• Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi announced layoffs of roughly 200 workers.
• Alkarmi said the cloud-based storage company is profitable but needs to make "hard choices."
• You can read his full email to employees below.

Dropbox is dropping the layoffs hammer.

Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi announced on Wednesday that the cloud-based storage company is laying off roughly 9% of its global workforce.

"Today, we're making difficult choices about where we invest and how we organize Dropbox to achieve the product and growth priorities that will matter most for our long-term strategy," Alkarmi wrote in an email to workers that the company posted publicly.

Alkarmi said Dropbox is eliminating roughly 200 roles across its across Engineering, Product, Design, and G&A team. The company, Alkarmi wrote, is profitable but needs to make "hard choices" about where it spends its money.

"Delivering on that strategy requires concentrating our resources on the priorities that will have the greatest potential for customer impact and growth," he wrote.

As part of the changes, Alkarmi also announced that chief technology officer Ali Dasdan will be stepping down.

Read the full email

Hi everyone,

Today, we're making difficult choices about where we invest and how we organize Dropbox to achieve the product and growth priorities that will matter most for our long-term strategy. As part of these changes, we've made the decision to eliminate about 200 roles across Engineering, Product, Design, and G&A teams (approximately 9% of our global workforce). For most impacted Dropboxers, today will be their last day.

S-team and I take full ownership of this decision and recognize that these colleagues have made meaningful contributions to Dropbox, our products, our customers, and our teams. Our first priority today is to treat every person affected with the care and respect they deserve.

Changes to Senior Leadership

I also want to share that Ali Dasdan has decided to move on from Dropbox. During his time here, Ali led and strengthened many of the technical capabilities we'll rely on as we move into the next phase of our transformation. I'm grateful for his leadership, his partnership, and the foundation he and the team have put in place. Ali's last day is November 18th, and he'll be focused on ensuring a smooth transition through next month. We wish him all the best in what comes next.

Why we're making these changes

Our business is profitable, and we've built real momentum this year. Our two-year strategy sets a clear direction for growth: solving more of our customers' critical workflows; reaching more of our chosen customers, including larger companies; and bringing our technology to new markets.

Delivering on that strategy requires concentrating our resources on the priorities that will have the greatest potential for customer impact and growth.

That means making hard choices about where we invest, how we're organized, and what work we simplify, scale back, or stop. Those choices include the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team.

How we'll prioritize going forward

In order to be successful, we can't take the same work and spread it across fewer people. We'll streamline teams and concentrate support and resources against product areas that have the highest impact on our customers and Dropbox as a business.

Taking care of impacted employees

To those leaving Dropbox, we're committed to supporting you through this transition. Departing Dropboxers are eligible for a severance package in line with the following:

Severance, equity, and transition support:

Sixteen weeks of pay beginning today, plus one additional week for each completed year at Dropbox. International packages will reflect local practices and legal requirements

Q4 equity vesting

For employees on the Corporate Bonus plan, a prorated lump-sum payment based on their 2026 bonus target

Immigration support for impacted visa holders

Healthcare and well-being:

U.S. employees will receive six months of COBRA subsidy, if elected and eligible

Modern Health access will continue through the end of the separation month to support mental well-being, with extension options detailed in severance packages

Payment for eligible current and approved upcoming paid leaves, including medical and family leave

Additional support:

Devices: Impacted employees will be eligible to keep (1) Dropbox laptop, (1) mobile device if assigned, and all existing desktop peripherals

Job placement: Job placement services and career coaching will be available at no cost

What comes next

Right now, our focus is on the colleagues who are leaving Dropbox. Please give them the space and support they need.

And to everyone leaving Dropbox: thank you. Your work to build our capabilities, serve our customers, and contribute to our culture has been deeply meaningful. I'm grateful for everything you've contributed.

Ashraf

• Wendy's was founded in 1969 by Dave Thomas, a former KFC employee.
• He named his burger restaurant after his daughter, Melinda "Wendy" Thomas.
• Some fans claim a secret message is written in the Wendy's logo.

Wendy's could be undergoing major changes.

When Wendy's opened in 1969, its menu had just five items: burgers, Frosties, fries, chili, and soft drinks.

More than five decades later, the chain has grown into the nation’s second-largest fast-food burger brand based on sales, according to QSR Magazine.

Now, Wendy’s could be headed for another major change: a potential acquisition.

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trian Fund Management, which is owned by billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, and its partners offered $1.4 billion, or $7.35 per share, to buy Wendy’s and take the company private.

The proposal is still under review by a special committee, so no acquisition has been finalized, but it would mean a major shake-up for the burger chain.

Here are 9 things you probably never knew about Wendy's.

Wendy's founder, Dave Thomas, worked for KFC and the real Colonel Sanders before opening his own fast-food chain.

Before opening his own franchise, Dave Thomas worked as a head cook at a Hobby House restaurant, a chain that would eventually become Kentucky Fried Chicken.

During his time working for the company, Thomas helped improve brand recognition and encouraged Colonel Harland David Sanders to appear in more commercials.

This strategy, along with the design of the iconic red-and-white-striped fried chicken bucket, helped grow KFC's popularity.

Thomas was sent to Columbus, Ohio, to revitalize a few failing KFC franchises, turn them around, and sell them back to Sanders for a big profit, the Greensboro News & Record reported. He used this newfound cash to start his own franchise: a hamburger chain named Wendy's, inspired by his inability to find a good burger during his years in Columbus. 

The first Wendy's opened in Columbus, Ohio, in 1969 with just five items on the menu.

The first Wendy's restaurant opened at 257 East Broad Street on November 15, 1969. By that time, there were already two major players in the fast-food burger industry: McDonald's, which opened its first franchise in 1955, and Burger King, which was founded in 1954.

The chain still stands as the second-largest fast-food burger chain in the US.

Wendy's was different from the other two chains in that it served square-shaped burger patties and chocolate shakes called "Frostys."

Apart from the burgers and Frostys, there were only three other items on the first menu: french fries, soft drinks, and chili.

You might already know that Wendy's is named after Dave Thomas' daughter, but her given name is actually Melinda.

Melinda "Wendy" Thomas was just 8 years old when her father founded Wendy's, and he already had a vision for how she would become the brand's mascot.

Inspired by Sanders' success as the face of KFC, Thomas decided to create a similar image for his brand. 

"He wanted a character, because he worked for the Colonel at Kentucky Fried Chicken and knew how much that persona mattered," Wendy Thomas wrote in a blog post for the company in 2019. "He said, 'Wendy, pull your hair up in pigtails.' So, I did. He got his camera and took pictures of me and my sister and said, 'Yep, it's going to be Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers.'"

"That was it," Thomas continued. "There was no marketing research, no nothing. Just boom. That's it."

One photo of Thomas wearing a blue-and-white-striped dress with her red hair in pigtails became the ultimate inspiration for the chain's logo. While the logo has been altered slightly over the years, the overall idea has remained the same.

Wendy's restaurants used to have their own salad bars where you could completely customize your salad.

Salad bars were added to restaurants in November 1979, and they were popular among customers throughout the 1980s.

However, as more diners opted for drive-thru and carry-out service, salad bars were phased out in favor of more portable salad options. 

Wendy's serves about 300 million Frostys every year.

Wendy's chocolate Frosty is arguably one of the chain's most famous and popular menu items. Introduced as one of five menu items when the chain first opened in 1969, Frostys were only available in chocolate until 2006.

That all changed when the chain launched its vanilla Frosty.

According to a Wendy's press release from 2006, the chain serves about 300 million Frostys every year.

Wendy's changed the fast-food industry with the introduction of its pick-up window.

While other chains have claimed to have invented the drive-thru, Wendy's says it changed the fast-food industry when it introduced its own pick-up window in November 1970.

The window was originally referred to as a "drive-in window" but was renamed "Pick-Up Window" to better reflect the chain's quick-service model. 

According to Wendy's, "This innovation was so revolutionary that customers needed instructions on how to talk through the speaker to place an order."

Wendy's was the first fast-food chain with fewer than 1,000 restaurants to have its own national TV commercial.

According to the company's website, in 1977, Wendy's became the first fast-food chain with fewer than 1,000 restaurants to air a national commercial.

Wendy's now has around 6,000 restaurants nationwide.

One Wendy's advertisement from September 1976, presumably a local commercial, featured an animated Wendy and dancing hamburgers. In the commercial, the cartoon characters described how Wendy's "old-fashioned" hamburgers were cooked to order: "Your choice down at Wendy's, where quality is our recipe!" 

Clara Peller, who starred in Wendy's famous "Where's the Beef" campaign, was reportedly let go after she shaded the company in a Prego ad.

Peller became one of the biggest names in fast food after she began starring in Wendy's commercials, shouting out the slogan, "Where's the beef?"

The first advertisement, which appeared in 1984, claimed that Wendy's hamburgers had larger patties than those of the chain's competitors.

The campaign was so popular that it led to a 31% boost in Wendy's annual revenue, according to the chain. However, things took a turn in 1985 after Peller appeared in a Prego commercial that implied she had "finally found" the beef she was looking for. 

"I'm sorry that the company that I worked so hard for does not want to use me in commercials anymore," Peller said in a statement through her attorney, according to The Sun Sentinel in 2006. 

"The commercial infers that Clara found the beef at somewhere other than Wendy's restaurants," William M. Welter, executive vice president of Wendy's International Inc., said in a statement. "Unfortunately, Clara's appearance in the ads makes it extremely difficult for her to serve as a credible spokesperson for our products."

Peller died at age 86 in 1987, just two years after the dispute.

Some people believe there's a secret message hidden in the Wendy's logo.

After Wendy's introduced its newly designed logo in 2013, a website author claimed to have found a secret message hidden inside Wendy's iconic blue-and-white dress.

ABC News reported that a posting on the website StockLogos.com pointed out that the word "mom" appeared to be hidden on Wendy's collar. Another website agreed, perhaps prompting the chain to issue a statement clarifying whether the hidden message was purely a coincidence or a ploy to get customers to associate Wendy's food with "Mom's cooking."

"We are aware of this and find it interesting that it appears our Wendy cameo has 'mom' on her ruffled collar. We can assure you it was unintentional," Denny Lynch, Wendy's former senior vice president of communications, said at the time.

• Wendy's stock surged on Wednesday on a buyout offer from Nelson Peltz.
• Peltz's Trian Fund Management has offered $7.35 a share for the company, the Journal reported.
• Rumors that Peltz was interested in buying Wendy's circulated earlier this year, boosting the stock.

Wendy's stock surged 17% on Wednesday on an offer from a famed activist investor to buy the fast-food chain.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management submitted a take-private offer. The fund submitted an offer to purchase the burger chain for $1.4 billion, or $7.35 a share, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission submitted on Wednesday. The offer represents about a 20% premium to the stock's closing price on Tuesday.

Trian writes in the filing that "private ownership is the better path and would provide the patient, long-duration capital needed to restore the business and the franchise system to a position of strength." The firm owns over 16% of the shares outstanding.

Speculation of Peltz's interest in buying Wendy's had also pushed the stock up earlier this year. In August, shares rose 14% on rumbling that the billionaire investor was considering a bid.

Peltz has been an investor in the fast-food chain for years, and his son sits on its board.

Wendy's stock has struggled for years, down nearly 70% in the last five years as it struggles against shifts in consumer behavior and pickier US restaurant goers. The stock's volatility has helped it achieve meme stock status among the day-trader crowd, which has helped it surge periodically.

