residency abroad, even if they don't have immediate plans to actually decamp overseas. Henley & Partners, a firm that helps international clients obtain residency and citizenship abroad, reported a 183% increase in inquiries from US nationals between the first quarter of 2024 and 2025.

Advisors to the ultrawealthy say their clients are getting second or third passports as a form of "insurance." David Lesperance, a lawyer who advises the ultrawealthy on tax and citizenship issues, compared preparing for the possibility of wealth taxes to preparing for the risk of wildfires.

"There's a more than zero percent chance that a wildfire will hit," he said. "So wouldn't you spend a little bit of time, effort, and money getting fire insurance and a fire escape plan, hoping you never use it?"

Lineage citizenship

Lesperance says he typically starts his clients off looking for lineage citizenships, which allow people to seek citizenship based on the nationality or descent of their parents or grandparents. For instance, an American whose grandmother immigrated from Ireland can apply for Irish citizenship.

Over 50 countries around the world offer citizenship based on descent, including Greece, Poland, Italy, and Germany, though the rules and limits vary. Lesparance said the benefit of obtaining lineage citizenship in a European Union country is that you can live in 27 different countries.

Lineage citizenship can be pursued by anyone, not just the ultrawealthy. Because the process can take years, Lesparance said his clients might pursue faster citizenship options while waiting for their lineage-based second passport to come through.

Citizenship or residency by investment

"Golden passports," which allow the wealthy to essentially buy citizenship, are also on the rise.

Also referred to as investment migration, the practice grants citizenship in exchange for an investment in the country. The investment amount and rules vary by destination, ranging from thousands to millions of dollars. "Golden visas," which grant residency, are also becoming more popular.

Dominic Jones, managing director of Greener Pastures New Zealand, which helps clients migrate to the South Pacific nation, said over 120,000 investment citizenships or visas are issued annually worldwide, and that the number is growing.

"People want them for all sorts of reasons," he told Business Insider. "Some are looking to protect wealth or worried about the political situation at home."

New Zealand's golden visa requires an investment of about $3 million US dollars, while several Caribbean countries offer citizenship in exchange for investments of up to $250,000. Since relaxing the rules around its golden visa last year, New Zealand has seen a surge in applications from Americans.

Lesparance said some of his clients planning a potential exit from the US pursue investment citizenship while they wait for their lineage citizenship to come through.

"They get out, they save this much in tax," he said, "but once they've got their Irish passport, their Saint Kitts and Nevis passport's going to collect dust in a drawer somewhere."

Some ultrawealthy Americans pursuing second passports or residency abroad are doing so with no intention of actually moving. Many already manage assets, businesses, and investments across jurisdictions, and advisors say an additional citizenship is another way to diversify — a backup option in case the US becomes more costly or less stable.

"They manage their investments and focus on things like risk," Jones said. "They don't put all their apples in one basket."

When Aubrey wrapped up a big work project earlier this year, her manager emailed her with an unusual request. In her presentation to the senior leadership, could she highlight how Claude, the AI chatbot, helped her?

Aubrey, a New York-based healthcare analyst, spent countless hours working on a new way to speed up an expensive medical manufacturing process. While she used Claude in a small capacity, her manager wanted her to make it sound as if the AI had come up with the idea and executed it on its own.

"I had worked for over a year to gather issues, draft alternatives, learn the implications of any changes, and my manager wanted to credit all of that to AI," says Aubrey, who requested to omit her last name for fear of retaliation. She chose the middle ground: in her planned presentation, she puffed up AI's role, while still communicating that she did much of the heavy lifting. But in the middle of her presentation, her manager interrupted her, announcing that she had built it all out in a minute with AI. Weeks later, Aubrey received a less-than-enthusiastic annual review. While her boss didn't directly mention the incident during the review, he did say it was a factor when she asked later.

Deepak, an India-based IT developer for a Fortune 500 tech company, recently found himself in a similar boat. Over a year ago, he started regularly crediting the automated coding agents he deploys to carry out the grunt work for transparency, but soon, he says, his workplace's upper management began to assume all his positive contributions came from AI, and he suspects it has stalled an expected promotion.

Deepak and Aubrey aren't alone. White-collar workers are caught in a nasty pickle. If they acquiesce to their bosses' demands to use AI more, will their bosses believe the AI is doing the work for them — are they building their own career guillotines? As a result, many employees have begun hiding their AI usage and wonder how much credit, if any, they should give it for their efforts.

In an era of mass AI-driven layoffs, to credit or not to credit AI can feel like as vital a question as to be or not to be.

Christoph Riedl, an information management professor at Northeastern University, says people's hesitation to disclose AI assistance is entirely justified. In a recent meta-analysis, Riedl and his coauthors examined 13 studies spanning a variety of job functions and titles to assess how managers treated their employees after employees disclosed their use of AI. The conclusion was clear: managers consistently devalued workers' contributions to projects when workers revealed AI had assisted them; managers assumed the technology did most of the heavy lifting. One of the few ways for people to avoid this "AI penalty" was to retain agency over their core work and to outline precisely how they contributed to a task. That may be easier said than done, however, as employers adopt methods to track AI use that can obfuscate the extent to which humans retain influence over their creative output.

Most companies now rely on tracking tokens, the fundamental unit of data processed by an AI model. Seeing how many tokens an employee uses allows managers to see how often they queried the chatbot, the volume of information exchanged, and the length of each interaction. It doesn't, however, offer insights into what the AI contributed creatively to the project. Anyone could therefore ask their company-issued chatbots endless irrelevant questions about the weather or their personal lives and still appear to be a pro AI user. It hasn't taken companies long to realize it can be counter-productive and discourage frivolous tokenmaxxing. Last month, Amazon shut down an internal leaderboard that tracked AI token use, as it pushed staff to perform tasks that didn't necessarily solve any problems.

"Please don't use AI just for the sake of using AI," Dave Treadwell, an Amazon senior vice president, told staff at a companywide meeting.

Even more sophisticated methods can be troublesome. AI coding assistants like Claude Code go as far as to automatically add a co-authorship signature in the code they write, without explicitly pointing out which lines were auto-generated or how extensively the human author was involved.

"Our analysis shows that if AI use is disclosed without specific details about how it was used," Riedl tells me, "the manager's default assumption seems to be that it was used in a way that reduces agency." In other words, bosses assume the bot must be the driving force behind that new product feature, the quick software fix, or the text in a lengthy report. "So the detail of how AI was used seems to matter enormously."

There are some attempts to better understand the exact balance between human and AI contributions. Graham Neubig, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, cofounded OpenHands, an open-source AI coding platform that adds a sort of footnote-like attribution to a line of code generated by AI. Neubig felt it was important to tag the code as AI-generated to moderate the level of trust and increase the scrutiny a reviewer may place on it.

A team at IBM created an even more detailed way of tracking contributions. The AI Attribution Toolkit was inspired by CRediT, the Contributor Role Taxonomy, a standardized system scientists use to outline each author's precise contributions in a published paper. On the AI Attribution Toolkit form, people can punch in how much of the work was auto-generated, whether the chatbot produced the content from scratch, and whether certain elements were human-reviewed. The tool, then, produces an attribution statement people can add to their documents, code, and more.

Jessica He, one of the toolkit's designers, says high-level acknowledgments of AI use are insufficient for both people consuming AI-assisted content and AI users. The way people engage with someone's work can differ depending on whether AI was used to generate new ideas or simply to refine wording, she adds, and "a user may feel that attribution encroaches on their ownership if their AI use was limited."

As companies and researchers attempt to better assign credit, or blame, for machine-aided work, people are grappling with the very human assumptions that their bosses and coworkers are making now. Multiple studies show that AI disclosure, even in good faith, can erode trust among colleagues and lead them to perceive those who use it as lazy.

Oliver Schilke, a management and sociology professor at the University of Arizona, whose research found that the simple act of disclosure can make people trust you less, agrees that the tension between firms' urge to adopt AI for efficiency gains and the social costs associated with its adoption is one of the central contradictions of this new era of work. So far, Schilke says the burden has fallen on individual users, who must decide both to what extent to involve AI and to what extent to reveal this involvement, "creating the paradoxical dynamic that those who do the morally right thing must bear the penalty for transparency." A better alternative, he adds, is collective AI governance norms that include tools such as the Attribution Toolkit.

Thomas Prommer, an engineering executive at Adidas, saw a similar pattern in his team. While mandatory AI attribution sounded fair, it quietly killed initiative for engineers. They quit reaching for AI tools, "because they didn't want their best contributions footnoted as 'cowritten by Claude,'" he says.

"The signal it sent was: AI help diminishes your work. So people hid it or avoided it," says Prommer. What worked was crediting outcomes rather than tools. Irrespective of how much of the work was done by AI, ultimately, the person responsible gets the credit and the blame.

Many, including Aubrey, are starting to wonder if AI is just another program, like Excel, or if they need to credit it at all. Schilke disagrees with this mentality. While a traditional tool like Excel is designed to execute human instructions within a limited, predictable range, AI can produce prose, code, and ideas, often with very little human input. Beyond merely assisting in execution, Schilke adds, "it can make substantive contributions to the form and content of a work product, and that changes what it means to disclose its use."

"The issue becomes whether the apparent intellectual contribution can still be attributed to the human author or agency was largely outsourced to the machine," Schilke tells me.

For many workers, a bigger worry will be taking the fall for AI's mistakes. Earlier this year, Amazon was found to have blamed humans and laid them off for an AI agent's mistakes.

"The praise goes to AI, but going through its content is our responsibility, and if an error goes through, that, too, is registered as our responsibility," adds Deepak.

Alessio Artuffo, the CEO of Docebo, a learning platform, says simple attribution is the wrong frame. The question is no longer how exactly the work was produced, but whether the person responsible for it can defend it, improve it, and be held accountable when it fails.

Ultimately, researchers and organizational experts agree that if companies want their employees to use AI in creative and productive ways, they will need to build environments where AI proficiency is something valuable to develop rather than something that puts them at risk of being passed over or blamed.

"The deeper cost is psychological," adds Artuffo. "If employees are producing more output but feeling less ownership of the work, that's not a win; that's capability regression dressed up as efficiency."

• GLM-5.2, a free AI model from China, impressed Silicon Valley with its coding capabilities.
• Business Insider tried out GLM-5.2 by asking it to write an email, serve as a shopping aid, and create a poster.
• GLM-5.2 performed well on simpler tasks, but there are quite a few shortfalls.

A new open-source AI model from China is drawing comparisons to DeepSeek, the LLM that shook Silicon Valley.

Developers, investors, and AI executives have spent the past week praising GLM-5.2, an open-source model built by Beijing-based Z.ai, for coding and agentic AI tasks. The company says it supports a 1 million-token context window — enough to process hundreds of thousands of words at once — putting it in the same league as OpenAI's GPT-5.5 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8. Unlike those models, GLM-5.2 is free.

I decided to test it across a range of tasks.

Here's how GLM 5.2 performed at writing an email, serving as a shopping assistant, planning a trip, and creating a poster.

Starting simple: an email

My first impression was that GLM-5.2 is noticeably slower than premium AI models and frequently runs into capacity issues. Whether it's worth using depends largely on how patient you are.

After waiting several minutes, I asked it to write an outreach email for Business Insider seeking interviews with career coaches.

The result covered all the essentials and closely matched the style of email I would typically write myself. There was little to criticize beyond the wait time.

Choosing a product

Next, I gave GLM-5.2 a task I actually care about: recommending wet cat food for a cat with a sensitive stomach.

Once I got past another capacity delay, the AI suggested several well-known commercial brands, a prescription option, and general advice for choosing food for sensitive cats.

Again, it took a few tries to get past the model's capacity issue. The AI eventually provided a generic list of commercial food brands for sensitive and picky cats, a prescription option, and a general set of rules for choosing cat food, all of which are great tips for first-time pet owners.

GLM, however, does not provide direct shopping links yet for the products it recommends.

As a lifelong caretaker of cats, I found the recommendations closely aligned with what my veterinarian has told me over the years. While GLM doesn't provide direct shopping links, I didn't find that to be a major drawback — finding the products on Google takes only a few seconds.

For informational advice, I didn't notice much difference between GLM and more expensive AI models.

Planning a trip

I also asked GLM to plan a weekend trip for two from Oakland to Monterey, California, including hiking, scenic photography spots, antique shopping, restaurants, and a budget hotel.

The itinerary was thoughtful and detailed, recommending destinations such as Carmel and Moss Landing while accounting for traffic and reservations.

The weak spot was lodging. Although I specifically requested a budget hotel, the model initially skipped that part. After I asked again, it suggested several motels, but the prices weren't realistic. One recommendation, Super 8 by Wyndham Monterey, was listed at roughly $100-$150 per night, while current rates are well above $300.

Generating a design

The design test proved to be the most revealing.

I uploaded a photo of an Art Deco-style amethyst ring and asked GLM to create an advertisement for a fictional jewelry business.

The latest 5.2 model spent more than 15 minutes stuck at capacity, so I switched to the older 4.7 version. It unexpectedly processed my English prompt in Chinese, producing both its reasoning and the finished poster in Chinese.

I know how to read Chinese, but a user who doesn't would be very confused at this point, because this thinking process resulted in a poster that's in Chinese too, which I did not ask for.

To make matters worse, the outcome does not come with a PDF or JPEG version I could download. When I asked it to regenerate the design in English, the image disappeared, and the underlying HTML broke entirely.

Eventually, capacity opened up on GLM-5.2. The newer model took a different approach, guiding me through an interactive design process with style and color options before generating the final poster. The design itself wasn't especially polished — it looked more like a bar menu than a luxury jewelry advertisement — but it functioned properly and allowed me to download the result.

A small business willing to spend time iterating could probably produce something usable.

The bottom line: it's worth trying

GLM-5.2 doesn't yet match the polish or reliability of the best paid AI models. Capacity limits are frustrating, responses can be slow, and some features — particularly live pricing and design generation — still have obvious flaws.

Still, for a free, open-source model, it's surprisingly capable. On everyday tasks like writing, research, shopping advice, and trip planning, it often delivers information that's comparable to what you'd get from much more expensive competitors.

If Z.ai can improve reliability and reduce wait times, GLM-5.2 could become a compelling alternative for users who don't want to pay for premium AI subscriptions.

• A small-business owner says he doesn't expect to get refunds for the tariff fees he's paid.
• Marc Bowker, owner of a comic book shop and online business, said he's paid thousands in tariff fees.
• Importers can apply for tariff refunds, but they won't necessarily be passed on to retailers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marc Bowker, owner of Alter Ego Comics, a comic book shop in Lima, Ohio, and an accompanying e-commerce business. After the Supreme Court struck down some of President Donald Trump's tariffs in February, refunds are being issued to some importers. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I keep a spreadsheet of what we've paid in tariff fees, and it's around $16,000 since April 2025. I was just on a two-week vacation and a thought ran through my head: "Why am I doing this? We're never going to get this back."

The tariff refunds are going to the companies that actually paid the import duties directly to the government, or the Importers of Record, so those will be your large manufacturers or importers. Many retailers like myself are ordering from third-party distributors. Because we are not directly importing the products, we can't directly apply for a refund.

I have not gotten answers about whether our suppliers will pass along refunds. Even if they do, it becomes very complicated because we've passed on a percentage of the tariff fees to our customers. So if I do ask for reimbursement, do I then turn around and reimburse them?

I think, unfortunately, everybody's out of luck unless you're one of the biggest companies in the world and have an entire legal force, HR, and finance teams that can do all of this. For the American small business, I really don't see anyone getting reimbursed, let alone passing that on to their customers.

A 'never-ending whack-a-mole of tariffs'

After the Supreme Court decision in February, I was hoping things would go back to the way they were before. Then Trump announced another 10% global tariff fee. The never-ending whack-a-mole of tariffs just seems like death by a thousand paper cuts.

We are still being charged a tariff fee from our primary supplier on every shipment. Our products affected by tariffs include collectible action figures, our largest revenue driver, which we also sell online. Sales of those products are down 50% from their pre-tariff levels.

I think our customers are either buying from companies that can absorb the tariff costs or holding off on purchasing because they don't want to pay the extra fee. It could also be that because the price of other goods has gone up, they are cutting their luxury spending. Buying a $300 action figure is not as important as filling up your gas tank or buying food when prices are up.

Fortunately, I have multiple revenue streams. I still have our brick-and-mortar operation, where people spend between $25 and $50 on comics and other products that are not subject to tariffs. I have started thinking, do I need to pull the plug on products impacted by tariffs because it's creating more headaches than it's worth?

There's also a lot of rumbling from fellow retailers that these tariffs could be a Pandora's box for manufacturers and that once they see that they can pass these fees on and raise the prices of their products, they may not go back to the way things were before, even if the tariffs go away.

Small businesses need help

I have been wondering whether trade associations like the National Federation of Independent Business and chambers of commerce — local, state, or national — will work to secure reimbursements for their members. Is anybody fighting for small businesses in America about these tariffs?

In many cases, small businesses are run by solopreneurs or have fewer than 5 or 10 staff members. For our own sanity, we have to focus on what we can control — the four walls of our business — rather than trying to institute change from the outside, which takes time, money, and energy we may not have.

Instead of all of us having to pay attention to the changes in the tariff and refund situation on our own, the organizations that represent small businesses in America should be fighting for us.

Ultimately, it's going to fall to individual small businesses to push back, make those phone calls, and ask questions to figure out what's going on, but I don't expect to get any refunds.

At this point, if things could go back to the way they were pre-April 2025, that would be a win in my book.

• Ukraine said it used ground drones in over 16,000 missions in June, up from 7,500 in January.
• The 122% increase over the last six months comes as danger zones along the front continue to expand.
• Kyiv says it plans to eventually transfer "up to 100%" of supply missions to its ground robots.

Ukraine said on Thursday that its forces had conducted over 16,000 missions with ground drones in June alone, more than double its January tally.

"From logistics to medical evacuation, UGV units are taking over the most dangerous tasks," Ukraine's defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said in a social media post on X announcing June's figures.

By comparison, Ukrainian forces carried out 7,511 ground drone missions in the first month of 2026.

Usage of these uncrewed ground vehicles grew more slowly, reaching 9,072 in March, before jumping to 11,028 in April, 14,059 in May, and 16,676 in June.

"So, in the first month of summer, the use of NRC increased by 18.6% compared to May, and by 122% compared to January," the defense ministry said in a statement, referring to the Ukrainian abbreviation for ground drones.

In total, the first six months of 2026 involved over 66,300 mission tasks carried out with ground drones, the ministry said.

The reported tally covers logistics and evacuation missions, "replacing military personnel in the most difficult areas of the front," the defense ministry said.

Some of Ukraine's ground drones are also fitted with small arms to conduct assaults or hold combat positions, but in recent months, Kyiv's forces have placed greater emphasis on delivering critical supplies to their troops.

Enemy surveillance and attack drones prowl the distance behind the front, creating "kill zones" that can stretch for 50 km into Ukrainian-held territory in some areas.

These areas are so saturated with drones that they put any human soldier or armored vehicle at high risk of being spotted and attacked.

One of Ukraine's solutions to preserve its already stretched troops is to flood these battlefield supply routes with ground drones instead — often wheeled or tracked buggies laden with food, ammo, and water.

Over the last two months, Ukrainian units have also been converting aerial bomber, attack, and surveillance drones to carry supplies instead.

Ukraine's defense ministry said that it plans to eventually "transfer up to 100% of frontline logistics to robotic solutions."

Its forces have contracted more than 22,000 new ground drones to be delivered to the front lines this year, and the ministry said it expects to procure additional systems for 2026.

• Donald Trump wants children to auto-enroll into Trump Accounts, the accounts' lead architect said.
• Investor Brad Gerstner said Trump wants up to 70 million children to have the investment accounts.
• Think tanks and researchers agree that that's the best way to increase adoption.

The man who spearheaded Trump Accounts said President Donald Trump wants to automatically open accounts for all American children.

In an "All-In Podcast" interview released on Saturday, Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner spoke about the early success of Trump Accounts and how Trump wants to increase adoption.

