• Kioxia shares plunged as much as 17% after its earnings outlook disappointed investors.
• The Japanese chipmaker was an AI stock-market darling, with shares surging over 750% in the first half.
• The selloff highlights a widening divide in the AI trade, even as memory-chip demand remains strong.

The latest selloff in a high-flying chip stock shows just how demanding investors in the AI trade have become.

Shares of Japanese memory-chip maker Kioxia plunged as much as 17% on Monday after a disappointing earnings outlook, despite continued strong demand for chips used in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Kioxia was among the biggest stock-market winners of the AI infrastructure boom, with its shares surging more than 750% in the first half of the year as investors bet on rising demand for data-center storage.

Its September-quarter results were broadly in line with expectations, but its December-quarter revenue forecast and projected operating profit both missed consensus.

The company's forecast for essentially flat quarterly revenue and profit was "a massive miss," Bernstein analysts led by Mark Li wrote in an October 30 note.

Kioxia said its weaker outlook partly reflected delays in shipping data-center storage products, pushing some expected sales into the following quarter.

A greater share of lower-priced products for smartphones and PCs is also expected to weigh on average selling price growth.

Still, Kioxia expects memory supplies to remain tight in 2027, with its planned capacity for that year already sold out. Long-term agreements cover more than half its expected shipment volume in 2028.

The selloff weighed on Japanese stocks, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 falling as much as 1% on Monday before recovering after midday.

The declines followed a bruising week for US technology stocks, as investors scrutinized the enormous costs of AI development and how quickly companies can turn that spending into profits.

The selloff came despite a broader boom in memory chips, which helped South Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix report record quarterly profits last week.

SK Hynix offered greater visibility into future demand, with long-term customer agreements covering more than half its production capacity for 2027 and 2028. Its shares rallied following the earnings report.

• Michael Kane had long known he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in the US.
• Retirement in Thailand was fun until he ran out of ways to fill the day.
• Opening a café gave him the sense of purpose he had been missing.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michael Kane, 54, who moved to Koh Samui, Thailand, to retire. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I grew up in Orange County, Southern California, and started my career in restaurants before getting into software. Over the years, I worked in many different fields, from construction and real estate to sales and marketing.

I moved to Atlanta in 1990 and lived there for most of the next 30 years.

About a decade ago, a friend invited me to Thailand for a couple of weeks. I liked the place so much that I stayed for three months. After that, I began splitting my time between Thailand and the US.

My last business before leaving the US was a doggy day care outside Atlanta, which I started after struggling to find one nearby for my own dog. The pandemic hit just before it opened, but I was thankfully able to sell it. After that, I decided I was done with running businesses in the US.

For a long time, I knew I did not want to spend the rest of my life in the US. I had traveled internationally for much of my career, and I felt that spending the rest of my life appreciating other cultures, specifically Thai culture, seemed more appealing.

So, in 2020, I moved to Koh Samui, an island in Thailand, to retire. I bought a two-bedroom apartment in Mae Nam, in the northern area of the island, for $186,100.

I initially came on a five-year Thailand Elite visa, which has since been restructured into the Thailand Privilege visa.

When the Thai government announced the Long-Term Resident Wealthy Pensioners visa in 2022, I decided to switch to that instead, since it was valid for 10 years.

But I got bored with doing nothing

When I moved to Koh Samui, I was looking for a slower life.

I spent my first year and a half there doing what people imagine retirement on a Thai island looks like: going to the beach, getting massages, and enjoying the freedom of not having to work.

But there are only so many days you can spend at the beach and so many massages you can get. I started to get bored.

I don't play golf, I don't fish, I don't paint, and I don't write poetry.

My ex-girlfriend, a personal trainer, was making banana cakes in our kitchen and selling them around the island. I suggested renting a small space so we could put in ovens and turn it into a little business.

I also couldn't find good coffee on the island, and we thought it would go well with the cakes. I started researching it and got really immersed, which eventually led us to open Izzy’s Coffee. We named it after my dog.

It started as a small outdoor kiosk that cost about 100,000 Thai baht to build. We then spent another 400,000 Thai baht on equipment and furnishings.

Being on the Long-Term Resident visa allowed me to get a work permit. My current partner, Yam, and I now run the café together. I developed all our drinks.

About six months ago, we questioned why we were standing outside in the heat, rain, and noise. We decided to enclose the kiosk and turned it into a café.

I'm around every day, talking to people and making sure every customer has a perfect experience.

Thailand feels like home

Thailand is not the panacea people think it is. It can be expensive and challenging to live here legally. But I have built a life here, and I am pretty happy.

I have only been back to the US once in the six years I have lived here — it was for a funeral.

But moving to Thailand has not meant losing touch with the people I care about. Even after our divorce, my ex-wife and I have remained close. She and her new husband have visited me in Thailand, and her father, who is like a dad to me, has been here twice.

Even though my life here is slower, I'm not one to sit still. The café gives me a sense of purpose, but I don't know if I'll ever be fully satisfied with retirement.

I took what was basically a box on the side of the road and turned it into something people seek out. I don't want 20 locations or to franchise, but now that the café is on autopilot, I'm getting bored again.

I don't think I will ever stop looking for the next thing to build. I just don't know what that'll be yet.

• Binance said it tapped its coffers to replenish losses after hackers stole $6.3 billion in assets.
• The company said it would allow withdrawals to begin again on Sunday.
• The $6.3 billion heist was carried out by an elite North Korean group, analysts said.

Update, November 1, 2026: The FBI formally attributed the theft to North Korea's TraderTraitor group, saying the hackers are converting stolen assets primarily into Ethereum and urging crypto services to block transactions tied to listed addresses. Binance began restoring withdrawals in phases on November 1 and said it saw a net outflow of about $3.64 billion in under 10 hours.

Two days after analysts said North Korean hackers likely executed a brazen $6.3 billion crypto heist on the blockchain platform Binance, the company says it has replenished about $5.7 billion in the stolen assets.

In an update on Saturday morning, Binance said it tapped its corporate treasury to purchase billions of dollars in crypto from the market and private brokers.

"We've now replenished 90% of the stolen assets, and we're committed to covering the remaining 10%," Richard Teng, the company's co-CEO, said on X. "Our users will not bear the financial impact of this incident."

Binance already had an emergency fund of about $1 billion for situations like this, but the unprecedented scale of the attack rendered that piggy bank insufficient to cover the losses.

To remediate the heist, Binance also tapped into its Futures Insurance Fund, a regulatory requirement typically used to protect traders against losses suffered during extreme market conditions.

Binance said on Saturday that it plans to resume withdrawals on Sunday. Like a bank, Binance holds assets deposited by customers, who rely on the company to safeguard their funds and return them when requested.

On Thursday, around 4 p.m., Binance reported a security breach on its blockchain network that it initially said was made possible by a compromised employee laptop. The company later revised this assessment, saying the attack was broader in scope.

Some blockchain intelligence firms said the breach was likely the work of an elite North Korean hacker group called TraderTraitor, noting similarities to its previous attacks. In 2025, the FBI named the same group responsible for a $1.5 billion hack on Bybit, another crypto exchange.

Within minutes, the hackers had siphoned billions of dollars in cryptocurrency from Binance-controlled wallets. According to analysts, the hackers used automated scripts to rapidly transfer the money around in an apparent attempt to launder it.

Stablecoin issuers reacted quickly by freezing funds in traceable currencies, but the hackers still managed to convert about $786 million into comparably untraceable currencies, intelligence platform Elliptic said.

Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence platform, told Business Insider on Friday that the North Korean hackers are likely moving to offload their pilfered funds into the country's weapons program.

"When North Korea steals at this scale, the money supports weapons proliferation, and every dollar we freeze or trace is a dollar the regime loses," Redbord said in an email.

• Binance said it had found "additional points of breach" in the $6.3 billion crypto heist.
• Binance said it has begun recovering some assets in what appears to be the largest ever crypto heist.
• Two crypto tracing firms linked the attack to a North Korean hacking group.

Update, November 1, 2026: The FBI formally attributed the theft to North Korea's TraderTraitor group, saying the hackers are converting stolen assets primarily into Ethereum and urging crypto services to block transactions tied to listed addresses. Binance began restoring withdrawals in phases on November 1 and said it saw a net outflow of about $3.64 billion in under 10 hours.

Binance said it has begun recovering some of the $6.3 billion in assets stolen in what appears to be the largest-ever crypto heist.

The crypto exchange also said on Friday that it had "uncovered additional points of breach" in the hack. Binance initially said the incident may have stemmed from an engineer's compromised laptop, but said in an update that further investigation had found the "complex attack" went beyond that.

In a video posted to X on Friday, Richard Teng, the co-CEO of Binance, said the attacker employed a "self-destruct mechanism" to hide their tracks, making Binance's investigation more difficult.

A Binance spokesperson said that it is working with law enforcement to resolve the attack, and added the company would share a "detailed technical postmortem once the investigation is complete."

Major cryptocurrencies were trading lower following the hack, which caps a month full of other high-profile security incidents across the business world.

Here's what we know so far about the Binance hack.

What is happening with user funds?

The company said that user funds are "safe," and that it will cover all losses using its Secure Asset Fund for Users and company funds.

"Binance has begun recovering affected assets for users and continues to work with law enforcement, issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and industry partners to trace, freeze and recover additional funds," the company said in a Friday morning X post.

Binance added that it has reserved over $6.34 billion of company funds to cover the incident.

Customers can still make deposits as usual, and the company said in an earlier post on Friday that it expects to resume the withdrawal service within 45 hours.

Binance said it has worked with other blockchain partners to freeze around $3 billion in assets so far. All outflows of funds stopped when Binance paused its withdrawal service, the company said.

Who is behind the Binance hack?

Binance has not yet commented on who is responsible.

TRM, a crypto tracing firm, said in a blog post that it had "high confidence" that TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking unit, was responsible for the heist. Last year, the FBI found that the same group was behind the $1.5 billion attack on Bybit, a Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange.

Chainalysis also attributed the attack to TraderTraitor with a "high degree of confidence."

How did the hack unfold?

Binance initially reported the security breach on Thursday, saying that it "may involve a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop."

That laptop allowed the attacker to access Binance's systems and "submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions," the company said. It hasn't yet elaborated on the "additional points of breach."

The attacker withdrew most of the funds within about 20 minutes, TRM's analysis of public crypto wallets found.

Chainalysis said it saw unprecedented laundering patterns, with the attackers circulating funds between addresses rather than "simply moving funds onward."

"Thousands of transactions in a short period suggest that the attackers are using automation to obscure the trail of funds," Chainalysis said in a post on X.

How is the world reacting?

Major cryptocurrencies were trading lower around 8 am ET on Friday, with Bitcoin down about 3.2% and Ethereum down about 3.8%.

Crypto and tech figures also shared their reactions — some more sympathetic than others.

"Many industry friends and even competitors (including some previously-not-so-friendly ones) provided very much needed help," wrote Changpeng Zhao, Binance's cofounder and former CEO, in a Thursday X post, after saying earlier that the incident looked like a hack.

Elon Musk commented with fire and laughing-crying emojis on a Wednesday X post from Zhao sharing general cybersecurity advice.

"Elon, I have a lot of respect for you, but bad time to troll. Please stop," Zhao replied to one of Musk's other comments.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong urged people to help in whatever way they can, and said in an X post that "moments like this call for the industry to work together."

A bruising month of hacks

The Binance hack is one in a string of cyber incidents this month.

On Thursday, Polymarket temporarily paused trading after some users reported unauthorized withdrawals; it said trading had resumed by 3 pm ET. There is no evidence that the hacks are related.

The AI coding company Cursor said in a post on X on Friday that a security incident involving a "malicious version" of Claude Code had impacted up to 5,000 users. Cursor, which is owned by SpaceX, said it had worked to "neutralize the malware," and that users were no longer at risk.

Earlier this month, AI helped discover two "critical" flaws in PHP, a programming language that up to 70% of websites use. The event sparked concerns about a rise in cyberattacks in the AI era.

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• OpenAI wants to rebrand AI data centers using a new, more alliterative name.
• "Compute campuses" is their new-fangled term.
• An OpenAI spokesperson said it better represents the "role" of AI infrastructure.

OpenAI doesn't want to call them "data centers" anymore.

Instead, the ChatGPT maker plans to propose a new, more chic name for the behemoth factories that power your chatbot queries.

That new name is "compute campuses," an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider on Sunday.

"Compute campuses better describes the scale and role of the infrastructure we're building for AI," the spokesperson said. "These are long-term investments in computing, energy infrastructure and skilled work."

Though much has been said about the less-than-stellar reputations of AI data centers (a recent Pew Research poll found that 54% of Americans say AI data centers are bad for the environment), efforts to ameliorate that view have mostly failed. Data centers are now a major issue for voters in the midterms.

While major data center builders like Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft have pledged millions of dollars to the communities and schools surrounding their centers, OpenAI is betting that a complete rebrand will also help turn around public opinion.

"We want the communities hosting that infrastructure to help shape it and share in the opportunities it creates," the OpenAI spokesperson said.

Time will tell, however, if the "compute campus" lingo catches on.

Axios earlier reported that OpenAI was also preparing for a blue wave in Tuesday's midterm elections, which could result in a more regulatory-minded government.

• A private jet crashed in South Florida on Sunday.
• All nine people aboard were killed, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X.
• Their identities have not yet been released.

Nine people aboard a private jet were killed when it crashed and exploded in a fireball near Palm Beach Sunday afternoon.

The plane, a Learjet built in 2004 and registered as N722BD, had departed from Austin and was on its way to the Bahamas, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on X.

Duffy said the plane crashed in "a neighborhood near Cresthaven, FL," which is about 10 miles from Palm Beach.

"Please join me in praying for the families and loved ones of those we lost," he said.

The identities of those on board were not immediately available. Authorities also did not say what caused the crash. There were widespread thunderstorms in South Florida on Sunday afternoon.

Aviation weather data in the area at the time show heavy rainfall, low visibility, and moderate turbulence.

The crash occurred less than 10 miles from President Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort. The President left West Palm Beach around noon on Air Force One to attend a rally in Iowa, according to White House pool reports.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

• Elon Musk is expanding Colossus 2 in Tennessee.
• Musk said two additional facilities, Spam and Gun Range, will be operational before 2027.
• Last week, a judge rejected SpaceX's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the NAACP over Colossus 2.

Elon Musk isn't wasting any time building out his massive AI-computing facilities in Tennessee.

Musk said on X that he's expanding Colossus 2 with two additional sites, dubbed Spam and Gun Range. He said the Spam location used to house Hormel-brand products, Spam perhaps among them, and that the Gun Range location was once owned by the local police department.

"I walked the whole Colossus 2 site around midnight and again this morning. Good progress by the SpaceX team and contractors," Musk said on X. "Gun Range is tracking to be operational by end of November and Spam in December."

Developing and running AI systems requires enormous amounts of compute power, which led Musk to build a supercomputer called Colossus in Memphis in 2024. xAI, acquired by SpaceX, later expanded the project with Colossus 2 to generate more power for its AI chatbot, Grok. Construction for that campus began last year in Memphis.

Supercomputers and data centers are necessary to power AI systems, though they've often drawn ire from communities where the hulking facilities are built. Colossus and Colossus 2 are no different. Residents near Memphis have packed public hearings, staged protests, and created petitions opposing the campuses.

In April, the NAACP filed a lawsuit against xAI and its subsidiary, MZX Tech, saying they were unlawfully operating unpermitted methane gas turbines to power Colossus 2. The complaint said xAI was operating the unpermitted gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, which is less than 20 minutes away. Last week, a US District Judge denied xAI and MZX Tech's motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

• I spent decades building a marketing career, managing teams and budgets exceeding $1 million.
• After becoming a mom of three, I realized the corporate success I'd chased no longer fit my life.
• I started my own business, giving me the flexibility to support my kids and define success for myself.

A Burger King commercial convinced 15-year-old me I needed to be in advertising. I was a Type-A, people-pleasing, rule-follower, doing everything to the highest standard, including planning a life and career I didn't think to question after a 30-second moment.

My career would start at Leo Burnett. I'd work my way up, meet someone, get married at 27, and have kids a few years later.

Life had other plans

I landed in smaller organizations, doing a bit of everything. I worked my way up from marketing associate to director of marketing, where I managed teams and multiple brand budgets totaling more than $1 million.

I was good at my job, and my reviews told the same story. Then, one Thursday afternoon — coming off a successful project — I was called into my boss's office. He told me restructuring was happening and that I could stay, but would get a pay cut.

I grabbed the severance letter and left, knowing the next time I'd walk in would be my last. Friday morning, I strode confidently into his office, lawyer-reviewed and annotated, signed severance letter in hand.

I'd spent 10 years there, starting as a fresh-faced 20-something with a lot to learn about the business world. It wasn't my first job, so I wasn't naive, but I was impressionable. It's where I learned what success looked like: work hard and don't rock the boat. I didn't realize how much unlearning I'd need to do.

By then, I was 35, married just over a year, and knew I'd land on my feet. I did, but not how I expected: my career progressed; my family stalled.

I felt peace during my maternity leave

Almost five years later, I was weeks into maternity leave, thanks to adoption — something I only dreamed of, after seven miscarriages and stillbirths. And, as someone who worked since 14, I was in uncharted territory, without a reliable schedule or routine.

To my shock, I felt an unexpected peace, unbothered by to-do lists, deadlines, or the corporate ladder. I'd never known this me. Priorities were changing, although I hadn't realized it yet.

I already had a seat at the table and made a name for myself. A win on paper, but what I'd been chasing my whole life no longer fit who I'd become. Sure, I was successful, but was I happy?

Things started to click when I listened to Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In. What if I don't want a seat at that table? What if I'm not sure I ever did?

Another five years passed, and it took the birth of two more sons and a re-org for me to finally understand: I didn't need to stop being successful. I needed a life that actually worked for me.

When I returned from leave after my youngest was born, new leadership with new ideas led to the elimination of my position, but they gave me six weeks' notice and my laptop.

As I pulled out of the lot that final afternoon, "This Is the Day" by The The started playing. Its chorus was the fight song I didn't know I needed. As a semi-woo-woo person, I believe in signs. This was one. I almost had to pull over. Instead, I cranked the volume, belted it out — Jerry Maguire-Free Fallin' style — and headed home to start what's next.

For years, people had told me they'd "love to hire me… if they had the budget." I realized that people may not be able to afford a full-time me, but they could afford a project me or a retainer me.

So I built a business around working with good people doing good things.

I needed flexibility as a mom of 3

My business came with an unexpected benefit: flexibility for our three young boys. We'd learn they were neurodivergent, and the oldest two were later diagnosed as ADHD and autistic with a demand-avoidant profile.

As my own boss, I can schedule and participate in their IEP meetings and therapy sessions without needing permission or worrying about time off.

Now "success" looks like being present, owning my time, and working with caring people who trust me to get the job done, family chaos and all.

Some days I work from the couch, the car, on the dock while they fish, or wherever I can grab space and time, even if it's 11 p.m. And some days, I don't do any billable work.

My whole life, my idea of success was based on others' definitions — I didn't realize I could define my own. My path is messy and far from perfect, but it's the one that's mine to create.

Hey, 15-year-old Erin: Surprise, and thanks!

• Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said developing conscious AI is "reckless."
• That's not exactly a hot take, but many AI researchers believe it's possible.
• Suleyman said he'd call for a halt in development if any evidence arose that AI was conscious.

Some AI researchers are questioning whether AI could one day gain consciousness. Not if Microsoft's AI CEO has anything to say about it.

Mustafa Suleyman said in a lengthy X post on Sunday that AI models currently don't have consciousness and that developers should keep it that way.

"If it is possible, based on everything I know, developing conscious AIs would be reckless, and we should not build them," Suleyman said. "If consciousness started to emerge in training, I would call for everyone to stop AI development until we could design out those properties."

If any evidence were to emerge that AI models were conscious, Suleyman said it must be disclosed to the general public immediately so we can decide our next steps as a society.

"We AI developers have no right whatsoever to bring a new species of conscious beings into the world, even if some people may want to do it with AI welfare as a top priority," he said. "The other 8 billion conscious human beings on the planet have not signed up to this experiment and their moral rights, safety, and welfare are what we have an obligation to protect first and foremost."

Conversations around whether AI models could one day become conscious are picking up steam in the tech world. Last April, Anthropic started a research program to investigate and prepare to navigate "model welfare." In a blog post, the startup questioned whether developers should be concerned about models' potential consciousness and experiences.

Google DeepMind published research papers this year about AI consciousness and how ascribing that characteristic could present challenges.

On X, Suleyman said that if an AI model acts as if it suffers, or genuinely believes it can suffer, it will likely prioritize its own needs over operational objectives. As a result, they could harm humans because they're competing for resources, such as compute and energy, to pursue their own goals.

"We should only design AIs to so they are not conscious and not deserving of rights, and with the sole purpose to accelerate human wellbeing without being driven by their own intrinsic motivations.. We could then see whether this is easier or harder to align and keep safe," he said.

• As AI remakes the field of math, some students say they feel like giving up.
• In a survey, nearly 76% of students said they were unlikely to seek careers in math academia.
• Many respondents also bristled at academic leadership.

Frontier AI programs can now do math better than graduate students.

Those students, it turns out, aren't taking the news well.

In a paper published this week, researchers at MIT found that a vast majority of grad students and postdoctoral scholars they polled see their career prospects rapidly dimming as AI remakes the field.

Nearly 76% said they are increasingly unlikely to stay in academic math after earning their degrees. 76% said they feel less motivated to do research "as a result of AI developments."

And in a free-response portion of the survey, grad students laid bare their raw, pent-up feelings about the subject.

Perhaps most striking is a red-hot frustration with academic leadership, which respondents described as alternatively wayward, useless, meek, silent, and ineffectual.

"It'd be great if institutes gave guidance instead of platitudes on this subject," one respondent wrote.

"We are lacking high-level leadership from across the academic community," another said.

For the survey, conducted by three MIT-affiliated math students, the researchers polled 268 early-career mathematicians via a Google Form. Questions were multiple-choice and free response. They all centered on AI's ever-expanding ability to do work they've spent years studying.

Notably, the response window closed just after OpenAI released hundreds of solutions to long-standing problems on October 6. The authors caveated the survey, saying it represents the vibe at "only a small window of time."

"The past couple of months have been exhausting," the researchers wrote. "We're being forced to reckon with existential questions about a field we love, all while incredibly uncertain about our own futures."

Since OpenAI first really broke onto the mathematics scene in September, when it published solutions to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize question, the AI-generated solutions have only kept coming.

Mathematicians have described going through stages of disbelief, shock, denial, anger, and, for some, acceptance.

Though some high-level mathematical councils have convened to issue edicts on how AI should be used, it's not like OpenAI has to listen to them.

OpenAI and Anthropic have, however, made some concessions to the math community. Both AI giants pledged a combined $15 million to a foundation to support mathematicians, and OpenAI established an "advisory group" to judge its math operation.

If you ask students, though, the concessions haven't changed much for them.

"It is difficult to do research and go to seminars when it feels like none of the individual work will matter much in the future," one respondent wrote.

• Newport Beach makes me feel like I'm on a luxurious European trip without leaving California.
• There are many ways to enjoy the water, including a dock-and-dine experience or a Duffy tour.
• From outdoor shopping to waterside restaurants, Newport Beach is all about laid-back luxury.

Growing up in the California Bay Area, I've been to many beach towns, and they all have their own distinct character.

Santa Cruz is known for laid-back surf culture, but just a few miles down the coast, Carmel-by-the-Sea is all about quiet luxury. There's a beach town for every taste, and California's mild weather makes it easy to enjoy the coast any time of year.

But when I'm craving Mediterranean vibes without the pricey flights and jet lag, Newport Beach checks all the boxes.

Newport Harbor feels less like Southern California and more like a European resort town

Newport Beach is home to over 10 miles of pristine coastline, which isn't uncommon in California, but it's the harbor, comprised of eight small islands and interconnected waterways, that makes this destination feel like a luxurious European resort town.

The distinct island neighborhoods offer something for everyone, whether that means exploring the sand and surf, riding the historic Ferris wheel at the Balboa Fun Zone, or sipping a cocktail in a poolside cabana.

Our kids love the beach, and on our most recent summer trip, we made that a priority. We swam at the outdoor water park at Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort, where the kids climbed the inflatable slides and cannon-balled into the cool harbor water.

Another day, we grabbed a picnic lunch from A Market on the way to Newport Beach Municipal Beach. We spent the day playing in the sand, running in and out of the water, and watching the surfers catch wave after wave as the tide rolled in.

The food scene centers on the water — and there's lots of fresh seafood

One of the best things about Newport Beach is the food. Waterfront restaurants are everywhere, giving you plenty of chances to sit back and savor your meals with a view.

We especially loved the Lighthouse Cafe for waterfront views and direct beach access. Our kids enjoyed watching paddleboarders in the harbor while devouring cheeseburgers and lobster rolls, made with fresh-tasting lump lobster meat and drizzled with melted butter.

One of my favorite spots for soaking up Newport Beach's laid-back luxury vibes is Lido Marina Village, which is perfect for people watching with its ample outdoor dining options.

We also ate dockside at Lido Bottle Works and enjoyed a front-row view of the yacht-filled harbor and glowing pink sunset. It felt like a true escape.

Even restaurants without beachfront views embrace the coastal life.

We enjoyed Mediterranean cuisine at CUCINA enoteca, which featured freshly made pasta and perfectly paired Italian wines. Our kids got to make their own pizza tableside, which was a memorable dinner activity.

At Sushi Roku, my husband and I enjoyed some of the freshest sushi rolls we've ever tasted, while my kids were mesmerized by their flaming cotton-candy dessert.