Trian's filing indicates that it sees Wendy's as a potential turnaround story if it makes changes and can steer the business without dealing with the pressures of being a public company. The filing states that Wendy's needs to "manage its balance sheet against approaching debt maturities and the significant capital investment needed for the brand."

• When I spotted a castle in the Hudson River from my train window, I had to get a closer look.
• Back then, the abandoned weapon fortress wasn't open to the public.
• But I got a private tour.

Sitting on Pollepel Island in New York's Hudson River, a stunning piece of history is slowly crumbling away.

Bannerman Castle was built in the early 20th century as a fortress for weapons by Scottish arms trader Francis Bannerman, The New York Times reported. Gunpowder exploded inside the castle in 1920, and it was abandoned about 30 years later.

Then, in the early 1990s, the Bannerman Castle Trust led efforts to restore the structure and make the island safe for public visitation. It's been accessible since 2004 and open for tours since 2020.

I got a private tour of the island in 2019 — before tours were available to the public. Take a look at Pollepel Island's decaying castle, which is being taken over by nature. 

Welcome to Bannerman Castle, an abandoned fortress in New York's Hudson River that I visited in 2019.

Today, you can reserve tours on the Bannerman Castle website.

Bannerman Castle is about 60 miles north of New York City on Pollepel Island.

The abandoned castle is visible from the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson line. I took the train from Grand Central Terminal in NYC to the Manitou train station.

To get to the castle, I took a cab from the Manitou train station to Donahue Memorial Park in the town of Cornwall, New York.

There, I met up with guides from the Bannerman Castle Trust, the group that oversees the castle's preservation and maintenance.

I boarded a boat at Donahue Memorial Park and headed to the island.

Pollepel Island is only accessible by boat. Two guides from the Bannerman Castle Trust met me at the dock.

I crammed into the boat with the guides and a handful of volunteer gardeners who do landscaping work on Pollepel Island.

Twenty minutes later, I arrived at the castle. From the dock, I thought its beautiful, sturdy-looking walls made the building appear almost functional.

From the dock, we climbed 72 stairs to reach the island.

But my guide told me I could not go inside — it's not safe.

My guide explained that the castle's towers are supported by external beams braced with steel. Each section weighs 250 pounds.

But even with this support, there's still a risk that the walls could fall. That's why all visitors must stay at least 100 feet away from the castle.

Luckily, observation decks are set up around the castle at picturesque vantage points.

Accidental explosions and weather damage have left Bannerman Castle, once a weapons storage fortress, in ruins.

Francis Bannerman VI, an arms dealer who lived in Brooklyn, bought Pollepel Island in 1900. He wanted a place outside the city to store an arsenal of munitions, according to The New York Times, so he built the fortress and an accompanying harbor.

Bannerman's sons took over the business when he died in 1918.

A room full of gunpowder exploded in 1920.

This shattered the castle's windows.

Forty-seven years later, the Bannerman family sold the island to New York State.

It eventually became part of the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, according to the park's website.

In 1969, a fire destroyed much of the castle.

After that, Pollepel Island was deemed unsafe and declared off-limits by the State of New York.

Then, in 1992, Neil Caplan, a resident of nearby Beacon, New York, formed the Bannerman Castle Trust.

The group raised money to restore the island; Caplan is its executive director.

The Trust teamed up with New York's Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation to open the island to the public in 2004.

Today, it serves as a theater, museum, and historical site.

Although the main castle is inaccessible, the Trust stabilized another structure that served as the Bannerman family residence. That's now the island's visitor center.

The facade of the building also serves as the backdrop for the theater's stage.

Inside, visitors can find information about the island's past.

Modest exhibits explain the site's history and the castle's construction. Drawings and documents are framed on the building's distressed walls.

Visitors can also see preserved fixtures from the castle, like this bathtub.

The center also has a gift shop that sells art and T-shirts.

Although the Trust has restored parts of the castle since the 1990s, the weather has still taken a toll on the structure in recent decades.

According to the Bannerman Castle Trust, much of the castle's shell collapsed one night in December 2009. Then, just a month later, more walls fell during a winter storm.

On my way back from the castle, the boat took a spin around the island's perimeter.

From the water, we caught glimpses of other pieces of the abandoned fortress, including its deteriorated harbor.

From afar, it was especially clear that nature has already taken over many parts of this mysterious piece of history on the Hudson River.

The combination of medieval architecture and overgrown trees and foliage makes Bannerman Castle a place worth visiting up close.

• Protein products have been taking over grocery aisles, from popcorn to cereal.
• Yogurt is naturally protein-rich, but some brands offer products with added whey or plant protein.
• I ranked 11 different high-protein yogurts and thought Chobani, Ratio, and Oikos were the best.

Protein has entered every corner of the pantry as consumers aim to build or avoid losing muscle.

There's protein popcorn, protein cereal, and even protein water. If a food product did not already contain protein, it does now, thanks to gym bros, social media, and Ozempic.

Yogurt is naturally high in protein, but some brands are taking extra steps to ensure their yogurts — or dairy snacks, as some are labeled — have as much protein as possible.

To see if they actually taste good, I compared 11 different high-protein yogurts from my local store's dairy selection and ranked them from least favorite to top pick.

I ranked the yogurts based on taste and protein content. I considered any yogurt with over 12 grams of protein per serving — the equivalent of two eggs — to be "high-protein."

Other brands, like Fage, also offer vanilla-flavored high-protein yogurts, but I only ranked ones I could find at my local store in New York City.

Do we really need to be this obsessed with protein? Probably not. But if you're looking for easy ways to help meet your nutrient goals — or you just want a delicious-tasting snack — here's how some of the top brands of high-protein yogurts compare.

11. Too Good Blended

Cost: $1.99 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 80 calories

Protein: 12 grams

Too Good Blended is marketed as a low-fat, low-sugar yogurt; it contains 2 grams of each. A container costs $1.99, an average for single-portion yogurts.

It has 12 grams of protein, equivalent to two eggs.

To me, Too Good Blended tasted chalky.

Upon opening the cup, it smelled tart, and I could see vanilla bean powder in the yogurt, suggesting the flavoring was on the more natural side.

However, I thought the taste seemed artificial. The texture was a bit runny, even though the yogurt had some separated whey that needed to be mixed in. Even though it was a bit liquid, this yogurt felt dry and had a grainy texture.

To me, it tasted like chalk.

Rating: 3/10

10. Too Good Zero Sugar

Cost: $1.99 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 70 calories per container

Protein: 13 grams

Also from the Too Good brand, Too Good Zero Sugar offers a similar yogurt, minus the 2 grams of sugar in the Too Good Blended.

With 5.4 calories per gram of protein, this yogurt is the best of the 11 I tried for people looking to increase their protein intake while staying low on calories.

I thought Too Good Zero Sugar wasn't much better than Too Good Blended.

Despite its favorable nutrient values, Too Good Blended was nowhere near my favorite in this ranking.

Compared to some of the other yogurts, it was tartier, runnier, and more artificial-tasting. Although I didn't love the taste, it was still better than Too Good Blended's.

Rating: 4/10

9. Chobani Greek Yogurt

Cost: $1.99 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 110 calories per container

Protein: 12 grams

My go-to before this experiment was Chobani Greek Yogurt, a staple nonfat Greek yogurt. While I enjoy this regularly, after comparing it to so many options, I was surprised to see it rank so low in my ranking.

The yogurt has one of the highest sugar contents in the experiment, at 9 grams per container, tied with Icelandic Provisions and Siggi's. It is also the least protein-efficient for those looking to stay low on calories while increasing protein intake. It has over 9 calories per gram of protein, which is higher than any other protein in this ranking.

Chobani's Greek Yogurt almost tasted like spoiled milk.

This tastes like Greek yogurt, big time. Intensely tartier than the rest, the combination of Chobani's Greek yogurt with its very mild vanilla flavoring almost tasted like spoiled milk to me.

It was also very runny, which I don't always look for when grabbing a yogurt for a stand-alone snack — as a granola bowl base, however, I do prefer to go for something a bit more liquidy. Of course, this comes down to personal preference.

While it used to be my go-to option, I think I'd rather go for some of the other options I tasted.

Rating: 5/10

8. Yoplait Protein

Cost: $1.79 for 5.6 ounces

Calories: 100 calories per container

Protein: 15 grams

Yoplait's Protein yogurt offering was the most surprising to me, nutrients-wise. Being the cheapest of all 11 I tried, the yogurt packs a solid 15 grams of protein while having 3 grams of sugar.

It's also a larger size, at 5.6 ounces per container, so in terms of volume, you get the most bang for your buck.

Yoplait Protein surprised me.

I was skeptical about how Yoplait's Protein yogurt would stack up — I typically consider it a traditional yogurt brand rather than a protein-focused snack. But I was pleasantly surprised.

When I opened the cup, I was instantly hit by a strong vanilla scent that reminded me of ice cream.

While the texture was both thick and airy, it was also a bit grainy, and I thought the yogurt tasted a little artificial and bland compared to some of the other brands.

So while I probably wouldn't seek it out over others on this list, it's still a good snack option.

Rating: 6/10

7. Oikos Triple Zero

Cost: $1.99 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 90 calories per container

Protein: 15 grams

Oikos' Triple Zero name tells you everything you need to know: The snack has zero sugar, zero artificial sweeteners, and zero fat.

It's the only one on this list with both zero sugar and zero fat.

It is also one of the more protein-efficient options at 6 calories per gram of protein.

Despite its nutrient values, Oikos Triple Zero didn't wow me.

Oikos Triple Zero had one of the most unique flavors of the yogurts on this list. When I opened it, I was immediately hit by a slightly funkier smell than some of the other yogurts.

After mixing the yogurt, which had separated a bit, the Oikos Triple Zero had a very rich and full texture. Its vanilla flavoring tasted different than some of the others on this list — it almost seemed smokier.

While I rated it the same as the Yoplait Protein, its nutrient values gave it a boost for me, hence why it's ranked higher.

Rating: 6/10

6. Siggi's Skyr

Cost: $2.39 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 110 calories per container

Protein: 16 grams

Another of my usual go-tos, Siggi's nonfat Skyr — a type of strained yogurt — had some of the highest sugar content on the list, tied with Chobani Greek Yogurt and Icelandic Provisions.

The yogurt is also on the more expensive side at $2.39 for a regular 5.3-ounce container.

Siggi's Skyr was very different from some of the less-yogurt-y options.

Flavored with a visible vanilla bean, Siggi's Skyr had the best vanilla flavor of all the yogurts I tested. While it was very tart and not sweet at all — which surprised me since it had 9 grams of sugar — the vanilla flavor still shone through.

In terms of texture, Siggi's reminded me a lot of ice cream, both in appearance and in feel.

I'll buy this again, but out of the 11, it didn't make my top five.

Rating: 7/10

5. Dannon's Light + Fit

Cost: $1.89 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 80 calories per container

Protein: 12 grams

Dannon's Light + Fit yogurt was my favorite discovery from this experiment. Having never heard of it before, I was impressed by this nonfat yogurt, which packs 12 grams of protein in 80 calories.

While it does have 7 grams of sugar, I found that the flavor in this yogurt justified it.

Even with very low calories, Light + Fit was still tasty, and I really liked its texture.

Dannon's Light + Fit's texture was one of the most memorable. As the name says, this yogurt is indeed light. It was much airier than all the others, which also made it a bit runny.

It was also very sweet, almost falling into the category of dessert-adjacent yogurts that I would put Ratio's in.