"In fact, the president suggested that we're going to auto-create accounts for all 50 million kids — or upwards of 70 million kids — under the age of 18," Gerstner said.

"So he called on us to get the accounts open faster, for more people, to have more impact, and to make sure no child is left behind," he added.

Gerstner was one of the architects of Trump Accounts, an investment vehicle for children under 18 that gives them early access to the stock market. Eligible newborns born between 2025 and 2028 will receive $1,000 deposited into their accounts by the US Treasury.

Currently, the program is opt-in, requiring parents to create accounts for their children by submitting an IRS Form 4547 with their tax filings or online through the Trump Accounts website or app.

Later in the interview, one of the podcast hosts, angel investor Jason Calacanis, asked if Gerstner would be following Trump's instructions to auto-create accounts using Social Security numbers of people under 18.

Gerstner replied that it was the team's intention to get up to 70 million accounts created "over the course of the next 90 days using all of this data."

But they needed to work with the Treasury, the White House, and the Social Security Administration to make it happen, he said.

Trump Accounts were launched on July 4, and private donors like Michael and Susan Dell and SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell have contributed millions to the accounts. Companies like Goldman Sachs, Micron, and Bank of America have pledged to contribute to their employees' children's accounts.

In an X post on Thursday, the White House wrote that American families contributed nearly $125 million to Trump Accounts in the first five days since its launch. Gerstner said during the All-In interview that "over a billion dollars" have been deposited into the accounts in total.

Researchers and think tanks have urged an auto-enrollment structure for the accounts since they were announced last year.

The think tank Urban Institute said in a January article that opt-in programs have historically seen low participation rates, particularly among low-income families.

And a September study published by the Washington University Brown School's Center for Social Development wrote that automatic enrollment would "enable the policy to avoid the high costs and low participation rates of programs with opt-in enrollment structures."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Satya Nadella criticized AI labs for complaining about distillation attacks.
• Model distillation involves training AI using more advanced pre-existing AI models.
• Nadella suggested that reliance on leading AI models compromises data ownership and control.

Satya Nadella took a quiet swipe at AI labs like Anthropic for how they train their models.

In an X post on Sunday, the Microsoft CEO said that model makers complaining about distillation is hypocritical. Distillation is the process of training a less powerful model based on the outputs of a stronger one.

"While the great innovation that comes from model providers having fair use rights to train models on public data is needed, I find it ironic that the status quo is to then turn around and impose restrictive terms on distillation, and to reserve the right to learn from customer usage and interaction data," Nadella wrote.

He added that if learning only flows in one direction, owners of the learning infrastructure make all the money while creators of the knowledge get left out.

It's a topic Business Insider's Alistair Barr recently dug into as well, calling it "some delicious AI irony."

Frontier AI model makers like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind rely on work created by others to train their own models. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini acquire their "intelligence" from publicly available writing, images, and other data. Numerous companies and individuals have sued the leading AI labs over nonconsensual content "scraping."

Though the lab was not named, Nadella's comments seemed especially targeted toward Anthropic. Earlier this year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei complained that Chinese model makers are stealing his company's work, using Claude to train their own models.

Last month, Anthropic wrote a letter to South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren saying that Alibaba had recently carried out "the largest known distillation attack" on it to date.

"Competitors can use it to acquire powerful capabilities from other labs in a fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the cost, that it would take to develop them independently," Anthropic said in a lengthy statement on the subject in February.

Alibaba did not publicly respond to Anthropic's accusations at the time.

In Sunday's blog post, Nadella warned that companies relying on leading models are essentially handing over their proprietary data and then paying to use them.

He said companies should own their AI infrastructure and institutional knowledge rather than rely on any single model vendor. They should also conduct their own evaluations and their own "learning loop," allowing their AI capabilities to improve continuously over time.

"That is why enterprises need a real trust boundary for their human capital and token capital to compound," he said. "And it is a hard boundary across which nothing crosses, not even the intelligence exhaust, without consent."

Elon Musk has also criticized Anthropic for how it collects data and trains its models.

"Anthropic is guilty of stealing training data at massive scale and has had to pay multi-billion dollar settlements for their theft. This is just a fact," Musk wrote in a February X post, following Anthropic's complaint against Chinese models.

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

• Lord Ormund Hightower becomes a key player in "House of the Dragon" season three.
• Portrayed by James Norton, the character is Alicent's cousin and commander of the Hightower army.
• Here's a rundown of what happens to Ormund in the book, "Fire & Blood."

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "House of the Dragon" season three, episode four, and the book "Fire & Blood."

There are plenty of Targaryens vying for power in "House of the Dragon," but the silver-haired dragonlords are not the only threats in Westeros.

HBO's tentpole "Game of Thrones" prequel depicts the Dance of the Dragons, which finds Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) pitted against her half-brother, Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), in a brutal war of succession.

Aegon II — along with his three younger siblings, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), Helaena (Phia Saban), and Daeron (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) — was born to the late King Viserys and Alicent Hightower. Naturally, his claim to the Iron Throne is supported by House Hightower, a noble family from the Reach with a strong connection to the Faith of the Seven.

"House of the Dragon" has already featured several prominent Hightowers, including Alicent (Olivia Cooke), her father Otto (Rhys Ifans), and her brother Gwayne (Freddie Fox).

In season three, Alicent's cousin Ormund (James Norton) is introduced as another key player in the ongoing schism.

Ormund is the head of House Hightower and commands their impressive army. In season three, episode three, "Rhaenyra Triumphant," Ormund is ordered — under threat of three massive dragons — to surrender and bend the knee to the realm's new queen. He does, albeit deceptively.

Ormund and the Hightower army — strengthened by his ward, Daeron Targaryen, and the prince's dragon, Tessarion — go on to seize control of Tumbleton, a market town near King's Landing. From his unassuming perch, Ormund continues devising schemes to overthrow Rhaenyra and cement his family's influence.

In the fourth episode of season three, viewers learn even more about Ormund as Rhaenyra scrounges for dirt on her enemy.

According to Alicent, Ormund "sees himself as a scholar" who "despises the ignorant and uncouth." He studies histories, collects tapestries, and has a strong "sensitivity to odors." According to Gwayne, he's a "stiff-necked windbag" who always has a "canny plot" up his sleeve.

During his hostile stay at Tumbleton, Ormund is revealed to have a devious military mind, a vicious temper, and, indeed, a secret plot: to crown the teenage Daeron as the next king of Westeros, leap-frogging both of his older brothers.

Ormund raised Daeron after the prince was sent to live in Oldtown as an infant. He believes Daeron is more of a Hightower than a Targaryen — and that he's more reliable than any of his siblings, who were all raised in King's Landing.

"You are a good boy. You speak kindly, and you say your prayers. I have raised you in the light of the Seven, and the Father smiles upon you," Ormund tells Daeron. "But there is a taint in your blood. The Targaryens are a savage race, poor in intellect, but rich in cunning. With dark spells, they created abominations to subdue what was rightfully ours. We are the superior men."

"The gods have put you to divine purpose, my boy," he adds. "You will restore our ancient order."

Ormund is poised to throw a wrench in Rhaenyra's reign, especially if his story is faithful to the source material, George R. R. Martin's "Fire & Blood." Keep reading to find out Ormund's fate in the book.

Ormund's takeover of Tumbleton proves consequential and deadly

Even as Rhaenyra claims the Iron Throne in the book, Aegon II and Aemond (with his massive dragon Vhagar) remain at large, while the Hightowers continue to resist the queen in the Reach. As Martin writes, "No war can be counted as won whilst foes remain unconquered."

Prince Daeron the Daring, as Ormund styles him, becomes known as the greatest threat to Rhaenyra's reign, advancing on King's Landing with an army of 20,000 men.

Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Hand of the Queen, urges Rhaenyra to pardon the great houses that still oppose her — including Hightower, Lannister, and Baratheon — if they agree to swear fealty to her instead. He also encourages her to send her half-brothers to the Wall to live out their days as Sworn Brothers of the Night's Watch. Rhaenyra's husband, Prince Daemon, argues the opposite. He says that pardoning traitors and oathbreakers will only encourage future rebellions.

Rhaenyra tends to agree with Daemon, though she decides to "steer a middle course." She agrees to offer pardons to Houses Baratheon and Lannister, but only after Aegon's line has been vanquished. Rhaenyra sends Daemon to find and kill Aemond, and two of her newly recruited dragonriders, Ulf White and Hugh Hammer, to kill Daeron.

In what came to be known as the Battle of Tumbleton, about 6,000 of Rhaenyra's loyalists — including the Northern soldiers known as the Winter Wolves — sack the town. Although Rhaenyra's men are greatly outnumbered by the Hightower's host, they assume that Ulf and Hugh are arriving soon from King's Landing to assist with their dragons, Silverwing and Vermithor.

Ormund is killed in the chaos that ensues. Legend says he was slain by Lord Roderick Dustin, aka Roddy the Ruin, after the Northerner cut through hundreds of foes to find him.

Under normal circumstances, Ormund's death may have turned the tide in Rhaenyra's favor. Without their commander, the Hightower's host is scattered, their banners toppled.

Instead, Ulf and Hugh ignore Rhaenyra's orders and wreak havoc with dragonflame.

The book's fictional historians disagree as to why Ulf and Hugh suddenly decide to burn civilians and soldiers alike — whether it's fear of facing Daeron (unlikely, as both Silverwing and Vermithor are older and bigger than Tessarion), fear of facing Ormund's large army (unlikely for similar reasons), disenchantment with Rhaenyra (fairly likely), or straight-up greed (most likely). It seems Ulf and Hugh realized they could seize power for themselves, and chose to prove it with fire and blood.

"As neither man could read nor write, we shall never know what drove the Two Betrayers (as history has named them) to do what they did," the book says, though whatever the reason for Ulf and Hugh's treason, the result is the same: "Tumbleton, that prosperous market town, was reduced to ash and embers."

• Koyo Murata, now 25, grew up in a small countryside town in Japan.
• He moved to Tokyo to study electrical engineering and spent three years working in the city.
• Last year, he returned to his hometown to transform an abandoned community center into a modern guest house.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Koyo Murata, 25, the founder and operator of the Villa ASO guest house in Taiki, Mie Prefecture, Japan. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up in a quintessential countryside town in Japan with about 8,000 people. My elementary and middle schools had only about 100 students combined. There are even fewer children there now.

After school, we'd play in the river or organize soccer matches in the park. I felt lucky to be surrounded by rivers, mountains, and the sea.

Looking back, I realize my hometown, Taiki, was already part of a broader trend in Japan.

Rural towns like it are disappearing as people move to Tokyo. The capital is where you find the best jobs. Most kids who grow up in small towns like mine dream of making it to the big city.

I got to live that dream

I moved away at 19 to study electrical engineering at Mie University; after graduating, I spent three years in Tokyo working in construction management and later in independent sales.

My life was full, but I didn't like how crowded the city could be. The greater Tokyo metropolitan area consists of nearly 37 million people. The trains were always packed, and people seemed more uptight than the friendly folks back home. Over time, I began to realize how valuable life in the countryside really was.

That's why, in August 2025, I decided to move back home. In Japan, we call it a "U-Turn" — when someone leaves for the city and later returns to their hometown.

My parents and older brother now live in Tokyo and run their own businesses. I wanted to challenge myself by building a career of my own. At the same time, I wanted to find a way to share the beauty of the Mie countryside with the rest of the world.

The opportunity came when my parents called me one day to tell me that an abandoned community center in our town was about to be knocked down.

My father said, "This could be your chance to do something with it."

That's when I made my U-Turn and moved back to Taiki to start my own business and find a new use for the old building. I began a project to transform the former community center into Villa ASO, a guest house for visitors to the area.

Reviving the old

The former community center was a gathering place for local residents and also served as an evacuation assembly point. But it had been sitting unused for 10 years.

When I started my company, NexusTown, my idea was to renovate the building and turn it into a guest house that could accommodate groups of up to 8 people. I hope to bring more tourism to our shrinking town.

I borrowed about 10 million yen, or $62,000, from my brother's company and received another 10 million through a government-backed startup loan from the Japan Finance Corporation.

Over three months, we hired a construction company to complete 70% of the work, but the remainder was DIY — just me and some friends. It was hard work; none of us had any experience in renovation. I also had to teach myself how to market the guest house, how to put it on Airbnb and Booking.com, and how to set the right prices.

In December, when it officially opened, and I saw our first guests enjoy their stay, I was glad I had done it.

Making it a success

In January, we were operating at 30%, in February 60%, and by March we'd reached 100%.

Our guests have included college students on spring break, multigenerational families, and working adults from all over the country. So far, we've had only one group of inbound tourists from abroad, but I hope we can host more overseas visitors in the future. The house is close to the Kumano Kodo, an ancient pilgrimage route that attracts hikers and travelers from around the world.

People who come to Villa ASO get to enjoy the same mountains, river, and sea that I did when I was growing up. They can slow down and enjoy the stars at night. They can meet the warm people of Mie.

In addition to the villa's private sauna, there's also a natural onsen, or hot spring, three minutes away by foot that I always recommend and which guests can visit for free.

The villa costs on average 28,900 to 33,700 Japanese yen, or $179 to $208, for two guests, with 5,000 yen added for additional party members.

In the future, I'm hoping to connect the villa experience with local restaurants and activities like seated meditation and harbor fishing.

My goal is to revitalize the town's economy, and my work is never done. Along with managing the guest house, I also work for a talent-matching agency. I'm always thinking of new ways to renovate and improve the villa. I hope to recoup the investment in about three to four years.

The future of small-town Japan

The declining population of Taiki worries me. I don't think the town will ever vanish entirely, but it may eventually be merged with another township. It makes me sad to think that could happen to the place where I was born.

If this project can help even one or two more people fall in love with my hometown, I'll be happy.

• After retiring at 70, Christine Casady has spent the last five years traveling the world with her husband.
• They no longer have a mortgage or a car, and she now lives out of a 27-pound backpack.
• She says full-time travel has kept her mentally sharp and physically active in retirement.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Christine Casady, a 75-year-old retiree from the US. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My husband is an avid traveler, and thanks to that, we've been traveling extensively for almost three decades.

Ten years before I retired, we started taking longer trips, spending a couple of months at a time in a new place. I worked in leadership development, teaching workshops on business writing and presentation skills. It was a contract role, so I could take advantage of the quieter times of the year to travel.

My husband, Rick, runs his own company and can work from anywhere. He wanted us to travel more, but I loved my job and always wanted to get back to it.

At 70, I decided it was time to retire. Around the same time, our son was moving to New York City, and the building we'd lived in for years in Dallas was being sold as part of a redevelopment project. Everything seemed to be pointing us toward a fresh start.

In 2021, we spent several months living in Hawaii. Later that year, we got one-year visas to Thailand and stayed for nine months.

We went back to Dallas to wrap up our affairs. When the sale of our condo finally closed, we packed everything into a small storage unit.

I had to be selective about what I packed, and everything I needed for our travels fit into a 27-pound backpack.

Making the world our home

With that, we set off for Europe. Our first destination was Rome, followed by a few months in Sicily.

We've continued traveling full time, spending months in places ranging from India and Turkey to Egypt and Argentina. However, Southeast Asia remains our favorite.

We return to the US once or twice a year, usually for about a month, to see our son, catch up with friends, and take care of anything we need. We stay in Airbnbs or hotels, just as we do everywhere else.

Planning where to go next has become part of our routine. We usually plan at least six months ahead, trying to get the best accommodations.

Once we've decided on a destination, I spend hours researching where we'll stay. It's almost a part-time job, but after five years, I've gotten pretty good at it.

I like to see how locals actually live, from their daily activities to what they eat. I love to cook, so I always visit the grocery stores in a new city to see what's on the shelves.

There have also been times when we've toured homes with local real-estate agents to see what it would be like if we settled there.

My husband still runs his own business remotely, and we have retirement income from Social Security and investments, so we have a relaxed budget. We typically spend under $5,000 a month.

We're frugal by nature, but we're also older now, so we're treating ourselves a little more. Occasionally, we'll splurge on experiences like a $8,700 safari in Africa or a $7,200 liveaboard snorkeling trip in Indonesia.

If we spend more than usual, we simply draw from our savings. It helps that we no longer have a mortgage or a car payment.

Retirement has been my greatest adventure

We've met people from all walks of life, but volunteering to teach English lets us build deeper connections with the local community. We enjoy helping the children.

Technology has made it much easier to stay connected with our loved ones. I still do regular Zoom calls with five college friends, and we try to meet in person every year.

More than anything, this way of living has kept me curious. Every new place is a new challenge in getting oriented, and I think that's mentally beneficial, especially as I've gotten older.

My husband says it's easier to stay fit when traveling because it's interesting to go on walks. When we're snorkeling in turquoise water, looking at coral and fish, it hardly feels like exercise either.

This has been such a gift. I attribute it to my husband, who's encouraged me to try so many new things, and the years of long trips that prepared us for this lifestyle.

I'm not sure when we'll stop, but after nearly six years, it's probably time to start thinking about what's next. I hope to be a grandmother, and I'd like to volunteer at an art museum in the US. I also know I won't stop traveling entirely.

If I'd stayed in the US, my retirement wouldn't have been nearly as stimulating. It's not always perfect, but we're grateful for this experience.

• SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are fighting again.
• The two AI leaders went at it on social media after an Apple lawsuit against OpenAI became public.
• Musk and Altman's troubled relationship dates back to when they cofounded OpenAI in 2015.

It's Altman vs. Musk yet again.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the recent bout of attention he's received from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk must mean his company is doing good work.

"There are a lot of benchmarks that suggest 5.6 sol is the best model in the world right now," Altman wrote on X on Saturday, referring to his company's latest model. "But the most reliable way to tell is that elon is obsessed with me again."

Musk turned his attention back to Altman after Apple filed a bombshell lawsuit on Friday, accusing OpenAI, its hardware partner io, and two former Apple employees of stealing trade secrets. OpenAI acquired io, a design firm run by Jony Ive, the legendary former Apple designer, last year as it makes a push into consumer AI hardware.

In a brief statement in response to the lawsuit, OpenAI said it has "no interest in other companies' trade secrets."

It's just the kind of thing to capture Musk's attention, who spent part of his weekend roasting the OpenAI CEO, whom he repeatedly called "Scam Altman."

In response, Altman argued that Musk was also a scammer. "Homeboy you're the one selling public market investors on short-term space datacenters," Altman wrote.

Musk replied that SpaceX would begin "flying them" next year — which seems ambitious, though the multi-company CEO is famous for missing self-imposed deadlines — and joked that Altman could visit if his "parole officer" allowed it.

Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI in 2015, but their relationship later fractured over control, funding, and the company's direction. They've been at each other's throats ever since.

In 2024, Musk sued OpenAI, Altman, and OpenAI President Greg Brockman, accusing them of deceiving him out of early charitable contributions by eventually operating OpenAI as a for-profit venture. OpenAI had originally been a nonprofit. A federal jury ruled against Musk in May. Musk said he planned to appeal.

Musk founded rival AI company xAI in 2023, which is now part of SpaceX.

"After stealing an open source AI charity, you then stole all of Apple's phone technology! Wow," Musk wrote on X on Saturday, referring to his claims in the lawsuit he lost. "What do you plan for an encore? That's tough to beat."

Altman has yet to respond.

• OpenAI said its head of safety systems, Johannes Heidecke, has left.
• Heidecke is the latest in an ever-growing list of safety team leaders to quit the company.
• Some departing safety researchers have questioned OpenAI's commitment to developing AI safely.

Another leader of OpenAI's safety strategy is leaving, joining an ever-growing list of employees who have left the company's safety and alignment teams in recent years.

Johannes Heidecke, the head of OpenAI's Safety Systems team, is departing as the company reorganizes its safety and research work under a single leader.

"We're grateful for Johannes' contributions to OpenAI," Mark Chen, OpenAI's chief research officer, told Business Insider. "We're excited for this next chapter under Mia Glaese's leadership across research and safety."

OpenAI said it would integrate safety more deeply across its research teams under Glaese, who will now serve as its vice president of research and safety.