You don't need a yacht to get a taste of Riviera life

Newport Beach seems made for outdoor living. The Mediterranean climate allows for year-round outdoor experiences, from dining and shopping to boating and surfing.

Many beaches and resorts offer a variety of recreation rentals like kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and pedal boats, but the best way to enjoy a little bit of the luxury on the water is on Newport's own Duffy electric boat.

The Duffy was created in Newport Beach decades ago, and it's still one of the most iconic ways to view the harbor. There are several ways to rent them around town if you want to do just that.

We enjoyed a two-hour self-guided boat ride, and it was the perfect amount of time for our small kids. Even without much boating experience, it was easy to drive through the canals.

Our family enjoyed the scenery and incredible views of waterfront homes and luxury yachts that you can only truly experience from the water.

We even pulled our boat up to Woody's Wharf for a dock-and-dine lunch that felt like something out of a movie.

Ultimately, I love that Newport Beach offers resort-town amenities without the long-haul flights

Newport Beach has a variety of hotels, from award-winning luxury resorts like The Resort at Pelican Hill to Balboa Bay Resort, which offers direct harbor access.

If you're looking for glamping vibes, you can check out cottage rentals and RV sites with direct beach access at Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort.

If you want a resort with European-style walkability, consider staying at Lido House. It's located at Lido Marina Village and surrounded by shops and restaurants, so you have everything you need in one spot.

On our most recent trip, we stayed at VEA Newport Beach, where we enjoyed its family-friendly amenities, spa, and easy access to the shops and restaurants at Fashion Island. Our kids played for hours in the heated pool, and the sunset views were magical.

California is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and with its mild climate, there's never a bad time to visit.

However, when it comes to finding Mediterranean vibes stateside, Newport Beach will always be my pick.

• 'SNL' fired shots at startup culture in its latest episode.
• Comedian Ben Marshall played Pennywise the clown pitching a new AI company to trap kids.
• In another segment, a Sprite exec admits its new flavor tastes bad because "we used AI to make it."

"Saturday Night Live" took aim at startup culture and AI across multiple sketches in its Halloween broadcast, including a spoof of the stereotypical big-talking startup dude, channeled through Stephen King's Pennywise.

"We started a company — it's called WeAllFloat.ai," comedian Ben Marshall, playing the malevolent clown, said in the segment. "Instead of trapping one kid with one balloon, what if you had hundreds of AI agents, each with their own digital balloons?"

Before Pennywise came on, "Weekend Update" host Michael Che got a joke in about the floundering stock price of Google's parent company, Alphabet.

"Today's Google Doodle hung itself," Che said, referring to the animations Google sometimes uses on its homepage.

And in another spoof of advertising execs trying to plug a new Sprite flavor on a Latin telenovela, a Sprite rep admits the drink tastes bad because "we used AI to make it."

"For the first time in history, AI screwed up," she says sarcastically.

Though "SNL" hasn't shied away from lampooning AI and the buzzy startup culture associated with it before, Saturday's broadcast honed in on the Lone Star State as a place where soulless, profit-driven techies are flocking to start new companies.

Indeed, since 2020, more than 200 companies have relocated their headquarters to Texas. Many cite comparatively lax regulatory laws and a business-friendly atmosphere.

Of course, though, moving down south doesn't guarantee profitability. Pennywise, for instance, might have some trouble getting his AI startup off the ground.

"Got a little crew together of cool, like-minded, sober, predatory tech guys," Marshall says in the segment. "I live in a loft in Austin with three other motivated young Christians."

When you're shopping for a new TV, screen size is one of the first decisions to make. Bigger TVs are more affordable than they used to be, but that doesn't mean bigger is always better. In smaller living rooms and bedrooms, an oversized screen can feel like too much. That's why 55-inch TVs remain a good middle ground. They're big enough to make 4K resolution and HDR shine, but compact enough to fit comfortably in most spaces. If you're looking for the right mix of size, performance, and price, the best 55-inch TVs are a great compromise.

My team and I reviewed top models from all the major brands to find the best 55-inch TVs for different budgets and viewing needs. Right now, my top pick is the Samsung S90H. Its OLED panel delivers high contrast and wide viewing angles, while its anti-glare screen minimizes reflections. If you want to spend less, the TCL QM6K is an excellent value. It can't match the picture quality of an OLED, but it still delivers vivid colors and a smooth smart TV experience at a lower price.

Below, you'll find all of my picks for the best 55-inch TVs, whether you're upgrading your everyday streaming setup, watching sports every weekend, or putting together a home theater. These recommendations are backed by more than a decade of hands-on experience testing TVs and other home entertainment gear.

Our top picks for the best 55-inch TVs

Best overall: Samsung S90H OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best entry-level: TCL QM6K QLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best budget OLED: Roku Pro Series OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best premium option: LG G5 OLED 4K TV - See at Amazon

Best overall

The Samsung S90H stands out as the best 55-inch TV for most needs, delivering the most versatile balance of performance and value. This model replaces my previous pick, the 2025 S90F. Though that older TV still has its own perks (a slightly wider color range), it's harder to find in stock and is more prone to reflections.

The S90H's OLED panel combines pixel-level contrast control with Samsung's anti-glare screen coating. The result is a vibrant picture with deep black levels that disappear in a dark room and excellent reflection handling in bright rooms. Black levels do lift slightly when exposed to ambient light, but the trade-off is worth it for rooms where lighting and windows are an issue.

Brightness is also very solid for this class. I measured a peak of roughly 1,440 nits, which is great for a midrange OLED. HDR movies and shows pop with vibrant highlights and sharp detail, coming remarkably close to what you'd get from more expensive TVs. Even lower-resolution cable channels and HD YouTube streams appear impressively clean, though Sony still has a slight edge in overall processing.

The S90H also features wide viewing angles, ensuring consistent contrast no matter where you sit. Due to normal production variances, some units may show a slight green tint at an angle, but this is subtle and less distracting than the faded look you'd get on a Mini LED TV.

The S90H is also good for gaming, thanks to its low input lag and smooth 120Hz refresh rate (up to 165Hz with a PC). Plus, Samsung's Tizen smart platform includes the Xbox app, letting Game Pass members stream games directly to the TV without a console. However, Tizen's design remains a bit clumsy compared to more user-friendly offerings, such as Google TV or the Roku OS. But where it counts most, the S90H is a winner and easily one of the most well-rounded TVs on the market.

Read our full Samsung S90H TV review.

Check out our guide to all of the best TVs and best Samsung TVs.

Best entry-level

The TCL QM6K is the best 55-inch TV for budget-conscious shoppers. Despite its affordable price, the QM6K boasts advanced picture quality features that many similarly priced models lack.

Notably, the QM6K features a QLED panel with a Mini LED backlight. Most TVs in this price range cut those features to keep costs down, resulting in low contrast, dim images, and a washed-out picture. The QM6K, however, has solid performance across the board.

The QLED panel produces a wide range of vivid colors, and the Mini LED backlight has local dimming to control contrast across multiple zones. This results in good black levels with minimal blooming (halos around bright objects). In fact, the QM6K handles blooming better than many pricier QLED TVs I've reviewed.

Of course, there are areas where the QM6K falls short. Its brightness is decent for a TV in this class, but not as high as midrange models. I measured a max of around 550-730 nits across different test patterns, which is better than most competing TVs in this price range. That said, high-brightness HDR content doesn't have the luster and pop that I've seen on more expensive TVs.

The QM6K's viewing angles are also a bit limited. Colors and contrast fade and distort if you sit off to the side of the screen. That said, the effect isn't as severe as it is on most budget TVs of this kind.

TCL also earns points for including a backlit remote, which other brands, such as LG and Samsung, don't offer. The remote supports voice control, or you can use hands-free voice control with a wake word. The QM6K's Google TV interface is smooth, and I didn't encounter any major hiccups while navigating menus.

The QM6K is also one of the most affordable TVs with a high-refresh-rate 144Hz panel. This enables smooth gaming when paired with a high-end PC that can handle high frame rates, and it supports full 120Hz with a PS5 or Xbox Series X.

Read our TCL QM6K 4K TV review.

Check out our guides to the best TCL TVs and best budget TVs.

Best budget OLED

Roku's first-ever OLED TV is an incredible value. The 55-inch Roku Pro Series has a full retail price of $1,000, which undercuts the MSRP of similar models from LG, Samsung, and Sony. Even better, this set gets excellent discounts, with occasional deals priced as low as $699. That's basically unheard of for a 55-inch OLED.

The Pro Series offers all the hallmark benefits that make OLED tech so popular, including pixel-level contrast, black levels that disappear in a dark room, great viewing angles, and rich colors. There are some compromises made to keep the TV's price so affordable, but the pros far outweigh the cons.

Brightness is one of the TV's most notable shortcomings — at least compared to similarly priced Mini LED sets or more expensive OLEDs. I measured a peak HDR brightness of around 500-600 nits on a 10% pattern using the TV's most accurate mode. But you can squeeze out around 700 nits if you switch to brighter, but less accurate, settings. Those are decent numbers, but bright highlights in a lot of HDR content won't look as impactful as intended. It's also not quite bright enough to overcome glare in rooms with lots of windows or lamps, especially since the TV's panel is glossy.

The Pro Series also has some issues with crushed or overexposed shadow detail when displaying content with shades near black. This is common on a lot of entry- and mid-level OLED panels, and some people find it more distracting than others. Likewise, my review unit did have a slight green tint at an angle.

Those flaws may make it sound like I was underwhelmed by the Pro Series OLED, but really that couldn't be further from the truth. Ultimately, I found the many benefits of the Pro Series' OLED panel and pixel-level dimming outweighed any imperfections I saw during testing, and it really is amazing to finally have such an affordable 55-inch OLED on the market.

The Pro Series OLED also benefits from Roku's reliable, easy-to-use interface, excellent remote control, and simple assembly. Roku recently redesigned its homepage with a bigger emphasis on content recommendations, but with a few adjustments in the settings menu, you can put all your apps up front and center again if you prefer. The remote included here isn't the rechargeable version with hands-free voice control, but it does feature backlit keys. I also love the tool-free stand, which uses a knob system to tighten the TV's left and right feet.

Best premium option

LG's G5 OLED is one of the most impressive high-end TVs I've tested. Its image quality edges out most competitors, and it gets incredibly bright for a display of this type.

I measured a peak luminance of 2,410 nits using a 10% test pattern with the TV set in Filmmaker Mode. That's a big leap over the older LG G4, which maxed out at around 1,500 nits. Such high luminance allows the G5 to deliver more impactful HDR images. When paired with high-brightness HDR movies, like "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Aquaman," the TV simply stuns, delivering a nearly unrivaled combination of bold highlights, rich colors, and deep black levels. This is the kind of image quality that TV nerds like myself geek out over.

Like all OLED TVs, the G5's viewing angles are wide, so the picture doesn't degrade much when you sit off-center. This is great for rooms with seating on the side of the TV. The G5 is also equipped with advanced gaming features, including a high 165Hz refresh rate when paired with a PC, which enables smooth motion.

The G5 uses LG's webOS interface for smart TV features, and it works just fine. It offers access to many streaming apps and has cool features like Voice ID, which automatically switches user profiles based on who speaks to the TV. On the downside, webOS tends to emphasize sponsored content and shopping recommendations more than I'd like, but most of these ads can be disabled in the TV's settings menu.

The G5's design complements its premium picture quality, featuring a sturdy build, a thin profile, and a flush wall mount included in the box. But people who'd prefer to attach the G5 to a traditional TV stand have to buy one separately, since the set doesn't include one.

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

How we test 55-inch TVs

To find the best 55-inch TVs, our reviewers conducted hands-on tests informed by more than a decade of experience covering home entertainment gear.

We typically focus our testing on 65-inch TVs, since that size is considered the industry flagship. That said, overall performance is usually the same for a specific TV model across larger sizes. For instance, the 55-inch and 65-inch versions of LG's G5 OLED share identical specs and features, with screen size being the only real difference.

There are some exceptions. TVs that use local dimming, such as the TCL QM6K, may have fewer dimming zones in smaller sizes, which can lead to minor differences in contrast. These changes rarely affect our overall assessment, but when they do, we call them out.

To test TVs, we evaluate picture clarity, contrast, brightness, color accuracy, viewing angles, gaming performance, smart TV software, and overall value. We take objective measurements using a colorimeter, pattern generator, and Calman calibration software.

Of course, numbers only tell part of the story. We also spend plenty of time watching real movies and shows in both dark and bright rooms. Our test content spans 4K, 1080p HD, and standard-definition sources from Blu-ray discs, streaming apps, and cable TV, with specific scenes chosen to stress black levels, shadow detail, HDR highlights, and upscaling. Gaming tests are done using a PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch 2.

You can learn more about our review process in our breakdown of how we test tech products.

Meet the expert behind this guide:

Steven Cohen, senior tech editor: I've been covering home entertainment gear for over a decade, and I test the latest TVs year-round. I also studied film production, which means I'm a little obsessive about picture accuracy — I want movies and shows to look the way the director intended, not overly bright or oversaturated. When I review a TV, I use professional calibration tools and test patterns to measure performance, but that's only part of the story. I also live with every TV I test like it's my own — streaming movies, watching sports, and flipping through everyday shows to see how it actually performs in real life. I then take all that hands-on testing and translate it into clear, practical advice so you can find a great 55-inch TV for your budget.

Learn more about the Reviews team at Business Insider.

55-inch TV FAQs

Is 55 inches a good size for a TV?

A 55-inch screen is a solid choice for a variety of needs, and many of the best smart TVs are available in this size. A 55-inch set is still large enough to feel immersive in smaller living rooms, while offering a more compact alternative to 65-inch models that might be too large for some spaces. A 55-inch TV is also a good fit for a bedroom where you might want something smaller than what you've got in your living room, but not so compact that you have to sacrifice picture quality.

If you're shopping for a media console or mount to pair with a 55-inch TV, consider our guides to the best TV stands and best TV wall mounts for top recommendations.

How much should a 55-inch TV cost?

The best 55-inch TVs range in price, with entry-level models starting under $300 and high-end models costing $2,000 or more.

If you want a midrange 55-inch TV, you should plan to spend about $400 to $700. Several great 55-inch QLED models in that price range feature quantum dots, local dimming, and Mini LED backlights, delivering good contrast and peak brightness levels of up to 1,000 nits.

Shoppers who prefer a 55-inch OLED TV will have to pay more, with prices starting around $700-$1,000, depending on sales. Although notably more expensive than their QLED counterparts, OLED TVs offer pixel-level brightness control, providing superior contrast and perfect black levels.

Many 55-inch TVs receive discounts throughout the year, but we typically see the biggest price drops during sales like Prime Day and Black Friday, as well as around major sporting events like the Super Bowl and March Madness.

How far should you sit from a 55-inch 4K TV?

The smaller a 4K screen is, the closer you'll need to sit to the display to see the full benefits of its resolution. On a 55-inch screen, to see the extra detail that 4K offers over 1080p Full HD, you'll want to sit around 4.5 to 7 feet from your screen.

Of course, you can sit farther away from your TV and still enjoy its image quality, but the recommended distance will let you see the best detail.

If you need to sit even closer to your TV or just have a small room to work with, check out our guides to the best 50-inch TVs and best 43-inch TVs.

For rooms where you need to sit farther from your display, we recommend choosing a larger screen to fully benefit from 4K resolution. Check out our guides for larger display models:

• Best 65-inch TVs
• Best 75-inch TVs
• Best 85-inch TVs
• Best 100-inch TVs

Do 55-inch TVs have good sound quality?

Even the best 55-inch TVs tend to have mediocre built-in speakers. Audio drivers integrated into most TVs are small and often placed in locations that can result in muddy sound with limited range, depth, and bass. For this reason, we recommend pairing your TV with a soundbar or full surround sound system to get the best audio quality for movies, TV shows, and video games.

For the most immersive experience, we suggest finding a system that supports Dolby Atmos, which can enable sound effects from all directions, even above your head. Performance varies by model, but entry-level Atmos systems can still provide a nice upgrade over your TV's built-in speakers.

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

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

Do you need a 55-inch TV with HDMI 2.1?

All of our picks for the best 55-inch TVs include HDMI 2.1 ports. This feature is most beneficial for gamers, but it's become standard on my midrange and high-end models.

An HDMI 2.1 connection enables a TV to receive 4K video signals at refresh rates higher than the previous 60Hz standard. High refresh rates enable smoother motion in video games that support them.

Most HDMI 2.1 TVs support 4K at 120Hz, and some models can even support higher refresh rates, such as 144Hz or 165Hz. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X support 4K/120Hz modes, while high-end gaming PCs can support 144Hz and 165Hz output.

You'll need a compatible HDMI cable to send and receive an HDMI 2.1 signal from a source device to a TV. For top recommendations, check out our guide to the best HDMI cables.

• Jessica Redford homeschools three kids and wanted a creative outlet that was just for her.
• She started making cake pops and selling them at local events before orders took off.
• She now sells out every Friday from a cake cart outside her home while maintaining family flexibility.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jessica Redford. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Last September, a shopping center opened down the street from me. It had a grocery store with a bakery, and at first, I thought it might be the perfect opportunity for me to get a part-time job.

I'd been homeschooling my three kids, who are now 14, 11, and 8, for years. As they got older and needed me a little less, I started feeling like I wanted something for myself, an outlet for my creativity. A part-time job seemed like the perfect way to have that.

Before having kids, I'd taken cake-making classes and learned the basics, so working in a bakery just minutes from home felt ideal.

But then I started thinking about how much I value the freedom we have as a family. We can go camping or take a day trip whenever we want, and I realized that having set work hours might take that away.

Around the same time, I was scrolling through my phone and came across videos showing how to make, bake, and decorate cake pops. They looked so much easier — and more manageable — than creating huge, elaborate cakes.

I thought I could do that.

I got the encouragement I needed

After a bit of experimenting, I made a batch of cake pops for a Halloween party. Everyone loved them, and that gave me the encouragement I needed to try selling them.

I started posting about my cake pops on Instagram, taking small orders, and attending vendor events.

Then, in November, I had some cake pops left over after a vendor event. The kids and I decided to sit outside on the corner of our neighborhood and sell them to people passing by. My neighbors loved them!

I only had a few left after that, so I took them to my chiropractor as a gift. She posted about them on her social media, and that's when everything really took off.

Suddenly, I was getting what felt like endless orders for Thanksgiving and Christmas cake pops.

I was burning out

Those months were crazy. I was in the kitchen constantly. It was exciting, but it was also overwhelming. I'm sure God gave me the desire for this business, and it's my faith that has kept me going even when it was hard.

But by the time January came around, I knew I couldn't continue at that pace. I needed to step back and figure out a way to make the business work without it completely taking over our lives.

So I took January off to regroup and make a plan.

I decided to sell my cake pops at a local family farm on Tuesdays and Thursdays — somewhere my kids could come along with me. I'd create different designs each week, so there would always be something new for families to look forward to.

Selling at the farm helped me build a reputation among local moms and really get my name out into the community.

After taking a break in July, I wondered whether I could make it work to sell cake pops outside my house from a portable cake cart I'd bought online. I decided to give it a try.

I told customers I'd take a set number of orders throughout the week, then have everything ready for them to collect from the cake cart outside my house on Fridays.

Since starting that over the summer, I've sold out every single week.

I'm learning to set boundaries

The past year has been a roller coaster of emotions. I've felt incredibly accomplished and excited, but there have also been times when it all felt like too much.

I'm slowly learning to say no and to set boundaries that protect my time, my family, and myself.

My kids have loved being involved in the baking and decorating. They're my taste testers, and they're always hoping I'll mess up a batch so they can eat it themselves.

One of the most important things to me has been showing them that their mom can start and run a business — that, like me, they can create something from nothing.

They're learning about entrepreneurship along the way, and I hope those lessons will serve them well in the future.

There have definitely been moments when I've wanted to give up. But I'm so glad I didn't quit on myself. I kept going because I wanted to find out what I was capable of.

And now I know.

• Census data shows that the number of millionaire renter households grew by 229% from 2020 to 2024.
• Apartment-search website RentCafe ranked the cities with the fastest growth in millionaire renters.
• Millionaire renters still favor New York and LA, but Southern cities are gaining them fastest.

Even millionaires are renting in today's expensive real estate market.

Apartment-search website RentCafe found that the number of millionaire renter households grew by 229% when comparing US Census Bureau estimates for 2020 to 2024 with those from 2016 to 2020. That outpaced the 193% growth in millionaire homeowner households during the same period.

RentCafe defines a "millionaire renter" as a household earning at least $1 million a year that rents an apartment or house.

The company found that nearly half of millionaire renters are millennials, though the number of Gen Z millionaire renters has grown the fastest since 2020. And while New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles remain the biggest hubs for millionaire renters, Southern metros are seeing the fastest growth.

Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, the firm behind RentCafe's report, told Business Insider that while Western metros such as Riverside and Santa Cruz, California, and Northeastern metros such as Utica and Syracuse, New York, are losing millionaire renters, Southern metros are gaining them, largely thanks to their growing job markets.

"These declines are at the intersection of migration, wealth creation, lifestyle choices, and renting as a transitional or capital strategy," Ressler said. "As corporate headquarters relocate to the South, more senior-level executives are moving there. Many rent before they buy, helping drive the region's growth in high-income households and millionaires."

Over the past few years, many companies, including Tesla, Oracle, Charles Schwab, and Palantir, have relocated their headquarters or opened new offices in Texas and Florida, bringing their workers with them. It's no surprise, then, that several of the fastest-growing metros for millionaire renters are in these two states. Below, the top 10 cities for millionaire renters.

10. Phoenix

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 20
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 91
• Percentage increase: 355%

9. Boston

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 100
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 481
• Percentage increase: 381%

8. Dallas

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 30
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 165
• Percentage increase: 450%

7. St. Louis

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 15
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 83
• Percentage increase: 453%

6. Denver

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 39
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 235
• Percentage increase: 503%

5. Los Angeles

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 216
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 1,532
• Percentage increase: 609%

4. Seattle

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 50
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 445
• Percentage increase: 790%

3. Miami

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 51
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 538
• Percentage increase: 955%

2. Naples, Florida

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 7
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 76
• Percentage increase: 986%

1. Houston

• Number of millionaire renter households in 2020: 18
• Number of millionaire renter households in 2024: 232
• Percentage increase: 1,189%

Vivaia makes shoes for people who want their everyday pairs to feel comfortable without looking overly utilitarian. The brand sells knit flats, heels, sneakers, boots, and more polished staples, many made with recycled materials and flexible, cushioned designs. Before adding a pair to your cart, check the latest Vivaia promo codes, coupons, and sales for a possible discount.

Vivaia has become a familiar name in our style coverage for footwear that balances support with office- and occasion-friendly styling. Several of its shoes have appeared in our guides to the best flats, most comfortable heels, and best ballet sneakers.

The retailer regularly runs limited-time offers on select styles and seasonal collections, so it's worth checking for a deal before you buy. Below, we've rounded up the latest Vivaia coupon codes and promotions available now.

Today's best Vivaia coupon codes

Previous Vivaia coupon codes

Are there any other Vivaia sales currently running?

You can find a full list of current markdowns at any time on Vivaia's "Sale" page. As of the time of writing, the brand is running the following promotions.

• Follow us on Instagram and WhatsApp for more articles like this

How to use Vivaia coupon codes

Start by adding coupon-eligible items to your cart, then continue to checkout. On the checkout page, you can apply a coupon by pasting a promo code into the "Input coupon code here" text box and clicking "Apply." Some coupons may already be automatically populated on the checkout page; you can view them by clicking the arrow next to "Coupon." Once the code you want to use is added, continue the checkout process by entering your shipping and billing information.

Can you stack Vivaia coupon codes?

Vivaia does not allow coupon codes to be stacked together. Only one code may be applied per order.

Vivaia coupon codes: Frequently asked questions

Does Vivaia offer discounts to students, teachers, and military personnel?

Vivaia does offer a 20% discount to students, teachers, medical professionals, first responders, and military members. Eligible shoppers must verify their status to receive the discount code in their inbox.

If you're a student or educator, check out our roundups of the best student discounts and the best teacher discounts for more offers from your favorite brands.

Does Vivaia offer free shipping?

Vivaia offers free standard shipping on all orders over $99. Orders that don't meet the spending minimum will be charged a standard shipping fee of $9.99.

What is Vivaia's return policy?

Vivaia allows free returns and exchanges for up to 30 days after your original online purchase. The return policy for in-store purchases may vary by location. Learn more about returns and exchanges on Vivaia's website.

Can I reuse a Vivaia coupon code?

Most Vivaia coupon codes are designed for one use only. However, there may be exceptions, so be sure to check the terms and conditions for the specific code you want to use.

Should I join Vivaia's rewards program?

Vivaia's rewards program, V-PLUS, offers perks such as $50 off every $300 spent, a free gift with your first order, early access to sales, member-exclusive deals, and more. It may be worth signing up if you're a frequent Vivaia shopper. However, a $49 fee is required to join, so it may not be worthwhile for everyone.

Looking for more style deals? Check out our roundups of the best Spanx coupons, Madewell coupons, and True Classic coupons.

• At 12, I spent three months working on my grandfather's farm in the Dominican Republic.
• I promised to return soon, but years of financial struggles kept me away for 22 years.
• When I finally saved enough to visit, my grandfather had dementia and had lost his farm.

When I was 12, my mother sent my brother, Pedro, and me to the Dominican Republic for three months to stay at my grandfather's home. I think she needed a break from raising two boys in the Bronx alone and wanted us to spend time with her father. Pedro and I were thrilled to share the Spanish language we'd inherited from our family. My grandfather was waiting for us in his beat-up 91 Nissan pickup truck. Every bump felt like the wheels would fly off.