Rating: 8/10

4. Oikos Pro

Cost: $2.79 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 140 calories per container

Protein: 20 grams

Oikos' higher-protein yogurt offering, Oikos Pro, is a much more protein-dense offering, having 20 grams of protein in a 5.3-ounce container, or a little more than three eggs. The yogurt also has 0% fat and 3 grams of sugar.

It is also, however, one of the most expensive, at $2.79 for a regular 5.3-ounce cup. It's tied with Ratio for the most expensive in this ranking, being a full dollar more than some of the other options.

Oikos Pro is a perfect post-workout snack.

When you open a cup of Oikos Pro, you smell mild vanilla, which translates into a very tasty yogurt with a flavor that stays on your tongue longer than others.

The texture was also very rich and moist, while not being runny.

This texture also made it the most filling of the yogurts I tested, and it would make for the perfect post-workout snack.

Rating: 8/10

3. Icelandic Provisions

Cost: $1.99 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 130 calories per container

Protein: 15 grams

While not labeled as a high-protein yogurt, Icelandic Provisions' Skyr has 15 grams of protein, placing it in the medium-high tier among yogurts.

It's tied with Chobani and Siggi's for the highest sugar content, with all three at 9 grams.

Icelandic Provisions was one of my favorites.

Icelandic Provisions is a skyr yogurt like Siggi's. It is similar in taste and texture, but I found it a bit sweeter and less tart, with a nuttier flavor, which I really enjoyed.

This rich, full-flavored yogurt was one of my favorites out of the 11.

Rating: 9/10

2. Ratio Protein

Cost: $2.79 for 5.3 ounces

Calories: 170 calories per container

Protein: 25 grams

With a whopping 25 grams of protein — nearly as much as half a chicken breast — Ratio Protein had by far the most protein content of all the products I tested. It was also the most expensive, tied with Oikos Pro at $2.79 a cup.

The product, labeled as a "yogurt-cultured dairy snack" rather than yogurt due to the added vegetable-based fats in its recipe, is also the most calorie-dense, with 170 calories per cup.

While the Ratio recipe does not meet the FDA's definition of yogurt, its fermented nature, dairy components, and use of yogurt cultures earned it a spot on my list.

I will be looking to Ratio next time I need a quick protein-dense snack.

Ratio Protein differs from the others in this list. Its taste is much milder, and it lacks the signature tartness of Greek yogurt.

The texture was also quite unique — I could best describe it as gooey. It's runnier and smoother than the rest, and its taste stays on your tongue for much longer.

To me, this just felt like dessert, and I easily forgot that I was having a meal's worth of protein.

While I gave this and the Icelandic Provisions a 9/10, the protein content and unique flavor and texture made me rank Ratio higher.

Rating: 9/10

1. Chobani Protein

Cost: $2.39 for 6.7 ounces

Calories: 140 calories per container

Protein: 20 grams

Coming in at No. 1 is Chobani Protein, which has 20 grams of protein in a larger 6.7-ounce cup. While it's larger, its calorie content is in line with other yogurts in this ranking, like Oikos Pro, which has the same amount of protein. Like Oikos, Chobani Protein has about the same protein content as a 3-ounce can of tuna.

While the individual cup is pricier per unit, the larger size makes it cheaper per ounce, comparable to Dannon's Light + Fit.

Chobani Protein is one of three zero-sugar yogurts in this ranking, the others being Oikos Triple Zero and Too Good 0 Sugar.

Chobani Protein was by far my favorite.

I was a fan of Chobani Protein before coming into this test — the high protein content and name recognition frequently earned it a spot in my fridge — but I entered this experiment ready to find a new favorite.

I didn't.

Although some of the other yogurts I tasted were surprising and very enjoyable, I still found Chobani Protein to be the best.

It is rich, thicker, and very filling. It has a hint of the signature Chobani Greek yogurt taste while skipping much of the tartness. I enjoyed the taste it left in my mouth the most out of all of the yogurts.

The only downside to this favorite is its slightly artificial taste from the zero-sugar sweeteners used to keep its sugar content low, but if you can move past that, you'll have an amazing post-workout bite or on-the-go snack at your disposal.

Rating: 10/10

• United's CEO thinks Starlink is now the second-most important factor in customers' flight choices.
• Scott Kirby said some passengers are flying on regional airlines to guarantee Starlink access.
• United's speedy Starlink rollout is the airline's "biggest competitive advantage," Kirby said.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby believes passengers are more interested in Starlink than ticket prices when picking which airline to fly with.

"I think Starlink, behind the schedule, is the most important thing for customers to choose an airline now," Kirby told the "Cheeky Pint" podcast on Tuesday's episode.

United is leading the way in the US in installing Starlink, the high-speed WiFi service from Elon Musk's SpaceX. The airline was one of the first to sign up in 2024 and has since equipped almost half of its planes with Starlink.

While Starlink is on all United's regional airplanes — those operated under the United Express brand — it is on less than 3% of its wide-body jets that fly long-haul routes, according to the airline's tracking tool.

Some travelers are choosing flights on these smaller regional airplanes to ensure they can access Starlink, Kirby told "Cheeky Pint."

Kirby said that when passengers told him this, his reaction was: "Holy cow!"

He also recalled booking a recent flight and ensuring he wouldn't be in the air when the Milwaukee Brewers were playing, so he could watch the game on TV. "Whereas if I had known for certain that my flight was going to have Starlink, I would have booked it during the game," he added.

American Airlines has also made a deal with Starlink, but it is not due to begin installing the terminals until early next year. Delta Air Lines has instead signed up for Amazon Leo, a similar service due to launch in 2028, which has attracted considerable criticism from Musk.

Although Musk has called for Delta CEO Ed Bastian to be fired, Kirby disagreed. "He's not going to lose his job over it," he said.

However, United is trying to win over Delta customers who might want Starlink. This month, it ran a promotion offering to match travelers' loyalty status on Delta or American, advertising "the fastest WiFi in the sky."

Thousands of customers signed up within two weeks, United said, and status match applications were up 275% compared to before the campaign.

"We're going to get customers that have been loyal to other airlines that try us for Starlink and stay because the technology is better," Kirby told the podcast.

While he called Starlink "the biggest competitive advantage," he also said it won't last forever.

"Everybody eventually is going to have high-speed, low Earth orbit. It's going to be a must-have."

Big-screen TVs are more popular and affordable than ever. I have a 75-inch TV in my own living room, and I love the added immersion it brings to movies, video games, and sports. But a big display doesn't guarantee a good picture on its own. The gap in quality across various models is greater than you might expect. That's why I put together this guide to the best 75-inch TVs (plus a few 77-inch sets) that are actually worth the money.

My team and I tested popular TV models across brands to find 75-inch options for a range of needs and budgets. Our methodology takes image quality, design, usability, and overall value into account. For most people, the Samsung S90H is hard to beat. It's an incredibly versatile TV with an OLED panel for pixel-level contrast control and an anti-glare screen for great daytime viewing. But if you want something more affordable, the Hisense U6SF Pro is a good value at a common deal price of $800. It can't match the S90H's contrast, but its Mini LED display still delivers impressive color, and its matte-like screen also works well in bright rooms.

I've also included 75-inch TVs that prioritize top-tier picture quality, as well as models that crank up the brightness for bold HDR performance. My recommendations include both 75-inch Mini LEDs and 77-inch OLEDs, as the small size difference is simply a result of how each panel is manufactured. Some brands also sell slightly smaller 70-inch TVs, but they're limited to a few entry-level models that didn't make the cut for this guide.

Our top picks for the best 75-inch TVs

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

Best entry-level: Hisense U6SF Pro QLED TV - See at Amazon

Best for brightness: TCL QM8L QLED TV - See at Amazon

Best premium: LG G5 OLED TV - See at Amazon

Best overall

Buy if: You want high contrast and wide viewing angles without paying premium prices. This is the best all-around value for movies, gaming, and everyday viewing.

Skip if: You consider Dolby Vision support essential or prefer OLEDs with glossy screens.

When it comes to balancing price and performance, the Samsung S90H OLED stands out as the best 77-inch TV on the market.

The S90H's OLED panel marries pixel-level contrast control with Samsung's anti-glare screen technology. The result is deep black levels in a dark room and excellent reflection handling in a bright room. Contrast does take a slight hit with the lights on due to how light scatters on the matte-like screen, but if you struggle with reflections, this is a more-than-acceptable trade-off.

Though the 55-, 65-, and 83-inch versions of the S90H use a standard WOLED panel, this 77-inch model actually uses a more advanced four-stack OLED screen. This enables it to get noticeably brighter. When testing the 65-inch size, I measured peak brightness at around 1,440 nits, which is already great for a midrange OLED. But the 77-inch size should deliver around 2,000 nits, for even punchier HDR highlights with brighter colors.

Viewing angles are another strong point: you can sit off to the side without noticeable loss of contrast. Some units may exhibit a slight green tint at an angle, but this is nowhere near as distracting as the washed-out colors you'd typically see on a QLED or Mini LED TV. Gamers will appreciate the 120Hz refresh rate for smooth motion on a PS5, Xbox Series X, or Switch 2. This year's model can even support 4K at 165Hz when paired with a gaming PC. Additionally, Samsung's built-in Xbox app lets Game Pass members stream titles directly to the TV without a console.

Samsung's Tizen smart TV platform supports every major streaming app and runs more smoothly than on older models. That said, the interface's organization is a bit clumsy compared to the more intuitive designs of rivals like Google TV and Roku. It also has a few irritating quirks, such as automatically loading the last app you used at startup. Though Tizen gets the job done, some people may prefer pairing the S90H with a separate Google, Roku, or Amazon streaming device.

As with all Samsung TVs, the S90H doesn't support Dolby Vision, an advanced HDR format used by many streaming services. While Dolby Vision can deliver slightly more accurate HDR performance, the difference is subtle, so its absence isn't a dealbreaker. For more information, check out my HDR TV guide.

Despite some small drawbacks here and there, the 77-inch S90H's versatility is nearly unmatched in this price range. The 77-inch LG C6H is its closest competitor. That model offers very similar image quality, since both TVs use the same type of OLED panel, but the C6H is more prone to mirror-like reflections. However, if you prefer the look of a glossy-style screen or consider Dolby Vision a must-have, the C6H is a better fit.

Read our Samsung S90H 4K TV review.

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

Best entry-level

Buy if: You want an affordable big-screen TV with a solid anti-glare screen and better picture quality than most budget models.

Skip if: You're willing to pay more for superior contrast control and a more impactful HDR experience.

The Hisense U6SF Pro is easily one of the best 75-inch TVs you can get on a budget. There are some compromises to keep in mind, but the U6SF Pro gets the essentials right while offering a few perks that are rare in this class.

The U6SF Pro replaces my previous pick in this spot, the TCL QM6K. TCL's set remains a great budget TV in its own right, and certain sizes still have an edge in value. However, in recent months, the 75-inch U6SF Pro has consistently been on sale for the same price as, or less than, the 75-inch QM6K. And since the U6SF Pro delivers a few key benefits over the QM6K, it's now the better buy for most people.

One of the biggest differentiators between the U6SF Pro and most 75-inch rivals in this price range is its matte-like display. This type of screen does a solid job of reducing indirect reflections, making the U6SF Pro a particularly good option for living rooms with lots of windows or overhead lights. The anti-glare filter isn't as effective at fighting direct reflections as those used on Samsung and Sony TVs, but it's a lot better at handling ambient light than the glossy finish found on most TVs.