The reorganization comes as OpenAI reconsiders the relationship between its research and safety efforts. A spokesperson told Business Insider that "you can't make good safety decisions without understanding the underlying model capabilities, and you can't make good research decisions without understanding the safety implications."

OpenAI's mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence — when it finally arrives — benefits all of humanity. "Safety — the practice of enabling AI's positive impacts by mitigating the negative ones — is thus core to our mission," the company says.

OpenAI, however, has a poor track record of retaining its top safety leaders, and some departing employees have publicly questioned its commitment to that work.

When Jan Leike, who once co-led OpenAI's superalignment team, left in May 2024, he said the company was prioritizing releasing products over ensuring their safety.

"Over the past years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products," Leike wrote in a post on X at the time. He said OpenAI needed to devote more resources to preparing for future models and that building machines smarter than humans was an "inherently dangerous endeavor."

Anthropic cofounder Dario Amodei was OpenAI's vice president of research before he left in 2020 over disagreements about the company's direction and approach to AI safety. He started Anthropic a year later as an AI model maker committed to safety.

Anthropic has suffered its own departures, notably in February when Mrinank Sharm, who led its Safeguards Research Team, left and publicly warned that AI companies face pressure to "set aside what matters most." Dylan Scand, an Anthropic safety researcher, also left this year to become OpenAI's head of preparedness.

Still, Anthropic's core safety leadership has largely remained intact compared to OpenAI. Andrew Curran, a prominent AI analyst, called OpenAI's ever-revolving door of safety leads a curse in reference to Harry Potter.

Here are eight leaders of OpenAI's safety-focused teams who have left in recent years.

Ilya Sutskever, cofounder

Sutskever, an OpenAI cofounder and its longtime chief scientist, left in May 2024. He had co-led the company's Superalignment initiative with Leike, which was created to develop methods for controlling future superintelligent AI.

When he left, he said OpenAI's progress had been "nothing short of miraculous," in a post on X. He later founded Safe Superintelligence, an AI lab dedicated solely to its namesake.

Jan Leike, cofounder

Leike left days after Sutskever. He offered one of the most direct public criticisms of OpenAI's approach to safety, saying he had reached a "breaking point" after prolonged disagreements with leadership.

OpenAI dissolved the Superalignment team after Leike and Sutskever left and distributed its remaining employees across other research groups. Leike joined Anthropic to work on alignment research.

Miles Brundage, senior advisor for AGI readiness

Brundage left OpenAI in October 2024 after six years.

"Neither OpenAI nor any other frontier lab is ready, and the world is also not ready," Brundage wrote in an essay on his Substack at the time, referring to the impact AI could have on the world.

He wrote that staying at OpenAI is an implicit agreement with the company's values. "Anyone working at OpenAI should take seriously the fact that their actions and statements contribute to the culture of the organization and may create positive or negative path dependencies as the organization begins to steward extremely advanced capabilities," he wrote.

Lilian Weng, vice president of research and safety

Weng, who previously led OpenAI's Safety Systems team, left the company in November 2024 after almost seven years, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She did not publicly raise concerns about OpenAI in her departure statement. Instead, she praised the environment, saying that it's work in "training these models to be both powerful and responsible has set new industry standards."

Andrea Vallone, head of model-policy safety research

Vallone left at the end of 2025 after leading the team that shaped how OpenAI's models respond in sensitive situations, including conversations involving emotional dependence and mental-health crises.

Her departure was initially announced internally, and she did not publicly criticize OpenAI. Vallone later joined Anthropic's alignment team to continue studying model behavior and safety.

Aleksander Madry, former head of preparedness

Madry joined OpenAI to lead its Preparedness team, which evaluates whether increasingly capable models could create severe risks. He was moved out of that leadership role in 2024 and shifted his attention to AI reasoning before leaving the company in May 2026.

Joshua Achiam, former chief futurist

Achiam left in July. He previously led Mission Alignment, a group created to ensure the company's AI development and deployment align with its nonprofit mission.

"There's not a specific reason for me leaving, or a specific reason for why now. But it's something I have been thinking of for a while and it feels right. The world is in on the secret now and it feels possible to work on the mission from outside the walls of a frontier lab," he wrote in a post on X in July.

Johannes Heidecke, head of Safety Systems

Heidecke joined OpenAI in 2021 and took over Safety Systems after Weng's departure. His team helped evaluate and mitigate risks in OpenAI's models before their release.

Heidecke has made no public statements since his planned departure became public on Friday. OpenAI said Heidecke decided to leave as the company integrated safety work more closely with its broader research organization.

• Sen. Lindsey Graham died on Sunday at the age of 71.
• The senator's office confirmed his death after a "sudden illness."
• Graham was key in shaping Trump-era policies like lower corporate tax rates and tariffs.

Republican lawmaker Lindsey Graham, who died on Saturday at the age of 71, had a major influence on corporate tax rates, tariff policies, and defense spending.

Graham's office said in a statement on Sunday that the four-term senator died after a "brief and sudden" illness. Graham, an ally of President Donald Trump, had just returned from a trip to Kyiv, where he had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In his 23 years in the Senate, Graham helped shape a protectionist, national-security-driven approach to trade and business-friendly policies that lowered corporate tax rates. His interventionist foreign policy views also translated into support for increased defense spending. Billions of dollars in military spending ultimately flowed to his home state of South Carolina.

Here's how the late lawmaker impacted American businesses and the US economy.

Corporate taxes

Graham was instrumental in pushing corporate tax cuts through Congress over the last decade. He was a major supporter of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

During Graham's unsuccessful 2016 run for president, he made cutting corporate taxes a central part of his campaign. During a Republican primary debate in 2015, Graham argued that the corporate tax rate should be lowered to prevent businesses from relocating overseas and to help create jobs for middle-class Americans.

"The best way to grow the middle class is to make it a good place to create a job," he said during a debate at the time.

During Trump's second term, Graham, who chaired the Senate Budget Committee, helped clear a path in Congress for the president's 2025 tax-and-spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, which made permanent many of the corporate tax cuts the two leaders spearheaded in 2017 and restored or expanded other business-friendly policies.

Nine days before his death, the senator published a statement celebrating the first anniversary of making those tax cuts permanent.

"One year ago, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law, delivering the largest tax cut for working and middle-class families in American history," Graham wrote. "As the Senate Budget Chairman, I was proud to lead this effort alongside my Senate and House Republican colleagues. We also ended taxes on tips and overtime and delivered no taxes on Social Security benefits for over 35 million seniors."

Fair trade

While a broad supporter of free trade policies, Graham broke from some other Republicans in his calls to use tariffs to punish countries that, in his view, operated unfairly.

In 2005, during his first term in the Senate, Graham called for aggressive tariffs against China for manipulating currency and stealing intellectual property. His views helped influence Trump's own tariff policies, which became a pillar of his administration's strategy in his second term.

Graham, like Trump, argued that tariffs should be used as leverage over other governments. Graham supported using tariffs to force countries like Mexico and Canada to increase border security, both as a way to manage illegal immigration and stem the flow of fentanyl into the country.

Trump's sweeping tariffs ultimately caused some headaches for American businesses, which struggled with supply chain uncertainties and rising prices. And the Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to unilaterally issue sweeping tariffs on US imports was illegal.

In response to that ruling, Graham said it was "undeniable" that the tariffs were having their intended effect.

"One of the chief reasons that our border is so secure is President Trump threatened to put tariffs on countries that were allowing illegal immigrants to pour in through our southern border and held them accountable for the problem," Graham wrote in a statement. "When it comes to finding fentanyl and other dangerous products coming into the country, President Trump has used tariffs extremely effectively."

Defense spending

Graham was one of the Senate's most vocal advocates for increased defense spending.

After the Trump administration outlined its initial 2027 budget plans, which included a total request for $1.5 trillion for the US military, the largest single-year military funding in modern US history and a near 45% increase from the previous year, Graham called Trump "second to none" on national security.

"President Trump's budget is truly historic when it comes to defense spending. It is the most robust increase in defense spending in many years, and it is more than justified by the threats we face throughout the world," he wrote in a statement in April.

Graham's support for robust defense spending stemmed from his interventionist views on national security. He supported the Iraq war and opposed the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He supported Ukraine and called for sweeping sanctions and tariffs on Russia, as well as any country buying Russian oil. He also backed military support for Israel and the continuing war on Iran.

His support for military spending also benefited his home state of South Carolina, which grew a large military footprint during Graham's time in the Senate. In 2024, South Carolina received nearly $7 billion in military spending through things like payroll, contracts, and construction, according to the Defense Department.

A 2022 state-commissioned study found that the military supported over 250,000 jobs in the states and generated an annual economic impact of some $35 billion.

Federal defense dollars have supported major bases, nuclear-weapons work, and aviation manufacturing in South Carolina. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Graham pushed money toward construction and military programs that helped secure and expand bases like Fort Jackson and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.

In 2023, Graham said his work to bring military spending to South Carolina "will pay dividends for our state for years to come."

I test TVs for a living, so I've spent more time staring at screens than I probably should. I've compared every major display tech out there, and though Mini LED, RGB LED, and QLED TVs all have their perks, OLED is still the one to beat for premium picture quality. The best OLED TVs don't come cheap, but you're paying for perfect black levels, pixel-level contrast, and wide viewing angles that make every spot on the couch feel like the best seat in the house.

To make your search easier, I've cut through the noise and narrowed it down to the four best OLED TVs you can buy right now. For most needs, the Samsung S90F is hard to beat. It delivers vibrant colors, solid brightness, and strong value. But if you're chasing some of the absolute best picture quality I've seen from a consumer TV, the pricier LG G5 is hard to beat.

Below, you'll find a closer look at all four of my picks for the best OLED TVs, with options suited to different budgets, room setups, and viewing habits so you can find the right fit for your space.

Our top picks for the best OLED TVs 

Best overall: Samsung S90F 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best high-end: LG G5 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best on a budget: Samsung S85F 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best anti-glare screen: Samsung S95F 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best overall: Samsung S90F

What we love: The 55, 65, and 77-inch models feature better color performance than similarly priced OLEDs from LG and Sony.

Drawbacks: Samsung's Tizen interface is a bit clunky, and the 42, 48, and 83-inch models lack the enhanced color capabilities you get with other sizes.

The Samsung S90F is the best OLED TV for most viewers — and my pick for the best TV overall. Yes, there are pricier models that push image quality even further, but few deliver this level of performance for the money.

Like all OLED TVs, the S90F delivers wide viewing angles and an infinite contrast ratio. Black levels do rise slightly in bright rooms, but never to a distracting degree, and they disappear completely when you turn off the lights. This model also stands out from similarly priced rivals thanks to Samsung's use of quantum dot color technology, which enhances brightness and color volume beyond those of a typical OLED panel.

However, quantum dots are only used in the 55-, 65-, and 77-inch sizes, so smaller and larger versions of the S90F don't benefit from this feature. Those sizes still offer excellent image quality, but they're more comparable to LG's C5 in color capabilities.

Our reviewer measured a peak brightness level of around 1,460 nits on the 65-inch S90F. That's a solid number and more than competing midrange OLEDs from LG and Sony. This enables HDR content to shine, with rich, saturated colors that stay vivid even in bright scenes.

HDR10 and HDR10+ playback look fantastic via streaming and 4K Blu-ray, though Samsung still skips Dolby Vision. While that omission might bother some enthusiasts, I don't consider it a dealbreaker since the differences between HDR formats are often hard to spot outside a side-by-side comparison. (If you're curious, check our HDR TV guide to see how Dolby Vision compares to other formats.)

On the software side, Samsung's latest smart TV platform feels smoother and more reliable than it has on older models, which were prone to more lag. The interface also features a cool Gaming Hub with access to the Xbox app, which allows Game Pass members to stream games without a console. That said, navigation can still be a bit clunky compared to more intuitive systems like Google TV and Roku.

Samsung also sells a 2026 version of this TV, the S90H. The new model offers similar performance but now features Samsung's glare-free screen technology, which greatly reduces reflections at the expense of lower contrast in bright rooms. But the S90H currently costs more than the S90F. Unless the anti-glare screen is essential to you, I still recommend the cheaper S90F as the better value.

Read our Samsung S90F 4K TV review.

Check out our guides to the best Samsung TVs and best smart TVs.

Best high-end: LG G5

What we love: It's one of the brightest OLEDs available, and its uniformly thin design and flush mount look great on a wall.

Drawbacks: It doesn't include a pedestal stand, and the 97-inch model lacks the brightness-boosting technology found in smaller sizes.

I've tested many impressive displays, but few can match the LG G5 in overall image performance. This premium set is the best OLED TV for people willing to splurge on high-end picture quality.

Though the G5 doesn't use quantum dots like those found in Sony and Samsung's flagship OLEDs, it uses a four-stack panel design to achieve similar performance. With the TV set in its most accurate HDR picture mode, I measured a peak of 2,410 nits. That's the second-highest measurement I've ever recorded on an OLED.

In practice, this high luminance leads to stunning HDR performance. Highlights in bright HDR content pop from the screen with dazzling intensity, offering more visual impact than less expensive OLEDs, like the S90F, can.

Now, it's essential to note that only specific HDR movies and TV shows require the high brightness levels that the G5 is capable of. But if you're a home theater enthusiast who wants to watch bright HDR content the way it's meant to be seen, the G5's combination of pixel-level contrast and high luminance is nearly unmatched. Likewise, if you struggle with glare in your room, the G5's high brightness can help mitigate this issue.

However, that's not to say the G5 is flawless. Even with brightness maxed out, its glossy screen is still prone to some reflections (though it preserves black levels better than matte-screen options like Samsung's S95F). The G5's webOS smart TV platform is decent enough, but it places too much emphasis on shopping recommendations. I also encountered some intermittent errors with hands-free voice recognition. This wasn't a major problem, but it's still worth noting.

The G5 comes with a flush wall mount that allows you to hang the display with virtually no gap. The TV looks gorgeous set up this way, but keep in mind that it doesn't include a stand. If you can't wall-mount it in your room, you'll need to purchase a stand separately.

It's also worth noting that a new 2026 version of this set, the G6, is now available. I saw a side-by-side comparison of the new model with the G5, and the G6 did appear brighter. It also has improved processing to deliver smoother gradients and better reflection handling. However, I'll need more hands-on time with the G6 to deliver a full verdict, and it's currently a lot more expensive than the G5. With that in mind, the G5 remains the best value for now. You can learn more in my LG 2026 OLED TV roundup.

Read our LG G5 4K TV review.

Check out our guide to the best LG TVs and best TVs for picture quality.

Best on a budget: Samsung S85F

What we love: It's one of the most affordable OLED TVs available.

Drawbacks: It's still pricey compared to midrange QLED and Mini LED TVs, and it's dimmer than pricier OLED models.

OLED TVs rarely come cheap, but the Samsung S85F stands out as one of the most affordable options. Samsung's higher-end S90- and S95-Series models get brighter and include a few extra design touches, but the S85F still delivers the core benefits that make OLED so appealing, including pixel-level dimming, infinite contrast, and wide viewing angles.

The S85F replaces the LG B5 as my budget pick. The two TVs perform very similarly, but the B5 has become difficult to find in stock. It's still worth considering if you spot it for less than the S85F, but Samsung's model is now the best budget OLED that's consistently available.

The S85F's excellent contrast makes it an ideal option for viewers who want a home theater TV that delivers better dark-room image quality than competing QLED and LED models in this price range. However, the S85F is notably dimmer than the other OLED models in this guide.

The S85F peaks at around 800 nits, so bright HDR highlights, such as large explosions or flashes of sunlight, don't have the same punch they do on a more powerful display. It also has a harder time cutting through reflections, making it a better fit for a dim or moderately lit room than a space with lots of windows or overhead lights.

Though it's Samsung's entry-level OLED, the S85F still has a strong selection of gaming features. Its HDMI 2.1 ports and 120Hz panel support variable refresh rate and gaming at up to 120 frames per second on the PS5 and Xbox Series X. It lacks the 144Hz and 165Hz modes available on Samsung's pricier OLEDs, but gameplay still looks smooth and feels responsive.

The S85F is available in 55, 65, 77, and 83 inches, with the 77- and 83-inch options being particularly good values for OLEDs at those sizes.

Best anti-glare screen: Samsung S95F

What we love: It offers excellent brightness, and its glare-free screen nearly eliminates reflections.

Drawbacks: The anti-reflective coating lowers contrast in bright rooms.

Many OLED TVs advertise anti-reflective coatings, but the Samsung S95F uses a glare-free screen that's on another level. Instead of a typical glossy surface, it features a matte finish that significantly reduces reflections. This type of finish is a real game changer for rooms filled with windows or overhead lighting.

While most OLEDs exhibit a mirror-like sheen when illuminated, the S95F nearly eliminates it. In my tests in a brightly lit space, reflections were barely visible, making this one of the best OLEDs available for daytime viewing.

That said, Samsung's anti-glare screen comes with a trade-off. In bright rooms, the coating dulls black levels, giving them a more gray, hazy tone rather than OLED's usual deep, inky look. Turn off the lights, though, and that issue disappears, as the S95F still delivers the perfect black-level performance OLEDs are known for in darker environments.

Beyond its standout anti-glare tech, the S95F is a picture-quality powerhouse. It reaches a peak brightness of around 2,170 nits, which is almost on par with the LG G5. This enables spectacular HDR impact with vivid highlights and excellent color volume.

Gamers will also appreciate the TV's high 165Hz refresh rate for ultra-smooth motion. The TV also uses a One Connect Box to house its inputs rather than having them built into the panel. This helps keep cables tidy and enables the screen to be uniformly thin, providing a sleek look from every angle.

Ultimately, the S95F's matte finish is a polarizing choice, but it's a fantastic feature for certain viewers. Many buyers will still prefer a traditional glossy OLED for deeper black levels, but if glare reduction is your top priority, no other OLED handles reflections this well.

Samsung also sells a 2026 edition of this set, called the S95H. The new model gets even brighter and features a unique metal-frame-like bezel. The S95H is now Samsung's most impressive OLED, but it also costs a lot more than the S95F. With that in mind, the older S95F remains the better overall value for viewers seeking an anti-glare OLED.

Read our Samsung S95F review.

Other OLED TVs we considered

The picks above represent our top recommendations, but there are other OLED TVs worth considering. Here are a few notable models, along with the reasons they didn't quite make the cut in our guide. 

Samsung S90H 4K TV - See at Amazon
Samsung's S90H is the 2026 edition of our top pick in this guide, the S90F. This new model offers very similar performance but has two key differences. For one, it now uses a matte, anti-glare screen, which nearly eliminates reflections in bright rooms. But on the other hand, Samsung actually downgraded the type of OLED panel it's using, so the S90H has slightly worse color performance than the S90F. This is a good option for people who want a midrange OLED with a matte screen, but generally, I recommend grabbing the cheaper S90F while it's still available.

Read our Samsung S90H review.

Samsung S95H 4K TV - See at Samsung
The S95H is the most impressive OLED TV Samsung has released so far, and it's a contender for the top high-end pick in this guide. During my initial testing, I measured peak brightness at 2,780 nits, the highest I've ever seen an OLED deliver. However, it's expensive, and its glare-free screen remains divisive. For now, I still give the edge to the LG G5 and its glossy screen for those who favor premium image quality, and to the older S95F for overall value. But as pricing drops over the coming months, the S95H could easily earn a spot in this guide.

Read our Samsung S95H first-look review.

LG C5 OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon
The C5 is one of LG's mid-tier OLED TVs, and it's a fantastic display. In many ways, it can be considered a runner-up to the Samsung S90F. Both TVs offer very similar performance and are often sold for around the same price, but we ultimately give the edge to Samsung's model. The reason? The 55-, 65-, and 77-inch S90F TVs use quantum dots, which give those sizes higher brightness and better color performance than the C5.

Read our LG C5 review.

LG C6H OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon
LG's C6H is a new submodel in its C Series. It's only available in 77 and 83 inches, but it offers a noticeable boost in brightness over the C5 and smaller C6 models. It actually uses the same four-stack panel technology found on LG's G Series OLEDs. However, LG's G5 has a slight edge in overall image quality and design, and since you can still find it for about the same price as the C6H, the G5 remains the better buy for most people shopping in this tier. That will likely change, though, as the G5 gets harder to find in stock and the C6H drops further in price.