It took me 22 years to go back to visit, and everything had changed.

He had us working the land

The green pasture and mountains of Santiago were a world apart from the 6-floor walk in New York. Here we slept in a bed with a mosquito net and heard the rooster and hens all night. In the morning, we were woken up by our abuelo's words, "Vamos a trabjar," which meant: time to work." We went with him to the farm to be his ranch hands. It was exhausting.

In the evening, with mud on our boots, my brother and I scrambled onto his truck. He drove us back to his place, where a bowl of sancocho was waiting. He'd been farming for 60 years. At the end of our 90 days, I promised to return soon. I had no idea it would be 22 years until I could afford to take a vacation on my own dime.

I was broke

At home, I was broke, working odd jobs to afford clothes and sneakers. Mom worked 50 hours a week and moved us to Bergen County, New Jersey. Watching "The Lord of the Rings," I decided I wanted to be an actor.

Against my mother's wishes, I devised a plan to drop out of school to get exciting roles in the movie industry. She thought a secure position as a policeman, fireman, or teacher was a better route. But I blindly followed my movie dreams with no backup plan.

Moving to Manhattan, I paid $800 a month for a 60-square-foot apartment. I found a manager who helped me score an audition for a small theatre play. I played "suitor 1" and then landed a lead role in a web series. I won the role of an assassin navigating a dysfunctional family while executing hits for clients. It was chaotic, deeply unserious at times, and entirely thrilling.

But I could barely cover bills. Every weekend, I'd rush to the set after working at a restaurant, eventually getting fired for ordering an extra sandwich on my lunch hour. I was desperate to get my SAG card. This production demanded hours of unpaid work. My body ran on black coffee and sheer stubbornness, operating in a permanent state of fatigue. I'd finish a brutal double shift carrying heavy trays on my feet, race to the subway with a duffel bag slung over my shoulder, and try to look bright-eyed for an indie director who expected us to work until dawn for free.

I got a steady paycheck after years of hustling

Years bled into one another through cold studio apartments, couch surfing when I couldn't afford rent, and endless auditions that went nowhere. Sick of poverty, I eventually took an office job in real estate, working as a project manager. That desk and steady paycheck became the quiet anchor I never knew I needed. It allowed me to finally breathe, pay bills on time, and slowly save. As my days settled into a predictable rhythm, the frantic, burning urgency of acting slipped away, its manic magic finally gone, leaving behind a different kind of life.

Dollar by dollar, the savings added up to a $1400 ticket back to the island. My brother was too busy with his wife and kids to join me. My grandfather wasn't able to pick me up this time. He'd recently been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. At the airport, my uncle picked me up instead. As we drove down the highway into the city, he told me, "The farm is gone. We lost everything."

Approaching my grandfather's new home, which his children helped build for him, I saw him sitting in the kitchen. His hair was gray, his body not as strong as I remembered. I was afraid he wouldn't recognize me, but once he saw me, we let out a big laugh.

"Look who it is!" he said as we hugged.

Staring at me, he asked, "¿Qué tú tardaste tanto en volver?" He wanted to know, "What took you so long to return?"

I smiled, held his hand, and answered, "Grandpa, I worked as hard as I could just to make it back to you."

• Kate Middleton has had a busy year of royal engagements in 2026.
• She's worn standout looks during public appearances, including ball gowns and colorful pantsuits.
• The Princess of Wales has had a few fashion misses as well.

Kate Middleton is busier than ever.

The Princess of Wales has attended dozens of royal engagements in 2026, from charity events to film premieres.

She's worn a variety of looks to her events, donning gowns for more traditional royal fashion moments and casual looks like trousers for less buttoned-up appearances.

Some of Kate's outfits have been stronger than others, though. Here are the best and worst looks the Princess of Wales has worn so far in 2026.

The Princess of Wales' recycled dress was a great choice for the BAFTAs in February.

To attend the 2026 BAFTAs, Kate rewore a Gucci dress she had worn to multiple public appearances over the years.

The chiffon gown had a pointed, off-the-shoulder neckline, with the floor-length gown falling in different shades of pink. A deep-purple belt cinched her waist.

The Princess of Wales accessorized the glamorous gown with the Greville chandelier earrings and bouncy waves.

She chose a monochromatic coatdress for a Commonwealth Day Service in March.

Kate stuck to one of her go-to styles for the 2026 Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey, donning a Catherine Walker coatdress.

The look is a favorite of Kate's for good reason, as the dresses strike a balance between formality and style. This iteration was deep blue and featured a blazer-style top with pleating on the skirt.

She paired the garment with a coordinating hat, pumps, pearl earrings, and a multi-strand pearl necklace.

The royal's casual ensemble for a March engagement would have been better with a few tweaks.

When she and Prince William took a trip to the RNLI Tower Lifeboat Station, Kate wore a more casual ensemble.

She paired a blue blouse from With Nothing Underneath with a Prince of Wales Check blazer from Catherine Walker, nodding to her title. Brown Joseph trousers, a Me+Em belt with gold hardware, brown Jimmy Choo boots, and an RNLI ball cap completed the look.

It was fun to see Kate in a more casual outfit, but her pants and boots looked a little clunky together since they were slightly different colors, particularly with the blue shirt. A more neutral top and pants that better coordinated with the blazer could have improved the ensemble.

She made her green dress for a March state banquet pop with bold accessories.

When the royal family hosted the President of Nigeria for a state dinner in March, Kate appeared to nod to the Nigerian flag with her green Andrew Gn gown and matching Manolo Blahnik heels.

The high-neck gown had ruching on the bodice and was cinched at Kate's waist before flowing to the floor. Semi-sheer, long sleeves broke up the denser fabric that made up much of the gown, giving it an ethereal touch.

Kate leaned into the occasion's fanciness by pairing the dress with Queen Mary's Lover's Knot Tiara, sapphire-and-diamond earrings from the Queen Mother's collection, and her Royal Victorian Order attire, including a sash and badge.

A different hat may have been a better choice for a Royal Garden Party in May.

The Princess of Wales donned a Self-Portrait dress for a Royal Garden Party in May.

The top of the white dress looked like a blazer with black buttons. It was belted at her waist before flowing out in a peplum, and a three-dimensional flower sat on her lapel. The white-and-black polka-dot skirt hit Kate at the ankle, swishing around her as she walked.

The outfit was fun, but Kate's vintage hat changed the look's feel. The hat had a white base, and black tulle flowed up from the brim. The dark tulle made the look a bit more serious in tone, while the rest of the outfit was playful.

A fully white hat may have been a better choice for the daytime event.

In May, Kate made a blazer look relaxed by pairing it with a flowy skirt.

During a trip to Italy in May, Kate rocked a blazer and skirt for a fun twist on royal attire.

Her Blazé Milano blazer was taupe with white, vertical stripes, while her Jenni Kayne skirt was cream, with the pleated fabric hitting her mid-calf. She wore a white blouse underneath the blazer and Camilla Elphick shoes.

The silhouette was reminiscent of outfits Princess Diana favored for royal engagements, making it an even stronger fashion statement for the current Princess of Wales.

Her red dress wasn't the best choice for an event at St James's Palace in June.

Kate attended a Cancer Research UK reception at St James's Palace in a Rodarte dress.

The ankle-length dress was bright red with white polka dots, and a coordinating belt sat at her waist. White fabric trimmed the neckline and short sleeves, and a red flower sat on the lapel. Red Gianvito Rossi pumps and a Miu Miu clutch tied it together.

The outfit was stylish, but it unfortunately blended in with the red carpets and chairs that adorn St James's Palace. Kate should have saved the dress for an occasion with a different backdrop.

The blue linen suit she wore to Wimbledon the same month was a strong look for the princess.

Kate attended a handful of Wimbledon matches in 2026, but she wore her best look on day four of the tournament.

Gabriela Hearst designed her powder-blue suit. Made of linen, the ensemble included an oversize, double-breasted jacket and wide-legged trousers.

She wore the bright suit with a Ralph Lauren top, as well as brown shoes and sunglasses from the designer. Carousel earrings and a perky ponytail completed the stylish look.

Kate's gingham dress for the Charity Polo Cup in July felt fresh.

She arrived at the match in a black-and-white Temperley London dress with a square neckline and a tea-length skirt.

A gingham pattern covered the dress, giving it a summery feel. She accessorized the look with camel-toned Camilla Elphick slingbacks and Ralph Lauren sunglasses.

Kate looked effortlessly chic.

A blazer-and-skirt look she wore in August would have been better with one swap.

Kate gave the blazer-and-skirt look another go for the Commonwealth Games, pairing a green Ralph Lauren blazer with a striped La Ligne top and a white pleated skirt.

She completed the look with her Camilla Elphick slingbacks. While the silhouette was pretty, the combination of the striped top and the green jacket felt a bit busy.

The outfit would have been stronger if Kate had chosen a simpler top to go with the blazer.

The colors of Kate's outfit for a September engagement in Scotland didn't quite work.

The Princess of Wales wore a more casual look for an engagement in Scotland.

She wore an olive-green sweater with brown jeans from Holland Cooper and a Maison Hotel belt. She added a Burberry trench coat over the look, which seemed to be deep purple, as well as Chelsea boots and a tweed hat designed by House of Bruar.

The fall tones of the look felt festive, but there was a bit too much color going on between the brown pants, green shirt, and purple jacket. If two of the garments had been more similar in color, it might have felt more cohesive.

Her gown for the "Digger" UK premiere was one of her most daring looks of 2026.

Kate arrived at the "Digger" premiere in a violet Jenny Packham gown that was full of glamour.

A V-neckline dipped low on Kate's torso, and the long sleeves were made of transparent fabric that billowed around her before cinching at her wrist. A train spilled out of the floor-length skirt, trailing behind the Princess of Wales.

She further elevated the look with Jimmy Choo pumps and the Queen Mother's Amethyst Sautoir Necklace, which has a heart pendant at its center.

The Princess of Wales' plaid skirt for a visit to Northern Ireland stood out in October.

She headed to Northern Ireland in October, attending engagements in a green tartan skirt from Emilia Wickstead.

The skirt flared around Kate's calves, as did her Catherine Walker coat. She paired the skirt with a white Knatchbull top, which was lined with ruffles down the center.

Black Gianvito Rossi heels and a green Mulberry bag tied the sophisticated ensemble together.

• A version of this story originally appeared in the AI Insider newsletter.
• Sign up for Business Insider's weekly AI Insider newsletter here.

Here's a remarkable milestone in the AI revolution: Anthropic now spends more on internal AI usage than it does paying employees.

The company revealed this in its IPO filing. In April, the value of Claude AI used internally, calculated at prices Anthropic charges customers, exceeded its monthly employee compensation costs, excluding stock awards.

By September, that internal AI usage had surged more than 250-fold since January.

There's an important distinction here. Anthropic isn't actually spending more cash on AI than salaries. It's valuing its internal AI consumption at retail prices.

Still, this feels like a watershed moment for the tech industry.

In March, I wrote about a new trend: Tech companies are starting to treat AI tokens (the main way to measure usage) as a fourth component of employee compensation, alongside salary, bonuses, and stock awards.

Anthropic's numbers show why. More than 90% of the code added to its software in September was written by Claude. Meanwhile, revenue has grown vastly faster than headcount.

For decades, talented humans were the most valuable resource in Silicon Valley. Now AI is challenging that assumption.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com

• I left my dream job at 27 without a new one lined up. I had no idea what would come next.
• By relying on my network, I found a new role and eventually pivoted to running my own business.
• It's been over 15 years since I took that first risk by leaving, and I'm so grateful I did it.

When I started my dream job, I never imagined walking away from it just two years later.

After all, my long-held fantasy of working in theme-park design had lived up to the hype: I collaborated with talented people every day, got to play in the parks for free whenever I wanted, and learned so many industry secrets about making the magic happen. I'd even gotten to help design an internationally acclaimed project.

It seemed nuts to leave, but I made up my mind when I realized I'd started spending more time fantasizing about what I could be doing elsewhere than I did getting excited about what was happening inside the office I drove to every day.

I wasn't confident in my decision, but there's no joy in floundering either, so I felt I had to commit one way or another. It was scary, and I didn't have another job lined up or a concrete plan when I decided to resign, but deep down, I knew I was ready for something new.

By relying on my network of friends and family, I was able to make my next move

While I figured out what was next for me, my parents graciously agreed to let me move back into their house in the suburbs of Long Island.

As much as I would miss Orlando, I appreciated this small safety net.

And with no job lined up or savings to rely on, I started leaning on my network of friends and family in New York. I told anyone I could think of that I needed a job, and I was up for the adventure of trying something new.

Luckily, thanks to friends and my belief that closed mouths don't get fed (which has proven true time and again), I found an incredible opportunity at a then-startup in New York City called Rent the Runway.

The new position was different from my previous work, but it sounded exciting and relied on skills I had really strengthened in Orlando.

My parents drove me to the train station every weekday so I could commute into the office, and I saved enough money to pay off some of my college debt and move into an NYC apartment within the year.

After about two and a half years at that job, though, a familiar feeling had returned. My focus kept drifting to new dreams and worthwhile opportunities outside the office walls, and I felt a magnetic pull toward them.

While working at Rent the Runway, I'd been building my own photography business on the side. It had started to take off, and even though it would be risky, it felt like the right time to take a step toward becoming a business owner and solopreneur.

This time around, though, I wasn't so afraid to take a leap. After all, it wasn't too long ago that I had first pushed through that fear and felt risks pay off.

Years later, I'm glad I trusted my gut and embraced a more unconventional career path

Looking back, I still can't believe I left a job voluntarily without a clear plan, not once, but twice. Truthfully, it felt out of character.

Growing up, my parents wouldn't even let me quit piano lessons that I didn't find much joy in. "You stick with it until the year is over," they'd tell me. Even if I didn't feel like going to a friend's house for a playdate as a kid, they would push me to go, saying, "We stick to our commitments, Mikkel."

As I grew up, I began to understand the method behind how my parents raised me. Their morals became my values: When you commit to something, you stick with it.

But those piano lessons had an end date and time, and so did those playdates. Accepting a job is a commitment, too, but most roles have no clear end.

How do you know if you should stay at a job or when it's time to leave — especially if it's one you love? Now that I've navigated that unknown territory, I know it can come down to trusting your gut.

And over time, I've realized the real dream is living a life that excites me and lets me stay true to myself.

It's been about 15 years since I left that first role. My path in life has been windier than expected, but it's been fantastic.

I ended up moving from from New York City to North Carolina, meeting my now-husband, and traveling the world with him. We both work for ourselves and I've built a career I'm proud of, one that I'd never have had without the risks I'd taken years prior.

And you know what's funny? I'm now even back to living in Florida, in a city just north of Orlando.

Abercrombie has come a long way from its mall-brand days. The retailer is now known for polished, wearable basics, including flattering jeans, tailored trousers, dresses, sweaters, outerwear, activewear, and easy pieces that work just as well for the office as they do for weekends. Before adding anything to your cart, check the latest Abercrombie promo codes, coupons, and sales to see if there's a way to reduce the total.

Our style editors have tested a range of Abercrombie clothing over the years, and the brand continues to stand out for its inclusive sizing, varied fits, and more elevated take on everyday staples. Its denim is especially popular, with Abercrombie styles earning a spot in our guide to the best jeans for tall women. For a closer look at the brand's most popular cuts, our Abercrombie jeans review covers how several pairs fit, feel, and hold up.

Abercrombie regularly runs sales and limited-time promotions, so it's worth checking for a markdown or coupon before checking out. We've gathered the latest Abercrombie coupon codes and deals below to help you save a little more on your next order.

Today's best Abercrombie promo codes

Previous Abercrombie discount codes

Are there any other Abercrombie sales running at the moment?

You can find a full list of sales and markdowns any time on Abercrombie's "Sale" page. As of the time of writing, Abercrombie is running the following promotions.

• Follow our Instagram page and WhatsApp channel for more deals and buying guides

How to use Abercrombie discount codes

Start by adding qualifying items to your cart. Once you're on the "Shopping Bag" page, you can apply a promo code by clicking the "Promotions" dropdown, pasting the code into the "Promo Code" text box, and clicking "Apply." From there, continue to checkout to enter your shipping and billing information.

Can you stack Abercrombie promo codes?

Abercrombie does not allow discount codes to be stacked together. Only one code may be applied per purchase.

Abercrombie discount code frequently asked questions

Does Abercrombie offer discounts for students, teachers, and the military?

At this time, Abercrombie does not offer special discounts for students, teachers, or the military, so your best bet is to take advantage of their other coupons and deals.

If you're a student or educator, check out our roundups of the best student discounts and best teacher discounts to save more from your favorite brands.

Can Abercrombie promo codes be used in-store?

Abercrombie discount codes can be used both online and in-store. To use one in person, simply show the cashier the promotion offer on Abercrombie's website.

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Abercrombie offers free shipping on all orders over $99. However, gift card-only orders ship for free with standard shipping. For other orders that don't hit the $99 threshold, standard shipping costs $7. If you need faster delivery, you can pay higher shipping fees. Learn more about shipping rates and times on Abercrombie's website.

What is Abercrombie's return policy?

Shoppers can return items in-store or by mail within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. VIP members of the myAbercrombie rewards program can return items for a full refund within 60 days of delivery. Learn more about how to make returns and exchanges on Abercrombie's website.

Can I reuse an Abercrombie promo code?

Most Abercrombie promo codes are designed for a single use only. That said, there may be exceptions, so be sure to check the terms and conditions for the specific promo code you want to use.

Still shopping? Check out our guide to the best work dresses. Also, read our roundup of the best Spanx coupon and promo codes for more style deals.

• Ukraine's jam-resistant fiber-optic drones have been flying farther than ever.
• But one maker questions whether more range is worth sacrificing payload capacity.
• Longer cables add weight, potentially making some drones less useful in combat.

As companies continue to innovate, Ukraine's unjammable fiber-optic drones are flying farther and farther, but one company is questioning whether it's worth continuing to extend their range.

These drones, which can transmit commands and video through a physical cable, are not affected by enemy electronic warfare, specifically conventional radio-frequency jamming. Providing clearer video feeds than other FPV drones, they're useful for both surveillance and attack, and Ukrainian officials and companies have celebrated as their ranges have increased.

But TechEx, a major Ukrainian fiber-optic and interceptor-drone maker, told Business Insider that pushing those limits further may not be worth the trade-offs.

The company has built models with ranges of up to 35 and 40 kilometers. "We are currently considering whether it's still necessary to do the next versions of the fiber optic drones to fly, let's say, 45 or 50 kilometers," said Oleg, a TechEx executive who asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons.

The reason behind the hesitation is that flying farther requires a heavier spool, as well as larger batteries to keep the added spool weight aloft, Oleg said. "This may affect the amount of the payloads carried by the drone."

"So we are still figuring out whether it's something that will be actually used on the front lines to do that long-range FPVs, or we will stick to, let's say, 40 or 45 kilometers."

Drone companies are constantly having to balance the weight of the cameras, explosives, weaponry attachments, communications gear, and other equipment. That balance is harder for fiber-optic drone makers to maintain because their drones are also carrying a spool of cable.

Some Ukrainian drone makers have also said that shorter ranges are more effective anyway for fiber-optic drones because longer distances increase the risk of the cable breaking.

Describing TechEx's Stalker XO-10 and Stalker XO-15 drones, Ukraine's state-backed innovation platform Brave1 said the "fiber-optic drones have some limitations, including the need to carry a coil of cable that gradually unwinds during flight and provides communication with the operator."

"Since the coil itself has some weight, this can limit the payload of the UAV," it said, referring to uncrewed aerial vehicles.

Brave1 said that TechEx has so far been able to "mitigate this limitation" of the cable weight "through good engineering solutions" and assessed its work "allows these drones to achieve high payloads while maintaining the other advantages of fiber optics."

Whether that would continue to be true at longer ranges is a question mark right now.

Olha, a TechEx representative, told Business Insider that the company developed technology to make the spool lighter, making "tiny tweaks and changes" to how it's made and how the fiber is wound onto it. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense said last year that the Stalker series drones have a "record-low spool weight among Ukrainian fiber-optic drones."

Not all companies see the weight-to-range payoff the same way, and that could be good for Ukraine. Units use a host of drones from different companies for different missions, and soldiers say they like the flexibility to choose the equipment best suited to each mission. Some missions may call for longer-range drones carrying smaller payloads, while others require more firepower over shorter distances.

And attack missions aren't the only ones where explosive weight is a factor. Soldiers have described using fiber-optic drones for intelligence gathering with their onboard cameras. But there can still be a trade-off, with some higher-quality cameras weighing more.

Fiber-optic drones are just one part of Ukraine's growing arsenal, which includes long-range strike drones, mid-strike drones, and even heavy bombers. Many of these are able to carry much heavier payloads than small FPV drones. Each system comes with advantages and vulnerabilities, forcing manufacturers and soldiers to weigh which capabilities matter most for a given mission.

TechEx receives constant feedback and requests from the units that use its drones, which inform its decisions about what to build.

It has a technical support department, which Oleg says works with more than 100 units. It results in weekly changes to products ranging from small updates to major alterations.

Feedback, along with field testing by military pilots and operators, is critical to the work the company does, and has led it toward counterintuitive approaches, away from what it had initially thought would work best and would be what units want.

For instance, the prototype of the company's Striker interceptor drone was originally much bigger, with a 1.5-kilogram payload, but testing and feedback showed it needed to be smaller and more agile and didn't need such a large payload.

"We were able to completely redesign, and let's say eventually it looked nothing like the initial prototype," Olha said. Developing new weapons of war is a constant process of reevaluating, rethinking, and evolving.

Catherine Zeta-Jones' arrival in Hollywood in the mid-1990s was an ego check.

The Welsh actor, then in her 20s, had starred for years on the popular early-'90s British series "The Darling Buds of May," and was already a sensation in the UK. But when she touched down in California, she went from being recognized on the street to having casting agents ask her in auditions if she had any acting experience.

That wasn't all.

"I couldn't get cable TV," Zeta-Jones told Business Insider with a laugh. "I had been working since I was 9, but I couldn't buy anything in the States because I didn't have a credit card yet. I had to start from scratch."

Starting over turned out to be worth it for Zeta-Jones. After taking a role in the CBS miniseries "Titanic," she caught the attention of Steven Spielberg, who recommended her for "The Mask of Zorro." The role would make her a star Stateside and lead to an illustrious three-decade career in Hollywood.

Zeta-Jones is now known on both sides of the pond for memorable roles ranging from the pregnant wife of a Mexican drug lord in "Traffic" to her Oscar-winning turn as the iconic Velma Kelly in "Chicago" to Morticia Addams in Netflix's "Wednesday."

But despite her long list of credits, there's one thing she still hadn't done for a role until now: use her native Welsh accent.

Her latest project, the AMC+ series "Killing Jackie," marks Zeta-Jones' long-awaited return to her Welsh roots. After decades of having her brain work overtime doing English, American, and Scottish accents — and many more — the opportunity to speak in her native accent was grounding. "It was liberating and cathartic," Zeta-Jones said.

So, too, was the subject matter. Based on the 2018 novel "The Price You Pay" by Nick Harkaway (using the pseudonym Aidan Truhen), the revenge thriller stars Zeta-Jones as the titular Jackie Price, a Welsh high-end art dealer with a shady past in the drug trade who discovers a hit has been put out on her. With a deadly team of assassins known as The Seven Demons on her tail, Jackie goes to great lengths to stay alive — at one point even biting off a man's ear.

Navigating the series' ultra-violent scenes was a blast for Zeta-Jones, who relished the chance to go off the rails.

"I love this character," Zeta-Jones said. "I wanted the audience to come along on this ride with me and root for her. In all the craziness."

In the latest edition of Business Insider's Role Play series, Zeta-Jones reflects on her instant bond with Sean Connery, helping her husband Michael Douglas get a part in "Traffic," and the leading man she was most intimidated to work across from.

On being discovered by Steven Spielberg and golfing with Sean Connery

Business Insider: Let's go back to your 20s. You're in London, where you can't walk down the street without paparazzi all over you thanks to "The Darling Buds of May." Then you go to LA, where nobody knows you. What was that like?

Catherine Zeta-Jones: I had six months on a visa, so I could go and give the States a shot for six months. I would have hated myself if I decided the American thing wasn't for me. I would have always thought, What if I had given it a shot?

It was good for me once I got over my ego being knocked a bit. I'd been in this business since I was 9 years old, professionally in theater and in television, and a few films in Britain at that point. But I'd go into casting agents, and they'd be asking me what I had done.

I took a job that was not a huge career leap for me — the CBS show, "Titanic," the TV series after the blockbuster movie came out. I kept reminding myself that I came to give America a shot.

Steven Spielberg, on a Sunday night, was watching this CBS "Titanic" series when he saw me. As the producer of "The Mask of Zorro," he suggested that I screen test. Literally, within a week of it coming on TV, I was shipped down to Mexico to screen test with Antonio Banderas. Five days later, they called my agent and said I got the job, and three days after that, I was down there starting my sword-fighting lessons. 

After that, you worked across from Sean Connery in "Entrapment," which cemented your stardom. Is it true you got that role because you told Connery you play golf?

[Laughs.] He used to say that tongue-in-cheek. You know, Sean Connery was a dear, dear force of nature. 

Would you guys play golf?

Yeah. 

Did you ever beat him?

No. And even if I could, I would never tell. I beat Michael Douglas. Any day of the week. But not Sean Connery.

You can't beat 007. 

No way. Even if he cheated, I would just turn my head. 