The U6SF Pro also benefits from using a QLED panel with quantum dots and a Mini LED backlight with local dimming. That latter feature is particularly rare in this price range. Local dimming enables solid contrast control, keeping halos around bright objects to a minimum, while quantum dots help the TV produce vibrant colors. Brightness is also excellent for such an affordable display. Our reviewer measured around 1,200 nits, which is 400 to 600 nits higher than the competing TCL QM6K.

On the downside, black levels aren't as deep as those on step-up Mini LED models, and discerning viewers may notice uneven patches or odd strobing in finely detailed patterns. Viewing angles are better than expected for a backlit display, but color still distorts at an angle. Ultimately, however, the U6SF Pro's biggest drawback might be its Fire TV interface, which feels cluttered, pushes Amazon services too heavily, and lacks a dedicated gaming menu. On the plus side, gamers do get two HDMI 2.1 ports with variable refresh rate support at up to 144Hz, which is a nice inclusion for a TV in this tier.

Read our Hisense U6SF Pro TV review.

Best for brightness

Buy if: You want exceptionally bright HDR, expansive color, and four HDMI 2.1 ports at a price below flagship sets from Samsung, Sony, and LG.

Skip if: You prefer OLED-level contrast and viewing angles (and are willing to pay extra for them), or reflections are a major concern in your room.

The TCL QM8L is the best 75-inch TV for shoppers who want serious brightness without paying ultra-premium prices. This upper-midrange QLED pairs a Mini LED backlight with TCL's new SQD (Super Quantum Dot) technology, resulting in an image that excels with bright HDR content and colorful movies.

During my testing, the 75-inch QM8L produced between 2,000 and 4,000 nits of peak brightness, depending on how long a highlight remained on screen. That's enough power to give sunlight, explosions, sparks, and reflections the intensity they're supposed to have when watching HDR videos. This extra headroom also helps the picture hold up in rooms with ambient light, though the QM8L's glossy screen is still prone to direct reflections.

The QM8L's color performance is just as impressive. I measured about 85% coverage of the BT.2020 gamut, putting it well ahead of standard QLED TVs that don't use TCL's SQD tech. In real-world viewing, bold hues looked rich without appearing exaggerated, and subtle color transitions remained smooth. However, most current movies and shows don't use the full range of colors the QM8L can produce, so this upgrade will be most noticeable to enthusiasts watching high-quality HDR material.

Contrast is strong for a Mini LED display, with generally deep black levels that are noticeably inkier than those on cheaper models, like the Hisense U6SF Pro. Still, particularly demanding dark sequences can reveal subtle blooming and flickering shadows. Viewing angles are better than average for a Mini LED TV, but colors and contrast still fade a lot more than they would on an OLED when you sit off-center.

The TV also has four HDMI 2.1 ports supporting up to 4K at 144Hz, making it a flexible choice for gamers with multiple devices. Its Google TV interface is responsive and easy to navigate, its Gemini AI voice control is plenty smart, and the included remote has useful backlit buttons — rounding out an excellent package through and through.

Read our TCL QM8L 4K TV review.

Check out our guide to the best TCL TVs.

Best premium OLED

Buy if: You're willing to splurge for elite OLED picture quality, exceptional HDR contrast, and a sleek design that looks great mounted on a wall.

Skip if: You're looking for the best value or plan to place your TV on a stand, since one isn't included.

The LG G5 is one of the company's top high-end TVs, delivering the deep black levels and infinite contrast ratio that OLEDs are known for. However, what sets this model apart from most cheaper OLEDs is its high brightness.

During my review, the G5 hit 2,410 nits in HDR Filmmaker Mode. That's the second-highest measurement I've recorded on an OLED, and only behind the more expensive Samsung S95H. Now, it's essential to keep in mind that only certain HDR movies and TV shows are mastered to take advantage of such high brightness, but when paired with the right content, the G5 is stunning.

Specular highlights — explosions, reflections, lightning, sunsets — pop with incredible impact, and because it's still an OLED, you get pixel-level contrast without backlight issues like blooming. Some Mini LED and RGB LED TVs can get even brighter, but they can't match the G5's ability to harness its brightness so precisely. Visit our QLED vs OLED comparison for more details.

The result is an outstanding image: in a dark room, black levels blend seamlessly into the background, while bright elements shine cleanly and accurately. Wide viewing angles and a 165Hz refresh rate for PC gaming round out the G5's performance perks.

Design-wise, the G5 looks sleek and comes with a mount that hangs nearly flush against your wall. However, it doesn't include a traditional stand, so you'll need to purchase one if you aren't wall-mounting.

Read our LG G5 4K TV review.

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

How we test 75-inch TVs

We picked the best 75-inch TVs through hands-on testing with various display models. We've been reviewing home entertainment products for over 10 years and used that expertise to inform our testing parameters and requirements.

When evaluating TVs, we typically review the 65-, 75-, or 85-inch size, as that's the industry's flagship range. However, overall performance for a specific TV model usually remains the same across those sizes. For example, a 77-inch LG G5 OLED and a 65-inch G5 OLED have the same specifications. The only difference is the panel's size. As such, most test results for 65-inch TVs also apply to their 75- and 77-inch counterparts. 

However, some QLED displays with local dimming, like the Hisense U6SF Pro, have more zones on larger screens than on smaller ones. This can cause slight differences in contrast performance, but not enough to alter our overall takeaway. In rare cases, some TV models have more dramatic differences across sizes. We consider these differences when recommending displays and note them when applicable.

When testing TVs, we evaluate picture clarity, color quality, contrast performance, peak HDR brightness, gaming features, navigation speed, off-axis viewing capabilities, and overall value. To measure brightness and color, we use a meter in combination with a pattern generator and the Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark 4K Blu-ray disc. 

Test patterns are great for objective measurements, but watching real-world content is the only way to fully evaluate how a TV looks. We sample a variety of shows and movies to assess how a display performs in both dark and bright environments. Part of our evaluation involves watching the same assortment of scenes on each TV we review to compare performance. Sequences are chosen to show off HDR highlights, shadow detail, black levels, upscaling, and motion. We also vary the quality of our material to assess how a TV handles 4K, 1080p, and standard definition (SD) programs from Blu-ray discs, streaming services, and cable TV. Gaming capabilities are also tested using a PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

For more information about our testing process, check out our page detailing how we review tech products.

Meet the expert behind this guide:

Steven Cohen, senior tech editor: I lead tech product coverage for Business Insider's Reviews team, and I've spent years testing all kinds of TVs. I studied filmmaking, too, so I'm a bit obsessive about picture quality. I want movies and shows to look the way the creators intended. My team and I use professional calibration tools, pattern generators, and benchmark discs to measure brightness and color accuracy, but numbers alone only tell part of the story. I also use every TV I review the way you would at home — streaming, watching movies, gaming, and channel surfing — to see how it really performs day to day. The picks in this guide stood out not just in lab tests but also in real-world use.

Learn more about the Reviews team at Business Insider.

75-inch TV FAQs

Is 75 inches a good size for a TV?

A 75-inch screen is an excellent option for filling a large space or providing an immersive experience in a smaller room. Big screen sizes fill more of your field of view, so your eyes can focus on the image and not your surroundings. This creates a viewing experience that's closer to what you'd get in a movie theater.

Many of our favorite TVs are sold in 75- or 77-inch sizes, so you have plenty of options. Some brands are also starting to use 75 inches as the entry point for their most advanced models. For instance, the 2026 TCL X11L SQD TV isn't available in smaller sizes.

That said, you need to consider certain logistics when buying a large TV. You'll need a stand or mount that can accommodate the width and weight of a 75-inch TV. Visit our guides to the best TV stands and best TV wall mounts, where we have several picks that can fit large displays.

Meanwhile, if you don't have the space for a 75-inch TV, check out our guides to smaller TV sizes:

• Best 65-inch TVs
• Best 55-inch TVs
• Best 50-inch TVs
• Best 43-inch TVs

Or if you want something even larger, check out our guides to the best 85-inch TVs and best 100-inch TVs.

Why are some TVs offered in 75 inches and others in 77 inches?

This comes down to how the panels are made. LED, QLED, Mini LED, and RGB LED TVs are commonly produced in 75-inch sizes, while OLED panels are typically manufactured in 77-inch sizes. In real-world use, though, the two-inch difference is minimal, as you're essentially getting the same big-screen experience either way.

Do brands sell 70-inch TVs?

Though increasingly uncommon, some brands do sell 70-inch TV models. Notably, Samsung, LG, Insignia, and Walmart's Onn brand all offer 70-inch options in their current lineups. However, that size is typically limited to a few entry-level options. Top TVs usually skip the 70-inch size and are instead sold in 65-inch and 75-inch/77-inch models. We generally recommend that shoppers focus on TVs available in those sizes instead.

How much should you spend on a 75-inch TV?

Depending on the performance class you choose, the best 75-inch TVs can cost between $600 and $5,000.

Budget-friendly 75-inch Mini LED TVs, such as the Hisense U6SF Pro, are sometimes available for as low as $700. Midrange options with higher brightness typically sell for $800 to $1,400, while high-end models start at around $1,800.

If you want an OLED TV (77 inches rather than 75), you'll need to pay a bit more. The cheapest 77-inch OLED TVs start at around $1,500-$2,000, while premium options can cost over $4,000.

The best 75-inch and 77-inch TVs often go on sale, but the biggest discounts typically appear during shopping events like Black Friday and Prime Day, as well as around major sporting events like the Super Bowl and March Madness.

For cheaper TV recommendations in smaller sizes, check out our guide to the best TVs under $500.

Do I need HDMI 2.1 for a 75-inch TV?

If you're a gamer with a PS5, Xbox Series X, or PC, we recommend choosing a TV with HDMI 2.1 ports. HDMI 2.1 enables 4K at 120Hz and smoother motion with Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). All of our picks for the best 75-inch TVs support HDMI 2.1.

Do 75-inch TVs have good sound quality?

Even the best 75-inch TVs have mediocre built-in audio performance. Some of our pricier recommendations, such as the LG G5, offer better clarity and slightly more bass than our entry-level picks. However, they still lack the depth and range that you'd get with a separate audio system.

Companies typically build their displays with small speaker drivers to keep costs down and maintain slim screens, resulting in poor low-frequency performance and overall fidelity. For better sound quality, we recommend purchasing a separate soundbar or surround sound system, especially one that supports Dolby Atmos.

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

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

• Amtrak rolled out its newest fleet of trains in late September, called Airo.
• The new fleet launched in the Pacific Northwest, and 83 trainsets will roll out nationwide.
• I rode Airo in coach and loved the cleanliness and new luxuries, but it missed one rider must-have.

I've been a regular Amtrak passenger for about four years now, and often ride in the Pacific Northwest where the tracks run past green pastures, blue rivers, and no shortage of trees.

But as much as I love the scenery, the old Amtrak trains that travel it have always left me wanting more.

So when Amtrak announced it would release a new line of trainsets in late September, I booked a ticket immediately to experience the high-end difference it promises.

The new fleet, called Airo, is replacing Amtrak's existing Cascades trains. Amtrak plans to roll out 83 Airo trainsets nationwide, with additional Cascades sets entering service through early 2027.

While the $34 round-trip ticket and over 2 ½-hour travel time between Eugene, Oregon, and Portland were the same as usual, some new amenities stood out to me, but I found one key perk was missing.

Here's what the Amtrak Cascades Airo train was like.

I was stunned by how modern the train felt.

When I stepped aboard, I was taken aback by the modern design throughout the cabins. It's a stark contrast to the older trains previously used on the Cascades route.

There was plenty of light, which reflected off the sleek, gray walls, and the smell of new leather made the ride feel quite luxurious.