Read our LG C6H review.

Sony Bravia 8 II OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon
Sony's Bravia 8 II is the brand's best OLED TV, and it goes toe-to-toe with the LG G5 and Samsung S95F in many areas. However, it's often more expensive and is only available in 55- and 65-inch sizes. Both the G5 and S95F can also get brighter than the Bravia 8 II, though Sony's proprietary picture processing gives the Bravia 8 II an edge in overall accuracy.

Read our guide to the best Sony TVs.

Sony Bravia 8 OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon
The Bravia 8 is Sony's midrange OLED, sitting right below the Bravia 8 II in its lineup. Its specs put it in a similar performance class as LG's more affordable C-series and below Samsung's S90 series. Given current price differences, we give the edge to the LG C5 and Samsung S90F as better options for the money.  

Panasonic Z95B OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon
Panasonic's flagship OLED is the Z95B. This TV uses the same panel technology as LG's G5 and offers very similar performance. However, it's typically more expensive and harder to find in stock.

How we test OLED TVs

To test the best OLED TVs, our reviewers evaluate several factors, including peak brightness, HDR performance, smart TV features, navigation speed, and value. 

To measure the brightness of a TV's panel, we use an X-Rite iDisplay Plus colorimeter with test patterns on the Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark 4K Blu-ray disc. We also use this disc's patterns to evaluate other objective display qualities. However, test patterns can only reveal so much, so we also use real-world content to better understand how an OLED actually looks while watching regular TV.

We use the same assortment of demo movies and shows on each display to help test each OLED's overall image performance, with a specific focus on scenes that showcase shadow detail, specular highlights, color fidelity, and sharpness with native 4K, high-definition (HD), and standard definition (SD) content through Blu-ray players, cable TV, and all the best streaming services. We also evaluate OLED TVs under various lighting conditions to assess how each model performs in both bright and dark rooms. 

We try to live with each OLED TV we review as if it were our day-to-day personal display. This way, we can identify any quirks or glitches that may appear during general use. We also evaluate smart TV features and navigation to ensure there are no major issues.

For more details on our review process, check out our page detailing how we test tech products. 

Meet the expert behind this guide:

Steven Cohen, senior tech editor: I oversee tech product coverage for Business Insider's Reviews team, with a big focus on home entertainment gear, so TVs are kind of my thing. My team and I spend the entire year getting hands-on with the latest models, which means I know exactly why OLED stands out against other display types. Likewise, I know where the tech can fall short. When I test a TV, I use professional calibration tools, pattern generators, and demo discs to measure things like brightness and color accuracy, but specs only tell you so much. I also live with every OLED I review, using it the way you actually would to see how it holds up in the real world.

Learn more about the Reviews team at Business Insider.

What to look for in an OLED TV

The best OLED TVs share similar performance, but there are a few factors to consider when selecting a specific model. In particular, you'll want to decide which OLED panel type is right for your needs, how big you want your screen to be, and how much you want to spend. Here's some key info to help inform your purchase.

What is an OLED TV?

OLED stands for "organic light-emitting diode." Instead of using a traditional LCD panel with a backlight, like those found on QLED and LED TVs, OLED TVs are self-illuminating. This means that each pixel on an OLED can emit its own light or turn off completely, enabling an infinite contrast ratio. Because of their high-contrast performance, OLED displays are among the best 4K TVs you can buy.

LG, Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic all sell OLED TV models in the US. Though there are a few types of OLED panels, they all share the same key benefits: pixel-level contrast and wide viewing angles. Some OLED subtypes, however, have extra perks that make them even more desirable.

QD-OLED panels, for instance, offer the added benefit of quantum dot technology, which enables them to produce a wider, brighter color gamut. Sony and Samsung use QD-OLED panels in their top TVs, like the S90F, S95F, S95H, A95L, and Bravia 8 II.

Though LG and Panasonic don't use QD-OLED, their most expensive OLED TVs use other advanced technologies to achieve a similar boost in performance. The LG G5, G6, and C6H, as well as the Panasonic Z95B, all use a four-stack Tandem OLED panel design, which can optimize brightness and color to compete with QD-OLED.

You can learn more about how OLEDs stack up against QLEDs in our full QLED vs. OLED comparison.

What size OLED TVs can you buy?

OLED TVs are sold in various screen sizes ranging from 42 to 97 inches. The most commonly available options are 55, 65, and 77 inches. Both QD-OLED and standard OLED panels are manufactured at those sizes.

A few OLED models are also available in larger 83- and even 97-inch options. However, OLED panels with quantum dots are not currently manufactured at those sizes.

LG, Sony, and Samsung also sell 48- and 42-inch OLED TVs, but only for a limited assortment of their models, and, once again, these options do not use QD-OLED panels.

Some 4K OLED displays smaller than 42 inches are also available, but these sizes are limited to PC monitors, like the 32-inch Alienware AW3225QF.

For OLED TV recommendations specific to certain screen sizes, check out our size-specific guides:

• Best 100-inch TVs
• Best 85-inch TVs
• Best 75-inch TVs
• Best 65-inch TVs
• Best 55-inch TVs
• Best 50-inch TVs
• Best 43-inch TVs

How much should you spend on an OLED TV?

The best OLED TVs don't come cheap. In general, OLED TVs cost more than other display types, with 65-inch models starting at around $1,000 and maxing out at about $4,000.

Entry-level 65-inch OLEDs under $1,300 aren't as bright as their more expensive counterparts, with most options in this price range peaking at around 800 nits. Models in the $1,300 to $2,000 range, like the Samsung S90F, can hit around 1,400 nits. Meanwhile, flagship OLEDs in the $2,000+ range, like the LG G5, can reach 2,400 nits.

Unfortunately, it's rare to find OLEDs, even in smaller sizes, for under $1,000. However, some smaller OLEDs, such as the 48-inch LG B5, occasionally go on sale for around $600. In general, we recommend that budget buyers consider a QLED or LED model instead of an OLED. Check out our guide to the best TVs under $500 for our top picks in that price range.

OLED TV FAQs

When will 2026 OLED TV models be available?

LG and Samsung have both launched new 2026 OLED TV models. Their lineups include the new flagship LG G6 and the Samsung S95H. Meanwhile, Panasonic and Sony have yet to detail any 2026 OLED models. Instead, Sony released its first True RGB TVs this spring.

However, it's important to remember that 2025 OLED TVs will remain in stock for much of the year, and they're getting great discounts. With that in mind, we'll continue to recommend 2025 OLED TVs while they remain the best value.

Should OLED TV buyers worry about burn-in?

Even the best OLED TVs are technically susceptible to burn-in. If you leave a static image on an OLED TV for an extended period — such as a news station's chyron bar — a faint afterimage can remain on the screen.

Though it sounds alarming, burn-in is not a new phenomenon. Many past TV technologies, including plasma and CRT displays, were also prone to this issue. While OLED buyers should be mindful of this risk, OLED TVs have built-in measures to mitigate burn-in, including automatic pixel-shift modes and pixel refreshers.

Publications like Rtings have done long-term tests with many OLED TV models. While the results indicate that burn-in is possible in extreme use cases, the tests suggest that it shouldn't be a problem for individuals with regular viewing habits.

I had an LG CX OLED TV in my own home theater setup for over three years, and the screen showed no burn-in. In my experience, as long as you don't plan to watch the same cable news channel all day, burn-in shouldn't be a deciding factor in choosing an OLED TV.

Do OLED TVs have good sound quality?

The best OLED TVs all include built-in speakers, but they typically offer mediocre sound quality and lack bass response. If you're unhappy with your TV's audio performance, we recommend buying a separate soundbar, particularly one with Dolby Atmos support. Dolby Atmos is a spatial audio format that can spread sound effects around your room with simulated overhead audio, so soundbars with this feature tend to offer the most immersive performance.

Check out our various soundbar and speaker guides to see our top recommendations:

• Best soundbars
• Best budget soundbars
• Best Dolby Atmos soundbars
• Best soundbars with subwoofers
• Best Bose soundbars
• Best Sonos soundbars
• Best surround sound systems

• In one week, I lost my dream tech career, a family member, and my long-term relationship.
• On a whim, I decided to move to Ireland (which I'd never visited) and pursue my sailing dreams.
• Now, I'm living out my bucket list in Dublin and can't imagine being anywhere else.

I knew from my first week in Toronto that it wasn't the place for me.

However, it took me six years, one death, a breakup, and the loss of my dream job for me to buy a one-way ticket out of there.

It was never my intention to settle in Toronto, but when love had called, I'd answered. The partner I'd met while living in Australia had a job there. We decided we'd stay here for a few years, then move back to the country where we'd met.

Still, I had a hard time acclimatizing to the concrete sprawl, especially after living in the lush Australian landscape and growing up surrounded by the rugged natural beauty of British Columbia.

If I was going to stick this out, I realized I needed to appreciate Toronto for what it was — a commercial hub. I set my sights on the ultimate distraction: professional fulfillment.

Luckily, I'd landed a contract job I loved in tech marketing in Toronto. I found that if I focused on work, it was easy to ignore other problems and pretend I didn't miss living near the ocean.

For a while, focusing on my career helped me ignore parts of my life that weren't working

After several contract extensions, I was finally offered a permanent role on my dream team, but something felt off.

On one hand, I was doing work I enjoyed with people I liked and respected. On the other, the gap between my partner and me had become a chasm, and our plan to move back to Australia together felt less likely the closer it got.

I had achieved the career goal I'd spent a year hustling toward, yet I was deeply unhappy. So, I decided to spend a month in Canada's Pacific Northwest.

Surfing in Tofino, I realized I hadn't been in the water for six years. I hadn't done a lot of things I loved or taken any steps toward my lifelong dream of learning to sail.

I'd put all my personal ambitions and passions aside to be in a city I didn't like, in service of someone else's dreams, and wound up pouring myself into work as a coping mechanism.

I began to wonder, if I didn't live by the ocean, doing these things I loved so much, who was I? And if my partner decided he didn't want to leave Toronto, where would I go?

I still wasn't ready to face reality, so I returned to Toronto and focused on the thing I knew would keep me tethered: my job. I turned into an ostrich, burying my head in my work, unwilling and unsure of how to fill the void.

After a restructuring and a breakup, I finally pushed myself to a new place: Ireland

Sometimes, when you're ignoring your intuition, the world stops nudging you and starts shoving.

I was good friends with my coworkers, so when the group chat started to buzz while I was on vacation, I took note. One by one, my former teammates were pulled into meetings to notify them of their termination due to restructuring. I felt for them, but I was also relieved I wasn't on their team anymore. I felt safe.

When my manager texted me to ask if I could hop on a quick call, I was a bit surprised but thought it was nice of him to notify me of the staffing changes while I was on vacation.

I wasn't prepared to be part of the restructuring. Or for my relationship of seven and a half years to end the day after I got back to Toronto. Or for my beloved grandma to die not long after.

Sometimes, life shoves so hard the tether snaps.

That's how I found myself lying on the air mattress in the spare bedroom of the Toronto house I'd grown to loathe, wondering where to go next.

For me, doing something new had to start with going somewhere new.

I knew I needed to be by the water again, a place with accessible hiking, surfing, and nature. And, most importantly, I had to be somewhere I could get a visa as an unemployed person over 30.

Eventually, I set my sights on Ireland, a country I'd never visited. I secured a temporary visa and booked my flight for November 8, a date I picked because it just felt lucky.

Eighteen months later, I'm living a 20-minute walk from the beach in Dublin. I have a great tech marketing job again, but without the sacrifice of living somewhere that doesn't feel like home. I have been surfing, I finally learned to sail, and I have found a vibrant community.

Somehow, with plenty of hope but little expectation, a decision I made on a whim has led to the life of my dreams. Now, I'm working on securing my next visa so I can continue to live in Dublin, where I hope to stay for a long time.

• In 2024, Cara West moved from the US to Greece with her husband and young daughter.
• The family wanted a better quality of life, more affordability, and a greater sense of community.
• West told BI that their family is happier, but raising a child abroad isn't always smooth sailing.

After Cara West became a mother in 2022, she began rethinking the kind of life she wanted for her family. She grew increasingly concerned about the cost of living in the US, the lack of community she felt in Houston, and the quality of education her child might receive.

"I considered the possibility of moving abroad to live more affordably and comfortably," West, 35, told Business Insider. "I didn't want my child to attend a traditional public school in the US, and I wanted to teach her through travel and real-life experiences."

The following year, West and her family tested out living in Lisbon for a few months. In Portugal, they found a lower cost of living and a quality of life that better aligned with how West and her husband wanted to raise their daughter.

"After two weeks in Portugal, we knew we'd made the right decision and were ready for bigger changes," she said.

In 2024, the family made their move to Europe permanent, choosing Syros, Greece — a small Cycladic island west of Mykonos — as their new home. West is a travel blogger, while her husband is a stay-at-home dad. This month, they signed a lease on a new house and renewed their visas, while their 4-year-old daughter prepares to start kindergarten.

West shared with Business Insider what she sees as the biggest pros and cons of moving across the world and raising a child abroad, from learning a new language to living far from friends and family.

My daughter is growing up with a strong community

While West lived in Houston, she hardly knew her neighbors and rarely spoke with them. And while she had friends, making plans was difficult, especially given the amount of time and effort it took to get something on the calendar.

In Syros, West said, she's finally been able to build a community.

"I would say one of the biggest pros, at least for us, is the community that we have here, from other digital nomad and expat families to the local families," she said. "The community is something that my daughter gets to grow up with. It's so special and everything I could have hoped for."

In Syros, the island's small size makes it easier for her to see friends regularly. On a typical day, she often runs into someone she knows while walking around town.

"We bump into each other in the streets, you know, and may go, 'oh, let's go play tomorrow, or let's meet up for coffee,'" West said. "It's much easier to make plans and for us to be in community with people."

Balancing an old and new language is a delicate dance

West and her husband want their daughter to grow up feeling connected to Greek culture rather than like "an outsider," and they see learning the language as an important part of that.

They've been helping her develop her Greek skills by encouraging her to speak with locals, watch Greek shows, and read Greek books.

"At first, she saw it as a negative thing that she was learning Greek," West said. "Now, she's a lot more receptive and gets really excited every time she makes a local friend who speaks Greek."

This year, her daughter will start at a private school where teachers will primarily speak Greek, though they will translate for English-speaking students.

"I worry that as she gets settled into school, speaking Greek will be really difficult for her, but at the same time, I'm grateful that we're starting it at such a young age because I do think that she'll adapt way faster," West said.

As her daughter learns Greek, West said she'll also be keeping an eye on her English skills. It's a concern many other English-speaking moms on the island share.

"It's so interesting because we've been really focused on our kids feeling comfortable and confident speaking Greek, but now we're like, 'Maybe they're forgetting English,'" she said.

I'm raising a worldly, open-minded child

One reason the family decided to relocate to Europe was the ease of traveling to other countries. This month alone, they visited Lisbon, Venice, and Paris.

"She's only four, and we just got done visiting her 20th country," West said. "She's being exposed to customs, cultures, foods, and experiences before she even reads about them in a textbook."

From hearing the Call to Prayer in Turkey to seeing the northern lights in Iceland, West's young daughter has already experienced more of the world than many people do in a lifetime.

West said these experiences have helped her daughter understand early on that people live, eat, worship, and move through the world in different ways.

"It's always the things that you don't think are going to stick with her," she added. "I love that she is seeing so many different ways of doing things."

It's difficult being far away from family

For West, living abroad also means raising her daughter far from family. It's a major concern for her, especially because her daughter is an only child.

"I worry sometimes that she is missing out on things happening back in the states with my husband's and my family, and that she may not be as close to certain family members like her cousins back home," she said.

To help maintain those bonds and keep up with milestones in everyone's lives, West makes sure they regularly FaceTime with family.

"We just make sure that's a regular cadence for her, so she doesn't feel that disconnect when she sees them in person," she said. "And we also try at least once a year to get back to the States as well."

We feel safer in Europe

West's daughter was about 3 months old in 2022 when the Uvalde school shooting happened. At the time, West and her husband were living in Houston, roughly four hours away. The tragedy pushed her to think more seriously about where her daughter would go to school — and how safe she would be.

"That, honestly, for me, was the biggest catalyst," West said. " I was like, okay, we really do need to look into what it would be like to live abroad, especially somewhere where gun laws are much more restrictive."

Greece has very strict gun laws, with firearm possession generally prohibited unless a permit is issued by authorities. In Syros, West said, life on the island feels "incredibly safe."

• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
• Sign up for the weekly BI Tech Memo newsletter here.

Here's some delicious AI irony for you.

For years, tech giants have argued that if information is available on the internet, it can be used for AI model development and outputs. They call it fair use. Content owners have tried to prevent this, with no success.

Now Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are discovering what the rest of the internet has already learned through painful experience: once you put something online, people will find ways to use it in ways you don't like and can't stop.

The latest flashpoint is something called "distillation," using the outputs of one AI model to improve another. Anthropic says competitors are harvesting its outputs at scale, turning billions of dollars of research into a shortcut for rivals. OpenAI and Google have made similar warnings recently.

The fear is obvious. Why spend billions building the best AI models if someone else can recreate much of this intelligence for a fraction of the cost?

That's a legitimate business concern. But here's the awkward part.

Symmetry

From 30,000 feet, distillation looks an awful lot like what AI companies have been doing to the rest of the internet. Scrape web content for free and without permission. Turn it into a product you sell. Argue it's fair use. Hope the lawyers sort out the details later.

Anthropic says rivals are extracting intelligence from its top models. Website owners have spent the past three years saying Anthropic extracted intelligence from them. Both sides argue this is against their terms of service. The symmetry is hard to ignore.

And despite pitching itself as the most ethical AI company, Anthropic is by far the worst actor here. Its data-sucking bots crawl webpages thousands of times for every one referral the company sends back to the web.

Bots on both sides

Anthropic, OpenAI, and especially Google, frame this as a cybersecurity issue, pointing to swarms of bots "attacking" their models to extract intelligence. But, they've been doing the same to many websites, bombarding them with so much bot crawling activity that site owners have seen their operating costs skyrocket. Not only are some websites having their content used without permission, they are paying more for the privilege.

AI researchers say distillation is different from web scraping. But the AI industry can't even decide whether distillation is OK or not, or where to draw the line.

There's the original, benign form of distillation, where labs use outputs from their own models to create different, often smaller, models. Then, there's what Anthropic calls "distillation attacks," where rivals use other people's AI outputs to develop or improve their own offerings.

Even here, though, the lines blur, with some AI researchers now worrying that Anthropic's aggressive stance will hurt all types of distillation. Open-source AI expert Nathan Lambert calls this "distillation panic."

So, let me wrap this up for you, from the AI giants' perspective: They can extract intelligence from the web for free and without permission. That's different from distillation, which is OK. Oh, but not when distillation involves using their content in ways they don't like.

"A cat-and-mouse game"

This contorted argument is being demolished by the brutal realities of the modern internet. Anthropic has spent months tightening access to its top models to stop competitors from learning too much. Those efforts have either backfired, or they're just spurring more elaborate workarounds.

Once information goes online, clever people will figure out how to collect it, remix it, and profit from it. That's true for blogs, photos, software code, videos, and yes, AI giants' precious model outputs.

"It's always a kind of a cat-and-mouse game," Zilan Qian, a researcher at the Oxford China Policy Lab, told Business Insider. As long as AI model outputs are out in the world, "people will probably find a way to get access to it."

Indeed, distilling another company's AI model may even be fair use. These legal arguments can cut both ways.

Welcome to the new internet, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. Get used to it.

Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• I canceled Amazon Prime to save money and curb impulse purchases.
• The change made me rethink my dependence on one retailer.
• Running errands has become one of the unexpected joys of my week.

I didn't get an Amazon Prime membership until the pandemic, when the allure of delivery finally outweighed the yearly cost for me.

I was impressed by the convenience, and never looked back — until three months ago when my Prime membership was about to renew. My budget has tightened, and I thought that if I'd lived without it before, surely I could do it again, right?