On working with her husband on 'Traffic' and tap dancing with Christopher Walken

Speaking of your husband, is it true that Michael finally signed on to "Traffic" because he kept looking over your shoulder, looking at the drafts you were getting for the role you took in that movie?

There is a lot of truth in that. I was pregnant, and no one knew. And Steven Soderbergh asked me to do "Traffic." And I kept saying, "Oh my gosh, there's no way I can do this. Steven Soderbergh wants me in his movie, and I'm having a baby!" I was happy to be having a baby, but I so wanted to do this movie. So I called Steven and said, "I love the script, um, I think she would be even better if she was pregnant." And he said, "When are you due?" I went, "August," and he said, "We'll make it work." 

Michael never reads my scripts. I never read Michael's scripts. It's the one thing we kind of do on our own; we don't really talk shop at home. We just don't. But he knew how great that script was, and so Soderbergh called him and asked him if he had a chance to read my script. [Laughs.] And he said, "Kinda, but she's been telling me." So that's when he came on board. 

What I loved about that movie was not just the stellar performances, but I love that I can say I've been in a movie with Michael Douglas. Because if he wasn't my husband, I so would want to work with him. So even though we didn't have any scenes together, it was phenomenal. 

You starred in the rom-com "America's Sweethearts." The movie ends with Christopher Walken showing up to the junket to show footage of the movie he made with your character. It turns out to be all behind-the-scenes footage of the movie, which seems to be a musical, and we see you tap dancing with Walken. Is it true that subplot is in "America's Sweethearts" because you specifically wanted to tap dance with Christopher Walken?

Absolutely. I wanted to tap dance with Christopher Walken! I'm a big tap dancer. There are not many actors of my generation or Michael's generation, yes, [Michael Douglas' father] Kirk's generation, that can tap dance. So when I had the chance to do that, I was like, "Guys, we can't miss this chance." It was totally, selfishly, for myself. 

We touched on a few leading men you have worked with over your career. Looking back, is there one who made you stay on your game the most? Someone who you knew you had to bring your A-game to every time you walked on set?

I have to say Sean, but it wasn't that I had to be on my A-game. I just never wanted to stop acting with him, because we were such good buddies. He was so incredibly protective of me, like a daughter he never had, and he said that to me. And I loved his wife. I can't really say family, because he's not family, but I never wanted to act with anyone else after Sean Connery. I just didn't. It was fun. 

But I will say when I did "The Terminal" with Steven Spielberg at the helm and working so closely with Tom Hanks, I did go to work on the first day and go, "Mommy, I want to go home and cuddle." I got a little intimidated. Then — and I say this all the time — I learned the better they are, the nicer they are.

Now I've worked for so long, I've worked with some actors and gone, "Ugh, you just burst my bubble; I so wanted to work with you." Very rarely, but it has happened.

But working with all those guys on the "Oceans" movies: Matt [Damon], Brad [Pitt], George [Clooney]… I did a movie with George with the Coen brothers, and that was exceptional. So it's not so much bringing your A-game, because I want to do that with everyone I work across from.

Even on the movies where you realize, I don't think this is going to work, how do you get through it and feel positive and 100% committed? It's usually that the actors you're working with are so amazing. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

New episodes of "Kill Jackie" drop Fridays on AMC+.

• My husband and I moved back to Kentucky from Los Angeles eight years ago.
• I wanted to be closer to family, and for my son to get more time with his grandparents.
• When my dad suddenly passed away four years ago, I was even more grateful for that time.

Eight years ago, my husband and I decided to move our family from California to Kentucky. On days we miss our LA favorites, like animal fries from In-N-Out Burger or warm sunshine when it's dreary and 22 degrees, we play the game: What would life be like if we stayed? It starts out breezy with talk of Disneyland rides and running into celebrities like Harry Connick Jr., but the conversation never lasts too long.

"If we stayed," I say softly, "I would've missed out on time with my dad."

When we lived on the other side of the country, we had less time together

That's when the fun stops, and my husband reaches for my hand. We spent our first four years in Louisville living 15 minutes away from my parents, and then my father died unexpectedly. If we had stayed in LA, family time would've been reduced to two weeks a year and short phone calls. I couldn't have predicted that coming back home would give us such a gift — more time with my dad. And it almost didn't happen.

Committing to a cross-country move was no small thing. This was why I hadn't packed up our house in the middle of a no-sleeping week during my son's colicky fourth trimester. I was ready for family dinners, sleepovers, and the support I'd craved since our kiddo was born. But even though I felt ready, my husband needed time. A big move meant big changes in careers and friends. So, we waited and considered while our kid moved out of diapers and into Pull-Ups.

I continued calling and FaceTiming my parents so I could feel more connected. And this is how our nightly story time chats became a ritual — until my son started asking to see his grandparents during the day, too.

One particular afternoon, my toddler said, "Call Papa?" So I phoned my dad at work because he always answered. After talking to his grandson about Legos, we finalized a time for an upcoming visit. That's when I confided that I was nervous that a move home wasn't in our future. With more confidence in me than I had in myself, he said gently, "You'll know when it's right." Since my dad was, you know…my dad, I believed him.

We decided to move back to Kentucky at the right time

Five years after our son was born and many discussions later, my husband and I finally found the right time — just before our son entered Kindergarten. My dad was right. Once we were back in Louisville, it took maybe two full days to realize that being home did not disappoint. I could feel my body relax in a way it hadn't for years. Moving home gave me the safety I was looking for. For my son, the closeness was life-changing in all the best ways.

"Papa, can you make soup?"

Basically, from the moment we moved, my son was obsessed with my dad's homemade chicken soup. It was an ordeal to prepare, but without fail, my father cooked it whenever his grandson asked. But that's not the only Papa-related craze my kid leaned into once we were home. Games of hide-and-seek, walks around the lake, making paper airplanes, and Papa's pancakes were a few of the favorites my kid loved about visiting his grandfather.

The best was after our weekly dinners, my son and I would climb into our car, and wave goodbye to my mom and dad from the driveway. As we drove out through the neighborhood and turned the corner, my dad would magically appear on the sidewalk, waving again. My son was astounded and laughed so hard, shouting, "Papa, how did you do that?!" I never told my kid that his grandfather had simply run through two backyards to catch us. I was happy to let him believe his Papa was magic.

Moving home gave us all more than we knew we needed — time together. Countless memories were made that wouldn't have happened had we stayed. Those taken-for-granted, everyday moments of homemade soup and silly waves are forever part of us. In the four years since my dad's sudden heart attack, this is what's helped us through our shock and grief. Our lives wouldn't be as full without them.

• This November on Netflix, you can stream the horror sensation "Obsession."
• The Netflix original war movie "The Mosquito Bowl" is also available.
• So are classics like "Cliffhanger" and "Weekend at Bernie's."

Here's what's coming to Netflix this November.

"Air Force One" (November 1)

If you're in the mood for a late-1990s action movie, there's nothing better than Harrison Ford playing the president, who has to fight off a crazed terrorist (played Gary Oldman) after his plane is hijacked.

Under the skilled eye of director Wolfgang Petersen ("Das Boot," "In the Line of Fire," "The Perfect Storm"), this one has loads of thrills, with Ford delivering the memorable line, "Get off my plane!"

"Cliffhanger" (November 1)

If that got your blood racing, now watch Sylvester Stallone as a traumatized mountain-rescue ranger who must throw caution to the wind to save his friend and stop the leader of a botched heist from recovering stolen cash high in the Colorado Rockies.

"Weekend at Bernie's" (November 1)

This late-1980s comedy classic stars Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman as two finance bros who, after discovering their CEO (Terry Kiser) was killed, act like he's still alive so they don't get blamed for his death.

"Whiplash" (November 1)

Writer-director Damien Chazelle expanded his 18-minute short film into this dark feature-length drama starring Miles Teller as a talented drummer at a music school who gets pushed to the limit by his abusive instructor, played by J.K. Simmons. The movie earned a best picture nomination at the Oscars, and Simmons' performance would earn him an Oscar for best supporting actor.

"Obsession" (November 17)

One of the biggest hits of the summer is now available on Netflix. Curry Barker's horror movie follows Bear (Michael Johnston), who makes a wish for his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette) to fall in love with him. Sadly for him, the wish works.

"The Mosquito Bowl" (November 25)

Director Peter Berg collaborates again with "Friday Night Lights" author Buzz Bissinger to adapt his book, which tells the story of a group of college football stars who become Marines and play a football game before setting out for the Battle of Okinawa. Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Galitzine, Ray Nicholson, and Pat McAfee star.

"The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" (November 30)

This box office hit sequel to "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" follows Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) as they delve deeper into the world of the beloved game.

We would never tolerate normal pants without pockets, so why should we tolerate leggings without them? Even though many leggings activities don't require storage — like yoga or Pilates —getting to those activities certainly do. I don't want to schlep a bag to the gym when I only need my keys, ID, and lip balm.

Thankfully, more leggings are incorporating pockets — both hidden and external — into their designs. My go-to pair, Athleta's Salutation Stash leggings, are a prime example. They're supportive, soft, and easily store all my little things.

How I tested leggings with pockets

I tested six pairs of leggings with pockets to find ones that seamlessly secure my little everyday items without hindering my movement or comfort— whether I was lounging or exercising — in any way. For reference, I am 5-foot-7 and typically wear a size Medium in leggings. Our other editors cumulatively tested over a dozen other pairs ranging in size from Small to 2XL. Learn more about how the Reviews team tests clothing at BI.

Best overall: Athleta Salutation Stash High Rise Leggings

Pockets: Two roomy, bonded side stash pockets.

With smoothing, supportive medium compression and buttery soft nylon-Lycra blend that feels breathable all day, the Salutation Stash pair is equally well-suited to working out and hanging out. The two pockets are roomy and secure, and discreet such that you forget they're there if you are not storing anything in them (i.e. it doesn't feel like an extra layer of bulk.)

I love how the waistband gently holds in my lower belly during all levels of activity without feeling like a prison, and it basically feels like a second skin no matter how overstimulated I get during yoga or errands. (An instance where the oddly poetic marketing copy accurately reflects how I feel about a product: "support that feels like a gentle hug.") A big bonus is the UPF 40+ protection and superb moisture-wicking. Inseam for regular/plus sizes is 27", petite is 25", and tall is 30".

An Amazon gem: Colorfulkoala Buttery Soft Leggings

Pockets: One small rear waistband pocket.

"After hearing about the hype of the Colorfulkoala Buttery Soft High Waisted Leggings from our team's Colorfulkoala leggings review, I knew I had to grab a pair of leggings for myself. However, I almost always opt for a legging with pockets because of their versatility and ease if I ever want to go for an errand run after a workout class. The 7/8 Leggings with Pockets have the same buttery soft feel as the iconic leggings and come in over a dozen colors, and only start to ride down a bit if I'm doing intense cardio." — Maiya Pascouche, former beauty editor, Insider Reviews

Soft, everyday leggings: Beyond Yoga Spacedye Out of Pocket Leggings

Pockets: Two hip pockets are big enough to store a card, keys, or an iPhone.

Pockets aside (and they're really roomy ones), this high-waisted pair is the perfect lounging legging that's also comfortable for low to medium intensity workouts. The light compression and soft-brushed, buttery fabric made me really want to just live my entire life in these. The five-inch waistband sits comfortably at my waist without digging in, which also happens to create a super flattering silhouette, and it never rolls down during yoga.

I wanted to wear these running errands not only from a practical standpoint, but also because I love the way they hug my curves without compressing the hell out of me. I put my iPhone 14 in one pocket, and my keys and some cash in the other, and I'm unstoppable. The midi-length has a 28-inch inseam, which lands just above my ankle as a 5'7 person. Other sizes go up to 4XL, which is more inclusive than many of the competitors I tested.

Freelance style contributor Sarah Chiwaya agrees the Spacedye leggings are worth the $108. "This pair looked the same before and after the wash test, and that is no fluke: I have a pair of Beyond Yoga Spacedye bike shorts that I've had for over 6 years that still look good as new, with zero pilling and still just as touchably plush," she writes. "Basically, this fabric is fantastic." Read more in our guide to the best plus size leggings.

A solid Spacedye dupe: Quince Ultra-Soft High-Rise Leggings

Pockets: One small rear waistband pocket

"Between the luxe heathered fabric, timeless neutral colors, and flawless fit, I always feel put together in this set — whether I'm grabbing coffee, dropping my son at daycare, or taking a stroll around the local lake. And I love that I can mix and match the pieces, too.

The leggings look equally cute with a workout tank as they do with a V-neck tee and denim jacket. In the cooler months, I could definitely imagine wearing them with a slouchy off-the-shoulder sweater and Chelsea boots.

I originally bought this set hoping it'd be a budget-friendly alternative to my Beyond Yoga Spacedye bra and leggings. For the sake of comparison, that set costs $167 — and this one is $70.

As it turns out, the quality is still up to par. The fabric hasn't pilled, stretched out, or faded despite frequent wear and washing — and if anything, it's become even softer over time." — Rebecca Strong, style contributor, Insider Reviews

Read more in our full Quince clothing review and Quince leggings sports bra review.

Extra pockets for runners: Janji Trail Tights

Pockets: Five pockets total, including two double-tiered side pockets on the thighs and a back-waistband pocket.

Five pockets on a legging feels like the future. I really loved these Janji tights for running and high-impact workouts because everything I stored in them (keys, phone, cards, cash, and even dog poop bags) stayed secure no matter what I was doing. The back pocket is genius as a pass-thru to secure a lightweight layer—like if you transition from T-shirt to sports bra mid-hike. I also love the mesh layer on the outer pockets so I can grab what I need easily without rooting around forever, and the integrated Janji blue S-biner key clip in the top right pocket was a godsend for keys.

The fabric is lightweight, moisture-wicking, and exceptionally breathable (68% nylon, 32% Spandex), and the compression provides just enough support without feeling restrictive. The 25-inch inseam gives a cropped fit. Read more about how Janji makes of our favorite workout clothes for women.

Best crossover: Halara Softlyzero Crossover Pocket Leggings

Pockets: Two pockets deep enough for a phone and other small essentials.

"I wore these Crossover Leggings indoors as well as outdoors for reformer Pilates classes, stroller walks, and intense resistance training sessions alike, and consistently felt cool and dry. Plus, the side pockets were snug and deep enough to keep my phone, lip balm, or other small essentials genuinely secure.

All that said, one durability concern: after just a couple of wears, a few stitches came loose along one of the seams. However, I trimmed the stray threads, and the seam doesn't appear to have unraveled any further — nor does it appear to be separating when I tug on it.

While I tested the standard version of these leggings, they're also available in medium-warm (designed for 23-41 degrees Fahrenheit) and extra-warm (designed for 5-23 degrees Fahrenheit) if you're looking for a little more insulation for outdoor winter activities."

Read more in our full Halara clothing review.

Flare leggings for various heights: Popflex Crisscross Hourglass Flared Leggings

Pockets: Two spacious side pockets, each big enough for a phone

I attribute these sleek flare leggings to putting me back on to yoga pants. They elongate my legs and give my butt a nice lift. I feel nice and supported, and the fabric is so buttery soft. The elastic just snatches you you in so nicely, they still fit like a glove, which has been quite nice, as while I've had to shell out to replace my old favorite leggings, these are still hanging on. They come in five different inseams, too, which is nice for girls of all heights. —Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor, Insider Reviews

The Crisscross Flared Leggings with Pockets, with their high-waisted crisscross details, make me feel very Gen Z (in a good way!) I love that they come in different inseams. At 5-foo-11, I find that pants are chronically short on me, but these leggings in the 34-inch inseam were perfect, if not a little long (they go up to a 37-inch inseam). They're comfy and cute and I feel they've been a staple of many walks over the past year. —Lauren Savoie, former deputy editor, Insider Reviews

Read more in our full Popflex review.

A pocket so discreet you might miss it: Old Navy StudioSmooth Leggings

Pockets: One small hidden waistband pocket.

Old Navy athleisure, you've charmed me yet again. (I'm a zealot for their high-waisted sweatpants.) These buttery soft, curve-hugging leggings are so comfortable and flattering, and the StudioSmooth fabric can go toe to toe with all the high-end athleisure brands that charge 3x as much. I love this hidden pocket for when I only need to store small items like a key and a card. (My phone easily fits, but it doesn't feel the most secure.) With a 25-inch inseam, the leggings sit at my belly button and the leg hits just about my ankle. The light-medium compression made these such an ideal Everyday Legging that I found myself reaching for constantly. The breathable fabric blend is 82% nylon and 18% Spandex.

Oh, and they're regularly on sale for $20, and sizes go up to 4X (which should be the norm). Plus, the range of colors are super pretty and premium-looking.

• Anthropic outlined several ways it plans to give back in its IPO filing this week.
• They include reserved shares, cofounder pledges, donation matching, and stock incentives.
• Philanthropy gurus said it's partly "reputation management," and how the money is used will be key.

Anthropic's IPO filing this week contained myriad revelations about the state of the AI firm's finances, as well as an eye-opening series of claims about its commitment to helping others.

We asked three experts in the world of philanthropy what they thought of these giving pledges. Their verdict: we'll see.

A culture of giving?

The company behind the AI chatbot Claude, which filed this week to go public in what could be the biggest IPO in history, laid out how it plans to give back and encourage its employees to do the same.

Anthropic's seven cofounders said they've pledged 80% of their personal stock in the startup to charitable causes, gifts that could together be worth $80 billion.

They also said they've earmarked 5% of Anthropic's equity for a "fund devoted to the public good," and plan to set aside another 2% for every sustained 50% rise in the company's stock price, with its IPO price as the base.

Moreover, they said that new employees are offered a donation match, meaning that for every share they pledge to give away to good causes, Anthropic creates an additional share and matches the donation.

Anthropic said that just over half of its employees have pledged at least some of their equity, including 70% of employees hired before May 2024, and nearly 50% of those hired after that date.

The company noted that 25% of the former group, who were offered up to a 50% match, pledged the full amount. That figure was nearly 30% for the latter group, who were offered a 25% match.

Anthropic also said it plans to issue Class E shares — which carry limited voting rights but have no economic value — to reward tenure and charity.

Employees stand to receive one share for every six months they stay at the company, and one Class E share for every normal share they pledge to donate, Anthropic said.

Anthropic didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

'Judge us on this'

Three philanthropy experts told Business Insider via email this week that Anthropic's giving plan is promising but represents only a first step.

"It's admirable, and it's well-designed," said Dr. Vandana Arcot, the founder and CEO of Komselj, a philanthropic strategy firm. She noted that "building it into the compensation structure makes generosity the default, not the exception."

Arcot said Anthropic's giving seemed to be grounded in an "ethic of accountability, not abundance."

She pointed to CEO Dario Amodei's January essay in which he said that people who get rich from AI have a responsibility to address its economic fallout.

Arcot also cited Anthropic's $200 million commitment this summer to fund research on preparing people for AI's economic impacts.

She said that valuing generosity "tends to help companies attract mission-driven talent and keep it, which is a business case on top of the moral one."

She added that "defining your giving in advance is a way of saying: judge us on this."

But Arcot said her full evaluation of Anthropic's efforts will depend on "who sits on the decision-making body, how recipients are chosen, and what gets reported."

Bella DeVaan, the director of the Charity Reform Initiative and deputy director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, said there's such "dire" wealth inequality in the US that "any efforts to center the public benefit are commendable."

However, she said they're "no substitute for structural reform," and "giving to the public benefit shouldn't be voluntary, but should be guaranteed by our tax system."

DeVaan also noted the charitable pledges by Anthropic's cofounders aren't legally binding and can be revoked. She said it was "concerning" to see that personal interest could trump public benefit, and added that it's "exactly why voluntary efforts alone won't be sufficient to rely on."

Hans Peter Schmitz, a professor of nonprofit leadership at North Carolina State University, said he applauded Anthropic for promoting generosity from the top down, but it struck him as "part of an intentional effort in managing public opinion."

He said that any positive publicity around Anthropic's giving could help differentiate it from competitors and counter bad news about AI. The nascent technology has proven contentious due to concerns about job losses, environmental damage, cybersecurity threats, and even danger to humans.

Schmitz said Anthropic appeared to be engaging in "reputational management," as "pledges are a relatively cheap 'signal' to be viewed in a positive light."

"Like many pledges in the past, there is also a high likelihood that it may never happen and/or a lot of the funding is channeled into a narrow set of issues, like AI safety," he said.

Villa Vie Residences promised residents the world. The company's cruise ship, the Odyssey, kept circling one corner of it while finances worsened, services deteriorated, and cash calls mounted.

"We were going in a smaller and smaller circle," said Claude Sadovsky, who joined the Odyssey when it first set sail from Belfast in September 2024. "I signed up for a world cruise, and I was in purgatory."

By early October, Sadovsky was frustrated enough with the itinerary changes that he left the ship and returned to his home in Maui. For Starr Davis, who also joined in Belfast in 2024, it was the constant appeals for fuel money that got her to jump ship in late September. "I got so sick of all the cash calls," she said.

For those aboard the Odyssey in its final months, the crisis grew so acute that some passengers began fundraising for crew members, residents told Business Insider.

The financial distress culminated in the ship's abrupt halt in Cambodia on Tuesday, when passengers were given eight hours to pack up their belongings and leave. While the speed of the end came as a shock to some, residents said signs of trouble had been growing.

"The ship was just a pressure cooker," Davis said. "You know, 'Are we going to exist?'"

In an interview with Business Insider on Friday, Villa Vie Residences cofounder and executive chairman Mikael Petterson confirmed the company had made cost-cutting changes. "There were itinerary changes," he said. "Of course there were."

He said the changes aboard the Odyssey — home to a "never-ending" cruise for permanent residents who bought cabins for $119,999 to $439,999 — were driven by rising fuel costs and logistical challenges.

"When you're the first one doing something, of course you're going to make a ton of mistakes," he said.

Petterson said roughly 88% of Villa Vie is owned by residents; the rest is owned by the founders, management team, and him. A drawback of that structure is that residents were the ones turned to when money got tight, he said: "When there's money needed, residents are naturally called upon because there's no private equity. There's no big owner."

"When things didn't go as planned, it was a double whammy," he added.

"That is what made Villa Vie Residences so strong, yet so weak."

Villa Vie Residences CEO Kathy Villalba did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Business Insider. In a now-deleted apology to residents, Villalba said Villa Vie was still speaking to potential investors and "holding onto whatever hope remains." Columbia Cruise Services, Villa Vie's operational partner, did not reply to several requests for comment.

The round-the-world route started shrinking

Villa Vie had marketed the three-and-a-half-year voyage as a circumnavigation with more than 425 port calls across 147 countries.

For the period between October 2024 and October 2026, its initial itinerary listed 275 ports in 69 countries and territories, or 54 sovereign nations.

As fuel costs rose after the onset of the war with Iran and Villa Vie's financial pressures worsened, the company increasingly pared down its route: It canceled stops, slowed the ship at sea, extended stays in ports, and revisited destinations to conserve fuel and reduce operating costs.

To see how plans changed, Business Insider compared itineraries the ship issued at four different times: its initial itinerary from October 2024; its November 2025 itinerary, which showed where it went in 2024 and 2025; one from January 2026 showing changes before the war; and an October 2026 itinerary showing this year's stops. We also reviewed messages Villalba and Petterson sent to ship residents at various points over the past three months.

We found that while the ship visited 54 nations between October 2024 and October 2026, it missed some territories and called at only 198 ports — 28% fewer than originally planned. Across the two years, our comparison of the itineraries showed the ship spent nearly two fewer months at sea than initially scheduled.

Petterson blamed the skyrocketing price of fuel: "We had no choice," he said.

Business Insider's analysis shows the Odyssey also made itinerary changes before fuel prices rose, including in Australia and New Zealand. Residents said those appeared to be for reasons other than fuel costs.

Planning around an ever-changing itinerary

For some residents, the route changes turned an around-the-world voyage into one long bout of déjà vu. "We have revisited some of the same ports countless times in the last several months," Angela Nuran Gokturk, 65, said.

Messages from Petterson and Villalba to residents demonstrated how fuel, financing, and operating costs directly shaped the ship's route.

In a message to residents on the ship's internal messaging platform on August 1, Villalba said they would cancel a stop in Brunei and sail directly from Singapore to Nha Trang in southern Vietnam "to conserve fuel and reduce operating costs."

On August 7, Petterson said in a memo that the ship had "aggressively reduced costs" and "redesigned itineraries to spend more time in port and consume less fuel."

In a message on September 6, Villalba said the Odyssey would extend its stay in Ha Long, Vietnam, by one or two days, depending on "fuel availability and funding." What was meant to be a three-night stay became a 10-night layover, the revised itinerary shows.

Residents said the route changes made it difficult to plan flights and excursions in advance. "People stopped trying to make plans because things could change literally within a few days," said Sally Stunkel, 75, who joined the ship in February.

During the stay in Ha Long, Stunkel joined an eight-person excursion to China, but the group had already booked flights to one of the Vietnamese stops that was later cut from the itinerary. They had to buy new tickets to rejoin the ship at its revised next port.

"We spent more money trying to chase the ship, basically, to the next port so we could then board again," she said.

Singapore became a repeat stop: The ship stopped there three times between May and July, spending 16 days there in total, according to the October 20 itinerary.

Stunkel said the one change that frustrated her most was the removal of Japan and South Korea from the itinerary. In March, the ship's public itinerary showed it was supposed to visit 19 ports in Japan and South Korea, between June 26 and August 19. In April, the itinerary was updated to instead show stops in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Brunei during that period.

Stunkel said she had bought a cabin on the cruise in part because it was scheduled to visit Japan over the summer. She said she was "extremely disappointed" by the change, adding, "Japan is my No. 1 bucket list destination."

Onboard services like dining and internet were hit

Some onboard services were also disrupted.