Riding in coach, I noticed ample storage and that some racks could be pushed up to make room for bike storage.

Also, the new Airo train had a "cab" car with dedicated storage. This helps keep aisles clear of rogue bags and carry-ons.

The seats were far more comfortable.

The seats on the new Airo trains are ergonomic, making my back feel way more supported during the nearly three-hour ride.

I didn't find myself switching around my sitting positions as much as I normally do, so I was able to get some peaceful shut-eye.

New amenities could be found throughout the cabin.

I did a double take when I saw that Elkay water bottle stations are on board. Compared to Amtrak's older trains, which have tiny water faucets, this was a major upgrade, particularly useful for long journeys.

The doors aboard the Airo train have touchless controls, including the bathroom doors, which helped make the train — and me — feel cleaner.

The food was good and affordable.

Amtrak said the Cascades Cafe menu was updated in June to include locally sourced products from across the Pacific Northwest. I opted for an Italian Grinder sandwich, a Twix chocolate bar, and a Sprite for a total of $14.50.

While I didn't notice much difference in the overall options or the sandwich's quality compared with prior trips, the food was good. I also liked the self-service refrigerators and grab-and-go options, which made the process quick and easy.

"We introduced the menu two months ahead of the Airo fleet launch to ensure operational readiness," an Amtrak spokesperson told Business Insider. "The Airo fleet features the refreshed menu along with self-service displays that make shopping and checkout easier, upgraded food preparation equipment to improve quality, and digital displays that showcase the full range of offerings."

There was no information on the train's location and arrival time.

My biggest source of discontent during my trip was not knowing where the train was en route or whether there were any delays.

While I can get this information from the app — and even that can be inaccurate — I had imagined that the Airo train would display its location and estimated arrival time on its screens, as many modern airplanes do.

This left me and other passengers toward the end of the trip wondering when exactly we would arrive at our final destination. We went old-school and asked a crew member instead.

The Amtrak spokesperson said the onboard screens, as well as audio announcements, tell customers when a train is approaching and arriving at a station, and what progress has been made between stops. They said that live arrival and location updates are an amenity it is exploring, but the trains don't have a real-time data connection needed for the capability.

I'm still happy with the new Amtrak trains.

My round-trip experience on Amtrak's new Airo train was largely pleasant. I felt much more comfortable aboard the Airo train than on Amtrak's older trains, thanks to the new ergonomic seating and cleanliness, but I wish Amtrak could display our arrival time better.

Though that amenity would be great, it's not keeping me from coming back.

• The first Cheesecake Factory restaurant opened in Beverly Hills, California, in 1978.
• Its CEO and founder, David Overton, opened it to promote his mother's cheesecake business.
• Today, it's one of the top restaurant chains in the country.

The Cheesecake Factory is having an unlikely moment in political discourse.

Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama joked at a Cleveland rally that President Donald Trump had made the White House look like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” referring to the president's propensity for gold-heavy decor and the renovations he has overseen during his tenure.

The chain’s former vice president of design pushed back on Obama's comments in a CNN interview, saying the White House looks nothing like a Cheesecake Factory, while the White House’s X account defended the chain as “a great American institution.”

Trump also responded to Obama's comparison, telling reporters that calling the White House a Cheesecake Factory "just shows why you were a lousy president."

One of the top 40 restaurant chains in the US, The Cheesecake Factory is known for its extensive menu of cheesecakes, pastas, sandwiches, and appetizers, including its famed avocado egg rolls.

But fans may not realize that the publicly traded company, with a market cap of around $3 billion, was a family-run bakery business for years before it scaled across the US and abroad.

"Growing up, it was all about cheesecake. And we knew people loved it," Cheesecake Factory CEO David Overton said in a video on the company's website.

What started as a family recipe has since grown into a global business. Take a closer look at The Cheesecake Factory's early beginnings.

Evelyn Overton, with her husband, Oscar, started making cheesecakes for local restaurants in Detroit in the 1940s.

In the 1940s, Evelyn Overton found a dessert recipe in a local Detroit newspaper that inspired her to create her "original" cheesecake.

She tweaked the recipe and started making her own cakes.  She eventually opened her own bakery. 

"Everyone loved it," David Overton said. "It became famous."

In time, she gave up the business to focus on raising her two children, David and Renee. She moved her baking equipment into her basement kitchen and continued selling cheesecakes to Detroit restaurants.

"Growing up, it was all about cheesecake," David Overton said about his mother's cheesecakes.

In the 1970s, David Overton moved to San Francisco to study law. He persuaded his parents, who were then in their 50s, to move to Los Angeles so his mom's cheesecake business could get another chance in a bigger market.

With the last of their savings, Oscar and Evelyn Overton packed up their car and drove cross-country to Los Angeles. They had $10,000 to their name.

In 1972, at their son's behest, Oscar and Evelyn Overton moved to Los Angeles and opened a 700-square-foot commercial bakery in North Hollywood.  

"This was probably the size of one of our walk-ins today," David Overton said in the video.

His parents opened The Cheesecake Factory bakery in 1972 and began selling Evelyn Overton's cheesecakes to restaurants throughout Los Angeles.

They worked around the clock, attempting to turn her lifelong dream of owning a successful business into a reality.

David Overton, a musician in the late '70s, moved to Los Angeles to help his parents promote the business.

Evelyn Overton developed more than a dozen varieties of her cheesecake and other desserts. Her husband was the salesperson. He drove from Santa Barbara to San Diego, selling his wife's desserts to restaurants across Southern California.

While their business found modest success, the patriarch would get the same feedback: "No one needs more than one flavor of cheesecake." 

This frustrated David Overton, especially as some restaurant owners began switching to other suppliers that made less-expensive cheesecakes that he saw as inferior.

"Literally for $0.05, some of these restaurants would switch to another brand," David Overton said.

"We knew we had the Cadillac of cheesecakes," David Overton said. So he decided to showcase the cheesecakes at their own restaurant.

To prove the demand for his mom's desserts, he opened his own restaurant in Beverly Hills in 1978, despite having no restaurant experience. He named the restaurant The Cheesecake Factory after his parents' bakery. 

On opening day, he was so nervous he didn't open the restaurant until 2 p.m. to avoid the lunch rush. When the doors finally opened, the restaurant filled up within 10 minutes.

The first two-sided menu was light on options by the chain's current standards.

Due to his lack of restaurant experience, David Overton "created a simple and straightforward menu with generous portions," The Cheesecake Factory told Business Insider.  

The original menu was a single-page, two-sided document, and it featured 60 items, many of which he knew how to cook himself.

One side featured lunch and dinner options such as burgers, hamburger steak, quiche of the day, and roasted chicken. Salads, grilled meats, and open-faced sandwiches included classic American staples such as crab Louie and tuna salad. One dish, Oscar's special sardine sandwich, was named after his father.

Breakfast featured egg dishes, cereal, toast, and espresso drinks. 

Some of the cheesecake flavors were chocolate chip, peanut butter, mocha chocolate chip, and fresh strawberry.

The original dessert menu featured a variety of baked goods and desserts, including cheesecake, carrot cake, zucchini cake, strudel, whipped-cream cakes, chocolate-mousse pie, black forest cake, cream puffs, ice-cream sundaes, milkshakes, banana splits, and Belgian waffles topped with ice cream and whipped cream. The ice cream on the menu was billed as "extra rich."

Prices ranged from $0.85 for a dish of ice cream to $1.95 for the chocolate-mousse pie. A slice of cheesecake cost $1.25.

When The Cheesecake Factory first opened, it also featured a salad bar.

The Beverly Hills salad bar was called the Fabulous Factory Salad Bar. The cost of a build-your-own salad was $1.95 for a medium plate or $2.95 for a large salad plate.

Salad bars at this time were more closely associated with steakhouses.  The first four Cheesecake Factory restaurants had salad bars. It stopped adding them when the fifth restaurant opened in 1991 in Washington, DC.

The Cheesecake Factory filled the gap between fast-food options and expensive restaurants.

"There really were, in the area, high-end restaurants and then fast food, but there was really nothing in the middle," Alethea Rowe, the senior director of public relations and global branding at The Cheesecake Factory, told Business Insider. "And David purposefully created a restaurant that was very much in the middle."

It appealed to middle-class diners who, amid the boom of frozen and microwaved meals, enjoyed the restaurant's made-from-scratch cooking.

The service also helped. Hostess Linda Candioty (pictured) started working for Evelyn Overton in the bakery in 1977. She became the restaurant's first hostess and has held a variety of key positions within the company over the years. Today, she is the company's vice president of guest experience.

"She knew how to please the guest," David Overton said. "I loved operating. I love being in the background. She loved being in the foreground."

David Overton had no initial plans to open a second restaurant, but he soon grew to love the business. In 1983, the second location opened.

The new location was in Marina del Rey, an affluent Los Angeles-area coastal community.

David Overton immediately fell in love with the location.

"I went there, and I said, 'Wow, who wouldn't want to sit out here and have a wonderful meal,'" he said.

Candioty, in the company video, described the bay location this way: "On the water. On the beach. Palm trees. Volleyball. Windsurfers. It was amazing. And it was a zoo from the beginning."

The restaurant was packed full all summer.

"We became an instant hit. It took us about five years to recover from that opening," she said.

Original Beverly Hills servers wore café aprons.

After the success of the Marina del Rey restaurant, David Overton chose another coastal spot for its next location: Redondo Beach, California. 

After that, David Overton set a goal to open at least one restaurant every year or every two years.

"So we started to grow because of our success and because people loved our product, and our culture grew right along with it," he said in the company video.

The Cheesecake Factory's famous murals started with the opening of the Redondo Beach restaurant in 1988.

The Redondo Beach restaurant had a lot of empty wall space. So David Overton turned to employee Mary D'Astugues, who was known as an artist. He asked her to paint a ceiling mural and one behind the bar.

She painted while the restaurant was under construction.

"David really liked the aesthetic that Mary's artwork added to the restaurant, and from that point forward, as each new Cheesecake Factory opened in cities across the country, Mary painted custom murals for each location," the company told Business Insider.

The Cheesecake Factory went public in 1992.

David Overton, in a 2011 interview with CNN, said his parents were able to semi-retire as the restaurants performed well in the first several years. 

"Our investors were making a lot of money," he said. "In September 1992, we went public. The stock opened at $20 and went to $27.25 the first day." 

He became the CEO and chair of the board when the company went public. Before that, he was the company's president. He is the only CEO the chain has ever had.

Today, the Cheesecake Factory ranks 36th among US chains by sales on Technomic's top-500 list. Among casual dining chains, it's ranked No. 9.

In 2012, The Cheesecake Factory opened its first international location in Dubai.

The restaurant opened in the Dubai Mall under a licensing agreement with Alshaya Trading Co.

The Cheesecake Factory has over 200 domestic restaurants and over 30 international locations. None of the US locations are franchised.

International restaurants are licensed locations. This is an unusual tactic for a large publicly traded company, which typically grows through franchising. Other publicly traded chains that don't franchise include Chipotle and Shake Shack. 

In 2016, the first Cheesecake Factory in China opened in Shanghai.

Some of the 36 international locations have opened in top tourist destinations.

In 2016, the company opened its first restaurant in China. The location opened in Disneytown at the Shanghai Disney Resort.

The Cheesecake Factory's famous "brown bread" launched in grocery stores in 2018.

The bread was launched under the Cheesecake Factory at Home brand.

Other restaurant items sold in grocery stores include a handful of whole frozen cheesecakes, including the original cheesecake and the strawberry-topped original cheesecake. 