Plus, I knew I'd save money when the ease of ordering was no longer an option. There have been far too many times when I've regretted late-night purchases that I wouldn't make in the light of day. Over the holidays, for instance, I woke up to see if I could cancel the $25 Amazon order of gourmet gummy bears I had placed the night before, but it was too late.

I felt free after canceling, but it was scary too

I knew that letting go of Prime meant having to run more errands again, but errands are something I've caught myself wanting more of — not less.

I've grown to miss running out for even silly things, like milk for my coffee and cereal the next morning. So the idea of being forced to find all of my favorite things out in the physical world again was appealing. I just wasn't used to it anymore.

I'm adjusting to making lists now for the stuff I need and planning errands, but I didn't realize I wouldn't know where to buy anything anymore.

Once I saw the level of dependency I had developed with Prime, I didn't want to use it anymore

I became determined to figure out where my favorite products are available and have sometimes opted to order directly from the company instead of going to a large superstore for the same thing. I might spend more because of shipping costs, but I feel better about supporting a smaller company. I also feel like I've made a connection with the people behind the business, as if my direct sale is a direct thank-you. Plus, I often get some kind of bonus, such as free samples, discounts for later, or a cute memento.

In some cases, I've even found new products to replace ones that, for whatever reason, I could only buy through Amazon, such as certain vitamins and supplements, and foregone other products entirely, realizing in their absence that I didn't really need them.

I've returned to a more mindful shopping experience, where I consider the quality of what I'm buying or what I might be supporting through my purchase. In this way, I feel more invested in my purchasing decisions again, and like I've reclaimed some of my buying power.

I've realized how much I gave up for the convenience of delivery

I've learned it helps to give myself a pep talk that I'm only going inside to buy whatever it is I came for. I have failed the most at this in used bookstores and bargain stores. For instance, I went into Five Below specifically looking for a dog bed — and I left without one, but somehow I'd spent $60 on other amazing finds. While I do love everything I found that day, I didn't necessarily have the budget for it. In this way, running errands again has gotten me into trouble a few times.

I knew I missed getting ready to go out for a morning or an afternoon of errands, but what I had forgotten about missing were the smaller things: hearing just the right song in the car, treating myself to an errand coffee, physically sifting through items like clothes in a store, and the simple joy of just browsing.

And it does seem a little too simple sometimes, because I would have never thought that incorporating more to-dos back into my life would ultimately bring so much back to me.

I'm hoping the shiny new feeling of running errands doesn't wear off, because what once felt like chores now feel like these mini adventures I've just been having so much fun on.

• We couldn't afford vacations while raising five children.
• Our kids found ways to explore the world as they grew older.
• I'm finally allowing myself to enjoy traveling without guilt.

Growing up, my sisters and I had no opportunities for family trips or exciting travel adventures. Mom didn't know how to drive, and Dad was out on the road all week as a salesman. For us, an exciting, adventurous family trip was to the grocery store when Dad finally got home on Saturday (if we were really lucky, we went to the drugstore too).

It was our normal, and we didn't resent it, though I had a very vivid imagination and often daydreamed myself onto a plane bound for Paris, Rome, or Timbuktu.

When I grew up, I promised myself I would become a big-time traveler. My passport would groan under the weight of all those stamps.

We didn't have any money

As it often does, life had other plans for me. I married at age 20 to the love of my life, who also didn't have a dime. Our early married traveling adventures all revolved around our work as actors, performing throughout the South in dinner theatre, then in the Northeast with children's theatre.

When our five children made their appearances, any travel hopes were back-burnered for the foreseeable future. A choice between buying Pampers and taking a trip to Bermuda was no choice at all.

My dreams of exotic lands were once again deferred. I would have a pang or two when some of our more financially secure friends trotted off to Disney World with their kids (multiple times for some) or to ski in Colorado. We did our very best with budgeting, but certain things that our family valued came with steep price tags (violin and piano lessons come to mind), and there was always too much month at the end of the money.

Our kids saw the world on their own

As our offspring reached their teens, they had opportunities to see the world on their own, through school or music programs. Sheridan toured Europe with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra. Rose spent a year as an exchange student in Thailand. Julie backpacked through 11 countries at age 18. I remember being so proud of them (they all worked to raise money for these opportunities) and allowing myself to envision even a little travel in my own future.

Finally, the kiddos were out of the nest, and I began freelancing as a writer. My church worker's salary went into the general budget as always, but now I looked at my writing paychecks as extras, deposits on long-postponed treks to far-off lands. In the past 10 years, we've been to Europe five times and Asia once. I visited my great-grandma's birthplace in Ireland and my daughter-in-law Ya-Jhu's family in Taiwan.

I felt guilty about traveling

I expected to love these experiences, and I have. I didn't expect the guilt that accompanied them. Why, oh why couldn't we have gotten it together enough financially to take our brood on an Alaskan cruise? A spin through Barcelona? Or even a few days in the Magic Kingdom? Regret was draining the joy out of our travels for me. My now grown children never once expressed resentment about their upbringing, but they didn't have to; I was regretting it enough for all of us.

But recently, I've been looking at life through a wider lens, and my attitude is changing. My kids have found ways to see the world, and maybe doing it on their own has made their journeys even sweeter. They seem genuinely happy for my husband and me to be hitting the road later in life. I can't undo the past, go to med school or become an investment banker. Our money memories will always be memories of struggles.

I believe my children all inherited my curiosity about the world, and that they are proud to turn their own dreams into reality. My mom often talked about going to Dublin and Honolulu, but she never got to either place. At almost 70, I understand on a deep level that life is very short, tomorrow is promised to no one. So maybe it's OK to seize the moments we have left, to see some of this wide, wonderful world for ourselves before it's too late.

Our 50^th wedding anniversary is coming up, and I'm researching hotels in Portugal and camel rides in the Sahara, with excitement and gratitude. And no more guilt.

• We ranked double cheeseburgers from 13 fast-food chains to see which one reigns supreme.
• 7th Street Burger, the smallest chain, blew me away with its saucy smash burger.
• I thought In-N-Out's famous Double-Double was great value and delicious.

Double the patties can mean double the deliciousness, but not all fast-food double cheeseburgers are created equal.

For a definitive ranking, I tried practically every double cheeseburger on the market to determine which was best in terms of taste and value.

I tried double cheeseburgers from McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Shake Shack, White Castle, Whataburger, P. Terry's, Five Guys, Cook Out, Checkers, Sonic, 7th Street Burger, and In-N-Out.

Here's every fast-food double cheeseburger ranked from worst to best.

My least favorite double cheeseburger was from Burger King. It cost me $4.69.

The burger was under $5, but I'm not sure it was worth the price.

It comes with two of the chain's beef patties, American cheese, pickles, mustard, and ketchup on a sesame-seed bun.

It comes with one slice of cheese.

This burger was super filling, but I liked the other burgers I tried more.

Right away, I tasted the thick beef patties. The burger had traveled about 15 minutes from my local Burger King to my apartment, but the meat was still juicy, and the cheese was nicely melted.

The pickle slices were thick and crunchy, and I enjoyed the sesame-seed bun, which added a satisfying textural element. However, I thought there was just a little too much ketchup, which will likely vary depending on who's making your burger that day.

Next was Wendy's double cheeseburger, which the chain calls a Double Stack. I ordered it for $4.86.

It was about the same price as McDonald's and Burger King burgers, though it landed squarely in the middle in terms of value.

A Wendy's double cheeseburger comes with two junior-size hamburger patties, American cheese, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and sweet onion.

The toppings looked a little stingy, and they were clustered in the middle of the sandwich. I would have liked to see them more spread out.

The burger bun was fluffy and light, and the toppings had a ton of flavor.

But I had to get a few bites in to reach the toppings in the center.

The toppings themselves were amazing. I thought the pickles were the most flavorful among the burgers I tried, and I liked the use of an onion ring rather than diced onion, though I would've liked more.

The McDonald's double cheeseburger cost me $5.99.

It was slightly more expensive than Wendy's version but had more toppings. It came with an extra slice of American cheese plus chopped onions, and I thought it was still relatively affordable.

The double cheeseburger from McDonald's comes with two beef patties, pickles, chopped onions, ketchup, mustard, and two slices of American cheese.

I was interested to see if the added toppings would amp up the flavor.

I thought the ingredients came together well in this burger, but the bun was a little lackluster.

The bun held everything together and was a good size, but it was a little too soft and didn't have a lot of flavor on its own. But I enjoyed the amount of condiments and didn't find them overpowering.

The chopped onions added a lot of flavor, and the burger patties were juicy despite being thinner than the Burger King ones. I liked the added cheese, but didn't think it was necessary.

Next up was the double-meat Whataburger with cheese.

It costs $6.99 at a Whataburger in Austin, excluding tax and fees.

I ordered it with a large bun, American cheese, grilled peppers and onions, pickles, and ketchup.

The burger was a decent size, and I could see the gooey cheese peeking out from underneath the soft potato bun. 

Unlike the other double cheeseburgers, this burger had sliced jalapeño peppers that I imagined would add quite the kick.

The ingredients definitely set this burger apart from the others.

I thought the burgers had a delightfully crispy texture, and the toppings added a ton of flavor.

The bun was light and fluffy, but I did think the burger patties could have been a little thicker and juicier.

Coming in ninth was the double cheeseburger from P. Terry's Burger Stand, a regional chain I visited in Austin.

The burger cost $5.25, making it one of the cheaper burgers I tried.

Despite being less expensive than the Whataburger double cheeseburger, the P. Terry's burger was larger.

I ordered it with pickles, onions, ketchup, mustard, and American cheese.

I again thought the cheese could have been more melted, but the size definitely made up for it.

One of the benefits of ordering from P. Terry's is that you can easily customize your burger and add a number of toppings, including grilled onions, the chain's special sauce, tomato, lettuce, and more.

I thought the burgers were juicy, and the pickles had a tart crunch.

The bun was slightly underwhelming, but I thought it was an excellent, large burger with tons of flavor, especially for the low price. I also thought the mustard really came through and added a lot to the burger.

The double cheeseburger from Shake Shack was the second-most-expensive burger I tried.

I paid $13.89 for a double cheeseburger. I could customize my toppings, but I went with pickles, onions, and Shack sauce.

Right away, I thought the burger was massive.

The patties had a perfectly crisp sear and were blanketed in gooey melted cheese. Thick, house-made-looking pickles and the burger's hefty weight made it feel especially substantial.

The toppings were generous, and the chain's signature Shack sauce, which is a mayo-based sauce with a slight mustard flavor, made it really tasty.

The cheese was thick and perfectly melted.

However, biting into the Shake Shack burger was a little overwhelming, in my opinion.

The burger was huge, which was both an asset and a hindrance. I struggled to get through more than a few bites.

Although it was the second-most-expensive burger, I thought it justified the price. The patties were noticeably thicker than the others I tried, and the toppings elevated every bite.

Overall, I was impressed ... but stuffed.

In seventh place was the double-decker burger with cheese from Checkers.

The burger has since been replaced with the Big Buford, which has all the same ingredients but a bakery-style bun instead of a sesame-seed bun.

The burger costs $9.39 at my local Checkers in Brooklyn.

I thought this burger was a little pricey for the size.

It was smaller than my hand, though it did include a variety of toppings like tomato, lettuce, and red onion.

The burger also comes with American cheese, dill pickles, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise on a toasted bun.

The burger patties were very juicy, and the toppings tasted fresh.

I also thought the American cheese was very tangy and flavorful. Overall, I enjoyed the combination of flavors. However, the price prevented this burger from ranking higher. 

I also tried the double cheese slider from White Castle.

White Castle sliders are usually eaten in pairs, so I ordered two. Each burger cost me $3.73, so I ended up paying $7.46.

The burgers were small but packed with flavor.

The burgers smelled strongly of onions and condiments the second I removed them from the bag.

The amount of toppings on each burger was generous.

The pickles were crunchy and flavorful. Though the burgers each had a bun sandwiched in the middle, it wasn't too bready — it allowed the flavors to really come together while still being filling.

I was blown away by the cheeseburgers from White Castle, a result I admittedly wasn't expecting.

Despite being the smallest and among the cheapest burgers, they exceeded my expectations. The flavorful toppings complemented the beef, which was the real standout.

The small-but-mighty burger was one of the most flavorful I tried, easy to eat, and perfectly priced. 

My fifth-favorite double cheeseburger was from Five Guys.

Five Guys doesn't technically have a "double cheeseburger" — its regular cheeseburgers already come with two slices of cheese and two beef patties.

My burger cost $17.75, excluding taxes and fees, making it the most expensive burger I tried.

I was able to customize my toppings, but I ordered the burger with pickles, grilled onions, ketchup, and mustard.

Right away, I noticed that the toppings were generous. The pickle slices were large, and none of the toppings cost extra.

The burger was large without being too intimidating.

I thought the burger was the perfect size — substantial enough to require two hands, but not as heavy as Shake Shack's.

Melted American cheese blanketed each patty, and the sauce was well-balanced, adding flavor without spilling out of the sesame-seed bun.

The burger patties were crispy on the outside but juicy on the inside.

The thick, crunchy pickles, sesame-seed bun, and soft, almost caramelized grilled onions added texture and flavor that set this burger apart from the rest.

My fourth-favorite double cheeseburger came from Sonic Drive-In.

The SuperSonic double cheeseburger was one of the few burgers I tried that came with lettuce and tomato. Since this was the default option, I decided to try it with these toppings rather than remove them.

The burger cost me $9.75, excluding taxes and fees.

The burger came with a hearty serving of shredded lettuce, tomatoes, two slices of cheese, diced onions, pickles, mayonnaise, and ketchup.

Unlike Sonic's quarter-pound double cheeseburger, which comes with two junior patties, the full-size burger has a combined half-pound of meat. 

The bun was perfectly soft but still held the sauce-covered burger together.

The ingredients tasted fresh and vibrant. The tomato wasn't too watery, the lettuce was crisp, and the burgers tasted well-seasoned and juicy. Plus, the burger was a very generous size. 

However, despite all these accolades, I thought the price was a little steep compared to what I got from Cook Out and In-N-Out.

My third-favorite double cheeseburger came from Cook Out, a regional chain I visited in South Carolina.

You can order a "big double" from Cook Out any way you wish, but I ordered mine with cheese, ketchup, mustard, onions, and pickles. It cost me $4.99, not including tax.

The burger came wrapped in foil and featured two juicy patties.

It also had thick slices of fresh onion and large pickle spears layered on top of the burger.

For the price, I thought the burger was out of this world.

The thick, tangy cheese and perfectly medium-rare patty made this burger a standout. It was so large I couldn't finish it after dinner, but at such a low price, it easily earned the third-highest spot in my ranking.

My second favorite came from 7th Street Burger, a smaller chain based in New York City.

7th Street Burger is a small chain of quick-service burger restaurants with dozens of locations across New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington, DC.

Since opening in 2021, the chain has quickly built a reputation for its no-frills approach to smash burgers, featuring crispy patties, gooey cheese, and the chain's signature sauce.

I ordered a double cheeseburger, which comes with two beef patties, American cheese, onions, pickles, and house sauce on a Martin's potato bun. It cost $11.59, excluding tax and fees.

There wasn't much customization to do for this burger — you can't order it with lettuce or tomato.

However, this burger was perfect exactly as the chain designed it. The burger patties were delightfully crispy on the outside yet remained juicy.

Melted slices of cheese oozed between the two thin, expertly griddled, and charred beef patties, all smothered in the chain's signature sauce, a creamy, tangy take on classic burger sauce.

The burger was served on a pillowy-soft potato roll, which kept things simple.

There were no lettuce or tomato slices to lighten the rich, savory burger, but I didn't miss them.

With pickles and onions rounding out the flavor, it was nostalgic, perfectly balanced, and probably the best smash burger I've ever had.

In my opinion, the best double cheeseburger I tried was the famous Double-Double burger from In-N-Out.

It cost me $5.90, which I thought was an excellent deal for the large burger sitting in front of me.

One of the first things I noticed was how thick the burger patties were. They were much thicker than other burgers I tried at a similar price point.

Most Double-Double burgers come with lettuce, tomato, onions, and spread.

To keep my burger similar to the other burgers I tried, I ordered it with onions, pickles, and spread, which I thought tasted similar to Thousand Island dressing.

The first thing I noticed about the In-N-Out burger was how juicy the burger patties were, followed by the incredible layers of cheese.

The cheese slices were perfectly melted and coated each part of the burger, something I couldn't say about any other burger I tried.

The bun was perfectly soft and held everything together perfectly, while the special spread had my mouth watering for another bite.

Of all the burgers I tried, I thought the In-N-Out double cheeseburger packed the most flavor for the best price.

When it came to a double cheeseburger, the West Coast chain really nailed it. The burger was beyond flavorful, the perfect size, and, in my opinion, very good value for money.

The next time I'm in a state with an In-N-Out, I know where I'll be filling my burger craving.

• A James Bond-inspired mansion in Delray Beach went on the market asking $85 million.
• Villa Skyfall, boasting a car gallery and hidden rooms, is designed for luxury living and privacy.
• The home features a poker lounge and a wellness room.

James Bond films track the agent's vagabond lifestyle, spending one night in London and the next in Montenegro. But if Bond could settle down, he might choose this mansion in Delray Beach, Florida.

Villa Skyfall, a newly constructed, about 23,000-square-foot home in Delray Beach, about 20 miles south of Palm Beach, Florida, hit the market priced at $85 million. The owners, developer team Aldo and Fiorenna Stark, bought the property in 2024 for $5,850,000, according to property records, and finished the home this year.

"They build homes that they personally would live in, that they would enjoy," Douglas Elliman agent Senada Adžem told Business Insider. "His inspiration and lifelong appreciation for James Bond definitely played a role here."

The house is loud and literally glittering, clad in backlit onyx and natural materials throughout, and listing agent Adžem knows it's not for everyone.

"You're appealing to not just a fan of James Bond and a very dramatic look and inspiration, but you're appealing to someone who loves it as is," she said. "This is not a home for someone who's going to want to move in and say, 'I want to make it light, white, and bland.' This is for someone who really wants something unique and unapologetic in terms of design and very dramatic in terms of design."

Bond himself might want something a little more muted, but there is an automotive gallery with room for a few Aston Martins. Take a look inside this Bond-inspired mansion.

Aldo and Fiorenna Stark bought the property and built it in 14 months.

Aldo Stark is the owner of Prestige Design Homes, a development firm in South Florida, and has built a number of luxury homes, including another Bond-like mansion — Villa Spectre — which sold for $55 million in 2024.

The home's namesake, Skyfall, pays homage to the third film in the Daniel Craig Bond universe.

The film takes Bond back to his childhood home in Scotland — the inspiration for the Florida mansion, kind of.

"If you watch the movie, the original home is in Scotland, and it's very, very grand," Adžem said. "But in this case, it's sort of the Florida interpretation."

The Starks were thinking about living in the home themselves.

"At the time, Aldo was building two homes and one of them was going to be their personal residence," Adžem said. "They decided to make this their spec home that they were going to sell."

While the home itself draws a lot of attention, the property boasts privacy and security.

The community where the home is located, Stone Creek Ranch, is guarded with armed security 24/7 — so even Bond couldn't penetrate it.

"Most of the clients who have come through over the past few years through Stone Creek Ranch that we've sold the properties to, and even the prospects who are coming to see Villa Skyfall now, really value their privacy," Adžem said. "They're fiercely guarded and private."

Even though the outside is heavily guarded, the inside invites entertaining.

"There is a functionality on the floor plan that's really special for entertaining, but also for someone who wants their privacy, who wants security," Adžem said.

The chef's kitchen has a separate door, so dinner parties won't be cluttered.

"The chef's kitchen is behind the concealed door," Adžem said. "There's a gorgeous green marble, and it has a concealed door that leads to the dining room. So if you have a chef cooking, the staff can bring the food to the dining area."

Adžem pictures the buyer as someone with a public image who will benefit from hiding away in their own sanctuary.

"I do see someone with a big public life who really respects and appreciates their privacy and the security of their family," Adžem said. "And I do believe it's going to be someone who wants a signature Aldo Stark residence that's a trophy home."