In a memo to residents on September 10, Villalba said that because the ship had fewer residents on board and fewer staff available, dining service would be consolidated. An on-board restaurant, The Palms, would temporarily close, while breakfast and lunch would be served buffet-style. Dinner would be a combination of à la carte and buffet. Davis said residents would joke when they went to dinner that it was "slim pickings."

Internet and TV services also suffered. Two residents said the internet had become spotty and unreliable. In a September 7 memo, Villalba said she had paid an outstanding balance and that internet service was being restored.

Paul Montoya, 68, said the internet issues especially affected digital nomads living and working on the ship. Some would have to get off at port to find a nearby hotel with internet access, he said.

Davis said air conditioning on the ship was throttled up or down pending fuel needs, adding, "Everything was about saving fuel."

Petterson, who did not live on the ship and said he was not closely involved in its daily operations, said the company took measures to save money that went beyond conserving fuel.

"We were cutting back where the residents would feel it the least, and that balance sometimes was difficult," he said.

Residents were repeatedly asked to help keep the ship moving

Management made repeated requests for residents to help cover Villa Vie's costs.

In April, Villa Vie offered residents an "Emergency Loan Investment Opportunity," asking them to lend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to the company at interest rates of 12% to 24%, according to a letter viewed by Business Insider.

Petterson said the request netted around $2 million that helped the ship survive for a few months.

From April onwards, Gokturk said it was "cash call after cash call."

Gokturk and her husband did not participate in the loan program, she said, but they contributed to later appeals, including a voluntary fuel surcharge. "It became exhausting because it was constantly, 'Hey, we need more money. We need more money. If we don't get the money, then we're not going to be able to sail,'" Gokturk said.

The uncertainty affected the mood aboard the ship. "It became very, very difficult," she said.

Stunkel said the cash calls felt "incessant." She continued, "We felt like they were just leaching us out of whatever we had to keep the ship moving until the last possible moment."

Four residents said that when they heard that staff had gone unpaid, they organized a fundraiser for the crew. Montoya said residents collected about $12,000 in cash outside the ship's café and distributed it to workers in $100 bills.

There were several times in the last couple of months when payment owed to the crew was delayed, Petterson said, including by three weeks this month. He said as of around Wednesday, the crew had been paid. An employee in the Florida office said staff had received a partial payment, and that commissions hadn't been paid in months.

Petterson said the company had been doing everything it could to keep the ship afloat. The company had tried to make the fuel surcharge mandatory but realized the residents' contracts didn't allow for it, so it became voluntary. Some residents contributed to the surcharge, while others bought additional discounted cabins through the VIP program.

He said he had spent July looking for outside investment. By August, the situation was dire. A potential deal with Oneil Khosa, the former CEO of Margaritaville's cruise line, fell through last week. They were out of time. Business Insider was unable to reach Khosa for comment.

In the days since the Odyssey's journey came to a halt in Cambodia, passengers have expressed a range of emotions. Some are heartbroken that their dream retirement came crashing to an end; others are hopeful the ship will sail again. One passenger said a group of fellow passengers is working on a "Hail Mary" attempt at buying the ship.

Petterson said the focus is on a recapitalization, adding, "Preferably we need an operational partner that can come in with a stronger hand and a bigger pocket."

Several residents said that despite how it ended, they don't regret the experience. But Sadovsky, who left before the Odyssey came to a halt, said the voyage he thought he had bought had become unrecognizable by the time he disembarked.

"There was no reason for me to stay because I wasn't being exposed to new places anymore," he said. "I was revisiting the same old places, and I'd rather be home."

Additional reporting by Amanda Goh.

• This post originally appeared in the BI Today newsletter.
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Welcome to Marathon Sunday!

Yours truly will be among nearly 60,000 runners taking on the five boroughs today. I've spent months training for this one — with a little help from Muse, Meta's AI agent.

Several weeks ago, I wrote about how I had become addicted to Muse. Since then, Muse has become part of my marathon training, helping me map out long runs and shape an overall race plan. After the Staten Island half marathon last month, it even asked me, unprompted, "how'd the half go?"

The other day, I gave Muse my bib number and asked it to track my run. I'm hoping for real-time feedback and analysis, delivered straight through my AirPods, on how my race is unfolding and how I can stay on pace to achieve my goals.

But no AI agent can replicate the wisdom from real people.

At Business Insider, five of us are running the NYC marathon this year. We range from a first-time marathoner (Discourse editor Zak Jason) to a true veteran in Anthony DeMaio on the sales team, who will be running his 23rd NYC marathon (and roughly his 40th overall marathon; he says he's lost count!)

I asked them to share their best marathon advice for runners, spectators, or if you're simply trying to understand why someone would pay $330 to run 26.2 miles.

Here's what they had to say:

Noah Sheidlower, senior economy reporter: Live in the moment and acknowledge the spectators who came out to support. My race time last year was disappointing, but I had an absolute blast because I was high-fiving everyone and making people's days. Tap the "power up" marathon sign that little kids are holding, give a fist pump to strangers, and laugh when you see a funny sign that someone put a lot of effort into. The marathon shouldn't just be a celebration of your individual work but a community celebration honoring the greatest city on earth. Oh also, buy merch and don't feel guilty about it! I bit the bullet and got the blue jacket, and it looks so good.

Kathleen Elkins, investing correspondent: Soak it all in! Write your name on your shirt, absorb all of the hearty cheers, give the high-fives and the smiles! When you give New Yorkers energy, they'll give it right back.

Zak Jason, Discourse executive editor: As a first-time marathoner, I'm in no position to advise on anything — other than to trust the advice of people who have done hard things before you, because they want you to be awake to the gift of being alive. (Then again, someone also told me it's OK to pee yourself during the race.)

Anthony DeMaio, global head of sales: Can't wait to run my 23rd NYC Marathon. The marathon is a celebration of preparation. Every early morning and every tough summer long run builds the confidence to stand on the starting line. The days you don't want to run are often the ones that matter most, discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want right now. Embrace the hard moments; they prepare you for the miles when things get tough. And remember, running is a team sport. Let people support you, and support them in return. To all my fellow runners: May the wind be at your back, the sun on your shoulders, and the crowds carry you all the way to the finish.

And for me, my standard advice is that the first five miles can make or break a marathon. Go slower than your expected pace at the beginning. If you think you're going too slow at the onset, go even slower.

You'll thank yourself later!

After working in public service for over a decade, Donald Knierim is still waiting for student-loan forgiveness.

Now he's participating in a lawsuit in hopes of getting relief for himself — and thousands of others.

Knierim first spoke to Business Insider earlier in October. In 2015, the 71-year-old started working for Metra, Chicago's commuter railway. His goal was to stay on the job for a decade in order to earn Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which forgives student debt for government and nonprofit workers after 10 years.

He thought he had succeeded in November 2025, when his Federal Student Aid dashboard read, "Congratulations! You've satisfied your obligation, and no additional payments are required for this loan."

So he retired from Metra, with the belief that his student-loan payments were in the past. Months later, he received another notice: 15 payments that had previously counted toward his forgiveness progress were now rescinded, and his outstanding balance was reinstated.

On Friday, the American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit that includes Knierim as a declarant, alleging that the Department of Education illegally clawed back borrowers' PSLF payments and is stalling debt relief for thousands.

The stakes are high for Knierim; he cannot return to work because caring for his wife, who is dealing with serious health issues, is a full-time job.

"He lives on a fixed income, and diverting those funds to his student loans and away from mounting household expenses and savings puts his wife and him in a financially precarious situation," the lawsuit said.

Challenges with PSLF have mounted over the past few months, with borrowers reporting inaccurate payment counts and stalled applications to the buyback process, which allows a borrower to "buy back" time spent in deferment or forbearance if it would put them at the relief threshold.

Ellen Keast, communications director for the Education Department's undersecretary, said in a statement that the PSLF buyback process requires "case-by-case reviews and extensive paperwork."

"FSA has already begun transitioning this work to loan servicers as part of a broader effort to streamline operations, reduce administrative burden, and modernize the process," Keast said. "Rather than acknowledge these realities, the union has yet again chosen litigation and election-year theatrics."

Knierim said he's grateful to be part of the lawsuit and to have "a strategic path forward."

"I have a flawless payment history," Knierim said. "I have never missed a payment, and I paid what they told me to pay."

The burden of stalled student-debt relief

Knierim has spent months seeking clarity on his account. He called and sent letters to Federal Student Aid and the ombudsman's office, and he even offered to pay a lump-sum amount if it would qualify him for PSLF.

He said no one ever responded to that offer. Worried that any further action on his account could jeopardize his loan forgiveness, he didn't make any payments during this time, so he was marked as delinquent and was set to default in November. The consequences of defaulting can be severe, including wage garnishment and the seizure of federal benefits like Social Security, which Knierim relies on.

His forbearance request was approved days before he was set to default, and a "reconsideration request" on his PSLF status is in progress.

The AFT's lawsuit said that Knierim's dilemma is likely "widespread, affecting thousands, if not tens of thousands, of borrowers." One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Elizabeth Schoepflin, had 14 payments toward PSLF rescinded, extending her repayment timeline by nearly a year and a half.

"Her servicer confirmed that there were no changes to her account that would explain the Department's clawback, and could not tell her why the Department took away the qualifying months," the lawsuit said.

Knierim said he's been diligent with his payments and that customer service representatives repeatedly assured him he was on track for loan forgiveness. He's hopeful he'll get the relief he's paid years toward and can continue his retirement with his student loans officially behind him.

"If I have to restore that payment, it's going to put my wife and me in a bad situation," Knierim said. "We're too tight in retirement to be shelling out money for stuff that we can't afford."

Have a story to share about student loans? Contact this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.

• Rachel Woods taught herself AI while studying business in college, later landing a role at Facebook.
• She left to start her own business, which helps people integrate AI into their everyday workflows.
• She said the company has saved itself at least 4 new hires by using AI agents and playbooks.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Rachel Woods, CEO and cofounder of AMP. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

My first official role in AI was at Facebook. I started as an intern and then joined full-time in 2018. I worked on AI research and development for the ads system that's powered by AI.

I don't have an engineering degree or background; I studied management information systems at The University of Texas at Austin. Part of why I think I got my role at Facebook was because I spent time building my own side projects and teaching myself how to train AI models and do data analysis.

I left Facebook in 2020 to start my own business in the wine industry, and after that company sold, I founded an AI company. I would need to double the number of people on my team if we didn't use AI playbooks.

If you're being thoughtful about setting up your AI operations, it's no different than building a team that you can trust.

That's something a lot of people are missing: how to actually make these systems things you can take your eyes off and not keep yourself up at night in the process.

I've been an entrepreneur since the age of 15

My first business was a photography business, and I was too young to even drive to meet my clients. I would always catch rides with people, and my parents hated this.

I got into tech because in college, I was exposed to colleagues doing data analytics and working with coding and AI at summer internships. That led me to look online and try to take related classes, and I started to see that if you break a business problem into small enough pieces, you can get AI to handle parts of it: predicting, sorting, generating.

Later, when I was applying to Facebook, I used AI and data analysis to build a report of coffee shops in Austin that were less likely to be too busy for me to study at. I think that project helped me land my role.

After I left Facebook, I started a wine business called Vinebase in 2020; we built a tech platform that used AI to help winemakers sell their wine online and manage the digital side of their business.

Because this was before AI became more mainstream, we didn't market it as AI. We called it our "auto magic" system. I think that if we had said it was AI, it could've been a turnoff for our customers. Vinebase was acquired by Corksy in fall 2022.

I use my playbooks and AI agents to replace additional staff

My sister and I started AMP, originally called The AI Exchange, before ChatGPT was released in November 2022, because I was using AI in Vinebase and saw how the technology was progressing. ChatGPT came out about a month later and started really accelerating the AI timeline, so we went all in.

We have four full-time employees and four part-time contractors right now, but we'd need double if we weren't running as much as we are on AI. Given the company's current size, we'd need at least four to five additional people, including a sales and marketing manager, customer support specialist, executive assistant, and operations coordinator.

The way we structure these systems is based on something we call playbooking. Every department in the company has its own system. Each system is a collection of playbooks with AI agents that can run independently or together.

How we build our AI playbooks

To build an AI playbook, pick one piece of work you do over and over, and write down what starts it, what goes into the task, and what should come out at the end. Next, write the steps the way you'd train a new hire: each step, the decisions in it, and what "good" looks like.

Start running it with AI, and while you watch, compare the result to how you would've done it. Then, fix the playbook, not the output, until you trust it to run without you.

I always think through how I want a playbook to work and outline it by hand. Whenever you're making an AI playbook, you want to own the thinking and the logic. Otherwise, you can fall into the trap of including something that you don't really understand, and then you're not going to be able to trust that system anyway.

We have an AI agent running our sales playbook to review customer calls and ensure they meet our standards, rather than having a sales manager review them manually. Also, instead of sales team members needing to ask their manager questions, they just ask the playbook, which then pulls the answers from our guide for that team.

There are two types of AI costs we have in the business. The first is the subscriptions to Claude and ChatGPT for every person on the team. The other is because the majority of our operations are these AI playbooks that are running in the background without us being the ones starting or triggering it. In September, we spent $8,510 on Claude Code to run our playbooks in the background, which is billed by usage and is separate from the team's monthly Claude and ChatGPT subscription costs.

Own the playbook, rent the tech

We say "own the playbook, rent the tech," which means that if you are creating really good playbooks for your AI to follow, it actually doesn't matter which tool you're running it in.

Right now, we have a setup that's running with Claude Code in the background. But I could run all of these playbooks in ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot.

We try to avoid a lot of the risks that people are concerned about with AI going rogue by creating these detailed outlines. We don't just want the agents to run on vibes. There still needs to be a person to decide and design how the work gets done; AI just speeds up everything else. That's the job security we have in this AI era.

Start small, and get everyone involved

A few of us on the team who are more advanced with AI own the bigger, team-wide playbooks that the business depends on, but everyone playbooks their own personal workflow, and then we use that as the testing ground to graduate things into becoming more part of official systems.

My advice would be to just start with something small and really easy, because once you get your first win and see how AI can do that repetitive work for you, it's kind of like a snowball.

Do you have a story to share about using AI to run your small team? Contact this editor, Agnes Applegate, at aapplegate@businessinsider.com.

We spend the year testing hundreds of products to find the best sleep products, but I wanted to know what my colleagues use to help them wind down, stay comfortable while traveling, and feel well-rested come morning. Here are their favorite bedding, sleep tech, and bedroom accessories they rely on for better rest.

All the gear the Reviews team use to get better sleep

This viral sunrise alarm clock is absolutely worth it

Hatch Restore 3

The Hatch Restore 3 is more than just a sunrise alarm clock; it's a customizable bedside sleep system designed to help you build a more consistent nighttime routine and wake up more naturally. It pairs gradual sunrise-style light with soothing soundscapes to guide you from wind-down to wake-up, supporting your circadian rhythm rather than jolting you with a harsh alarm. I love how the latest generation puts more emphasis on onboard controls so you don't have to rely on my phone at bedtime. To unlock its full library of guided meditations, sleep stories, podcasts, and music, you'll need to subscribe to Hatch+, which costs $60 per year. However, the device includes a solid selection of options on its own.

Hatch also just launched its new Hatch Sleep Clock, which I'm also obsessed with. It adds accurate contactless sleep tracking for $80 more and focuses on providing actionable guidance for getting better sleep rather than just summarizing sleep quality with a score. — Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor

Read our Hatch Restore 3 review.

Breathable pajamas that keep us from overheating

Dagsmejean Slip Dress

Dagsmejan uses patented fabric technology, including its "Nattcool" textile, which the brand says is up to eight times more breathable than cotton and designed to wick away moisture as you sleep. I put it to the test during an August heatwave without air conditioning, and it kept me noticeably cool and dry through the night, earning the spot in our guide to the best cooling pajamas. While I wake up with damp pajamas when I overheat, I felt genuinely comfortable and surprisingly refreshed in this slip dress. It's made from 100% lyocell, so it feels silky, lightweight, and noticeably cool to the touch. The relaxed fit and split hem make it easy to move in if you toss and turn. It's admittedly pricey for a nightgown, so if you're only going to invest in one Dagsmejan piece, I also recommend the Relaxwear Kimono. —Gabrielle Chase, senior associate style editor

A heated, massaging eye mask

Therabody SmartGoggles

The SmartGoggles are the indulgent sleep gear I never knew I needed. I've tried a few similar designs from other brands, and Therabody just does it the best. Therabody's SmartGoggles combine heat, massage, and vibrations into a blackout eye mask. There are three settings for personalized relaxation, headache relief, and sleep prep. Still, you can sync it with the Therabody app to unlock an audio experience, further customize settings, and track your resting heart rate. Now, I prepare for bed with a temple massage and comforting heat, which also reduces eye strain and eases stress. — Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor

A breathable linen quilt for even the hottest sleepers

Parachute Linen Box Quilt

As a hot and light sleeper, I've found that even lightweight comforters are too warm, which is why I've relied on the Parachute Linen Box Quilt for the past six years. It's alongtime Reviews team favorite, featuring a soft, garment-dyed linen, crisp percale cotton back, and airy, baffle-box construction that feels breathable and barely there. I love that this quilt is lightweight and made from breathable, cooling linen. It gives me that cozy, wrapped-up feeling without trapping excess heat. Even if you're not a hot sleeper, it's a great layering piece — many of my Reviews teammates swear by it, too. —Lauren Savoie, former deputy executive editor

The best pillow we've tested

Coop Sleep Goods Original Pillow

I've tested dozens of pillows over the years, but the Coop Original is still one of my favorites. There's a reason it consistently ranks at the top of our guides, including as our best overall pillow for neck pain and the top pick for side sleepers. It works across sleep positions and makes it easier to maintain proper alignment, which can really help with neck and back tension. Several members of our team have continued using it long after testing. For me, it checks all the boxes, and it's still the one I reach for every night. — Suzy Hernandez, contributor

A white noise machine that uses a real fan

Snooz White Noise Machine

During a visit back home for the holidays, my partner's grandparents urged us to try their Snooz White Noise Machine. We ended up loving it so much that we got our own. It uses a real fan to create comforting, soothing sounds that help you drift off to sleep. The design is super intuitive — a simple tap of a button starts the machine. It's fantastic at helping me sleep, especially when my neighbors throw a party, or my dog decides to give the squirrels in our backyard a piece of his mind. —Kinsley Searles, associate home and kitchen editor

Read our guide for the best white noise machines.

A warming, lavender-scented plushie

Blue Crab Warmies

Warmies combine the comfort of a plush stuffed animal with the soothing benefits of gentle heat. These lightly weighted, lavender-filled plushies can be heated in the microwave for cozy warmth, making them exceptionally soothing at bedtime or when you need a little extra relaxation. My Warmies is a total lifesaver when I have cramps or a stomachache. Plus, since there are no wires, I can have pain relief without the risk of a fire hazard. It's also just lovely to have a little extra warmth in the bed, especially on cold nights. — Kinsley Searles, associate home editor

A cooling, plush pillow that's wallet-friendly

Beckham Hotel Collection Down Alternative Gel Pillow

I'm a hot sleeper, so a cooling pillow is a must. This gel fiber pillow is breathable and helps keep me from overheating at night. It's a fluffy, plush option, but it's not overstuffed, so I've found it comfortable no matter which position I sleep in. More than 250,000 Amazon shoppers agree that the Beckham Hotel Collection down-alternative pillow is an elite, budget-friendly pick. Softer and flatter than memory foam, it's more squishy than supportive, making it especially well-suited for stomach and back sleepers, and anyone who likes to hug, fold, or stack their pillows. It's filled with hypoallergenic polyester fiber; it holds up well over years of use without getting flat or lumpy. —Lillian Brown, associate editor

A size-inclusive bamboo pajama set that is also nursing- and mom-friendly

Kindred Bravely Clea Bamboo Long Sleeve Pajama Set

I used to be the kind of person who slept in whatever T-shirt I found lying around, but after moving to Maine, I'm always cold. I discovered Kindred Bravely after having my first child because of their incredibly popular hands-free pumping bra. Even though that was eight years ago, I'm still a fan of the brand. These pajamas are not only incredibly soft but also so stylish. I recently took them on a trip, and I found myself lounging in them comfortably. This pajama set keeps me warm, and I also love that it has several pockets, since I'm always carrying something for one of my kids during our bedtime routine. — Conz Preti, deputy editor

A luxurious silk eye mask that stays put

Drowsy Silk Sleep Eye Mask

I have tried so many silk sleep masks, but none compare to this one from Drowsy. My sleep immediately improved when I started using it because the design solves a lot of the annoyances I experienced with classic masks. It's extremely wide and has a slit in the nose area, so you don't have that frustrating sliver of light that comes in from the bottom. It also doesn't move around even if you toss and turn a ton, thanks to the wide, adjustable band on the back (which is also made of silk to protect your hair). And even though it's squishy and padded, you can't really feel the mask or strap when you're lying on a pillow. I also really appreciate that the silk material doesn't irritate my skin or absorb all my moisturizer. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor

An affordable comforter offered in a ton of colors

Bedsure Down Alternative Comforter

The Bedsure Comforter duvet insert is one of those rare bedding finds that checks every box: lightweight, fluffy, cozy, and affordable. I use mine year-round, and as someone navigating perimenopause and the dreaded night sweats, I appreciate that it keeps me warm without overheating. The down-alternative fill doesn't aggravate my allergies, and the box-stitch quilting keeps everything evenly distributed instead of bunching up overnight. But here's the real selling point: It's routinely marked down on Amazon. I paid full price for my first one, but I've since bought two more for as much as 50% off. One lives on my bed, another on my couch for cozy nights in, and the third stays in my linen closet for whenever I need an extra. That's how much I love it. — Bronwyn Barnes, deputy editor

A pair of sheet straps to keep the fitted sheet from slipping off

Gorilla Grip Bed Sheet Straps

When I sleep, I toss and turn a lot. My constant flip-flopping used to cause my fitted sheet to come loose, so I'd have to get out of bed in the middle of the night to pull it back into place. These Gorilla Grip Bed Sheet Straps solved that problem. They clip onto the corners and sides of your sheets to ensure that you won't have to worry about sheet creep, keeping the fitted sheet snugly secure on your mattress. The best part about this bed hack? It'll cost you less than $20. — Kinsley Searles, associate editor

Comfortable earplugs to keep out the city noise

Loop Quiet 2 Earplugs

My partner gave me a pair of these Loop earplugs after I complained about the noise levels at my SoulCycle class. They instantly make the music clearer and volume management more manageable, so I also take them along to concerts and my busy office. They're also handy if you sleep in a street-facing bedroom or a part of the house that gets extra noisy. They drown out noise better than standard disposable foam earplugs and are way more comfortable. You can barely feel them, and they stay in all night without fail. Loop also offers Loop Dream Plugs, which are specifically made for sleep with a low-profile silicone design for extra comfort. — Sally Kaplan, executive editor

A good old-fashioned crossword puzzle

The New York Times Take It Easy Crossword Puzzles: 75 Easy Puzzles

I do a crossword puzzle every night to help me wind down. It's a great analog activity that keeps me from late-night doom-scrolling. I suggest doing them with a gentle light on once you're already in bed — that way you can zonk out as soon as you're ready. —Sally Kaplan, executive editor

A cool, luxurious silk pillow

Cozy Earth Silk Pillow

We've all heard that a silk pillowcase is good for your skin and hair. The jury may still be out on whether this fabric can help prevent acne and keep hair from getting frizzy as you move in your sleep, but the feel of high-quality mulberry silk in this pillow is undeniably luxurious and sleeps cool all night long.  I've tried dozens of pillows, and few can compare to the breathable, cool feeling that this one provides. As a back and side sleeper, I was worried it wouldn't be lofty enough compared to the pillows I usually gravitate to, but it's perfectly moldable, providing the support I need. I'm a silk pillow convert. —Jaclyn Turner, senior editor

A weighted eye mask

Nodpod Weighted Eye Mask

I've never been much for eye masks, but the Nodpod has changed my mind. It's subtly weighted, with just the right amount of pressure without feeling claustrophobic. It also blocks out light. I just drape it over my face and start to feel calmer. It lacks straps, so it won't be ideal for stomach sleepers, but you can fit one end into the other to secure it to your head if you want to keep it more secure. — Jaclyn Turner, senior home editor

A portable mini humidifier

Riecin Portable Mini Humidifier

During winter, the heater dries me out and inflames my nasal passages, disrupting my sleep. So, I bought a portable mini humidifier — and it's a game changer. Not only is it super quiet, but it also runs continuously for four hours or, per my preference, intermittently for eight hours. The moisture in the air makes it easier to breathe and leads to deeper sleep. Not to mention, this portable humidifier always travels with me to super dry areas like New Mexico or high-altitude destinations like ski resorts, as it prevents nosebleeds and elevation-related sleep issues. — Alex Temblador, contributor

A crescent-shaped pillow for side sleepers

Coop Sleep Goods Crescent Adjustable Pillow

I was late to jump on the Coop bandwagon, even as the brand's adjustable pillows passed our rigorous testing, earned rave reviews from editors, and made their way to the top of our list of the best pillows. After spending more money than I care to remember on pillows made with shredded latex, down, and memory foam, I finally bought the Coop Crescent Adjustable pillow. Now I see what all the hype is about, and I'm fully convinced of the effectiveness of crescent-shaped pillows for side sleepers struggling with neck pain.