The Cheesecake Factory was one of the first national restaurant chains to work with DoorDash.

To gain market share, DoorDash went after large, established restaurant chains. Early partnerships included The Cheesecake Factory, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Wendy's.

While other restaurant chains have expanded delivery services to include other apps such as Uber Eats, Cheesecake Factory remains an exclusive delivery partner with DoorDash.

In 2019, The Cheesecake Factory expanded with the acquisition of Fox Restaurant Concepts, which owns the brands North Italia and Flower Child.

"It became evident that the combination of two of the most experiential and entrepreneurial restaurant companies could drive greater value as one organization," David Overton said in a statement. 

In 2020, the private-equity firm Roark Capital, whose fast-food empire includes Arby's and Jamba, invested $200 million in The Cheesecake Factory.

The April 2020 investment helped The Cheesecake Factory's "liquidity position" as it navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, David Overton said at the time.

In June 2021, The Cheesecake Factory reacquired most of the equity stake it had sold to Roark Capital in a transaction valued at $457.3 million, Restaurant Business reported.

Today, the Cheesecake Factory menu has more than 250 items across nearly 20 pages.

New items are rolled out twice a year, replacing lower-performing items.

In a 2022 Vox article, the writer Alex Abad-Santos called The Cheesecake Factory an "uncanny" chain whose success was built on defying standard industry rules.

The chain's massive menu is one of those industry-defying traditions. Most chains preach operational efficiency by providing a limited menu of dishes that are all profit generators.  

Not at The Cheesecake Factory. 

"The menu was seemingly written by someone who was hungry for everything they could think of but couldn't name what they actually wanted at that moment," Abad-Santos wrote. "The rules that govern regular restaurants have no power over The Cheesecake Factory. If there is one rule at The Cheesecake Factory, it's that the conventional wisdom of the restaurant industry — keeping costs low, concepts simple, and menus under 200 items — is meant to be ignored."

Many menu items are named after people. Adam's peanut butter cup fudge ripple, for example, is named after the founder's son, Adam.

This cheesecake favorite combines all of Adam's favorite childhood treats: Butterfingers, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, caramel, and the chain's classic cheesecake.

The "Evelyn's Favorite Pasta" dish is named after David Overton's mom.

The dish is made with broccoli, zucchini, asparagus, peppers, tomato, onion, garlic, and fresh herbs. It's tossed with Parmesan.

It's one of 14 pasta dishes listed on the menu. 

Linda's fudge cake is one of the desserts that Candioty created while working as a test baker.

The fudge cake remains one of The Cheesecake Factory's most beloved desserts, the company told Business Insider.

The avocado egg roll, a top-selling appetizer, was inspired by David Overton's dining travels.

Avocado egg rolls are a top seller on the menu.

The inspiration for it came after David Overton tasted a crunchy avocado cheese straw while dining at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. Avocado was also used as a garnish on the dish. 

It made him wonder whether The Cheesecake Factory could make an egg roll stuffed with avocado chunks. Experimenting commenced, and after multiple tries, The Cheesecake Factory's avocado egg rolls were developed.

Their exact debut is unknown, but they've been around since the late '90s or very early 2000s, the company said. 

Almost every item on the menu is made in-house from scratch, except for the chain's cheesecakes.

Business Insider got a behind-the-scenes look at how The Cheesecake Factory manages its massive menu, with chefs relying on coordinated prep stations, digital timers, and strict deadlines to keep orders moving.

Even though the menu hovers around 250 items, most are made from scratch. The one exception is the chain's cheesecakes, which are delivered frozen to each restaurant and garnished with whipped cream during service.

Staff prepare ingredients for hundreds of dishes before service begins, including more than 100 sauces and dressings at a single station.

Entrées are expected to be out about 15 minutes after they're ordered, while appetizers have a seven-minute goal.

Although the chain continues adding around 10 new dishes each year, executives say the menu is nearing its practical limit due to the kitchen's complexity.

The Cheesecake Factory isn't just famous for its food. The chain recently made headlines for getting caught up in a political squabble.

In October, former President Barack Obama joked that President Donald Trump had made the White House look like "Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory," a reference to Trump's gold-heavy Oval Office design and other White House renovations.

The Cheesecake Factory's former vice president of design disputed the comparison in a CNN interview, while the White House's X account defended the restaurant chain as "a great American institution."

Trump also addressed Obama's remark, telling reporters that the comparison "just shows why you were a lousy president."

• I followed cinnamon-roll recipes from famous chefs Alton Brown, Ree Drummond, and Sandra Lee.
• Brown's recipe was solid, and Lee's recipe required the least effort, but the rolls were just OK. 
• Drummond's recipe was my favorite, but was so messy I'd only make it again for a special occasion.

Imagine sweet, cinnamon sugar swirled into pillowy-soft dough, all dripping in glistening icing — is your mouth watering yet?

When that craving for cinnamon rolls kicks in, you could certainly grab a can from the grocery store — but there's nothing better than gooey, homemade ones filling your whole house with comforting smells.

In search of the ultimate cinnamon roll, I tested recipes from famous chefs Alton Brown, Ree Drummond, and Sandra Lee to see who has the best one. 

Read on to see how each recipe turned out, and which was my favorite. 

Brown's recipe calls for fairly simple pantry staples

Brown's recipe on the Food Network website asked for some super basic kitchen ingredients, many of which I already had on hand.

I needed ground cinnamon, light brown sugar, butter, eggs, flour, instant dry yeast, salt, and sugar for the dough and filling. For the icing, I only needed cream cheese, powdered sugar, and milk.

The ingredients are so standard that I happened to have enough on hand to make two batches, which later came in handy when I ran into some trouble with my first attempt.

These are meant to be prepared the day before, which makes morning prep easy

Brown's recipe is for "overnight cinnamon rolls," so I started prepping them the day before I wanted to eat them.

I like the idea of starting these rolls in the evening, letting them chill overnight, then finishing them in the morning. Splitting up the steps makes the process seem much easier.

However, it didn't make it any shorter. I made the dough the day before, let it rise for two and a half hours, and chilled it overnight.

For my dough, I used instant yeast that someone had shared with me from a larger package. I'd stored it in a clear, resealable bag — but it turns out that opened instant yeast should be refrigerated.

As such, my instant yeast was worthless. However, I didn't realize this until it was too late. 

My first batch was a bust, but I learned a few lessons

In the morning, I let my rolls rise further in a cold oven along with a pan of boiling water for 30 minutes. Then I baked them for 30 minutes.

The first batch was definitely wrong. As I foreshadowed, the rolls never rose due to an issue with my instant yeast. The dough looked rather dry from start to finish, and the cinnamon rolls stayed small throughout the process. 

They didn't rise in the oven and came out looking undercooked and dry — but at least they worked well as an air freshener.

The icing smelled sweet, but it looked thin with clumps of cream cheese. I wondered if maybe the cream cheese wasn't soft enough, even though I'd left it out for a few hours.

These cinnamon rolls were difficult to cut into and incredibly dense.

The taste was fine — buttery and filled with a sweet cinnamon flavor — but the texture was just hard and dry. The icing was also a turn-off because of the clumpiness. 

I decided to try Brown's recipe one more time 

After my failed first attempt, I made a second batch. This time, I tried using active dry yeast as a substitute for instant yeast by following the simple instructions on the yeast packet. It worked perfectly. 

I combined active yeast with warm water (I made sure the temperature was between 100 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit) and sugar and let it sit for 10 minutes before adding it to the mixer to make the dough, per the recipe's instructions.

The second time around, the dough definitely came out fluffier and stickier. It rose very well and was a bit harder to work with because it was so soft and sticky.

My first attempt was a letdown, but the second batch of Brown's rolls was excellent

These came out of the oven looking and smelling delicious.

The brown sugar in the filling leaked out more in this batch, causing the bottoms of the cinnamon rolls to become slightly overdone. 

Otherwise, the rolls were so soft. I wish the filling didn't leak out and pool in the bottom of the pan because I would've loved more cinnamon and brown-sugar flavor.

For my second attempt at the icing, I tried letting the cream cheese sit out even longer to soften, hoping it would be easier to integrate with the powdered sugar and milk — but it still got clumpy.

In the future, I might try topping these with whipped cream cheese instead.

Overall, this recipe resulted in soft, pillowy cinnamon rolls that could use more filling. 

Drummond's recipe featured unique ingredients in high enough quantities to feed a crowd

The Pioneer Woman is often whipping up recipes for a crowd on her cooking show, so it makes sense that her original recipe on the Food Network website yields 40 to 50 cinnamon rolls.

I cut the ingredients in half, and this recipe still produced the most cinnamon rolls of the three recipes I tested.

For this dough and filling, I needed a lot of the same basics, like flour, butter, cinnamon, active dry yeast, sugar, and milk. It also used baking powder and baking soda.

However, there were some more unconventional ingredients for the icing, including maple extract and "strongly brewed coffee." I used cold brew because I already had some made in the fridge.

Oddly enough, this is a one-pot recipe

Although some mixing bowls are needed for the icing, the dough is actually made in a single pot on the stove. This made for a pretty easy start, even if it seemed strange to me.

I made the dough on the stove as directed, then moved it to a mixing bowl to proof. It rose so well that I had a hard time getting it to stop rising.

The rising dough overflowed out of my mixing bowl, and it was very difficult to roll out because it was so fluffy and sticky.

I wrangled it as best I could and packed my dough strips with filling before putting them into the baking pans to rise further. 

Although they seemed far apart in the pan, I knew they'd rise even more once they began baking. 

The smell of these maple cinnamon rolls was unreal — and the taste was even better

Despite the mess and frustration, these rolls came out nearly perfect. They were golden with gooey centers, even though they looked a bit pathetic and misshapen going into the oven.

Drummond's maple icing was easy to make, but next time I plan to sift the powdered sugar to prevent it from clumping. 

The edges of the cinnamon rolls were just the slightest bit overdone. Aside from the slightly crisp edges, the rolls were perfectly soft with sweet fillings and ooey-gooey centers.

The first bite I took from the middle of one of these rolls was indescribably good, and the maple icing was so delicious I could eat it straight from the bowl. 

For just my partner and me, I don't think I would go through the nightmarish mess of this recipe again. However, these cinnamon rolls would absolutely impress a crowd.

Lee's cinnamon rolls were unsurprisingly quick and easy to make

True to her semi-homemade fame, Lee's recipe on the Food Network website calls for frozen bread dough. My grocery store typically carries one brand of frozen white bread dough, but it was out of stock when I went shopping.

Luckily, in a 2020 Yahoo interview, Lee said you can swap out the frozen bread for biscuit dough in this recipe.

I decided to use buttermilk biscuits because I figured the buttermilk flavor, which is a tad acidic, would balance out the sweetness of the cinnamon rolls

The dough was harder to roll out than I expected

At first, the biscuit dough felt tough to roll out because it's so dense. However, once I finally flattened it, adding the brown sugar and cinnamon filling was easy — and so was shaping the rolls.

The dough was easy to slice, and doing so created beautiful, nearly perfect rolls. This was a nice break from the other batches of cinnamon rolls I made, which mostly fell apart as I cut them.

I followed the recipe's instructions and left the cut rolls out for one hour to proof. They didn't appear to rise at all during that time, so I'm not sure how necessary this was.

In the meantime, I made the icing with softened butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar. Like with Brown's recipe, I found the simple cream-cheese icing I prepared to be lumpy.

The cinnamon rolls looked great, but the centers were too undercooked

These came out golden brown, and the lumps in the icing dissolved once they met the hot rolls.