Adžem said in just two weeks on the market, she's shown it to several high-profile celebrities.

"What they all have in common is that they want a compound that's going to resemble their own private resort," she said. "They have a separate staff quarters. They have big guest quarters, and then they have very lavish amenities, so they don't necessarily need to leave the home if they don't want to. And they can entertain in a very grand way at their property."

Stark built the home for someone like Bond: someone who makes room for work but enjoys a luxurious life.

"He wanted something that is appealing to a family or a person who loves the car gallery, loves having the two-story office space, and when it comes to entertainment, will appreciate a home that's really great for the family and for entertaining," Adžem said.

It wouldn't be a Bond house without some clever features — like hidden rooms.

"There are a few safe rooms with concealed doors and hidden areas," Adžem said. "I thought it was really fun to have, and it's a great feature anyway, but there are many safes throughout the home that are concealed."

Bond is known for his sharp wardrobe, and could benefit from a closet like this.

"The closet is extraordinary," Adžem said. "It's not even a closet. It's actually a boutique-style dressing area with even a high-tech security component in order to open the watch display."

The poker room may be a nod to the first installment of Craig Bond films, Casino Royale.

"The hidden poker lounge is pretty Bond-worthy," Adžem said. "It's behind a massive concealed door — like a display door — to enter the secret poker lounge."

You can enjoy a nice martini in the home's bar — shaken, not stirred, of course.

"I think the bar rivals the most extraordinary bars in the world, including hotel bars and boutique hotel bars," Adžem said. "I think the bar, you could definitely get your martini there and enjoy."

And of course, Bond needs room for his Aston Martin collection.

Aldo Stark has a personal car collection that rivals Bond's, including an Aston Martin DB5 that was featured in Skyfall, Adžem said. Unfortunately for the next buyer, the car collection is leaving with Stark.

"Honestly, his cars are like his babies," Adžem said on whether she asked Stark to include some cars in the sale. "He is very strictly protective of them, so I didn't even ask."

To keep up with the luxury homes of the times, Villa Skyfall is outfitted with many wellness features.

"The wellness area is Amazon-rainforest-inspired," Adžem said. "The bespoke crystal chandeliers resemble large raindrops. That onyx is very, very rare."

There's also a Himalayan salt room, a steam room, and a couples massage area.

Also, if the next owner wants to try some new styles, there's a salon on the property.

"There is a Parisian-inspired beauty salon for men or women, so you can have a haircut and you can get your makeup done," Adžem said. "It's a really cool space to get ready, and it's connected to the primary bath. It features a very special marble that was used by the Cartier boutique in Paris."

If you're a fan of the Bond movies, there's a theater room to watch them — or something else.

"It's fully soundproofed, and it has the most gorgeous design inside, including top-of-the-line chairs," Adžem said. "They have heating, they have cooling, they have massage, and they have the 4D component — basically like when the chairs correspond to what's happening in the movie."

And for relaxation, there's an outdoor pool and cabanas.

"The pool and outdoor area are really special," Adžem said. "It reminds you of a five-star resort in that it has water features and Alfresco's dining areas."

The outdoor area has more than just a pool.

According to Adžem, the outdoor area also features a basketball court, a sports court for pickleball, and mini golf.

The home is an extra-opulent twist on a franchise known for its luxury.

"It has quite a few interesting features, in terms of the layout, that we feel like would appeal to not just James Bond aficionados, but really a family who likes to live in a way that they have their amenities," Adžem said.

Official World Cup jerseys can cost as much as $180, while counterfeit versions sell for as little as $4. We visited factories in Bangladesh, one of the world's biggest garment manufacturing hubs, to find out what separates authentic, replica, and fake soccer jerseys and why they cost so much.

Could it be possible that we're going to get through a whole Wimbledon without a single rain delay? It's looking likely, so don't be late to the action with today's men's final featuring Sinner vs. Zverev. We've gathered everything you need to know about how to watch the Wimbledon final live stream for free from anywhere.

Defending Wimbledon champion and World No. 1 Jannik Sinner is the heavy favorite, having won the last seven encounters with the German since 2023. However, Alex Zverev could be on for an upset, having finally won a grand slam a few weeks ago when he became the French Open champion.

How to watch Wimbledon final: Sinner vs. Zverev for free

Wimbledon is available for free in multiple countries. In the UK, the Sinner vs. Zverev match will live stream on BBC iPlayer. In Australia, it will be free on 9Now. In the US, tennis fans can watch using a free trial of a live TV service, like YouTube TV or Fubo. Germany and Austria can watch Wimbledon coverage on Prime Video, which often includes a free trial for new users.

How to watch Sinner vs. Zverev from anywhere

If you're away from the location where your streaming service works, you can still access your streaming options (including the free ones) with the help of a VPN. Short for virtual private networks, VPNs are handy tech tools that let people temporarily alter their virtual locations. They're popular apps among those hoping to keep up with their usual services while traveling abroad or looking to boost their cybersecurity.

NordVPN is one of the best VPNs on the market. It's fast, user-friendly (even for beginners), and has a 30-day money-back guarantee if you find that it's not helping you out.

• See also: Where to watch the World Cup | How to watch Tour de France

How to watch Wimbledon final in the US

All of Wimbledon, including the Sinner vs. Zverev match, is airing on ESPN in the US (a full replay will be available on demand afterward).

Fans have several avenues for live streaming, including ESPN Unlimited, the network's direct streaming service. ESPN Unlimited costs $30 a month and offers live streams from all of ESPN's linear networks, along with exclusive streaming-only content.

ESPN is also available in live TV streaming services. YouTube TV and Fubo are two of the best options on the market right now. YouTube TV offers two plans, a main plan and a sports plan. The main plan costs $83 a month, but new users can get their first five months for just $68 a month. The sports plan costs $65 a month, but new users can get their first year for just $55 a month. YouTube TV also offers a free trial for new customers.

Fubo is another great option. ESPN is included in all plans, ranging from Sports + News to Ultra. The cheapest ESPN-friendly plan, Sports + News, costs $65 a month, but new users can get $10 off their first month after a free trial. Fubo also unlocks access to ESPN Unlimited at no extra cost.

How to watch Sinner vs. Zverev in the UK

The Wimbledon final will air on BBC One in the UK. This means that fans will be able to stream the action for free on BBC iPlayer. Viewers will just need to create an account if they don't already have one, and then they're all set to start streaming.

How to watch Sinner vs. Zverev in Australia

9 in Australia offers free coverage of select Wimbledon matches, including today's men's final. This means that viewers will be able to live stream the coverage for free on 9Now. Fans will just need to make a login, and then they'll be able to watch.

Note: VPN use is illegal in certain countries, and using VPNs to access region-locked streaming content may constitute a breach of the terms of use for some services. Business Insider does not endorse or condone the illegal use of VPNs.

When you're spending long hours under the sun, it's priority number one to protect your skin from harmful UVA and UVB rays. Together, these rays accelerate skin aging and increase your risk of skin cancer. The problem: Applying sunscreen every two hours to every inch of exposed skin just isn't feasible.

But when you put on a UPF-rated sun shirt, it can often do a better job than an inadequate sunscreen application, points out Maya Thosani, MD, a double board-certified dermatologist based in Phoenix.

Many sun shirts are too thick to wear in the heat, or don't actually hit the UPF rating they claim to. I would know — I live in the Colorado mountains where I test outdoor gear, and have tried all the good, the bad, and the stuffy.

My husband and I tried 42 sun shirts while hiking, road running, golfing, boating, working outside, and spending hours adventuring on my local trails and rivers. We found that the best sun shirts don't just offer UV protection, but can also keep you comfortable in the heat with smart fits and cooling, quick-dry materials. For more great outdoor gear, see our guide to the best base layers.

Best overall: Columbia PFG Bahama II Long Sleeve

I’ve been wearing some version of the Columbia PFG Bahama Shirt for years, and, after testing 41 other options, it’s still the sun shirt I recommend for most people. My husband is a summer landscaper and it’s practically the unofficial uniform for his crew because it stays cool in high temperatures and provides full coverage of the arms, chest, and lower neck.

The lightweight nylon fabric is rated UPF 50 and has the Seal of Recommendation from the Skin Cancer Foundation, verifying it as an effective UV protectant. It’s also very soft, stays lightweight when it gets wet, dried quickly, and never feels heavy or stuffy thanks to the large back vent that keeps air moving.

What really makes this shirt a staple in my summer outdoor wardrobe is its versatility. The button-up design and collar look polished enough to wear into a restaurant during a lunch break, but it’s just as at home fishing, hiking, or lounging at the beach. I often wear mine oversized (I prefer the men’s fit, even as a woman) and open over a swimsuit, then button it up when I want more sun protection. The sleeves can be worn down like a traditional button-up, or rolled above the elbows and secured with button tabs, making it feel like two shirts in one. Columbia also makes a Short Sleeve PLG Bahama II (Men's | Women's).

Columbia packs this shirt with real-world useful features, like two large chest pockets with Velcro closures (perfect for securing your phone); small utility loops on the pockets that are handy for sunglasses, pliers, or other small gear. The collar even buttons down so it won’t flap around in the wind. Plus, it comes in a ton of colors (15 options for men’s, 10 options for women’s), all of which are rich in person and clean easily after a machine wash. And for $55-60 each, it's a great value option as well.

In short: The PFG Bahama II feels like Columbia has been refining the design and details for decades. The fit is intentionally oversized to maximize airflow, so I’d recommend sizing down if you prefer a closer-to-body fit. My only real complaint is that it doesn't protect the back of your neck like a hooded sun shirt can, so if you'll be in direct overhead sun all day, I'd opt for a sun hoodie instead.

Best runner-up: Stio Hylas Crew LS

If you're looking for a simple, athletic-style sun shirt, the Stio Hylas line is about as good as it gets. Instead of pockets, vents, or fishing-specific features, it focuses on nailing the fundamentals: an incredibly soft fabric, excellent breathability, and a comfortable fit that works whether you're hiking, trail running, paddling, or spending a day above the tree line. The recycled polyester-Spandex blend has just enough stretch to move with you, and stays cool even as temperatures climb.

I prefer the Hylas Crewneck (Men's | Women's), and the women's design had a unique high V-neck that lands slightly higher — meaning the fabric protects more of your chest and neck from the sun, while still feeling unrestrictive.

The Hylas Hoodie (Men's | Women's) is equally well designed. The hood lays comfortably when worn down, and frames the face nicely when it's on. It stays up easily, and has enough room to fit a hat underneath. Both the crewneck and hoodie have hidden thumbholes, which disappear when they're not in use.

The Hylas doesn't have quite the same all-around versatility as our top pick, the Columbia PFG Bahama II. It's built for movement first, so it looks more like a technical performance shirt than one you'd wear out. That said, it's still a very clean aesthetic for a sun shirt.

Best budget: Cotopaxi Sombra Long-Sleeve Sun Shirt

While Columbia's PFG Bahama II is technically the most affordable sun shirt on this list, Cotopaxi's Sombra Long-Sleeve Sun Shirt is another great (and inexpensive) alternative.

It comes in a wide range of fun, bright colors for both men and women, and little details like the contrasting trim around the bottom and well-placed thumbholes make it feel more thoughtfully designed than your average performance shirt.

Compared to some of the featherweight sun shirts I tested, the Sombra's fabric is slightly more substantial — but that's not a bad thing. It still feels incredibly lightweight, wicks sweat quickly, and dries fast, but the slight heft to the material also gave me a reassuring sense that it's creating a reliable barrier between my skin and the sun. I did notice myself getting a little warmer hiking in the June sun than I did in shirts like the REI Flash Shade Hoodie or the vented Columbia Bahama II, but the fabric never felt heavy or clammy, even after I started sweating.

The regular fit strikes a nice middle ground between athletic and relaxed. The flatlock seams stayed comfortable under backpack straps, and the thumbholes were well positioned to provide extra coverage without tugging on the sleeves. Cotopaxi also makes a Sombra Hoodie, which costs $15 more. But I love the versatility and freedom of a crewneck sun shirt, especially for just $60.

Overall, I think this sunshirt hits the sweet spot for everyday adventures — whether that's a summer run, walking around town, paddling on the water, or an afternoon hike. It's also worth mentioning that Cotopaxi is a certified B Corp with a long-standing commitment to responsible manufacturing and community impact, which I feel good in supporting.

Best button-up: Poncho Western

Technically this Poncho shirt is a snap-up rather than a button-up, but I actually think that makes it superior since snaps are easier to undo. It delivers all the performance you'd expect from a technical sun shirt — UPF 50+ protection, excellent breathability, built-in stretch, and a vented back — all wrapped in a classic Western silhouette that feels just as appropriate at a brewery or backyard barbecue as it does on the water. Between the wide range of colors, prints, and Short Sleeve and Long Sleeve options, it's also one of the easiest shirts on this list to make your own.

The fabric is buttery soft, incredibly lightweight, and dries within minutes of getting wet, so it never feels sticky or weighed down. Despite how airy it feels, it still offers UPF 50+ protection that kept us comfortable during long days in the summer sun.

In addition to the two chest pockets, there's a hidden zippered pocket for valuables, a secret sunglasses holder, an integrated lens cloth, and hidden collar snaps to keep it from flapping in the wind.

Besides Poncho's Western shirt, we also loved The Original Poncho, which is a traditional button-up made from the same performance nylon with all the same great features. Unfortunately, both only come in men's sizing. If you prefer a women's button-up, I recommend Hikerkind's Trail Sun Shirt, which offers 50+ UPF in a quick-dry, breathable fabric in an elevated silhouette.

Best lightweight: REI Flash Shade Hoodie

While I tested a lot of really great lightweight sunshirts, the REI Flash Shade Hoodie hits the best cross of performance and price. This fabric, made from an airy performance grid fabric, almost disappears when you put it on. This was one of the shirts I consistently reached for because it stayed cool, wicked sweat well, and dried quickly after getting wet.

At just 6 ounces, it packs down to almost nothing, so it's easy to stash in a hiking pack, beach bag, or carry-on without any deliberation. I also love how easily it layers under a fleece or rain jacket if the weather changes. The UPF 50+ fabric, high-neck hood, and thumbholes provide excellent coverage, while the relaxed fit and performance grid recycled nylon keeps plenty of air moving on hot days. I will admit the thinness of the fabric has me skeptical of how thorough that UPF 50 truly is, but I didn't experience a sun burn any of the half-dozen times I wore this.

The biggest downside is the fit. The sleeves run a little long and the overall cut feels a bit roomy, though I also appreciated the extra airflow this created in the summer heat. It also doesn't have any pockets. REI does make a slightly cheaper sun shirt, the Sahara Shade Hoodie, for $60. But after testing both, I think the breezier feel and lighter fabric of the Flash is worth the extra $10.

Best for running: Janji Sunchaser 50 Hooded Long Sleeve

Runners like myself swear by Janji's elite workout clothes, and the Sunchaser 50 proves why. It's not only incredibly airy and lightweight (just 5.3 grams), but feels incredibly functional on a run. It comes with well-placed thumb holes and a window on the wrist so your running watch can peek through. Plus, the hood stays perfectly snug and secure while you move fast. The women's Sunchaser 50 even has a hole for a ponytail.

The fabric is UPF 50, lightweight, cling-free, soft to the skin, and super breathable. It also feels noticeably cool against your skin as you sweat; on hot late-morning runs, I could feel it quickly pulling sweat away from my body to create a subtle cooling effect.

There are a lot of sun shirts you can exercise in, but you need only spend one mile in the Janji Sunchaser to recognize its runner-focused design. You can also find a Sunchaser in a crewneck (Men's | Women's).

Best for hiking: Kühl Eclipser Hoody

Living in the Colorado mountains, I hike a lot in summertime. I was seriously impressed by how comfortable the Kühl Eclipser sun shirt felt during a six-mile, mostly-uphill trek. The UPF 50+ fabric is a polyester-nylon blend, infused with a cooling graphene yarn that helps dump body heat quickly and preserve it when it gets cold. Even as I sweat through most of my climb, the fabric wicked moisture well, the mesh panels kept air flowing, and the sun shirt dried quickly and never felt sticky against my skin. An added bonus: It resisted odor surprisingly well.

The fabric itself is incredibly soft without being overly silky, so my backpack straps stayed put instead of sliding around on my shoulders. Plus, this shirt is made with seamless construction so there wasn't any weird chafing under the pressure of my pack. The athletic fit of the shirt moves naturally with your body without feeling restrictive, and the hidden thumb loops are easy to use when you want a little extra protection over the backs of your hands. I also love that the lightweight construction packs down to almost nothing.

The Eclipser comes in hooded, crewneck, and short-sleeve versions. I'm normally a crew neck girlie, but I must admit Kühl nailed the hood design here — it comfortably shields your neck and ears from the sun, fits over a baseball cap without stretching out, and the women's version includes a ponytail opening that was genuinely useful on a long hike.

Best for golf: Solbari Short Sleeve Polo

Standing still on a golf course in direct sun for four or five hours — often during the strongest UV hours of the day — requires a special sun shirt. Besides protecting your skin and keeping you cool, it needs to allow for a free range of motion so you can take big swings. It also ought to look polished enough for lunch in the clubhouse afterward. Of all the golf polos my husband tested, the Solbari Short Sleeve Polo struck the best balance of certified UPF 50+ protection, performance, and luxe style.

Solbari is an Australian brand founded by a skin cancer survivor that specializes in sun-protective clothing. The bamboo-blend fabric of their polo feels incredibly soft against the skin while staying breathable, moisture-wicking, and naturally odor resistant through a full day outside. It also has just enough stretch to move comfortably through your swing without ever feeling restrictive, and the collar provides a little extra protection for the back of your neck compared to a standard T-shirt.

My only real complaint is the limited color selection, though it is nice that this polo comes in a long-sleeve version (Men's | Women's) if you want more coverage. For a solid UPF polo that's slightly cheaper, we really liked the Tasc Everywear Polo ($78), too.

How we tested sun shirts

To find the best sun shirts, I tested 42 different sun shirts over the course of spring and summer, wearing the contenders for hiking, running, golf, boating, river beach days, yard work, and everyday life in the Colorado mountains. Between my own testing and additional wear testing from my husband — who works outside as a landscaper all summer — we spent at least two hours in each shirt in direct sunlight, across a wide range of temperatures and activities.

Rather than relying on UPF ratings alone, I paid close attention to how each shirt actually performed when it was hot, sweaty, windy, or wet. In the end, the best sun shirt is the one you'll actually want to wear when the sun is beating down.

For every shirt, I evaluated:

• Sun protection: UPF rating, neck coverage, hood design, thumbholes, and overall body coverage
• Breathability: How well the fabric moved air, regulated heat, and stayed comfortable in hot weather
• Moisture management: How quickly each shirt wicked sweat, dried after getting wet, and resisted feeling sticky or clammy
• Comfort: Fabric feel against bare skin, stretch, freedom of movement, and whether seams or backpack straps caused irritation
• Fit: Overall cut, sleeve length, layering ability, and how the shirt performed during active movement
• Versatility: Whether the shirt worked for multiple activities like hiking, fishing, boating, travel, or everyday summer wear
• Packability: How easily each shirt packed into a backpack, beach bag, or carry-on
• Style: Whether I'd actually want to wear it beyond the trail or water, along with color selection and overall design

Because no single sun shirt is perfect for every activity, I also considered where each one excelled most. Some are purpose-built for runners, others shine on the water, while a few are versatile enough to become everyday summer staples.

What to look for in the best sun shirts

Type of sun protection: Any sun shirt worth its salt will have a UPF rating, measuring how effectively the fabric blocks UV rays. This is achieved either by how the fabric is constructed — a tighter weave will physically block UV rays from reaching your skin — or how the fabric is treated, namely with some kind of chemical. They’re both effective, but a treatment can gradually wash away over time, so for a sun shirt that’ll last season after season, look for shirts that highlight something like a "tight fabric construction" rather than mention of the fabric being treated with a UV-absorbing compound.