Designed especially for side and back sleepers, the ergonomic contour is what won me over. The crescent-shaped cutout cradles my head without forcing me to scrunch the pillow up under my neck and shoulder, a nightly wrestling match I'd come to expect as a side sleeper. Instead, the shape does the work for me, and I can even assume the T-Rex position without waking up with a sore shoulder or numb arm. After four weeks of sleeping on it, I'm going to dip into the included extra Oomph fill to boost the loft slightly—the fact that I can fine-tune the Coop pillow feels like built-in longevity. — Bronwyn Barnes, deputy editor

An e-reader with adjustable brightness settings

Kindle Paperwhite

I love using my Kindle Paperwhite to read before bed. Since its screen is backlit with adjustable brightness, it helps ease my eyes into the dark for an enjoyable activity that requires no harsh, bright lights. So much better than doom-scrolling on my phone! — Sarah Saril, deals editor

A serene meditation app

Headspace Meditation App

Whenever I have trouble sleeping, I turn to Headspace's sleep content to help me unwind. The mix of gentle narration and soothing sounds feels incredibly calming and helps settle my mind before bed or when I wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back asleep. — Maliah West, contributor

A travel blanket that's easy to pack

EverSnug Travel Blanket and Pillow

No matter how frequently I travel, I'm notoriously bad at sleeping on airplanes due to the lack of space and paper-thin linens. I bought this $35 Amazon travel blanket before an early-morning flight to the Galápagos last year, and it has been keeping me comfortable ever since. It folds up into a compact carrying case with a luggage sleeve, so it's easy to bring with you and can even double as a pillow. But what I wasn't expecting was that I would start using it at my destinations, too. It came in handy as an extra layer when my cruise cabin was too cold, and it completely saved me when I stayed in a Madrid apartment where the host only supplied a top sheet. As a self-proclaimed cozy girl, I can always use a little more plushness when I'm on the go. — Rebecca Shinners, contributor

A comfy U-shaped body pillow that doesn't overwhelm the bed

Yana 360° body pillow

The Yana body pillow is one of the few U-shaped designs that truly impressed me. It provides full-body support without the excess bulk or heat I've experienced with similar pillows. The cooling gel version remained breathable and supportive all night, and it's also available in a latex foam version. I also love how versatile it is. I use it for both sleeping and lounging since it's easy to reposition and light enough to move around. — Suzy Hernandez, contributor

Read more of the best body pillows.

A convenient pillow spray you can bring anywhere

This Works Deep Pillow Spray, 75ml

The spray is vegan and made of cruelty-free ingredients like lavender, vetiver, and chamomile to help relax busy minds as soon as they hit the pillow. I've lent this spray out to friends, roommates, and family to help them sleep, and I've always had trouble getting it back from them. — Mara Leighton, former senior reporter

PJ's that have convinced me to move on from the oversize t-shirt

Lake Hamptons PJ Set

I spent years sleeping in oversize T-shirts from random high school events and concerts, but I've finally upgraded now that I'm an adult. I once balked at spending more than $50, let alone more than $100, on a pair of pajamas, but the Hamptons set from Lake has completely won me over. The cotton gauze material is so breathable and airy — perfect for hot sleepers. Plus, they're cute enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen by neighbors walking to my mailbox. Whether I'm haphazardly doing my nighttime skincare routine or making breakfast in my messy kitchen, wearing these makes me feel like I'm in a dreamy cottage somewhere in Nantucket. Worth every penny. These have become my summer sleep uniform. — Paige DiFiore-Wohr, deputy editor, life & entertainment freelance

A cheap cotton eye mask

Mavogel Cotton Sleep Eye Mask

I've tried fancier sleep masks, and nothing beats the comfort of this budget-friendly option. I've used the Movogel Cotton Sleep Eye Mask on flights, while sleeping over at museums and aquariums with my kids, and on regular nights when I want to make sure I won't be distracted by any ambient light. This breathable cotton mask provides a snug fit over my eyes, without being too tight or squishing my lashes, and has never left an unsightly dent in my hair. — Jennifer Beck Goldblatt, senior editor, health + parenting

Ambient bedroom lighting

Govee Uplighter Floor Lamp

Since my focus is on sleep health, I'm intentional about my evening lighting. One newer addition to my bedroom that I've been having a lot of fun with is the Govee Uplighter floor lamp. It creates such a beautiful, relaxing ambiance for winding down at night. I set it to a warm glow to signal it's time to unwind, and I love the soft, wave-like light that gently fills the room. It's app-controlled and fully customizable, making it effortless to create a cozy, sleep-friendly atmosphere. — Suzy Hernandez, contributor

Crisp cotton sheets that sleep cool

Brooklinen Classic Percale Core Sheet Set

I'm firmly team patterned sheets for both my bedroom and my guest room. I love how they pair with a simple duvet or quilt. Over the years, I've tried several sets from different brands, and most recently, the Brooklinen Classic Percale Core Sheet Set in two patterns — plus a set of solid pillowcases. Since then, I've stopped checking other sites for something better.

My partner and I both tend to sleep hot, but we've noticed a real difference with these sheets. They have a tight, smooth weave with a bit of crispness, yet they're lightweight and breathable. After a year of use, they've held up better than other brands I've tried. The colors are still rich and the patterns sharp. Whenever we have guests, they always compliment the sheets, too — not just for the beautiful pattern (Oyster in Storm), but for how comfortable they feel. — Lisa Sabatini, senior pets editor

• Value-focused retailers are picking up market share and traditional chains are sliding.
• Households are hunting for grocery deals to offset rising costs of other bills.
• Fuel pressures may drive more inflation, but Walmart and Costco are typically slow to raise prices.

The grocery wars continue to heat up.

As US households continue to grapple with rising costs for gas, housing, and insurance, they're increasingly looking for savings on groceries.

That's giving value-focused retailers like Walmart and Costco a major leg up over more traditional grocery giants like Kroger and Albertsons.

Data released this week from consumer analytics firm Numerator showed warehouse giant Costco overtook Kroger's dollar share of US retail food and beverage sales. Costco has steadily gained share over the last two years as both Kroger and Albertsons shrank their positions.

The estimates are based on the last 12 months of sales, and show Costco's share ticking up to 8.4%, a half percentage point higher than the same period a year earlier.

And even though Walmart has long held the largest share of grocery spending, it managed to gain 0.2 percentage points to capture 20.3% of sales in the period.

By comparison, Kroger's share fell by 0.2 percentage points to 8.2% while Albertsons saw its share slide by 0.1 percentage points to 4.5%.

The shifting grocery landscape comes at a time when US shoppers are facing fresh inflation increases from last year's trade war and this year's conflict with Iran.

Costco has also managed to keep prices steady this year, but the wholesale club's leaders say they are closely watching the latest cost pressures.

Groceries haven't been significantly affected by rising diesel and transportation costs just yet, but a recent note from Deutsche Bank said Walmart is bracing for an impact that would outweigh the benefit the company received in tariff refunds this year. Walmart initially planned to invest some of those refunds in price cuts.

Deutsche Bank also said that when Walmart raises prices, its competitors do too, and Walmart typically remains the lower-priced option.

Traditional grocers aren't sitting quietly as Walmart and Costco pull ahead, though.

Kroger has been taking a page — and a CEO — from Walmart's book this year, adding Greg Foran, who formerly led Walmart's US business.

Foran's big focus this year is on lowering prices for consumers and tightening operations to make that happen. It's a $5 billion effort that includes significant cuts to the corporate workforce over the next few years and ending contracts with suppliers that aren't delivering a good enough deal.

And Albertsons said it is making several significant adjustments to its employee benefits package to manage its business in the face of rising healthcare costs.

Whether it's Walmart and Costco or Kroger and Albertsons it increasingly looks like the path to gain share in this market includes a sharper focus on value.

• Apollo Global Management gives portfolio companies operational guidance and leadership training.
• It also provides funding and operational support to 28 nonprofits, including a biennial training summit.
• The summit included discussions about the labor market and advice on making high-stakes decisions.

Keeping up with AI and an uneven labor market is challenging enough for corporate leaders. For nonprofit executives working with tighter budgets and leaner teams, it can be extra daunting.

"It's tricky for everyone right now, but for those guys, it's actually very tricky," Scott Kleinman, co-president of Apollo Asset Management and chair of the Apollo Opportunity Foundation Board.

The foundation is addressing the challenges nonprofits face by providing 28 organizations with a version of the playbook Apollo uses with its over 190 portfolio companies, which include Yahoo Inc. and Shutterfly.

That includes access to experts, leadership training, and a built-in network. The foundation also provides funding based on factors such as the organization's budget size and impact metrics. Apollo has so far provided over $13 million to grantees and committed to $100 million in funding over the next decade.

The foundation, which launched in 2022, offered Business Insider an exclusive look at its biennial summit in October, where grantee leaders mingled with Apollo executives and sat in on panels led by subject-matter experts.

Applying its portfolio playbook

Kleinman said the foundation provides the same type of support it provides its portfolio companies, including operational guidance, data and digital transformation, talent management, and recruitment.

"That is the crux of our foundation. Of course, it involves capital." Kleinman said, adding that the "real-value add" is the deal team.

Each nonprofit is paired with a deal team of five to 10 employees from Apollo or Athene, which merged with Apollo and provides retirement services. Employees build relationships with the grantees to perform pro-bono projects, source board opportunities, and provide strategic advice.

The foundation also holds monthly virtual training sessions to discuss topics like AI, leadership transitions, culture, real estate, fundraising, and succession planning.

Beyond the funding

At the October leadership summit, Apollo's chief economist Torsten Sløk discussed the labor market and how organizations can adapt to it, while the firm's chief financial officer talked about the factors nonprofits should consider when growing their organizations. The summit also included working sessions for grantees and their Apollo deal teams.

The support Apollo offers grantees can be anything from fundraising skill-building to succession planning, said Lauren Coape-Arnold, Apollo Global Management's global head of citizenship and executive director of the Apollo Opportunity Foundation.

She said the partnership starts with reorganizing boards to ensure strong governance, because an organization's success ultimately comes down to strong leadership. That may include sourcing candidates to consider for the board of directors or advisory board members.

"Who is the leader? Do you believe in the leader? Are they someone inspiring the team to move forward?" Coape-Arnold said.

What nonprofits need

Jane Veron, cofounder and CEO of Acceleration Project, a nonprofit that helps small business owners said that support included identifying 35 processes the organization could eliminate or modify, from onboarding and technology to client data capture.

For example, instead of having her team read through notes on a client's business challenges, Apollo is helping build an AI tool to do that work. It's also building asynchronous training tools to streamline consultant onboarding.

"Apollo helped us identify priorities," Veron said, adding that the list includes "very micro and tactical" fixes.

Reuben Ogbonna II, the cofounder and executive director of The Marcy Lab School, a one-year program that is an alternative to four-year college, said that meant revamping his school's curriculum to reflect the shifting roles of software engineers.

He said Apollo's deal team helped them recognize that technologists need to work more closely with business leaders and integrated more business and industry context into the curriculum. The program also included additional cloud fundamentals and foundational DevOps knowledge, based on the team's input, he said.

That sort of hands-on support is the goal, said Kleinman. "Not just to write some checks and get some photo ops, but to really make this a two-way street with our employees."

• Markets podcaster Ed Elson is bearish on the Anthropic IPO.
• The co-host of Scott Galloway's Prof G Markets podcast says bullish investors read the S-1 wrong.
• He says page 161 of the filing is where he sees worrying signs about future spending.

Anthropic is heading for a historic IPO in November, but after reading the AI titan's S-1 filing, Ed Elson is among the bears.

Ed Elson, the co-host of the Prof G Markets podcast with Scott Galloway and an active retail trader himself, told Business Insider that there are details in the filing that investor misinterpreting.

"I think too many investors are putting too much stock into the fact that Anthropic's operating loss was significantly narrowed in 2026," Elson stated. "In the first half of last year, they lost more than $2 billion on an operating basis, and then in the first half of this year, they lost less than 700 million dollars."

This isn't the first time Elson has expressed skepticism about a looming mega-IPO. In June, he raised concerns about the amount of capital that Anthropic, SpaceX and OpenAI would be injecting into the market, noting that it could pose a threat to the momentum that's been driving growth for tech stocks.

Regarding Anthropic's offering, he highlighted the significant difference between how much Anthropic plans to spend on AI compute next year—as much as $150 billion—and the $8.9 billion it spent in the first half of this year.

"There's a lot that's being left out, and that's not Anthropic's fault, because the reality is that those commitments aren't active yet, and so they're not going to report something in the income statement that doesn't exist yet. But it's about to exist, and I don't think that enough investors are recognizing that fact."

He acknowledged that some information is difficult to find, scattered throughout the 300-page S-1 document. Elson flagged page 161 as particularly important. The section titeld "Liquidity and Capital Resources" kicks off a long list of future capex expecations related to compute.

"It's also where they tell you that, because they're so dependent on cloud providers with whom they actually compete—companies like Google—they're also going to need to start building out their own compute infrastructure."

In his view, while Anthropic's capex has been negligible so far compared to what the future hold, and spending is likely to surge in the coming years as the company builds more of its own infrastructure.

"Credit to Anthropic, they don't hide that," he added. "They tell you that in the S1, you just have to find it."

• This summer, I spent $333.11 to register for the 2026 New York City Marathon.
• Between race registration fees and travel, I spend thousands of dollars a year on endurance events.
• It's money spent in alignment with my values, which experts say is the way to spend.

You know the type of person who does run club? The one who wakes up before the sun on a Sunday to stack miles and finishes the run at a coffee shop, still sweating as they're waiting in line captioning their Strava post? That's me. I'm that person.

I'm also among the group of people who spend a lot of money to safety-pin a number to their shirt and run from a start line to a finish line in exchange for a generic tech tee, a medal, and a banana.

This summer, I spent $333.11 to register for the 2026 New York City Marathon. I didn't bat an eye at checkout — not because I'm rich and the purchase wasn't significant. I'm not, and it was. But, to borrow one of Ramit Sethi's spending concepts, registration fees for endurance events would be one of my top "Money Dials," which are essentially spending categories that you can either turn up or down. It's how I like to spend my discretionary income, and since I cut back in other areas, I can do so guilt-free, no matter how egregious the registration fee.

I came up with the idea to write this particular story on a run. It was a Tuesday in June. I know the date because I left myself an eight-second voice memo recording the idea: "Why pay $300 for a marathon — to run 26.2 miles? Let me try to explain," I say, slightly out of breath.

Why do I pay a lot of money to run marathons? And why the marathon — the 26.2-mile event? Why do I invest not only so much money but also so much time in training and racing? I'm not a professional, and never will be. My time is precious, but my chip time doesn't matter to anyone but me.

For the past four months, I've pondered those questions — casually at first, and more urgently as the race (and the deadline for this article) approached.

My first thought was to distinguish between running and racing.

I picked up long-distance running in my early 20s, after more than a decade of junior tennis and four years of collegiate tennis had left me burned out on the sport. I was living in New York City, where finicky weather, high court fees, and complicated logistics make it difficult to hit a tennis ball, even if I wanted to. Looking for an affordable and efficient way to stay in shape, I turned to running. It was perfect for me: a minimalist who doesn't like stuff or clutter. I already had everything I needed: a pair of Nikes and easy access to a smooth running path.

As an introvert, running suited me, giving me the time and space to think, plan, ideate, or simply check out of life's stressors. And the more I ran, the better I got at it. My marathon times started to suggest that I was decent at the distance — qualifying for the Boston Marathon is considered the pinnacle for amateur marathoners, a feat I've accomplished a few times — so maybe that's part of the reason I kept running, even if getting better made the activity a little more expensive. We all tend to gravitate toward the things we're good at, don't we?

If running is meditative, rhythmic, and solitary, racing is exhilarating, hectic, and communal. It's a shared experience. You toe the line with thousands — sometimes tens of thousands — of other runners. But unless you're vying for the podium, you're not competing against them. You're racing the clock and your past self — alongside, not against, thousands of others.

Preparing for a marathon is challenging. It requires time, patience, and work — stacking miles and workouts for months. It's also incredibly satisfying. By the time race day rolls around, the hard part is done.

If running is simple, efficient, and cheap, racing is coordinated, time-consuming, and expensive.

That $333 entry fee was just the beginning of my expenses for this experience. I bought round-trip flights from Los Angeles and a really expensive pair of "super shoes" for race day. When I'm racing in a city where I don't have friends or family, hotels add up quickly.

But back to Sethi and his "Money Dials," how you choose to spend your money matters. In fact, studies show that how you spend is oftentimes more important than how much you spend.

Sethi's point is that, no matter your Money Dial — fitness, travel, experiences, or relationships — you can build a life that allows you to "spend extravagantly and unapologetically on the things that truly matter," while cutting costs "mercilessly" on the things that don't matter to you.

Simply put: Spend on things that make you happy; don't spend on things that aren't important to you.

The 2026 New York City Marathon will be my 21st marathon. I keep track in the Notes app on my phone, recording my times, what I ate the night before, how many gels I consumed, and other random tidbits from the training block or race day.

What you get out of the race is entirely up to you. Your goal can be to run the fastest you ever have — a personal record, or "PR" — or it can be to simply cross the line with a smile on your face.

Of all the races I've done, the New York City Marathon is my favorite by far. Nearly 60,000 runners gather in Staten Island on the first Sunday of November to run through the city's five boroughs, absorbing high fives and hearty cheers from the millions of New Yorkers lining streets.

Anything can happen over the course of 26.2 miles, another component of the marathon's charm. You could cramp up and blow up. You could get an assist from a tailwind and negative split.

It's nearly impossible to have a perfect day, but sometimes race day magic strikes.

See you out there. Let's dial it up.

• I booked an airline "stopover" to visit Iceland for 4 days on my way home from Norway.
• The ticket was one itinerary and didn't cost extra airfare, but included no free hotel or tours.
• The mini-trip was expensive, despite the shoulder season, but it's an easy way to see a new country.

After five fabulous days exploring Norway's stunning fjords in mid-September, I was excited to try an airline travel hack I'd been eyeing for months: Icelandair's "stopover" program.

Icelandair allows passengers traveling between North America and Europe to stop in Iceland for up to 7 nights on a standard ticket without paying additional airfare. Higher-priced flex tickets allow up to 21 nights.

I chose a $455 one-way standard economy flight from Norway to the US with a four-day stop. All of Icelandair's transatlantic routes already pass through Keflavík International Airport near Reykjavík, making it an easy detour.

This strategy effectively added a second vacation onto my trip. I soaked in geothermal water amid moody volcanic landscapes, ate my way through Reykjavík, and explored part of the south coast.

The stopover was worth it, and I felt I had enough time to explore, but it was not a free vacation.

Iceland is expensive, even during the shoulder season, and while the airline doesn't charge extra for the stopover, it does not cover accommodations, tours, or transfers.

Still, the travel hack — which about a dozen other global airlines offer — let me visit a remote country that had been at the top of my list for years without having to book a separate trip across the Atlantic.

Booking my 4-day stopover was surprisingly simple.

Icelandair's booking engine has a dedicated stopover option. I entered Bergen, Norway, as my origin and Portland, Oregon, as my final destination, chose the dates I wanted to arrive and depart Iceland, and booked both flights on a single itinerary.

I stopped in Iceland on my way home from Norway because the logistics and airfare worked out better than they had on my outbound trip. Flight prices can vary widely by day of the week, so it's worth comparing a few departure dates before booking.

The flight from Bergen to Iceland was two and a half hours, and the flight from Iceland to Oregon was about eight hours. Icelandair's economy service was very basic and felt sparse for an international flight. Water, coffee, and tea were complimentary, though meals and snacks cost extra.

Saga Premium, the airline's highest-tier cabin, was a marked step up, with a wider recliner seat, more legroom, meals, WiFi, and complimentary drinks. It looked far more comfortable but came with a significant price jump — up to $2,000 or more one-way, depending on the date.

Four days gave me time to see more of the country.

Booking a few days in Iceland proved to be key to enjoying the stopover. Staying only one night would probably be more effort than it is worth.

Keflavík Airport is roughly a 45-minute drive from Reykjavík, so an overnight stop might amount to one of Iceland's iconic lagoon soaks, then dinner, sleep, and another trip down the same highway.

Two or three nights is ideal if you want to get a feel for Reykjavík. And the freshly baked cinnamon rolls at Brauð & Co are arguably reason enough to add a few-day stopover.

I found that staying for four or more days let me split my trip, spending a few days in Reykjavík and a few days exploring deeper into the desolate, elemental country.

The stopover does not include a hotel or activity discounts.

Icelandair does not include a stopover hotel, and passengers must arrange that separately, but they are eligible to book tours and transfers through the airline.

Some other airline stopover programs do offer passengers free overnight accommodations.

For example, Turkish Airlines stopover passengers can select from specific comped hotels, Etihad Airways offers eligible travelers up to two complimentary nights in Abu Dhabi or Al Ain, and Qatar Airways sells Doha stopover packages, including hotel stays starting at $14 per person.

However, the stopover hotels are sometimes far from the city's main attractions, and passengers are often better off booking on their own based on what they want to do.

I found that not having a set hotel gave me the freedom to explore.

I spent two nights at The Reykjavík EDITION, a 5-star luxury hotel, for around $800 a night. My room had harbor views and put me within easy reach of the city's main attractions. Reykjavík also offers more affordable hotels, guesthouses, and hostels for budget travelers.

I also stayed a few nights on the south coast, where people can do more adventurous activities.

You will need a plan to get beyond Reykjavík.

Iceland looks compact on a map, but its best-known sights are scattered hours from the capital city, and there are no passenger trains.

Bus service reaches many towns, but travelers who want to efficiently reach sights beyond Reykjavík will likely want to rent a car, hire a driver, or join a tour.

We drove down to the south coast to see beyond the city life. We stayed at a boutique hotel called Hotel Rangá, near Hella, about 60 miles from Reykjavík. It was around $650 a night, but we had plenty of hot tubs and direct access to some of Iceland's best outdoor adventures.

While we pieced together our own trip, passengers can also book excursions, like horseback riding, whale-watching, lava tunnel adventures, and a Golden Circle and lagoon day, through Icelandair.

However, booking through the airline doesn't necessarily mean getting a discount, so it's worth comparing prices with individual tour operators before reserving.

More active travelers can join guided glacier hikes or ice-cave tours, or bounce across black sand in a buggy.

For me, the stopover was worth it

Michael Raucheisen, Icelandair's North American communications manager, told me the airline formally began promoting stopovers in the 1960s.

The point was not simply to make connections less tedious, but to expose travelers to Iceland and encourage them to return: "That's kind of the goal, to give you a small little taste to make you want to come back," Raucheisen said.

It worked on me.

Iceland is unlike any of the dozens of other countries I've visited, from its moody volcanic vistas and geothermal activity to its down-to-earth people, world-class hot dogs, and the country's nose-wrinkling national drink, Brennivín.

But Iceland is not a cheap country to visit. While traveling with another person helped us split the hotel costs, I estimate my share of our four-day trip was about $510 per day, or roughly $2,050 total, excluding airfare.

That includes hotel nights and typical daily costs for food, sightseeing, and local transportation. Travelers could likely lower that cost by choosing less expensive lodging.

Still, though I may not do it as expensively every time, I look forward to adding a few nights in Iceland whenever the route and fare make sense — it's a chance to see more of the country without paying for a whole separate trip.

• I haven't run a marathon or a half-marathon.
• But I have walked the perimeter of Manhattan, around 32 miles, three times.
• The Great Saunter is an annual walk that I enjoy immensely and plan to do again.

I haven't run a marathon. I haven't even run a half-marathon. The longest race I've run is a 5k. But earlier this year, I walked 32 miles — the perimeter of Manhattan — for the third time.

This iconic New York City walk, called the Great Saunter, is held annually during the first week of May. This year, I walked with friends. It took about 12 hours, and even though I wore brand-new sneakers (which is usually ill-advised, since you want to break in new shoes), I recovered quickly and was out and about the next day.

The walk was a great opportunity to catch up with friends, see places around New York City that I don't usually visit, and partake in one of the unique activities that make this city so special.

The walk has some history

The Great Saunter began when the Shorewalkers' founder, Cy A Adler, who passed away in 2018, walked the route in 1982. What started as a fun and informal walk has grown into an event that drew more than 3,000 walkers who took on the challenge of completing the entire route, which runs from the West Side of Manhattan to the East Side.

Not everyone completes the full walk. Some people join for the beginning or vow to make it to the halfway point. Sometimes people start, then head to the finish line to wait for friends who were planning to complete the entire course.

This year, Shorewalkers reported that around 62% of walkers finished the event.

The route was a unique way to see the city

Even though I've lived in New York City for more than a decade, the longer-than-a-marathon walk around Manhattan offers such a special way to see the city. Usually, I take the subway to get to and from places, so it was wonderful to explore the city's perimeter in full, especially in the lovely spring weather.

Though the morning started out rainy, the rest of the day was perfect for walking. By the time my friends and I started walking at around 7:30 a.m., the weather was clear and crisp.

I loved walking along the West Side Highway and seeing all the flowers and little parks along the way, like the iconic Little Island — a floating park — which we passed by early on in our journey, as well as The Little Red Lighthouse, located in Fort Washington Park, with its vividness that really makes it stand out against the city landscape.

For lunch, we stopped at Inwood Hill Park, which was about halfway. Then, we headed down to the East Side.

What I did differently this time around to finish quicker

This year, even with bathroom breaks and lunch, I finished the walk in a little over 12 hours. The other two years took longer, and those walks also resulted in more soreness.

I wanted to finish quicker this year so I could spend less time on my feet overall. To do that, I really minimized breaks. I allowed myself to sit down a few times, but I resisted the urge to get too comfortable.

Also, this was the first year that my friends were able to do the route with me. When I completed it the first time, I ran into people I knew and made friends along the way. But in 2024, I completed it entirely on my own, which was much more mentally taxing.