Unfortunately, the dough was so dense that the centers didn't bake well and were too underdone and doughy. However, with more time in the oven, I predicted that the edges would burn. 

Next time, I might cover these with foil for a bit or bake them at a lower temperature so they don't burn but can cook through.

The buttermilk flavor did help cut the extra sweetness from the excessive filling, but otherwise, these tasted quite similar to store-bought cinnamon rolls.

As such, I'd probably skip buying a can of biscuit dough to make these rolls and just opt for a can of store-bought cinnamon rolls. 

I'd totally make Drummond's cinnamon rolls again, but only for a special occasion 

In general, making homemade cinnamon rolls can be a lengthy and messy affair.

Personally, I don't mind grabbing a can of cinnamon rolls from the store or buying them from a local bakery or restaurant. I'll likely continue to do so, but for special occasions and large gatherings, I'd make Drummond's recipe in a heartbeat.

It resulted in such decadently sweet cinnamon rolls, and the maple icing was such a unique touch that really made them next-level.

Check out the other celebrity-chef recipes we've put head-to-head so far.

This story was originally published on TK and most recently updated on TK.

• I lived in Hawaii for 13 years and moved to the continental United States in 2021.
• Life on the mainland has come with many surprises, from heavier traffic to more air conditioning.
• Hawaii doesn't observe daylight-saving time, so the time change has taken some getting used to.

After living in Hawaii for 13 years — my entire adult life — I decided to move to North Carolina in 2021 for my MBA. While in school, I met my husband, and together, we relocated to Atlanta to pursue our careers.

However, after spending so much time in Hawaii, moving to the mainland came with some surprises. Here are eight of the biggest culture shocks I've experienced.

On the mainland, I spend much more time in my car.

When I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, I rarely had to drive more than 30 minutes at a time. Everything from work to the grocery store to the beach was just a short car ride away. A trip across the island felt like a journey.

So, it took me some time to adjust to the longer commutes in mainland cities. Rush-hour traffic is now a regular occurrence, rather than something I see in movies. And now, driving an hour to work or to visit friends is standard where I live.

Even though driving isn't always my favorite activity, I love that I can get in my car and head to another state in just a few hours. It's given my husband and me a lot of fun weekend road trips.

Daylight-saving time is new for me.

Hawaii doesn't follow daylight-saving time, and instead stays on Hawaii Standard Time all year long. So when I first came to the mainland, the time changes twice a year really confused me.

I still have to look up when daylight-saving time begins and ends, especially when I'm referencing what time it is back in Hawaii. Thankfully, I keep a list of cities on my clock app to keep track of the time difference.

Experiencing four distinct seasons has changed how I observe time passing.

Moving to a place with seasons meant buying winter clothing and seeing the leaves bursting into bright oranges and reds in the fall.

This is different from the islands, where the seasons are largely the rainy season and dry season. I now look forward to seasonal transitions and the festivities that come with each one.

Air conditioning is much more common on the mainland.

Many homes in Hawaii, including the one where I lived, use the trade winds for cooling. My home had jalousie windows with horizontal glass slats that let the breeze pass through.

In contrast, buildings here in the Southeast are typically climate-controlled using air conditioning and heating units.

If I'm being honest, I still have to carry a sweater around to keep warm when the air conditioning is strong. However, dependable air conditioning is especially nice during hot, humid summers.

Locally grown fruit is now a summer staple.

In Hawaii, because the climate is pretty mild year-round, many fruits have multiple or continuous growing seasons. Plus, I always knew someone who was giving fruits away from their backyard.

Here in the Southeast, though, fresh fruits feel more seasonal. I now get excited for peach season and the long lines at local farmers markets.

On the mainland, the weather is harder to predict.

Where I lived in Hawaii, I'd look out over the ocean and be able to predict the next few hours of weather pretty accurately.

After years of living there, I understood the patterns of the clouds and wind, and could typically gauge the amount of time I needed to make it home from a run or the beach before the weather turned.

However, I have a much tougher time guessing what the weather will be like on the mainland. I now rely a lot more on weather forecasts to know what to expect.

The billboards took me by surprise.

Billboards aren't allowed in Hawaii, so when I first moved to the Southeast, I couldn't believe how many huge signs dotted the skylines.

Now I get a kick out of reading them and analyzing the marketing, but it's always interesting returning to Hawaii and seeing how open the landscape is without them.

Fast-food restaurants on the mainland are missing Spam.

Chicken and burgers are staples of fast-food restaurants on the mainland, but Hawaii's famous chains often feature rice and Spam.

Now, when I visit my favorite chains, I miss getting Spam musubi — Spam wrapped in rice and seaweed.

• SK Hynix reported record profits for the third quarter, sending its stock higher.
• Its blowout quarter has sparked new momentum for top chip names on Wednesday.
• "SK Hynix is single-handedly rescuing investor sentiment today," one source said.

SK Hynix is giving chip stocks a fresh boost on Wednesday.

The South Korean chipmaker, a poster child of the boom in memory stocks, reported record earnings on Tuesday. The company posted third-quarter results that showed a stunning 632% year-over-year profit increase to over $62 billion, blowing past Wall Street estimates for both revenue and operating profit. The blockbuster results sent SK Hynix up nearly 11% in Korea, whiles its US-listed depositary receipts jumped 10%.

The stellar report also generated new momentum for chips stocks broadly on Wednesday, as the company also said that demand would outpace supply of memory chips for the foreseeable future.

"SK Hynix is single-handedly rescuing investor sentiment today," said cross asset analyst Nic Puckrin. "It just reported a 328% jump in revenue, while operating profit is up a staggering 632%. But the most important part is that it's finally given investors a glimpse of a bright future. It says virtually all its memory production capacity is already spoken for through 2029."

SK Hynix's earnings smash is boosting a corner of the AI trade that's been on shakier ground lately. The iShares Semiconductor ETF is down about 8% in a month as investors worry about a host of issues facing the AI buildout, including tighter debt markets and question marks about demand.

The Korean chipmaker's results are proving a bullish catalyst, though. Fellow South Korean chipmaker Samsung rose 9% in Korea.

Some of the top chip movers in US markets include:

• Micron Technology: +3.5%
• Intel: +2%
• Arm Holdings: +2%
• Broadcom: 2%
• Advanced Micro Devices: +1.5%

Sector leader Nvidia edged up a little less than 1%. The Roundhill Memory ETF rose 4.5%.

SK Hynix's results come a week after South Korea's market flashed a more bearish that rattled the AI trade locally and in the US. AI cloud platform Elice, viewed as the nation's hottest initial public offering of the year, cratered 32% in its trading debut, sparking worries about investors' willingness to continue buying richly priced AI stocks.

Its plunge sent both SK Hynix and Samsung tumbling, but the Wednesday's earnings smash has put both South Korean chipmakers back in the spotlight. Samsung is scheduled to report earnings on Thursday, October 29 and now even more eyes will be closely watching.

"These two corporations, together with the US's Micron Tech, are responsible for around 90% of all memory chip design and manufacture," noted David Morrison, chief market strategist at Trade Nation. "So taken together, they are a reliable barometer measuring the strength or fragility of this vital component in AI infrastructure development."

• We asked former Louis Vuitton employees about the most common mistakes they saw customers make.
• They said shoppers often overlooked proper bag care or prioritized price over practicality.
• Other mistakes included waiting too long for limited-edition pieces and expecting any discounts.

Shopping at Louis Vuitton can feel intimidating, especially for a first-time customer.

The French luxury house, founded in 1854, is known for its handbags, luggage, and signature LV monogram. Even though these pieces are widely recognizable — and worn by celebrities like Emma Stone and Zendaya — many come with price tags in the thousands. For a purchase that expensive, it can be helpful to know what to expect before you shop.

Business Insider spoke with three former Louis Vuitton employees about the most common mistakes they saw customers make. Here's what they said.

Louis Vuitton shoppers shouldn't expect to find discounts at its stores.

Shelley Alvarado, a former sales associate and keyholder manager at a Louis Vuitton location in Topanga, California, said customers would often come into the store and ask if any items were on sale.

"I think that people assumed that there would be sales, and there wasn't a sales section at all. Louis Vuitton never went on sale," Alvarado told BI.

According to Louis Vuitton's website, that is still the case. The brand does not offer discounts on its products.

Waiting too long on limited-edition items is risky.

Eddison Brown, a former Louis Vuitton client advisor in Los Angeles, said he would encounter customers who waited too long to purchase special collaborations and limited-edition drops, ultimately missing their chance.

"If you want something that's a limited drop, you have to be adamant about purchasing that right away because it'll be gone before you know," Brown told BI.

He also recommended building a relationship with a client advisor. These are employees who develop one-to-one relationships with customers, and can be a resource for information about upcoming products.

Choosing price over practicality is a big mistake.

Given the high price of luxury bags, it can be tempting to choose the less-expensive option. However, Dominique Danielle, a former Louis Vuitton employee in the Philadelphia area, said that sometimes meant customers ended up with a bag that didn't actually fit their needs.

"Customers would default to a less expensive option or bag without considering whether it actually fits their lifestyle," Danielle told BI.

Some customers, she said, later returned bags after realizing they couldn't fit everything they needed to inside. She recommended being open to an associate's advice rather than assuming a different size suggestion was an attempt to upsell them.

Thinking a bag will look brand new forever is unrealistic.

A Louis Vuitton purse isn't necessarily supposed to look the same years after you buy it. For instance, Danielle explained that the untreated cowhide trim on bags like the Neverfull and Speedy naturally darkens with use.

"The idea of it is to get darker and show the wear and show just the journey of the bag," Danielle told BI.

Brown also said that aging can add character to a bag, especially when it's passed down through generations.

That said, customers should not treat expensive bags as indestructible.

The former employees all told BI that a high price tag doesn't mean customers should skip proper care and maintenance.

"Making this investment doesn't eliminate the need for care. It actually requires more of it because you have something that's precious and delicate and expensive," Danielle told BI.

Danielle emphasized the importance of storing these luxury items in their dust bags when not in use. Brown also recommended being mindful of exposing bags to rain or severe weather.

Feeling intimidated by the luxury environment is unnecessary.

All three former employees said customers sometimes seemed intimidated by the luxury environment or worried about how associates perceived them based on their appearance.

"I think that they assumed that the salespeople were judging them right when they walked into the store, which wasn't the case at all," Alvarado said.

To help shoppers feel more comfortable in the environment, Brown encouraged them to browse and ask associates any questions they had about any item.

• I've always valued independence and found comfort in keeping my finances separate from my husband's.
• When we had a baby, though, our setup started to feel less and less fair.
• We agreed to combine most of our money, and it's helped us feel like a team.

Maybe it's because I'm an only child raised by a single mother, but I've always valued independence.

I walked down the aisle alone. I'll happily go out to dinner or a movie by myself. When faced with a problem, my instinct is to wrestle with it myself rather than ask for help. (I'm working on that one.)

And when my husband and I got married, I was adamant about keeping our finances separate.

For years, this arrangement worked beautifully. But after we had a baby in the summer of last year, I began to wonder whether the financial independence I'd clung to was actually working against us.

Keeping our finances separate gave me a sense of freedom

The concept of combining finances has always made me uncomfortable, mostly because I didn't like the idea of having to justify any impulse purchases I've made after working particularly hard. My husband was always on the same page.

The first time we really talked about changing our system was when we bought a house together in 2020, several years before we got married. We knew that this, of course, would come with a lot of shared expenses.

We decided to open a joint account, and to both deposit the same amount each month to cover those expenses — like the mortgage, utilities, and groceries. Then, we kept the remainder of our earnings in separate checking accounts.