UPF rating: Danny Guo, MD, a double board-certified medical, surgical, and cosmetic dermatologist in Calgar, says the ideal UPF rating aligns with sunscreen best practices — UPF 30 should be the minimum a sun shirt offers, though UPF 50 is better.

Material: Sun shirts are usually made from some kind of synthetic performance material, like polyester or nylon, since these fibers are easier to manipulate into a tighter weave to block UV rays. This is also the ideal material for workout or technical apparel since it’s great at wicking moisture, drying quickly, and letting air flow through on hot days. Other good news: Sun shirt fabrics are usually sensitive-skin friendly and well-tolerated by people with eczema or contact allergens, says Dr. Thosani.

Weight and fit: Because most people are wearing sun shirts during hot summer months, look for lightweight and breathable material, as well as a loose fitting design, Dr. Guo recommends.

Brand reliability: The reason it’s smart to buy a sun shirt from a trusted brand: "Not all sun shirts are built the same and the standards for regulating UPF clothing is not as rigid as sunscreen so it depends on the maker," Dr. Guo points out. Stick with reputable outdoor clothing manufacturers like those on the list above. Bonus points if the shirt has the Seal of Recommendation from the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Coverage style: Naturally, having a hood, high neck, and long sleeve are the most ideal for the ultimate sun protection. But be realistic about what you need: Some people may prefer a loose crew neck or collared shirt combined with a UPF sun hat to cover the neck, or a short sleeve UPF shirt with regular application of sunscreen down the exposed arms and neck. A combination approach is always reasonable — as long as you’re protecting all your exposed skin, Dr. Thosani says.

Durability: If a shirt looks damaged or faded, consider getting a new one to ensure the UPF value is still good.

Meet the expert behind this guide

Rachael Schultz is a health, fitness, and outdoor journalist with more than a decade of experience testing technical apparel and gear, largely from her home base in the Colorado mountains. She has reviewed hundreds of products across categories including hiking boots, rain jackets, running gear, recovery footwear, camping equipment, and outdoor clothing, with a focus on separating real-world performance and frustrations from hyped marketing claims.

As an avid whitewater rafter, hiker, and runner around her home in sunny Colorado, Schultz has years of testing sun-protective clothing and delineating a good sun shirt from a mediocre option. For this guide, Schultz tested 42 sun shirts from leading outdoor and athletic brands, wearing them throughout the spring and summer while hiking, running, boating, and spending everyday life outdoors in the Colorado mountains. She also incorporated additional wear testing from her husband who works part-time as a landscaper and spends much of his free time on the river or outside.

FAQs on sun shirts

Do I need a sun shirt if I already put on sunscreen?

In general, UPF clothing plays the same role as sunscreen, so it depends where you've applied the SPF lotion. At the beach or pool, most of our skin is exposed and, ideally, already lathered with SPF, so you don't need to wear a sun shirt unless you want an added layer of protection, assuming you are reapplying sunscreen regularly and properly.

But in everyday life or during outdoor activities, most people only apply sunscreen on sun-exposed areas like the face, neck, hands, and arms, points out Dr. Guo. "Normal T-shirts have a UPF value of around 5 to 7 and that drops to 3 when the shirt gets wet from sweating, for example,” he says. This can create an “inverse burn” where you have more sun damage under their clothes than where they are exposed, he adds. Wearing UPF clothing will reduce the risk of this significantly.

Also, sun shirts are sometimes even more reliable than sunscreen due to sunscreen wearing off over time, skin getting wet, and inconsistent applications, Dr. Guo adds.

Can sun shirts really shield you from skin damage?

Yes, they absolutely work at protecting your skin, both experts agree. UPF fabrics have a tighter weave density which allows less light to penetrate through, and the fabric and fibers that are used to make it naturally block UV better, Dr. Thosani explains. Many UPF shirts have chemical UV absorbers that are bonded into the fabric as well.

However, not all sun shirts are built the same, Dr. Guo points out, and the standards for regulating UPF clothing are not as rigid as sunscreen so it depends on the manufacturer. Also, UPF clothing can also lose efficacy with wear and tear or washing over time, he adds.

When should I wear a sun shirt?

Sunshirts are great any time you're going outside for a short stint and don't want to fully lather your body in SPF, like walking the dog or chatting with your neighbor (although you should put sunscreen on any exposed skin not covered by the shirt).

It's also smart to wear a sunshirt any time you're going to be outside for a long period and aren't likely to reapply SPF cream, like a game of golf or taking a nap by the pool, our experts adds. Also, people who sunburn easily or often forget to reapply sunscreen should consider wearing UPF clothing most any time they're outside, he adds.

When does a sun shirt stop being effective?

UPF fabrics are generally well made, long lasting, breathable, comfortable, and reusable, but they "expire" when they’ve become worn, stretched, or have holes, Dr. Thosani says. The UPF protection comes from a garment’s tight weave and, potentially, any additional UV-absorbing treatment that’s been added to it. That means when wear-and-tear compromises the integrity of the fibers, it’s time to replace your sun shirt.

• I always envisioned caring for my parents as they aged.
• However, I've lived with multiple sclerosis for two decades, which makes things more difficult.
• My mom recently had surgery, which threw this reality into sharp relief.

"I'll try to meet you there," I told my mother a few months ago, one evening before bed. "I'm not feeling great, but I'll do my best," I confirmed before hanging up the phone. The next morning, my 71-year-old mother had surgery to lift her bladder. My 74-year-old father is a stage 4 tongue cancer survivor now dealing with the overwhelming downstream effects of radiation — and I live with multiple sclerosis (MS) — so usually my otherwise healthy mother plays the caregiver role.

She was present at most of my appointments during the 13 years I searched for a diagnosis through early adulthood. She attends every medical visit with my father and often takes me for my immunosuppressive infusion. She was beside me for the birth of my older son in 2011 and later cared for him when my younger son was born in 2014. Lying in the hospital bed that Monday morning, she threw our normal family narrative off kilter.

I'd never seen my mom that vulnerable before

I walked into her hospital room just as she arrived post-recovery, the anesthesia still swirling through her system. "Can you fill this out for me?" she asked, handing me the cafeteria menu for her overnight stay. "I can't read right now," she continued, her words ever so slightly slurred. In that moment, it occurred to me that I'd never seen her like this: vulnerable and dependent.

"Pasta alfredo with chicken or mac and cheese for dinner?" I asked, chuckling, knowing a discussion of the absurdity of a hospital offering only pasta options would ensue. "I'll write-in chicken breast with vegetables and rice," I suggested, handing her the cranberry juice that had been left just beyond her reach. She asked me to plug in her cellphone charger before reading the remaining menu options. As I moved around the room with purpose, my legs jittered, and my hands shook.

I've been living with MS for two decades, and it always flares at the worst possible times; stress makes it worse. As I struggled to stand, I realized this disease that had affected my personal functioning and my ability to parent for decades was now impeding my capacity to care for my mother, something I'd always imagined I'd do without limits.

I've always pictured myself caring for my parents as they get older

When I was younger, my paternal grandfather stayed at our home while recovering from surgery. I'd arrive home from school to find him resting in his favorite recliner. My maternal great-grandmother came to live with my grandmom during her final months. I remember watching my grandmother bring a turkey and cheese sandwich to her bedside, tending to her just as I imagine my great-grandmother had done for my grandmom when she was sick as a child. I still recall that scene vividly.

Now, tables have turned, and my mother takes my 94-year-old grandmother to run errands weekly and to doctor's visits as they arise. She's been back and forth to the hospital with her as she struggles with lymphedema and infections in her legs.

And one day I, too, will find myself in the caregiver role. Just as I stayed home with my babies, not wanting someone else to raise them, I've always aspired to personally care for my parents when the time came, especially after my grandfather, who was living with Alzheimer's, was involved in an incident at his nursing home that still haunts me and my family 10 years later.

My father is living with severe dysphagia (i.e., swallowing disability), a voice disorder, blood pressure lability, and a smattering of other issues secondary to radiation to the head and neck two decades ago. He now uses a feeding tube, and his voice is permanently hoarse and extremely difficult to understand. "Will you be my voice?" he texted me the day before my parents' 50^th anniversary celebration last November. "I'd like you to read this for me," he said, of a toast he'd written for my mother.

The day following my mother's surgery, I checked him into the visitor's center at the hospital where he'd struggled to be understood the day before. Watching him flounder rattles me, but knowing I can alleviate some of his struggle is reassuring. I was glad I was there beside him to walk the halls to her room that morning because blood pressure instability has left him lightheaded and in need of a seat often. My strong and capable father, who once fixed broken knickknacks, remedied car troubles, and built a kitchen closet from scratch, now relies on me in ways I never imagined he would.

My diagnosis has made my vision for the future feel more difficult

Slowly, the time of need I've envisioned since childhood is creeping toward me, but I'm not the strong adult of my youthful imagination. I'm realizing I can't be the boundless caregiver I always thought I'd be. I can't drive endless miles with a foot that often struggles to hold the pedal. I can't walk the perimeter of a hospital and back again with legs that weaken from simply existing. And last-minute visits to the store aren't as simple for someone living with chronic weakness and fatigue.

Despite my father's medical battles, he continues to work full time as a civil engineer and president of his firm because he maintains the vivacious spirit I've never known him without. My mother has fully recovered from her procedure and continues to be the caregiver I've always known her to be. They don't need me just yet, but watching her in the hospital and moving slowly against pain in the following weeks at home gave me a glimpse of how they may need me one day soon — and the reality of my own limitations.

As a child, I promised myself I'd care for them just as they always did for me. My caregiving won't be perfect, but I'm going to give them everything my body will allow; my voice, a turkey and cheese sandwich, and all.

• I take my kids on staycations a couple of times a year as a surprise.
• I book hotels within two hours of home, and we only stay one or two nights.
• We all have fun, and I often return home more refreshed than when we go on longer vacations.

I am fortunate to be able to travel with my children often. However, sometimes the travel bug bites, but I don't have the time, energy, or budget for a true vacation. When that happens, I plan a staycation close to our home in Washington, DC. Although staycations admittedly don't have the same thrill as a full-fledged international trip, they can still be a lot of fun.

Discovering new things together, away from the demands and routine of daily life, is how my family and I have made some of our best memories. I discovered that booking a hotel a few blocks away from home can be almost as memorable as a trip halfway around the world — if I plan correctly.

The only downside of staycations is that my children now want to take them all the time. Though it's not feasible to take one every month, I usually plan a staycation a couple of times a year as a surprise.

I keep the logistics simple and switch to vacation mode

There are no hard-and-fast rules for staycations, but I try to stick to hotels within two hours of home. We usually go away for one or two nights, although I often wish I had planned to stay longer. Sometimes, I plan in advance, and other times I scroll to see if I can find a good last-minute deal if we happen to have a rare weekend without any obligations.

To make the most of our staycations, I always ask for early check-in and late check-out. Even if that's not possible, the hotel will usually store my luggage and give us access to hotel amenities like the pool for the entire day we check in or out, which can make our time away feel much longer.

I also don't wait for a time that works for my entire family. While I love having my family of six together, that's not always possible because of school, work, and sports schedules. At times, I may bring one or two of my four kids on a staycation, because if I waited for everyone's schedules to align, I might find myself waiting forever.

During staycations, I switch to vacation mode, even if we are within a few minutes of home. I allow my kids to order soda and dessert, rare treats during our everyday lives. We often stay up late, playing UNO or Clue, games my kids love, but we somehow can't manage to fit in during the business of everyday life.

I always pick a hotel that has a pool

My family's first staycation started with my son's request to go swimming on his birthday. Swimming was the only present he asked for, but since he was born in the depths of winter, it wasn't easy to make it happen. My solution was to book a nearby hotel with an indoor pool for a night.

My entire family had so much fun that now, I will only book hotels with pools when we take a staycation. However, after we once checked into a hotel and discovered the pool was closed for renovations, I now call to verify the pool will be open before booking.

I book staycations at hotels with on-site activities or easy access to activities

Since staycations are short, time is at a premium. Some of my family's favorite staycations have been at nearby resorts with on-site activities. Nearby Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center often hosts events, so we don't have to leave the premises at all. Another favorite staycation destination, Great Wolf Lodge, has a huge waterpark and nightly dance parties that my kids love almost as much as the Caribbean resorts we have visited.

When we stay somewhere without a ton of on-site activities, I try to at least book near places we want to go during our staycation. I also include at least one special activity that my kids have been asking to do. One particularly memorable staycation was at the historic Watergate, not far from Georgetown's waterfront and museums on the National Mall, which kept us busy. A couple of times, ice skating was the highlight of our staycation. Once, it was a kid-friendly interactive exhibit at a local museum.

In some ways, staycations are even better than vacations

These staycations actually have significant benefits over faraway vacations, beyond cost and shorter duration. They are easier to plan because I am already familiar with the area, I know how to get around, and I don't need to research things to do or where to eat.

Additionally, after I return from a staycation, I truly feel relaxed and refreshed even if I have only been away for a night or two. When I take trips that last a week or more, I often feel depleted from constantly being on the go, so it's a nice change. And unlike longer vacations farther from home, I don't have a mountain of laundry to do and piles of mail to sort through once the staycation is over.

I still enjoy taking vacations whenever I can, but I also treasure the time my family spends together during staycations

• Christina Jones was laid off from United healthcare in 2025 after 15 years at the company
• Jones struggled to find a job until she accepted a role outside of her scope with a 60% pay cut.
• She is budgeting and downsizing while continuing to search for opportunities in her desired field.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Christina Jones, a 57-year-old in Philadelphia. It's been edited for length and clarity.

Although I didn't expect to be laid off from my business analyst role at United Healthcare last year, after 15 years at the company, I wasn't shocked. Layoffs are the nature of the beast in the corporate world. What shocked me more was how long it took me to find another job.

I went through interview after interview throughout the next year, and nothing came of it. I truly believe it was because I was applying at 56. It wasn't until I took a job outside my desired scope and with a 60% pay cut that I got rehired.

My husband and I have had to make major lifestyle changes, and we're even selling our house. I'm scared about what the future will hold, but the biggest thing I feel is anger. I won't give up on finding another job in healthcare IT. It's my passion, and I want to continue doing what I enjoy.

I took a pay cut, but I'm still fighting to get back into the role I want

I can't prove that my age is working against me in the job hunt. It's a feeling. It seems like whenever a potential employer finds out my birthday, they don't call me back, or the rejection email comes in.

In October of 2025, my mom ended up in the hospital, and I was talking to the nurses there about my job experience hunting. They encouraged me to apply to work there, and although I wanted to stay in IT, I applied anyway and got the job as a patient safety associate.

Unfortunately, it was at a very reduced rate from my last job, but I took it anyway. I'm still employed at the hospital, but I haven't stopped trying to get back into IT.

We've had to make major lifestyle changes

Because of my career change, my husband and I are having to move out of our home. There have been a lot of moments of doubt and worry about how we're going to get through this time.

We don't use any of the amenities that we used to. We used to go out to eat a lot, but now we're cooking at home more. The upside is that I've learned to cook. We also canceled our annual tickets to Longwood Gardens, and we don't really have the funds to do fun things. Fortunately, our youngest child just turned 18, so we no longer have to financially support them like we used to.

The biggest thing I feel is anger

To come across jobs that are perfect for me and fit exactly what I've done throughout my career, only to get rejected before a phone interview, is so frustrating. The past year has had a lot of crying out of frustration because I know I'm capable of doing a great job, but nobody's giving me the opportunity.

I don't know what the future will hold, so I've been putting more energy into my happy place — my husband and my entertainment company.

It's a side business we've had since 2018, and in the past year, we've focused on getting more clients. It doesn't replace my old salary, but it's something of our own, and we get to bring joy to other people through our content.

Many older people simply want to continue doing what they love

I wish hiring managers knew that many older people just want the chance to keep doing what they're doing and pass along their experience to the younger generation.

My advice to other 50-somethings is if you can't get back into your career, find something else that brings joy to others in the meantime. Through my entertainment company, I've found that bringing happiness to others makes life better.

Don't give up. If you stay positive and focused on your next step, each day will be better. Even though we're in our 50s, we're not done yet.

Do you have a story to share about navigating a career change in your 50s? If so, please reach out to the reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.

• L.L.Bean is widely known for its Boat and Tote bags that can be embroidered with names or initials.
• Now, women are taking the canvas bags to work — and they're opting not to include their names.
• Instead, they're choosing phrases that nod to their jobs, like "Sue me!" and "Circle Back."

Morgan Blunt doesn't actually want anyone to sue her.

If you were to run into the 25-year-old, though, you'd likely notice that she carries a canvas tote bag with the phrase "Sue me!" embroidered across it.

"I graduated from Villanova law school about a month ago, I'm currently studying for the bar exam, and in September, I'll be working for a midsize firm in civil litigation," Blunt told Business Insider.

Her bag is a playful nod to her profession — and an example of a larger trend among women in the workforce.

Across industries, women are carrying L.L.Bean's famed Boat and Totes as work bags, and embroidering playful, job-related phrases in place of their initials.

A classic style with a twist

Blunt grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where Boat and Tote bags were part of the city's unofficial preppy uniform. She had one herself as a child.

Then she moved to Pennsylvania as an adult and ditched the classic bag for a trendy Longchamp, which became a school status symbol around 2024.

Six months ago, though, she wanted a change and looked back to her roots. A Boat and Tote seemed like a fun, practical option she could use to carry "pretty much everything" — school supplies, yoga gear, and more — with a personal touch.

"I wanted a bag that represents me, my past, and who I'm going to be," Blunt said.

The L.L.Bean bags range in price from $32.95 to $69.95, with embroidery available for an extra $10 per item.

Priscilla Angier, 29, had a different experience.

The special-education teacher from Southern California first saw Boat and Tote bags on Pinterest three years ago and bought one to store her dog's supplies in. She embroidered it with his name, Junie.

Angier loved it so much that, when she needed a bag to carry her lunch, teacher supplies, and other work necessities this year, she returned to the L.L.Bean tote. She opted to embroider the phrase "hands full" as both a nod to her work as a teacher and her tendency to literally balance numerous things in her hands at once.

"Other teachers are always telling me they need to get ones for themselves," she told Business Insider.

And the trend isn't limited to law and education.

On TikTok, women working in nursing, engineering, hairstyling, dentistry, culinary arts, and more have shared the L.L.Bean totes they've customized to highlight their jobs.

Some have also opted for more general work and office terms, like "circle back," "corp girl," and "I'm the ROI," or return on investment.

In an email to Business Insider, an L.L.Bean representative said demand for its Boat and Totes has grown year after year, rising 50% year to date.

This spring also saw three of the brand's highest-demand months for Boat and Tote sales, the rep said. They added that more than 80% of Boat and Tote orders include embroidery.

"Personalization has always been a fundamental appeal of Boat and Totes along with style, utility, and durability," Alex Intraversato, chief merchandising officer at L.L.Bean, said. "The ability to make it uniquely yours through charms, key chains, patches, scarves, and of course, embroidery, gives the customer ownership of a Made-in-Maine icon."

L.L.Bean has got it in the bag

Though there are countless work bags on the market, L.L.Bean has quickly built a cult following that swears its bags are better than the rest.

Some shoppers, including Blunt and Angier, find Boat and Tote bags timeless, thanks to the simple shape, neutral canvas, and thick stitching. Both women and other fans also note that they're extremely durable.

"You can carry them for years and years, and they still keep their shape and structure," Angier said. "It's almost like the more you wear it, the better it gets."

Maybe most important, though, is that two of the totes are rarely the same.

You can choose the bag's size, the length of its handles (the longer the better for work, fans say), the style of its top, its color accents, and its embroidery.

That's an especially big draw now. Personalization is in.

Monograms are a status symbol in men's fashion, Gen Z is obsessed with bag charms, and your water bottle of choice has become a personality statement.

So customized work bags fit right into the mix.

"I want someone to look at me and know what my job is," Blunt said. "Maybe that's a little pretentious, but I've worked really hard for this, and I want to be recognized for that before opening my mouth. My bag is a conversation starter."

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

Should you invest in Trump Accounts?

It's a question that's had some of my group chats buzzing since the investment program for children launched earlier this month.