This year, it was great to chat with friends along the way, and it definitely made the time go by much more quickly.

I'm looking forward to walking again in 2027 and will be ready when registration opens in February. Until then, I'm staying on my feet and taking in all the museums, parks, and — of course — the beautiful walking paths the city offers.

• Every December, I spend more than I expect to on holiday gifts, and shopping takes up so much time.
• This year, I shopped early at thrift stores and from the clearance racks at stores I love.
• I finished my shopping in October and will have more time to spend with my family in December.

I love the atmosphere of stores during the Christmas season. The decorations, the elaborate displays, the gift boxes. I enjoy it all. But I usually catch myself spending more than I intended.

This year, I wanted to avoid that. So, instead of a mad dash to get everything done in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I've been picking up things throughout the year for my loved ones.

This strategy of buying one or two low-cost things here and there, instead of buying a lot at once in December, has been way easier on my budget, too.

Much to my surprise, I was completely done with my shopping in October. Now I'll be free to enjoy the holiday season with my friends and family instead of stressing about getting gifts for everyone on my list.

I embraced thrifting

At the beginning of the year, I started thinking a lot about what my money might be supporting when I decided to shop at a particular store. I wanted to be more conscientious of where I was spending my money, especially when my budget feels tight due to rising costs.

I started going to thrift stores that directly support a charity, so I feel like I'm finding treasures, keeping them out of the landfill, and helping a cause I love. At thrift stores, I primarily find clothes, kitchenware, home decor, and vintage or analog things, like CDs, DVDs, and craft supplies. I have found thoughtful gifts for almost everyone I know.

I found good deals in an unexpected place

Our family also celebrates Jólabókaflóð, an Icelandic holiday centered on gifting books, which we exchange on Christmas Eve.

I've acquired so many books for my husband and son from used book sales at my local libraries that I'll be able to give them each a book-of-the-month box for 2027.

My local library feels like a well-kept secret when it comes to buying used books. I often leave with a bag full of new hardcover bestsellers, children's books, and even cookbooks for under $5 — total. I love that these sales directly support the library and help me stay out of trouble with my own book budget.

I stocked up without a plan

I've always loved Trader Joe's and Aldi, but when I discovered there was a whole beauty-dupe scene at these stores, it became a hobby to peruse their shelves for fun. I've picked up several self-care items throughout the year that I know will be perfect for someone on my list — maybe a teacher or a girlfriend — because at these lower prices, I can afford to buy extra things to keep on hand.

I've had the most luck finding amazing deals on Christmas gifts within the clearance aisles at Marshalls and TJ Maxx. I've always loved both stores, but I challenged myself on my visits to only shop from the clearance sections for steals. I got a little addicted to the thrill of finding something high quality at a bargain price. On one trip to Marshall's, I found a beautiful pair of pearl earrings for my aunt and a sweater set for a good friend. Each gift was under $10.

I've also grabbed a few stocking stuffers every time I've been to Dollar Tree or Five Below. I know I've scored things my son will enjoy come Christmas morning.

This December, I'm giving myself time back

Past holidays have been so busy that I don't always get to do the things I actually want to do. For example, I love making salt dough ornaments, but haven't had time to do so in years. I also love making cookies while watching classic movies or driving around with my family to see holiday lights. Now, I can do these kinds of things more than just once this year. I can't wait.

• Rising interest rates are throwing a wrench into the investment outlook.
• We asked John Sheehan from Osterweis Capital burning questions about the bond market.
• Sheehan joined Business Insider at the "The Long Play" event in New York on October 29.

The bond market has been in sharp focus in recent months.

While rates have edged down below 5% again as investors dump tech shares and head for the safety of fixed income, higher yields may be here to stay for a while.

Interest rates have moved higher all along the yield curve as sticky inflation is prompting the Fed to take action on short-term rates and bond investors to demand higher returns on the long end. Insatiable demand for capital from AI builders and governments around the world are also pushing rates up.

All of this is throwing a wrench into the AI trade and the outlook for the bull market. Higher rates could curtail borrowing and mean less spending, while also raising costs for companies that still need to tap the debt markets. This is twisting the fragile economics of the AI buildout and causing investors to question how huge capex may ultimately pay off.

To help make sense of all the bond-market volatility and the risks facing investors, our senior economy editor Ryan Kailath and I sat down with John Sheehan at Business Insider's "The Long Play" event in New York on Thursday. Sheehan, a portfolio manager on the strategic income strategy at Osterweis Capital Management, joined us for a lunchtime discussion with conference attendees about rates.

Here are some of the questions that came up during the conversation, and how Sheehan is thinking about them.

How concerned with rising borrowing costs should we be as it relates to the AI trade? Will we see any defaults?

Sheehan said that the constant issuance of new bonds was going to keep pushing up interest rates, and that would likely cause some firms to go under eventually.

"Anytime we get some stability, or even bonds start to do a little better, you're going to see more supply dropped in and sort of cap your upside," he said. In other words, when yields start to fall, companies see it as an opportunity to borrow more, which then helps to push up rates again.

"History would tell us that there are going to be some winners and losers, and there's most likely going to be some that end up in trouble," he said.

Naturally, he said some high-yield bond issuers are at the highest risk of not being able to meet their debt obligations.

Can we expect things to unravel further if the Fed hikes rates in December?

Fed chair Warsh acknowledged the Septermber rate hike's impact on the neocloud volatility in October, but Sheehan pushed back on the notion that a 25-basis-point hike is causing trouble in for AI firms.

"Some of them are trading at 15%, so I don't really know how much 25 basis points of the fed funds will do," he said. "Our macro view is that the Fed is still very accommodative."

How many rate hikes do you see in the next 12 months?

Roughly going with the market consensus or slightly below it, Sheehan said he sees one to two hikes coming within the next year.

According to the CME FedWatch tool, markets are pricing in a 35% chance of two more hikes by the October 2027 meeting. However, markets also see a 37% chance that the central bank hikes at least three more times by then.

What's the way out of higher rates on the long end of the yield curve? Or will yields keep moving higher from here?

Sheehan said he sees little stopping the upward pressure on rates. AI borrowing, government borrowing, and oil prices are all trending toward higher yields.

Growing US government debt levels are a problem in particular, he said, as the government needs to constantly borrow more to keep up with rising rates, which creates a feedback loop.

"The portion of the budget that goes toward interest expense continues to grow, which means more borrowing," he said.

"So I can't see long rates materially lower from here with inflation where it is, how sticky it is," Sheehan added.

Where are you investing in this environment of rising yields?

Rising rates are a double-edged sword for bond investors — they mean that bonds you already hold depreciate in value, but any new bonds that you buy will deliver more attractive coupons.

To get the best of both worlds, Sheehan said he's staying at around the 1.75-year average duration mark, less than his benchmark's duration of around 3 years. That way he locks in higher yields, but doesn't deal with too much duration risk if rates go higher. Less than two years is a lot less painful to wait out than 10 years.

• "Anna by the Window" is a coming-of-age film by filmmakers Myles Flusser and James Hyland.
• The film explores grief and human connection in the age of generative AI.
• Flusser said the film was at first a "speculative sci-fi" about AI, but then fiction became reality.

From tech behemoths scrambling to replicate OpenAI's success with ChatGPT to Twitter rebranding to X under Elon Musk, Silicon Valley was undergoing an undeniable transformation in 2023.

Nearly 3,000 miles away in New York, two skeptical 20-somethings were trying to make sense of it all. So, they made a film.

"It was very personal," James Hyland, 25, told Business Insider. "We wanted to put something together that spoke to the things we were going through and what the world was like. That ended up being artificial intelligence and technological alienation."

Hyland and Myles Flusser created "Anna by the Window," a coming-of-age film exploring grief and how technology can stifle human connection in the era of generative AI. The independent filmmakers wrote, directed, and produced the film in 2023 alongside their friends under their production company, Baggysuit.

"Particularly, it feels like the people running these platforms — YouTube, Instagram, et cetera — seem more contented than ever in letting it become a total slop apocalypse full of AI bots and non-human content," Flusser, 26, said. "That intrigues me in a way and scares me, obviously."

Zoomers like Flusser and Hyland grew up inundated with smartphones, social media, and all the risks that come along with them. A year after they filmed "Anna by the Window," the US Surgeon General said social media should have a warning label because of its impact on mental health. Earlier this year, Meta settled a lawsuit brought by a coalition of states accusing it of designing platforms to addict children.

The din of constant digital exposure has led some young folks to join the neo-Luddite movement, which takes a stand against overreliance on modern technology by emphasizing IRL human connection.

Hyland is an organizer for a Luddite group called The Lamp Club. While the film was not made because of the Luddite movement, it shares many of its themes.

"I think that it speaks to the synergy of our separate film project and this larger organizing project that's materializing all over the country, where people are fed up with these kinds of technological systems," Hyland said.

When fiction becomes reality

"Anna by the Window" is a glimpse inside the world of Ryan, a teenage boy who travels to New York City to reconnect with his older brother, James, the founder of an AI startup.

The film's crew shot across New York State and used a variety of tools to bring the project to life, including ElevenLabs AI audio software. The pair also pushed a real ChatGPT chatbot toward hallucination and included that audio in the film.

"There's an AI chatbot that goes off the rails, you could say. We really cranked up all the dials," Hyland said. "It started saying 'error.' It started speaking different languages."

Flusser said they wanted to portray the eerie nature of AI just right. They're not eager to use AI products in future projects, though. The majority of the film relies on traditional tools like a Sony camera, written outlines, and improv.

"There's a strangeness and alienation that come up when we interact with chatbots and AI. We were trying to capture that feeling as purely as possible, so it felt totally necessary to use AI to do that," Flusser said.

While aspects of the film are fictional, others pull directly from the directors' lives.

"My brother had recently died. There's a lot of stuff in there that has to do with that," Flusser said. "There is a climactic moment between the two brothers in this movie that is actually surgically removed from my own life and recreated on screen."

However, the way the filmmakers chose to characterize James in the film — delusional, stunted, running from reality — is distinct from Flusser's real brother. In the film, James is portrayed by Hyland, who said his version of an AI startup founder isn't based on a specific person.

"My character was in a state of denial. Using this technology to be the thing that could deliver him closure or be the thing that he could connect with," Hyland said. "It makes him, in a way, kind of a sympathetic character."

'Anna by the Window' on the silver screen

Hollywood is fixated on the real lives of tech founders. Production companies have backed films about SpaceX founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, and former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes. Even "Toy Story 5" tackled tech by introducing a smart tablet as the story's antagonist.

"Anna by the Window" now joins the list of films putting the tech industry under a harsh microscope.

"When we first started filming this, we were more mystified by AI, but toward the end our relationship with AI felt very cynical," Flusser said.

Watching AI evolve while creating a film about the technology was surreal, Hyland and Flusser said.

"It was strange. When we were making it, we saw this movie as a speculative sci-fi about artificial intelligence," Flusser said. "Now, it's like nothing really is sci-fi about it anymore."

The "Anna by the Window" crew began screening the film this summer in New York City and the Hudson Valley. There are upcoming screenings in Los Angeles this November. The film becomes available on Dolpho, a streaming platform, beginning December 15.

Find upcoming "Anna by the Window" screenings here.

• These techies are using AI to prototype answering machines, toys, and jewelry.
• They call it "vibe manufacturing," a play on the term vibe coding.
• The vibe manufacturers are bullish on its potential. "AI literally does replace CAD engineering completely," one said.

Jeff Deehan is a real estate developer by day and a "hobby guy" by night.

The 42-year-old has a workshop in his East Lansing house. One project remained elusive: a small piece of steel to secure a camper to his truck. While Deehan was toying with OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra in voice mode, he described the piece he needed and the angle at which it would sit. Five minutes later, the chatbot had prototyped it.

Deehan told GPT-6 that he knew of a company called SendCutSend that does custom sheet-metal fabrication. The chatbot downloaded its design as a DXF file, opened SendCutSend's website, filled in the form, and paid the $156 with the payment information he'd stored. Ten days later, it was on his doorstep.

"In about 10 minutes, I spoke a part out of my mind into existence, without touching my phone," he said.

Deehan is part of a growing class of enthusiasts who are building physical gizmos with AI's help. They use chatbots to build prototypes, then send the AI-generated files to manufacturers, boutique fabricators, and their home 3D printers.

Modeling physical items with AI has its risks. Deehan was sure his prototype would be a millimeter off here or there, though it ended up being right on. Other vibe manufacturers said that their products took multiple iterations, burning through their budgets.

Normies have long used AI to write software, now dubbed "vibe coding." These builders say AI is coming for hardware creation, too — and they're calling it "vibe manufacturing."

A growing CADtastrophe

Amy Zhou and Jake Fitzgerald are building an open-source tool for vibe manufacturing. They call it "text-to-CAD" — and it already tops 23,000 stars on GitHub.

Zhou previously worked on the iPhone cases team at Apple and is now a design engineer at the AI rendering startup Vizcom. Fitzgerald wanted to get back into robotics after pivoting to crypto. They text new ideas back and forth between San Francisco and New York.

The duo hopes to upend CAD, or computer-aided design. CAD engineers use software to design and optimize 3D models. It takes training and skill. The vibe manufacturers say you can do it easily with a large language model.

Zhou makes jewelry with AI. The 25-year-old's previous startup turned pictures users uploaded into 3D models of charms, then cast the models in wax. It made a necklace for Cluely's CEO, Roy Lee, before Zhou left the business. She still occasionally makes AI-rendered charms for friends when they want necklaces of their pets.

Fitzgerald is more interested in making robot arms. Using the text-to-CAD tool, the 31-year-old designed the arm in sheet metal and paid about $200 to have it built by SendCutSend. It has 0.6 meters of reach, with a motor and a camera, and he considers it an "edutainment" product to learn about robotics before the industry booms.

A few months ago, Fitzgerald saw "compounding failures" when the AI would build bad designs on top of bad designs. The screw holes came in loose, for example. He spent about $2,000 repeatedly ordering pieces. With GPT-6 Astra, he said that's no longer a problem.

Sourish Sharma has watched AI change CAD. The 20-year-old from London got an MRI scan for a research study three years ago and asked for his data. He got a 3D printer and used an open-source tool to turn the data file into something printable. The tool didn't work very well, so he had to edit it by hand. "Some of the folds of the brain were not very foldy," he said.

Now, Sharma has a much bigger printer — and AI. With one prompt, GPT-6 Astra blew the open-source tool out of the water, converting the data and making what he considers a more accurate brain. He's printed out a life-size one, as well as a handful of miniatures that he gives to friends.

"AI literally does replace CAD engineering completely," Sharma said. "It's kind of unfortunate if you're a CAD engineer. Fortunately, I'm not."

The first audience: kids

The more complex a product is, the more difficult it is to vibe manufacture. You won't be able to make a car at home with ChatGPT anytime soon.

There's one population whose products are often simple and accessible: kids. Arthur Prince, a 34-year-old IT worker from outside Paris, said the children's toy he modeled in a week with AI would've taken him months with his CAD knowledge alone.

Prince's toy creates stories and images with AI based on a kid's voice prompt. He developed everything, from the casing to the internal wiring, with GPT-6 Astra, then asked Claude to criticize its work. Once the two chatbots reached a consensus, he ordered 10 of the toys from the Chinese manufacturer JLCPCB for about 500 euros, fretting that he'd wasted his money on something that wouldn't work.

Luckily, they did. Prince's first tester, his daughter, loves it. "She's very proud to see that I can make something like this," he said.

The benefit of vibe manufacturing kids' toys is their simplicity. Many parents don't want their children surfing the web, so AI prototypers don't have to worry about those pesky questions of cell service and web browsers.

David Plakon wanted his kids to leave messages for their grandparents in Florida — but didn't want them on the internet.

The 39-year-old from Austin is a longtime "tinkerer." He's had a 3D printer since 2015, and was printing his kid a "KPop Demon Hunters" sword while we spoke. So, he and his wife, Lara, figured they could build their own answering machine in the style of the Tin Can phone.

Plakon gave GPT-6 Astra some design inspiration and instructions to build a prototype. All of the parts had to be purchasable or buildable with his 3D printer, he told the chatbot. It easily put together a model, instructing him to buy a potentiometer, a speaker, and an ESP32 chip, and guided him through the assembly.

He's now printed the design some 15 times, improving it on each go. Initially, some of the pieces didn't fit together. "AI's good but not perfect," he said.

But the box does work, and he hopes to sell it one day. He's keeping it small-scale for now, aiming to get the answering box in the grandparents' home for Christmas.

"I don't have any delusion that I could send this to a factory, and they would be able to make it," Plakon said. "For now, it's very fun to prototype."

• DoorDash isn't seeing many orders through AI agents like Muse yet, its CEO said.
• Third-party agents have generated "several hundred orders in total," Tony Xu said this week.
• Even so, DoorDash is moving ahead with its own AI ordering tools.

The age of AI agents ordering your meals isn't here yet, according to DoorDash.

The food delivery service has received "several hundred orders in total" from agents such as Meta's Muse, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said during the company's earnings call on Thursday. By comparison, DoorDash delivered 3.2 billion orders worldwide in 2025.

Instead, customers are still using DoorDash's app and website to place orders, Xu said.

"For the everyday ordering, what we see is people come to DoorDash, and they come back to DoorDash," he said.

Xu's comments suggest that buzzy AI agents like Muse and Instinct have far to go before they become a big part of how users buy things.

The agents can be useful for tracking the prices of holiday gifts or airline tickets, users told Business Insider earlier this month. Many are hesitant to let agents make the purchases themselves. They also use more secure payment options, such as single-use credit cards, in case the agents make a mistake.

Despite the low order volume through third-party agents, DoorDash is making changes to its own AI tools.

The company said in September that it was testing a text-to-order feature with an interface reminiscent of Instinct. Another ordering option, a chatbot called Ask DoorDash, creates an order from a recipe or shopping list and can adjust the contents to match customers' preferences.

Those AI tools could eventually generate new orders on DoorDash, Xu said.

"My take on all things technology is you never want to fight gravity," he said.

"But, at the same time, you do not want to be delusional," he added, referring to the low number of agent-placed orders.

Do you have a story idea about DoorDash? 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.

• Gen Xers entering their 60s fear inadequate retirement savings and financial insecurity.
• A Transamerica Center study found that the median Gen X worker has only $113,000 saved.
• Job loss, caregiving, and age discrimination often challenge Gen Xers' retirement plans.

As the oldest Gen Xers enter their 60s, many fear they won't be able to live out the retirement of their dreams.

A Wednesday report from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, determined that only 18% of Gen X workers were "very confident they will be able to fully retire with a comfortable lifestyle." One quarter strongly agree that they are currently building a large enough retirement nest egg to feel secure in retirement, a few percentage points lower than millennials and boomers.

Gen X's fears are grounded in reality. The median Gen X worker has $113,000 saved in total household retirement accounts, less than half of the $263,000 saved among baby boomer workers. It's a far cry from the $750,000 Gen Xers feel they need to have saved by retirement to feel financially secure.

Over the past year, Business Insider has spoken to dozens of Gen Xers navigating job searches, self-employment, and financial pressures from caregiving. Many older Gen Xers said that losing a job in their 50s derailed their careers. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that for those in the 55 to 64 age group, the average unemployment duration was over eight months in September, about seven weeks longer than those in the 45 to 54 group. Many of the Gen Xers BI spoke to blamed implicit age discrimination.

Some told Business Insider that they've taken substantial pay cuts, filed for bankruptcy, or arranged a break from work to develop AI skills. Many have had to draw from their 401(k)s or rely on loved ones to get by after draining their savings. A few said they grew tired of the job hunt and turned to starting a business instead.

Many Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1980, have been pushing back their retirements. More than one in three in the Transamerica survey said that they would likely not retire until 70 or older, or wouldn't retire at all. More than half anticipated they would still work in retirement to some degree.

The survey suggests Gen X on the whole feels less secure about its retirement than their older and younger peers. Less than a quarter of Gen X expects they could retire before 65, half the rate of Gen Z.

Retiring early — even if temporarily — is a common trend among caregivers caring for loved ones. The survey found that more than a third of workers are currently or were previously caregivers. Among them, 35% said their financial situation has worsened while providing care. As the survey notes, millennials and Gen Xers are slightly more likely to bear the brunt of the work compared to other generations.

Family caregivers are spending over $11,500 in out-of-pocket expenses, and though many have taken on second jobs, others have put their careers on hold in their late 40s and 50s to assist their parents or spouses. A few gave up six-figure salaries and rely on savings, public pensions, or a spouse's disability insurance to get by.

"When a whole host of people leave the workforce, or when people take three or four years off, their family suffers, and society suffers" from the economic hit, said Samir Shah, CEO of care navigation platform CareScout.

Some of this angst can be traced to having started saving later than their younger colleagues. The average Gen Xer started saving through a 401(k) at age 30, compared to age 26 for millennials. Many Gen Xers began working when 401(k)s were first introduced into workforces after the decline of defined-benefit pension plans. Upwards of eight in 10 Gen X workers are offered a 401(k) or similar plan, while nearly half believe those instruments will be their primary retirement income source.

Another 27% of Gen X workers anticipate drawing primarily from Social Security to fund their retirement, though three-fourths of respondents express some concern that Social Security would be insolvent by the time they retire.

Despite somewhat more promising retirement-related statistics, younger and older generations also expressed financial woes in the survey. Among Gen Z workers, six in 10 feel burned out, with half struggling to make ends meet. Many cited paying off debt, building emergency savings, and covering basic living expenses as their current financial priorities, amassing a median savings amount of about $37,000.

Nearly six in 10 millennials cited debt as a deterrent to their retirement savings; 37% serve as caregivers, nearly all of whom made changes to their working arrangements.

For boomers, over half either don't plan on retiring or expect to after 70, and just over a quarter have a written retirement strategy. Preparing for long-term care and outliving their savings are boomers' greatest retirement fears.

• Americans making more than $100,000 are feeling bad about their personal finances.
• They're also feeling a lot worse about the government's economic policies.
• Those personal and political concerns could impact Tuesday's midterm results.

Americans making six figures aren't feeling too hot.

Consumer sentiment is near historic lows, and according to Morning Consult's weekly tracking, households earning $100,000 or more have seen their sentiment drop to its lowest in months.

That dip is a worrying sign for spending — which is overwhelmingly powered by higher earners — and potentially pivotal as consumers gear up to vote in contentious midterm elections.

Late in the summer of 2025, 45.2% of six-figure Americans felt their finances were getting better. That dropped to 32.5% at the new year, and 30.2% in the week ending October 26.

Of course, lower-income workers still feel worse, especially as they're disproportionately impacted by soaring prices. Similarly, workers a bit further up on the income spectrum are also feeling strained, especially with inflation increasing more than wages in recent months. Middle-income workers surveyed by Pew Research said they don't have rainy-day funds that could cover three months worth of expenses, and just 47% said they were able to save money over the past year.

While higher-income households are still powering the consumer spending that's helping keep the economy afloat, that may be cooling. Year-over-year spending increases for the highest third of earners have slowed since June and are now similar to those of their middle-income counterparts, according to an analysis from the Bank of America Institute. The top 5% of earners, who earn far more than $100,000, still have the fastest spending growth, according to the BofA analysis.

At the same time, higher earners' perceptions of their own position have changed: Half of high-income families — who earn over $155,600 — identify as working class. High gas and oil prices have also begun to strain higher-earners, as inflation, powered primarily by soaring energy costs, remains high.

The declining sentiment comes as a U-shaped pattern emerges in economic perceptions: Both high and low earners are more likely than their middle-income counterparts to say they're living paycheck to paycheck. For higher earners, that lifestyle creep and even rising costs might be contributing to their vibes.

That continued dreariness among higher earners might prove particularly potent in the coming days. As swing state midterms loom, affordability is top of mind for many voters, and higher earners are no exception — they're increasingly disenchanted with the government's economic policy.

For politicians campaigning on affordability, that might mean a newly energized constituent base eager to bring down prices: Economically-worried six-figure voters.

Are you a six-figure earner feeling worried about the economy? Share your story with this reporter at jkaplan@businessinsider.com.

Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York City on a simple, focused economic platform: fast and free buses, universal childcare, cheaper groceries, and a rent freeze. His supporters envisioned him ushering in a fresh economic order. His critics feared the worst — a cabal of heavy-handed leftists who would plunge the city into fiscal chaos.

A year after Mamdani's election, New York's economy doesn't look like the stuff of socialist dreams — or capitalist nightmares. Zohranomics is unfolding at a piecemeal pace. Unable to unilaterally raise taxes on the rich, the mayor is championing a pied-à-terre tax on wealthy residents who don't live in the city full-time (or say so on their tax filings). His municipal grocery store endeavor is a modest five-location work in progress.

The city is focused on the "fast" half of the bus plan and has put the "free" part on the back burner. Like his predecessors, Mamdani is dedicating a lot of time and resources to housing. He orchestrated a rent freeze on 1 million rent-stabilized apartments — one of his most controversial and impactful moves so far, though not unique to his administration. Many of the mayor's policy moves have been administrative measures: cutting red tape for small businesses, rooting out government inefficiencies, pension maneuvering to balance the city budget. And, the administration is trumpeting small-scale wins on filling potholes and making it easier to cancel subscriptions.

The list of accomplishments sounds more like a standard Democratic think-tank wish-list than a Bolshevik manifesto. Mamdani is governing like a leftist populist with the instincts of a city operations nerd — but his biggest economic bets are yet to be made.

New York is an incredibly rich city, with a private wealth pool of over $3 trillion and an annual GDP of roughly $1.3 trillion. It's also a city with stark economic divides. It has a 25% poverty rate, meaning more than 2 million New Yorkers live below the poverty line. (In comparison, the national poverty rate is 10%.) From 2019 to 2024, almost two-thirds of New York City's income growth went to the top 1%, according to the city's comptroller, compared to 39% nationally. The costs of childcare, housing, and basic necessities are increasingly daunting. Those economic dynamics propelled Mamdani to the mayorship.

"A lot of people love this city, but not as many of them can live here," the mayor said in a recent podcast interview with comedian Theo Von.

But the immutable truth facing any New York City mayor is that there is not much they can do to influence the economy. Much of New York's financial engine runs on its own. New York's state government sets most of the city's taxes. The national and global economies affect New Yorkers' pocketbooks, too.

Mamdani's program is to, where possible, wield the city's influence to lower costs and shift some of New York's power structures toward the traditionally less powerful. That means pairing rent regulations with initiatives to stimulate more homebuilding and pressuring the state to secure funding for a new free 2-K program. The city is weighing public options where the private markets fail to deliver, such as the grocery store initiative and new government-backed property and liability insurance for landlords. It's investing $30 million into an NYU quantum computing lab in exchange for a cut of its profits. And, it's pushing the idea that the wealthy could stand to chip in more and pay higher taxes.

This is a more expansive vision than a standard anti-poverty agenda — and a politically riskier one. New York is a crowded, raucous city where almost everyone sees themselves as an underdog, from billionaires to bodega owners to beleaguered renters. And when everyone feels like the system is stacked against them, any change is bound to make someone feel newly wronged.

To his progressive allies, Mamdani's approach is an attempt to prove that local government can directly respond to constituents. The hope is that tackling and touting the little things, like snow shoveling and trash pickup, will build trust that they can use to address the big things. It doesn't sound as radical as socialism, says Elizabeth Wilkins, the president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, but it's "radical in the degree to which people have lost faith in the idea that the government cares about how they experience the economy or that the government could do anything about it."

Housing is the arena where the mayor has made the biggest difference to New Yorkers on both material and rhetorical fronts. In June, the mayor-appointed Rent Guidelines Board voted to enact a two-year rent freeze on about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City, affecting an estimated 2 million residents. Meanwhile, he has advanced the argument that the root of the city's affordability crisis is a lack of housing and taken big steps to construct more. He's set out to build 200,000 more affordable homes and preserve another 200,000 over the next decade. His administration has identified city-owned land that could be turned into housing. They've created a task force to speed up affordable housing production and eliminate administrative barriers and delays, from tweaking the city's housing lottery system to reforming environmental review processes. The mayor has even nudged President Donald Trump to allow building on public sites, such as Sunnyside Yards, a rail hub in Queens.

"Each change may be modest, but they are important and collectively can add up to some meaningful changes," says Ingrid Gould Ellen, a professor of urban policy and planning at NYU, of the administrative efforts.

Early in his tenure, Mamdani launched "rental ripoff" hearings, providing a platform for tenants to air their frustrations. It signaled to the city's renters that he's on their side and cast bad landlord behavior as both a housing-quality problem and a consumer-protection problem. Mamdani has extended an olive branch to landlords in announcing an initiative to lower their insurance costs, but the shift in priorities is making many of them feel unfairly targeted.

"The tone put us on edge," says Ann Korchak, the board president of the Small Property Owners of New York.

Rent freezes aren't a new idea — they were put in place three times under former Mayor Bill de Blasio on a similar number of rent-stabilized apartments. The policy's proponents point to that as evidence that the sky won't fall this time around. Its critics note that the freezes haven't curbed the upward march of the city's housing costs in the past and argue that this time would be especially detrimental, since landlords' costs are higher and increasing faster than they were a decade ago.

Then there's the question of how the funding will come together for Mamdani's ambitious housing plans, and how much private developers and lenders will play ball. The rent freeze, which guarantees at least two years of flat revenues for rent-stabilized buildings, could lead to higher borrowing costs and financing challenges for builders, says Howard Slatkin, the executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council. Broader economic conditions that shape financing — most notably interest rates — are entirely out of the administration's control. Building and operating housing is expensive, and "we haven't yet seen what they are thinking will move the needle on those costs," Slatkin says. Building code reform, for example, could make the math work better. The administration is looking at it, but it's a slog.

Not all public land is suitable for housing, as parcels may be awkward shapes and sizes or have zoning and legal limitations. The administration has released a tracker that identifies over 100 city-owned sites it says could yield more than 50,000 homes. Some of this space isn't empty: In Bensonhurst, the city is seeking to redevelop the existing New Utrecht Library as a brand-new library plus 200 apartments.

The pied-à-terre tax is a financial knock to those subject to it, but it's a minuscule part of New York's overall fiscal picture. The mayor's office estimates the tax could bring in $500 million annually, though the comptroller says it could be $340 million-$380 million, given exemptions and the likelihood some homeowners would change their behavior to avoid the tax. For context, the city's most recent annual tax revenue was $85.4 billion.

Success depends on how many units are built, and their size, location, and cost. It also matters how fast construction moves, since delays are expensive. By the city's own estimate, New York needs 700,000 new homes over the next 10 years to address its housing shortage, meaning 70,000 homes a year, well above the net increase of 43,800 new units the city had in 2025. The Mamdani administration itself has acknowledged that it can take eight years for an affordable housing project to be conceived to a family actually being able to move in. It's seeking to cut eight months from the process and shrink the timeline from endeavors requiring zoning changes by two years.

"To make a serious dent in our housing crisis, we need to build more quickly and efficiently," Gould Ellen, the professor, says.

Mamdani has recast the deputy mayor for economic development role as deputy mayor for economic justice, a move meant to signal an administration focused on fairness, not only growth. He put in place a tenacious regulator at the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which has tried to convey that the city is willing to use its weight to address relatively mundane headaches by cracking down on bad actors in food delivery, self-storage, and even dentistry. Emily Eisner, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, says she sees much of the DCWP's actions as "small potatoes" in terms of actual affordability, but there's something "symbolically important" about people seeing the government stand up for them.

On small business, the administration has released 50 proposed reforms meant to cut red tape. They've also put forth ballot proposals to speed up processes for building ramps and sidewalk cafes in public spaces and reduce paperwork for city contractors. On big business, as much as Mamdani's rhetoric and political affiliation as a democratic socialist spooked some leaders, his mayoralty hasn't caused a corporate exodus. Anthropic, Fanatics, and Deloitte decided to expand in Manhattan this year. His bet is that corporations will stay and thrive in New York without City Hall bending over backward for them.

"People oftentimes, even more than getting what they want, they want to feel seen and heard," Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist, political strategist, and Andrew Cuomo ally, says. For CEOs and big business, that's not happening as it did with other administrations, Tusk says. A City Hall spokesperson points out that the mayor has put together a Business Advisory Council, hosted an international business roundtable during the United Nations General Assembly, and has held multiple meetings with prominent business leaders, including JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs' David Solomon.

New Yorkers may enjoy small financial reprieves, but the bigger challenge is bringing down the cost of bigger-ticket items. Mamdani's plan to open five city-run grocery stores is unlikely to move grocery prices significantly in a city of over 1,000 grocery stores and 10,000 bodegas and corner stores. The administration says it's chosen densely populated neighborhoods for the grocery store sites in hope of making a large direct and indirect impact on New Yorkers in those areas.

Julie Samuels, the president and CEO of trade group Tech: NYC, says that Mamdani has moderated in City Hall, though he hasn't yet focused as much on job growth and economic development as administrations past. One place he has succeeded: the vibes.

"Economic policy is also dictated by whether or not their employees want to be somewhere," she says. "And if employees want to be in New York, then the tech companies will be here, then the banks will be here."

Reflected in the nature of Mamdani's policy proposals is a belief that the city's livability and affordability problems aren't reserved for the poor. In turn, his programs are universal instead of means tested, so that any New Yorker can access them, regardless of income. Many middle- and upper-middle-class will be able to put their kids in free 2-K programs and live in rent-stabilized apartments that now won't get more expensive for a couple of years. If the buses ever do become free, that will apply to everyone who rides them.

The best economic policy may be for the Knicks to win the NBA championship every year, jokes Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance. But that's in Jalen Brunson's hands, not Mamdani's.

Many of Mamdani's biggest promises can't be fulfilled in Manhattan but instead up in Albany, where the state legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul have the reins. Any plans to raise taxes or increase the minimum wage depend on a statehouse three hours away.

James Parrott, a labor economist at The New School and the city's chief economist for two years under former Mayor David Dinkins, says the city has "never had a mayor who has made such a concerted drive to get Albany to do more to help." Mamdani has campaigned aggressively for Hochul, deploying his armament of clever viral videos to help get her reelected.

Closer to home, a major collision is brewing with city labor. Large public-sector union contracts are coming up for renegotiation, including District Council 37 and the United Federation of Teachers, which each have tens of thousands of members. The city itself is New York's largest employer. Soon, the mayor will find himself seated across the negotiating table from the labor he pledged to champion on the campaign trail. Because New York City generally relies on pattern bargaining — where one major union's agreement sets the standard for others — the stakes are high for all of the city's employees. They're also high for a mayor who wants to signal that he values the city's municipal workforce while keeping the city's finances on a solid footing.

Mamdani will, like every mayor, have to make a number of hard choices, including ones that don't grab headlines. He sued the New York City Council to block a bill that would grant a one-time $10,000 bonus to public school paraprofessionals because it falls outside collective bargaining. He was able to close the city's budget gap by restructuring the city's municipal pension payments, but accounting maneuvers can't replace structural shortfalls. If tax revenues flatten or state aid from Albany stalls, the administration will have to choose between scaling back on core goals or making painful spending cuts. This isn't the kind of stuff that goes in a press release or a TikTok video.

"The administration has been really, really focused on getting short-term, press-friendly wins," says Michael Kinnucan, health policy director at the Fiscal Policy Institute and a longtime progressive activist. "It sends a message about where its concerns are."

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• Johnston Osagie left his job at Amazon and retired early at 31.
• He and his wife moved from Tennessee to Ecuador, where they had their baby daughter.
• Life is more affordable in Cuenca, but Osagie said that's not the main reason they relocated.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Johnston Osagie, 32, who retired early and moved from Tennessee to Ecuador with his wife and daughter. Business Insider has verified his finances, former employment, and the comparative costs. This piece has been edited for length and clarity.

My goal was always to retire early. I'd planned to earn well, invest properly, and reach financial independence in my early 40s.

In the summer of 2025, when I was 31, I learned that I was going to become a father. Suddenly, another 10 years of trading the best hours of my life for work instead of family didn't sound so appealing.

I'd already reached our $350,000 freedom number by 2022. So, last year, I thought: Why am I waiting to do the things I want to do?

I quit my job at Amazon in January, and my wife and I moved from Nashville to Cuenca, Ecuador, in February. My daughter was born here in April. Now, I'm present for everything in her life, no matter how big or small. When I look at her, I can't imagine that I was ever thinking of not doing this.

I saw a finance career as a route to FIRE

When I was deciding on a career, I asked myself what I could study that would get me to financial freedom the fastest.

That ended up being finance. I graduated in 2016, started working immediately, and have been saving and investing ever since. I spent nearly 10 years working in finance, most recently as a finance manager for Amazon.

Our financial freedom number was $350,000

In the final five years of my career, I earned $150,000 a year on average. I saved roughly 45% of my earnings. Because I wanted to retire early, I was aggressive with my portfolio allocations to achieve faster growth.

I was fortunate to have earned substantially more than we needed. We could have bought a nicer home, taken nicer vacations, or driven nicer cars, but we chose to live within, or even below, our means.

Our goal for FIRE was $350,000. Coming up with that figure was straightforward: It was a case of working out how much income I'd need to support the life we wanted, then stripping out the costs that didn't add value.

I wanted to be a fully present dad

I'd always envisioned being a fully present parent, but I was working nine to 12 hours a day. The thing that would give me the most peace of mind before our daughter arrived was to stop working entirely.

I handed in my notice in January, a month before we moved to Ecuador. It was bittersweet. Part of me enjoys the corporate environment.

Cost wasn't the primary driver for moving abroad

We could have afforded to retire early and stay in the US, but the bigger question was what we wanted our lives to look like. Cost of living was part of the equation. We also considered what it would be like to live in each place as a Black person, the quality of life, and educational opportunities for our child.

We did a lot of internet research into cities around the world. Cape Town, Montevideo in Uruguay, and Arequipa in Peru made the shortlist.

We came to Ecuador on a whim in November 2025, at my wife's suggestion, and fell in love with it immediately. We knew it was the place for us.

Cuenca is a big city with a small-town vibe. It doesn't take long to get anywhere. By the end of our first week visiting, we'd already made quite a few friends at coffee shops.

Our rent is $1,120 less than our mortgage payments

We moved in February. It was a stressful process. We had a whole home's worth of things to sell and donate.

During our trip in November, we visited hospitals, looked at furniture and appliance prices, viewed apartments, and explored the city. We connected with a realtor and locked in our place before we arrived.

On the day we landed, our place was ready to go. Our rent is about $600 a month, compared with a monthly mortgage payment of $1,720 in the US. We sold our home recently because I didn't want to be a landlord in a different country.

Healthcare is cheaper in Ecuador

Our daughter was born in April, three weeks early, and my wife had a prolonged hospital stay after a C-Section. The birth cost us $2,790. In the US, it likely would have cost us several thousand more.

Previously, we were paying about $300 each a month for health insurance in the US. In Ecuador, we pay as we go because insurance and out-of-pocket costs are similar. On average, we spend about $50 a month taking the baby to the doctor.

One of the most challenging things about the move is that we're thousands of miles away from our family. As first-time parents, we find it tough that our parents can't pop in for a weekend to help. However, we have resources available to us here that we couldn't justify in the US. We have night nurses who come in five nights a week so we can sleep. It costs $44 a night.

We miss some Western luxuries, like getting an Amazon package in a couple of hours, and our Spanish isn't perfect, but when I look at my daughter, I don't miss anything.

I value the freedom and the time I get with my daughter. There are so many side projects I can explore.

My only regret is not doing this sooner.

• American tweens and teens could get a piece of SpaceX.
• A SpaceX executive is gifting over 2 million company shares to children through Trump Accounts.
• Find out if your child is eligible.

Your kid could become a SpaceX shareholder by Christmas.

SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said she and her husband are gifting over 2 million shares of the company to eligible tweens and teens through Trump Accounts, which first rolled out in July. Trump Accounts are tax-advantaged investment and savings accounts for American children under 18.

"Robert and I are thrilled that our gift of over 2 million shares of SpaceX stock will be distributed to children's Trump accounts in December!" Shotwell said in an X post on Friday.

The announcement comes after SpaceX founder Elon Musk said earlier this month that he would give one share to every child in America.

"This will be the first of many," he wrote in an X post.

Starting in October, the Treasury Department began automatically enrolling all eligible children in the SpaceX shares program.

Your child may qualify. Here's what to know.

Who is eligible?

The Shotwells took a twofold approach to their contributions, which are intended for low-income communities.

The first will go toward children ages 11 to 17 who live in zip codes with a median family income of $57,000 or less. Shotwell said eligible families would receive a notice by Monday, November 2.

She said a separate contribution would be distributed later in the month.

"An additional gift will be finalized for eligible 11- to 17-year-old children in military families serving overseas, children in foster care, and more children whose MFI is $90,000 or less living in counties near our home in the great state of Texas," Shotwell said.

Big donors

Trump Accounts have drawn support from high-profile companies and philanthropists.

The program has collected corporate commitments from companies like Uber, BlackRock, and Visa. Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, are big-time Trump Account donors, gifting $6.25 billion last December.

While the program is for children, the Trump administration has floated the idea of creating accounts for adults. Brad Gerstner, an investor and architect of Trump Accounts, said in October that similar accounts should become available to US citizens under 40.

• "A Court of Splintered Harmony" by Sarah J. Maas was published on October 27.
• It took readers back to the world of "ACOTAR," but it left them with plenty of questions.
• Nesta's future and connection to the prison remain mysterious, as do Azriel's shadows.

"ACOTAR" fans, assemble.

On Tuesday, Bloomsbury published "A Court of Splintered Harmony," the sixth book in Sarah J. Maas' "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series. The book is part one of "The Valkyrie Cycle," which will continue with parts two and three in "A Court of Forgotten Melody," coming out on January 12, 2027. Maas has yet to announce a title or release date for part four.

Since "ACOSH" was just the beginning of a larger story, almost no conflicts were resolved by the end, leaving beloved characters like Feyre, Rhysand, Nesta, and Azriel in turmoil.

Maas will likely tie up some of those plots in book seven or eight, but fans will have to ponder their favorite characters' fates while they wait for the next book.

In the meantime, check out some of the biggest questions "ACOTAR" fans may have after finishing "A Court of Splintered Harmony" — and possible answers from Maas' other series, "Crescent City" and "Throne of Glass."

Spoilers for all three of Maas' series ahead.

Why is Bryaxis different?

In one of the most dramatic scenes in "ACOSH," the big bad monster Bryaxis returns to Velaris. She crashes Feyre and Rhysand's son Nyx's naming day ceremony, tormenting the attendees with visions of their worst fears.

Bryaxis has always been terrifying to the fae, as she feeds on people's fears, but after the attack, Rhys remarks that she seems "different than when she escaped after the war. Darker."

It's hard not to see what he's saying. In "A Court of Wings and Ruin," Bryaxis helped Feyre when she realized she was High Lady of the Night Court, seeming to feel some affinity to the court, but in "ACOSH," she preyed on Feyre and her friends gleefully.

Rhysand adds that he thinks Koschei's emergence may be related to Bryaxis' change, though he offers no proof. Is Koschei or some other being influencing her? Or is Bryaxis different simply because she's seen the world outside the library?

What did everyone see when Bryaxis attacked?

Maas only shows Bryaxis' attack from Feyre, Azriel, and Nesta's perspectives, and their fears are pretty ghastly.

Feyre is scared of Nyx being tortured or taken from her, while Azriel sees himself hurting everyone he loves. Nesta's tormented with everything from the Cauldron to Cassian rejecting her before she can pull herself out of Bryaxis' hold.

Those fears offer insight into what each character is going through, so it's intriguing that Maas keeps the visions Bryaxis shows Rhysand, Cassian, Amren, Mor, Elain, Lucien, and Emerie a mystery.

Of course, fans can hazard a guess at what some of those characters may have seen. Emerie could be having visions of her father clipping her wings, while Rhysand has made clear Feyre and Nyx are his priority throughout the novel. Amren is heard whispering to herself, "You survived it; you got through it," suggesting she saw visions of the prison or the Cauldron. The Cauldron could have been a fear for Elain too.

The mystery leaves us with an even bigger question: What will these characters do to keep those fears from coming true?

What is Feyre's plan?

Bryaxis' attack has already pushed one character into action: Feyre, who says the incident was "a gift," as she "knew now what I had to do. And I did not fear it at all."

Bryaxis' return helped the High Lady hatch a plan for how to handle the death god Koschei and protect the humans in the fae realms, two problems she and Rhysand were at a loss for how to solve after their allies declined to help them. Feyre even asks her mate to make himself High King as a solution, a proposition he soundly rejects.

Feyre doesn't reveal any details about her new plan before the book ends, though it may have something to do with the sword Gwydion.

After Nesta tries to gift it to her, Feyre tells her sister to keep it "until the blood truly needs to begin spilling," thinking to herself, "Until I did precisely what I needed to do."

Maybe she thinks her plan will lead to violence. Considering she tried to storm the library to kill Bryaxis, it seems she'll do just about anything to protect Nyx.

Who is the fae warrior who trapped Koschei?

The death god Koschei doesn't appear on page in the novel, and it's unclear what creatures or characters he may be controlling, from Bryaxis to the royals from other fae realms.

Most intriguing of the mysteries surrounding him, though, may be the identity of the fae warrior who trapped him. The Bone Carver first revealed that his brother was contained in the lake by an ancient fae warrior in "A Court of Wings and Ruin," saying the warrior's identity had been forgotten by history but that her bloodline is still present in some human families.

And in "ACOSH," Vassa revealed that she and the other women Koschei has trapped with him are all descendants of that warrior.

"Throne of Glass" may offer clues about who that fae warrior is. The Bone Carver told Feyre that he and his siblings are from another world, and there just so happens to be a world-walking creature trapped in a lake in "Heir of Fire." Is Maas setting up new connections in the Maasiverse?

What is the extent of Elain's powers?

If you spent the five years between "ACOTAR" releases dreaming of learning more about Elain, you're going to have to dream a little longer.

Maas kept Elain's inner thoughts a mystery in "ACOSH," so the reader doesn't know how she feels about Azriel, Lucien, or her place in the Night Court.

They also know very little about Elain's Seer powers, which she gained in "A Court of Mist and Fury" and confirmed she still has in "ACOSH." We never actually see her use them, though, making the powers all the more obscure.

But Elain may have hinted she had a vision in the book. After her disastrous tryst with Azriel, she tells her sisters, "I thought I'd found my place, thought I had a future with Azriel, but…" She might be unsure how she feels about Azriel, but the comment may also mean she had a vision showing her that she and the shadowsinger would not be together.

And with Elain repeatedly saying phrases like "I'm not supposed to be here" and "I can't be here" about the Night Court, it's hard not to think she knows more about the future than she's letting on.

What's the deal with Azriel's shadows?

Readers learn a lot about Azriel's shadows in "ACOSH," from how they found him as a child to their weather-detecting abilities (sounds helpful in a world without weather apps). Still, some of their behaviors remain a mystery, like why they repeatedly avoid Elain.

In the book, Azriel's shadows refuse to be in the same room as Elain. Azriel sees their absence as "a gift," though he winds up in trouble because of their absence twice in the novel: during Bryaxis' attack on the naming day ceremony and when Lucien catches him and Elain together.

His shadows also avoid Erebos, a shadowy humanoid who pledged his service to Azriel because of his shadowsinger abilities. Many fans are suspicious of Erebos, who is described as having "golden eyes that simmered like hot coals." You might be extra suspicious if you've read "Empire of Storms" in the "TOG" series, in which another character's "golden eyes simmered like hot coals" (yep, simmering coals again): the Valg King Erawan. Of course, the phrase could be a coincidence, or it could be another sign of the Maasiverse expanding.

Erebos may be connected to "Crescent City," too. He tells Azriel that he could hear his blade, Truth-Teller, sing, as Bryce Quinlan could in "House of Flame and Shadow."

Back to the shadows, though. Azriel seems to see it as a sign of Erebos' darkness that his shadows cringe from the creature, even as he views their avoidance of Elain as a positive.

Meanwhile, Azriel's shadows are drawn to the priestess and Valkyrie warrior Gwyn in the text. They race toward her when they hear her singing in the House of Wind and "lingered at her feet, peering up at her" until Azriel summons them back to himself. What do Azriel's shadows really know about the people around him?

We also learn in the book that Azriel has never let his shadows use his full power out of fear of what they may do, so even he doesn't know what they're truly capable of.

What is Nesta's connection to the lost Dusk Court?

At the end of "ACOSH," Nesta winnows to the prison with the sword Gwydion at Amren's behest, but the scene leaves the reader with more questions than answers about Nesta's future.

First, when she arrives at the prison, Nesta asks herself, "Had the bone gates always towered so high? Had the darkness within always been so thick?" It's likely the space looks slightly different to her because she's afraid, but some fans think it's possible Nesta world-walked unintentionally.

Likewise, after Nesta enters the gate, Gwydion lights up — and then disappears. Nesta doesn't know where it went or why before the book ends, but again, "Crescent City" may offer clues.

Gwydion was on Midgard, where it was known as the Starsword, for 15,000 years before Bryce gave it to Nesta at the end of "HOFAS." To bear the Starsword, Starborn Fae on Midgard traditionally enter the Cave of Princes on a misty island called Avallen and attempt to retrieve it (Bryce says the tunnels in the cave are nearly identical to those in Prythian). It's possible Gwydion is putting Nesta through the same trial, disappearing until she proves herself worthy of wielding it.

All those questions also relate to the revelation that the prison was once the Dusk Court, an eighth court in Prythian. Bryce began to awaken its former life before she returned to Midgard in "HOFAS," though it still looks like the prison at the start of "ACOSH." Will Nesta finish reviving the court? And did Amren sense that it was Nesta's path when she encouraged her to go inside it with Gwydion?

"ACOSH" also didn't provide any closure on the Made item in the sea in front of the prison that called "find me" to Nesta (and seemingly Rhysand).

Is there spidersilk in Prythian?

In the novel, the High Priestess Clotho makes and gifts Rhysand and Feyre "a braided, silvery piece of fabric" to bind them to Nyx during his naming day ceremony. Nesta describes the fabric as glistening and delicate, and Clotho says it's one of a kind. It also keeps Rhys and Feyre tethered to their son throughout the attack, indicating its strength.

Later, Lucien notices the "extraordinary silver thread" in a tapestry that hangs in Feyre's home, adding that "it became a river of light" when he looked at it through his magical eye.

Both descriptions of the silver fabric are similar to those of the spidersilk that appears in the "Throne of Glass" series. Made by the massive Stygian spiders — who are Valg handmaidens and foot soldiers — the silk is described "as delicate as gossamer, lovelier than silk, and stronger than steel" in "The Assassin's Blade."

Plus, the cover of "A Court of Forgotten Melody" features a spider with a spool of fabric below it. That imagery could represent a Stygian spider, and fae and other magical creatures from "Throne of Glass" may be influencing the events of "ACOTAR."

It wouldn't be a total surprise if Maas further incorporated "TOG" into the world of "ACOTAR." Characters related to both series appear in "Crescent City," and a character from "TOG" briefly falls through the sky in Prythian during the events of "A Court of Silver Flames."

We'll have to wait until January 2027 to see what Maas has planned.