Some are hesitant, unsure of the program's future after Trump's term concludes. For me, the underlying concept of Trump Accounts is what I find so appealing.

The idea of giving children a financial stake in their future from birth is enticing. Plus, it's a way for parents and educators to teach basic financial literacy concepts early in life.

As a primer, Trump Accounts are tax-deferred investment accounts for US children under 18. Families can contribute up to $5,000 each year. The accounts will function like traditional IRAs once kids reach adulthood, the White House says.

The biggest perk: Those born between 2025 and 2028 are eligible to receive a one-time $1,000 deposit from the Treasury Department. Outside donors, including employers and philanthropies, may contribute too. Billionaire Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, as well as SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell, are among those who have donated to the program, drawing strong praise from Trump.

The White House said Americans have invested nearly $125 million in Trump Accounts in the first five days since they launched.

My colleague Mia de Graaf opted into Trump Accounts for her newborn. "I'm glad I opened the account, not because I think it will magically secure my daughter's financial future, but because becoming a parent has thrown my vibes-based accounting into sharp relief," she said, adding that she couldn't turn down free money while paying NYC daycare prices.

As for me, my two kids are nearly 8 and 3, so they won't qualify for the free $1,000. Even so, I plan to open a Trump Account for each of them while continuing to prioritize their 529 college savings plans.

If nothing else, this is another opportunity to teach them about investing early and how even small amounts of money can grow over time.

Are you investing in Trump Accounts for your children? Why or why not? Let me know at srussolillo@businessinsider.com.

• Moving to San Francisco from LA was life-changing for Erika Lee, a journalist.
• She said San Francisco, where products and ideas are currency, had a different value system to LA.
• Lee feels she's getting an insider's view of how AI is transforming the world.

I moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco because of a cold DM on X.

I grew up in the LA suburbs, and after attending college there I built my career in journalism across the country, first covering local news, and then crypto. I liked my comfortable life with friends and family.

Then in February, the chief of staff at Corgi, the AI insurance startup that recently went viral for its seven-day workweek, messaged me on X to ask if I would be interested in a role. I'd never heard of Corgi, but I'd seen a lot of people in crypto pivot to the AI industry and wanted to check it out.

A week later, I flew to San Francisco to visit the team, and in March, I joined them as their Head of Brand. My entire life changed in an instant.

Moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco felt like stepping into a completely different value system

In San Francisco, there's a strong sense that AI is transforming the city and a level of intensity that I don't think people outside the Bay Area fully appreciate. Everyone here believes they're early to something massive.

Everyday, I meet people who've moved across state and city lines to work at startups in San Francisco. Like me, they're willing to make extraordinary sacrifices for the possibility of being part of the next OpenAI or Anthropic.

In LA, one of the first questions people would ask me at events was, "What's your Instagram?" Conversations often orbited around who you knew, what parties you were invited to, and how well you've curated yourself online.

In San Francisco, online curation still matters, but in a different way. People ask for your LinkedIn or X account. Or sometimes they skip social media entirely and ask, "What are you building?" Nobody seems particularly interested in whether you're fashionable, attractive, or influential online. The currency is ideas, fundraising, and products.

Neither city is better; they optimize for different things. For now, I'm happy to be working with my head down in San Francisco, where I'm more productive and motivated than I was in LA.

My journalism background was more valuable than I expected

Coming from journalism, I assumed I'd be the least technical person in almost every room.

When you think of Silicon Valley, you think of engineers and founders who've raised millions of dollars. Conversations move quickly from product roadmaps to fundraising. At times, I wondered whether someone with an entirely different skillset really belonged in this environment.

Over time, I realized I was wrong. In the age of AI, companies compete on narrative, taste, and making people care. Storytelling is becoming infrastructure. OpenAI has highlighted the enormous opportunity for new forms of creative and narrative work emerging alongside AI, while hiring roles dedicated specifically to shaping the stories that help executives and customers understand the technology.

Rippling is hiring a Head of Storytelling to build its editorial voice and point of view, and Notion now has an entire Storytelling function within the company. In a world where everyone has access to the same models, the advantage increasingly belongs to the people who can synthesize ideas, understand culture, create meaning, and tell compelling stories. The humanities aren't becoming less valuable in the AI era, they may be becoming more valuable than they have been in decades.

Since journalists can identify what matters in a sea of information and explain complicated topics clearly, my experience is incredibly useful for writing, editing, and shaping content about Corgi's brand.

Changing industries doesn't always mean leaving behind the skills you love most. Sometimes, it means finding a new way to use them.

I'm glad I moved despite the emotional trade-offs

I still miss many things about Los Angeles, like being close to my family, familiar neighborhoods, and the comfort of a city where I always knew the best spots to meet friends for coffee. LA shaped who I am, and I don't think anywhere will ever replace it.

But moving to San Francisco has stretched me in ways staying comfortable never could have. I didn't just change address, I moved into an entirely different world. I'm surrounded by people who genuinely believe they're living through one of the most consequential technological shifts of our generation.

Whether history proves them right remains to be seen, but as a journalist used to documenting periods of change from the outside, I'm glad I'm experiencing this defining moment where the action is happening.

Like many others, I'm willing to uproot my life to be part of this once-in-a-lifetime shift. Even with the uncertainty, long hours, and emotional trade-offs that came with leaving my life in Los Angeles behind, I'm grateful I said yes to that cold message on X.

• Tech layoffs are a recurring feature of the AI era.
• Companies are cutting jobs while continuing to hire for certain roles, especially around AI.
• Layoffs aren't usually because firms are entirely replacing workers with AI, said one tech leader.

Microsoft's latest round of layoffs has become a familiar corporate ritual.

Last week, the software giant said it would eliminate about 4,800 jobs, marking another workforce reduction, as it remains profitable and invests heavily in AI.

Similar layoffs, from Amazon to Meta, have rippled across tech over the past several years, while many of those same companies amass big AI budgets.

In May, Cloudflare eliminated more than 20% of its workforce. CEO Matthew Prince, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed following the layoffs, said the firm hadn't seen another US public company cut as deeply while growing by more than 30%.

"Yet what we did is likely going to become the norm over the next year," Prince said.

It appears other companies got the memo. In May, Cisco reported record revenue for its fiscal third quarter and said it would cut nearly 5% of its workforce. In announcing the reductions, CEO Chuck Robbins said the firms that will win in the AI era are those with the discipline to "continuously shift investment" toward areas with the greatest long-term potential.

Rather than waiting for certainty, many firms are making waves of job cuts as they figure out how AI will reshape their businesses.

For employees, looming cutbacks are becoming less a recession-era concern and more a regular feature of working in tech.

'Continuous tuning'

Companies are talking about cuts more often, especially in the name of technological advancement. Mentions of layoffs alongside AI on corporate conference calls have climbed from fewer than five per quarter in 2022, when ChatGPT launched, to more than 100 per quarter this year, according to an AlphaSense analysis of calls across industries.

Microsoft said its latest cuts aren't related to AI. Amazon has likewise said AI hasn't been the reason for the vast majority of its cuts over the past two years.

A Meta spokesperson referred to a statement the company issued about its May layoffs, in which it said changes varied by team and included moving thousands of workers to other priorities.

Some firms in the information sector — which includes tech and media — are cutting back after high levels of pandemic-era hiring. And, because AI can help automate some work, a certain amount of restructuring can help companies operate more efficiently. Those savings can, in turn, go toward costly AI investments.

While some firms have made deep cuts as they try to chart a path forward, companies aren't likely to announce sweeping layoffs unless they face an obstacle such as serious financial trouble, said Joseph Fuller, a Harvard Business School professor.

Overall, Fuller expects many companies to make smaller, recurring adjustments — what he calls "continuous tuning."

One reason, he said, is that companies have spent roughly the last quarter-century relentlessly cutting costs, leaving relatively little fat left to trim.

Another is uncertainty. Companies don't yet know how AI will play out, and for all the talk of companies mustering agents to take on loads of employees' work, not much has changed, he said, because many tools are still in development.

At the same time, CEOs' worries about rivals are also feeding a need to "constantly reevaluate," Fuller said. "If they keep just doing incremental things, and they've got a key competitor that goes all-in, they can wake up one morning and be down 21-nothing before kickoff," he said.

That competitive pressure is pushing executives to make workforce decisions. "This uncertainty, I think, will tend to skew to layoffs," Fuller said.

Finding rare AI talent

In many cases, the layoffs aren't because employers are entirely replacing workers with AI, said Carrol Chang, CEO of Andela, which connects AI engineering talent to companies. Instead, she said, many boards are increasingly pressuring management teams to demonstrate AI-driven productivity gains without dramatically increasing spending on, for example, tokens.

Yet few big firms have reached the point where AI allows them to operate with a substantially smaller workforce, she said.

Instead of assuming AI can immediately replace workers, Chang said companies would often be better served by helping existing employees learn how to use the technology effectively. In part, she said, that's because it's hard for companies to hire the talent they want.

"Truly AI native and AI-fluent workers are incredibly scarce, and when you can find them, they're incredibly expensive," she said.

Regardless of the cause, workers are feeling the impact of looming pink slips. After leaks prompted Meta to announce in April that it would lay off workers about a month later, one worker described the interim period as "28 days of hell."

Moyan Chen, a data scientist who was laid off from Meta as part of its May cuts, previously told Business Insider that when the layoff she'd been fretting over finally came, "It was more like relief than pain."

The cost of perpetual cuts

Smaller teams can reduce inefficiencies and layers of middle management. However, some companies are realizing they've gone too far and have had to rehire for roles they eliminated, hoping AI could do the work.

Repeatedly laying off workers and hiring replacements can be an expensive cycle, given the costs of severance, recruiting, training, and extra contractors, said Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

If recurring layoffs remain a management strategy rather than a recession tactic, companies could be underestimating what they're giving up, he said.

Pfeffer said repeated rounds of layoffs create lasting uncertainty inside organizations, encouraging top performers to leave while weakening the relationships and institutional knowledge that make companies effective.

When a company rehires people, he said, "the coordination and communication is not going to be what it was if you had worked together for a while."

Harvard's Fuller said that as AI takes on more work, companies will need more, not fewer, people with a strong contextual understanding of company processes, markets, competitors, customers, suppliers, and industry regulations.

"You need to keep people who know what they're talking about," he said.

• Gig workers, from Uber drivers to delivery workers, say that tips are a big part of their earnings.
• One chauffeur in Florida said it's also true for his side hustle at a black car service.
• The job involves driving executives and pilots to and from airports, the driver said.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marcus Thompson, a chauffeur in Tampa, Florida. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider verified the earnings information.

I've been in the Tampa area for about eight years now. I moved down here to work in film.

But when jobs in that industry slowed to a crawl here around 2023, I turned back to a gig I was familiar with: chauffeur. I had done that work before in New York, so I was used to it.

For me, the job is mostly driving a luxury SUV or sedan and providing chauffeur service in professional black-tie attire. I work for a company that provides the cars and coordinates the rides, but I'm a gig worker.

My passengers are mostly executives going to or from the airport Friday through Sunday. The weekends are my busiest days. I pick up pilots who are moving between airports on weekdays, though.

I work as a chauffeur part-time and make about $10,000 a year from that. That's a lot less than I made in New York about 10 years ago, driving stretch limos. There, I would make between $1,000 and $2,000 on a weekend.

One reason for the difference is that customers tipped me directly at my old gig in New York. The hourly wage was low, but the company I worked for there said upfront that about 80% of what you made came from tips.

At my gig here in Florida, people tip the company when they book a ride. Occasionally, a rider will tip me in cash when we arrive at the destination. Most of the time, though, the company pays me around $40 an hour, and that's all I make. I don't get a breakdown showing how much of my pay came from tips and how much came from the company.

Recently, I got a new job with a different chauffeur service. I haven't started driving for them yet, but I'm optimistic that I will make more money overall because the owner used to be a driver and was adamant that chauffeurs there get all of their gratuities.

I think a lot of executives and others who take black-car services are under the impression that when they give a tip, it's going to their driver. That's not always the case. I wish more of them understood that.

My goal is to find a way to do this gig where my skill set is valued. As a driver, you have to deal with people from all walks of life.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• The Roosevelt Institute published a report that said ordinary Kalshi users have lost almost $600 million.
• The think tank said regular people are unknowingly up against pro traders and big firms.
• Kalshi told Business Insider that the study "rests on a methodological error."

A New York City-based think tank says regular people betting on the prediction market Kalshi have lost almost $600 million as they unknowingly go up against pro traders.

Kalshi on Friday hit back at claims made by the Roosevelt Institute, which recently published the first part of a study on how regular Kalshi users have fared since the prediction site was launched in 2018. According to study's co-author, Brad Lipton, retail traders have lost $583.5 million in that time.

Kalshi disputes the group's findings.

"There is no 'house' on Kalshi, hidden or otherwise," the company wrote in a response, referring to the title of the think tank's report, "The Hidden House: Prediction Markets and How They're Shaping Society."

"Kalshi works by matching orders together, like all financial exchanges do. The implication that there could be a 'house' on a prediction market demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the operation of financial exchanges."

It's response goes on to say that the study "falsely insinuates that a skill gap among users is equivalent to a fundamental difference in market structure."

Kalshi has hit back at similar claims before in an attempt to differentiate prediction markets from traditional gambling. But Lipton, who serves as the Roosevelt Institute's director of corporate power and financial regulation, says that regular traders are at a disadvantage without knowing who's on the other side of their bets.

The think tank's report claims that everyday users are often up against "professional traders using sophisticated methods."

Prediction markets have come under fire for insider trading and manipulation recently. Meanwhile, researchers have found that on Kalshi rival Polymarket, "informed" traders with unfair advantages have made $143 million in "anomalous" profits since 2024.

Kalshi has emphasized that it is taking steps to ban insider activity, though Lipton says he is not convinced that the playing field is even.

"It isn't clear how well those rules are really being enforced," he told Business Insider. "But there's very little in terms of transparency about who you're betting against. They are affirmatively making these marketing claims that there's no house, and that, to me, is misleading."

The group's report largely aligns with an investigation by The Wall Street Journal in May that found the vast majority of users on both Kalshi and Polymarket lose money, and that most of the profits that are paid out go to an extremely small number of accounts.

Kalshi maintains, though, that the conclusion of the Roosevelt Institute's study is the result of a miscalculation, one that compromises its claim that retail traders on the platform have lost almost almost $600 million.

A Kalshi spokesperson told Business Insider that it "rests on a methodological error that counts high-frequency trades from institutional market makers as activity from 'ordinary users,' and counts ordinary trades from casual users on the app as 'professional users.'"

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jason Kidd, the chief operating officer at Chipotle, based in Newport Beach, California. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I'm the COO at Chipotle — and this is my dream job.

I love the ability to influence and interact with so many people. I spent about 20 years in retail before I got into the restaurant business, and I see a lot of similarities between the two. I don't know what I'd be doing if I weren't out there on the front line, shoulder to shoulder, seeing what's happening. That's the best part of the role.

I'm on the road about two to three days a week, and I visit roughly a dozen stores in each market. About three out of every four visits are planned, meaning I let the leadership team know one to two weeks in advance.

Chipotle wants to deliver a consistent experience for our guests. As leaders, we try to be consistent with our visits. We talk about the food, we talk about people, we talk about the results. It's important for our leadership, too. I'm consistent in how I show up and what we do.

I travel two to three days a week

I would rather fly in the morning, and I like to go through TSA about 30 minutes before we board. I get to the airport at the very last minute. It's important to pack as much patience as possible when traveling. Nothing goes to plan, and you have to make the most of it.

I'm usually back from traveling on most weekends and on Mondays and Fridays.

I give my family a lot of credit, especially my wife. We've been together for 27 years. I wouldn't be nearly as successful if it weren't for her. We plan family vacations in advance and are very careful about taking them a couple of times a year. When I'm home, I'm present and intentional.

I wake up before 6 a.m. and exercise

Taking care of myself is important. I usually work out between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. I do strength exercise two days a week and cardio three days a week. I try to stay active, break a sweat, get the blood flowing. Travel is a huge part of the job, so I have to stay healthy.

While I'm working out, I listen to the Wall Street Journal's "What's News" podcast. It sets a good perspective on what's going on for the day, and I may read some articles that interest me. Then I'll go back and reference those later on in the morning.

I have a post-workout coffee and a small breakfast

After my workout, I have a black coffee with a splash of cream and a small protein-based breakfast. I'm going to be eating Chipotle all day — I taste food at every restaurant, sampling guac, salsa, and proteins. So I make sure my breakfast is fairly light.

One of the first things I review at that time is our sales report from the day before. That gives me a snapshot of trends, how the business is performing, and what might need my attention that day.

I visit the first restaurant before 9 a.m.

I like to get into a restaurant before 9 a.m. because I start the day while they're doing prep. I stay through opening at 10:45 a.m..

Every Chipotle restaurant prepares fresh food every day. They're hand-smashing guacamole. There's no can openers, no shortcuts.

It allows me to really see how the team is doing. The foundation for making a great day is making sure the prep goes well in the back of the house, shoulder to shoulder, tasting the food, observing preparation, and spending time with the team.

We go over KPIs for that specific restaurant and for the region or local area. We really interact with the people to make sure that they're genuinely interested in what they're doing.

Consistency is a priority

KPIs are important, but showing consistency is, too.

In the first couple of hours in the restaurant, I love listening and observing what's working, what's not, and where teams need support.

I look for two key things at restaurants: Food and people. Is the food right? Are the people right? When I say people, I'm referring to our team members, our restaurant managers, and our guests.

Last year, we promoted 23,000 people, so we're constantly identifying internal talent during these visits. We observe how people show up and how they react.

I head to the next location for lunch at 11 a.m.

Right after opening, I go to the next restaurant for a couple of hours.

My go-to order is a bowl with brown rice, black beans, chicken, and carnitas, hot salsa, tomato salsa, a little bit of sour cream, some guacamole, and a little bit of lettuce on top. I eat it almost every day, and I never get tired of it.

I stand in line with guests and interact with them. I buy lunch for the people around me, tell them who I am, and talk to them about how often they come to Chipotle, what they order, what they like about it, and what we can do better.

After lunch, we head to the back of the house and do a consistency check. We ask about the food, how prep went that morning, how KPIs are doing and trending, and what they need help with.

I go to another location around 1 p.m.

Employees are typically super nervous because they want to put their best foot forward and show off what they can do. I try to put them at ease as soon as possible. When somebody says they're nervous, my favorite response is, "I am, too. Let's get through this."

I try to diffuse the nerves because the last thing I want to do is take away from their ability to do their job. I try to make it as informal as possible.

I spend about an hour driving around

I'm also responsible for development and real estate. While we're traveling, I like to take the team to visit potential sites and look at new restaurants. I try to understand the market and get a feel for it.

Our long-term goal is to reach over 7,000 restaurants in the US and Canada. A big part of that is understanding the market and what's going on.

I catch up on calls and emails around 4:30 p.m.

I spend the late afternoon connecting with direct reports, cross-functional partners, or peers. I also take time to recap the day with the team and determine whether any immediate action needs to be taken.

I connect with my family around 6 p.m.

My family is incredibly important to me, and when I'm on the road, I try to stay connected. I call my wife around 6 p.m. and try to reach my college-aged kids. They're sometimes hard to pin down, but I'll try to reach out or trade texts.

I have dinner with the regional team

If I'm on the road, I often have a roughly 90-minute dinner with three or four people from the regional team. Those conversations are important for getting to know people in a different way. Everybody has a story. I try to figure out what they want to do and whether they have aspirations to move up.

I end my night watching sports

I'm an avid sports fan, so if there's something on, I'll try to catch the end of a game before getting back to the hotel. I may read something before going to sleep around 11 p.m. Then, I do it all over the next day.

Family, friends, and time to myself help me recharge

I try to interact with friends who don't care about what I'm doing at work. Talking to other people about what's going on in their lives re-energizes me. Exercise also helps. I like to play golf and travel, and I like to do those things on a daily basis.

If I can sit down and watch 30 minutes of sports by myself, it also recharges me. When I'm running low, I need a little time to myself — and if I take that time, I'm recharged and ready to go.