When my husband wanted to splurge on some new audio equipment, he didn't feel the need to consult me. Similarly, I didn't have to "ask permission" every time I wanted to get my hair done or go out for a nice dinner with a friend.

To me, this system reflected just how much we trusted each other to make financially responsible decisions with our own money. Besides, it felt fair: We were both contributing equally to maintaining our home, while preserving some autonomy.

After having a baby, our separate finances started creating tension

In 2025, we had a baby. Suddenly, finances felt a lot less cut-and-dried.

Because my husband and I are both freelancers, every hour one of us spends working is often an hour the other spends caring for our son. So, when my husband takes a last-minute gig, I lose that time to work, but I don't directly benefit from what he earns — and vice versa.

We started to find ourselves competing for the working hours we needed to cover day care and the mortgage, even though we were supposed to be operating as a team. The "every man for himself" dynamic felt completely antithetical to what marriage was supposed to be.

Meanwhile, the costs of parenthood — diapers, formula, day care, clothing — were accumulating, forcing us to contribute more and more to our joint account. And now, one of us often had to sacrifice earning opportunities so the other could work.

During one of our recent weekly marriage check-ins, I expressed some resentment about how I'd been responsible for picking up our son from day care most days the previous week, while my husband was able to work much longer into the night.

"I'm contributing the same amount, but I'm not being given enough time to earn that amount," I said.

Combining more of our money helped us feel like a team again

Since our time and responsibilities are so intertwined these days, and we have a longer list of shared expenses than ever, we realized that the best way to make our situation feel more equitable was to merge more of our money.

In the past, we each deposited the same fixed dollar amount into our joint account every month. Now, we contribute nearly all our earnings to that account and set aside the same amount for both of us to spend as we wish.

That change helped curb some of the competition and resentment. Now, when one of us takes on an extra gig, client, or project, it feels like a win for both of us — regardless of who's earning the paycheck.

That's not to say we've found the perfect arrangement. We're still figuring out how much personal spending money makes sense to set aside and which major expenses warrant a conversation.

The important thing, though, is that we've realized independence and partnership aren't mutually exclusive. We share the same financial goals, so it only makes sense to share our earnings. We're not giving up our financial independence, but redefining what it means to us.

• "The Big Short" investor Michael Burry says Anthropic's IPO filing has fueled his worries about AI.
• Burry said a dense web of AI deals has made the industry "catastrophically vulnerable."
• Writing on Substack, Burry described AI financing arrangements as "garish and audacious."

Michael Burry says Anthropic's IPO filing this week has reinforced his concerns that the entire AI ecosystem is at risk of disaster.

The investor of "The Big Short" fame wrote in a Substack post on Tuesday that the first in-depth look at Claude's parent company, ahead of what could be the biggest IPO in history, threw up a bunch of red flags.

Burry pointed to Anthropic's huge spending commitments, slowing revenue, and tangled ties.

He said that Anthropic has struck deals to buy about $537 billion of compute from the likes of Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft, and reached preliminary agreements worth hundreds of billions more with others such as SpaceXAI, putting its total commitments at about 12 times its current annual run-rate revenue.

"This is not stated clearly in the S-1, and in my view it is the most deserved headline from it," Burry wrote in a Tuesday Substack post.

He underscored how hyperscalers like Amazon and Alphabet act as Anthropic's "lenders, vendors, channel providers, and shareholders." He also outlined its deal with Broadcom, which involves Apollo and Blackstone and includes convertible notes and structured credit tranches.

"Just remember, the reason this is so complex is because too much debt is needed, and it must be unloaded from the balance sheets of those involved," Burry wrote.

"While some may see all the circularity and connectedness as security on the way up, and that is not wrong, it does leave the entire organism catastrophically vulnerable either on a pause or on the way down," he added.

He also described financing arrangements in the AI space as "garish and audacious," and said hyperscalers aren't generating enough cash to fund the AI buildout so they're resorting to "Byzantine" deals.

Burry said it was a "very similar" situation with vendor financing during the dot-com bubble, saying "people keep making the same mistakes with every new thing."

Burry's worries

In its filing, Anthropic said its revenue surpassed $16 billion for the first six months of this year, a 14-fold increase from the first half of 2025. Its operating loss narrowed by about two-thirds to below $700 million, and it generated nearly $4 billion in operating cash flow.

Burry initially commented on Anthropic's filing in a Substack chat thread on Monday.

He said that revenue was "slowing," citing Anthropic's claim that third-quarter revenue was 86 times the $197 million it generated in the fourth quarter of 2024, or about $16.9 billion.

That would mean Anthropic's revenue grew by about 46% between the second and third quarters of this year, after soaring 144% between the first and second quarters.

"Overall slowing of growth is not attributed to a decline in tokenmaxxing, but I did not expect that to be mentioned," Burry wrote.

Burry was referring to the trend of maximizing AI token consumption, which has fallen out of favor in recent months given its costs.

In another comment, Burry wrote that large language models (LLMs) like Claude are "improving" and "already being used more efficiently and that trend will continue, to the detriment of their growth rate."

Burry said he's focused on the complexity and fragility of the debt financing many AI deals, hurdles to installing new graphics chips shoring up demand for older chips, a potential crash in memory chip prices once the shortage eases, compression and small language models (SLMs) reducing the need for computing power, and the "fundamentals behind not just companies but the deals they are doing."

Responding to a subscriber who said that Big Tech companies are shifting from Anthropic's AI models to their own, and that tokens are rapidly being commoditized, Burry wrote: "Yes, that is what I hear."

Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Burry's posts.

The contrarian investor shot to fame after his massive wager against the mid-2000s housing bubble was chronicled in the book and movie "The Big Short." He pivoted from running a hedge fund to writing about his personal investments on Substack last winter.

A recurring theme of his work since then has been deep skepticism of the AI boom. He's flagged slowing growth, overinvestment in microchips and data centers, aggressive accounting, hidden liabilities, and circular financing deals.

• Rebecca Yarros fans are waiting for the fourth "Empyrean" novel to be released.
• Yarros hasn't announced when she'll publish the next book in the "Fourth Wing" universe.
• Luckily, there are plenty of other romantasy and fantasy books fans can read while they wait.

Patience is the name of the game for "Fourth Wing" fans these days.

"Fourth Wing" introduced readers to Violet Sorrengail, a student at Basgiath War College training to be a dragon rider as war looms outside the school. The 2023 novel was an instant bestseller for author Rebecca Yarros, who has since written two additional installments in the "Empyrean" series, as well as a novella (more on that in a minute).

After it was published in January 2025, "Onyx Storm," the third book in the series, became the fastest-selling adult novel published in the past 20 years, with over 2.7 million copies sold in one week.

The "Empyrean" series is set to have five books in total, and the fourth will hopefully resolve the cliffhangers Yarros left in "Onyx Storm." However, while Yarros has confirmed she started writing book four, she has yet to announce a publication date for the novel.

It will be a while before the next "Fourth Wing" book hits bookshelves, but luckily, fans can read similar novels, like those with fantasy settings or enemies-to-lovers romances.

"Threshing Day" by Rebecca Yarros

Ahead of the release of the next "Fourth Wing" novel, Yarros published "Threshing Day" in September, a collection of stories set in the "Empyrean" universe.

Each chapter in the collection tells the story of a different character's experience on Threshing Day, when riders are selected by a dragon during their training at Basgiath in a process that is often dangerous for participants. Violet doesn't have a chapter in the book, as her Threshing Day is covered in "Fourth Wing," but the 13 chapters are all told by her fellow riders, including her partner, Xaden Riorson, and her siblings, Brennan and Mira.

The collections span multiple years, and the book is chock-full of lore about dragons and their riders, answering some questions readers had about the "Fourth Wing" universe. It's the perfect appetizer to hold readers over while they wait for the fourth "Empyrean" novel.

"A Court of Mist and Fury" by Sarah J. Maas

If you've read "Fourth Wing," you're probably already familiar with Sarah J. Maas' "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series about faeries.

The second book in Maas' series feels most similar in tone to the "Empyrean" series.

In "A Court of Mist and Fury," Feyre Archeron is adjusting to her newfound life as a faerie after she almost died under the mountain — as well as coming to terms with the deal she made with Rhysand, the High Lord of the Night Court, to spend a week with him every month. Despite it all, she got what she wanted: an immortal life with Tamlin, the High Lord of the Spring Court.

However, Feyre's life in the Spring Court starts feeling more claustrophobic by the second, especially when Tamlin forbids her from leaving the house. To her shock, she finds refuge with Rhysand, where she uncovers truths about the Night Court, Rhys, and herself that will change everything she thought she knew.

"A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire" by Jennifer L. Armentrout

"A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire" is the second book in Jennifer L. Armentrout's "Blood and Ash" series, and protagonist Poppy is reckoning with the realization that nothing in her world is what she thought it would be in the sequel to "From Blood and Ash."

Poppy was raised as the Maiden, believing it was her divine duty to sacrifice herself to the Ascended, the immortal beings that rule over her world. After falling in love with her new guard, Hawke, and running away with him, she realizes she's been betrayed by the Ascended — and Hawke.

Poppy doesn't know who to trust, but Hawke is determined to protect her — especially as Poppy develops powers that could change their world.

"The Magicians" by Lev Grossman

If you're a fan of the magical school setting in Yarros' series, you will love "The Magicians" by Lev Grossman (which was also turned into a Syfy series of the same name).

At the top of the trilogy, Quentin Coldwater feels apathetic about the future, though his aptitude for math could get him into any college he wants. Instead, he still longs for the simplicity of his favorite fantasy series, taking comfort in the magical world of Fillory whenever he can.

When he gets accepted into a secret magical college, Quentin feels like his dreams are coming true. Then, he accidentally taps into a darker side of his power and starts a chain of events that puts him and his classmates in danger — and opens the doors to Fillory.

"Divine Rivals" by Rebecca Ross

"Divine Rivals" has the enemies-to-lovers fun and secrecy of Yarros' series, though Rebecca Ross sets her fantasy story against the backdrop of a newsroom instead of a war college.

Iris Winnow is desperate to get promoted to columnist at the Oath Gazette. Her mother has fallen into alcoholism since her brother left to fight in a war of the gods, and Iris feels like she is one missed paycheck away from falling into ruin.

She's competing for the promotion against Roman Kitt, her infuriatingly handsome coworker who makes her feel small every time she sees him. As Roman continues to succeed, her chances of success grow slimmer with each passing day.

Iris' only comfort is writing letters to her brother on her grandmother's old typewriter. She doesn't know where he is, so she slips the letters under her wardrobe, where they disappear. Iris is hopeful her letters are somehow reaching her brother — until a stranger writes back.

Ross' story evolves into a fantasy full of romance and longing, which continues in its sequel, "Ruthless Vows."

"The Serpent and the Wings of Night" by Carissa Broadbent

You'll love the first book in Carissa Broadbent's "Crowns of Nyaxia" series, "The Serpent and the Wings of Night," if Violet's perseverance drew you to the "Empyrean" series as much as her romance with Xaden did.

Oraya has spent every moment of her life fighting to stay alive since her father, the Nightborn vampire king, adopted her after his forces killed her entire human family when she was a child.

Oraya is sick of being mortal in a world of vampires ready to kill her, so she decides to enter the Kejari, a tournament where the winner gets a wish granted to them by the goddess it's named for.

She plans to avoid the vampires competing against her at all costs, but when she is forced into an alliance with Rhain, a handsome vampire she knows nothing about, Oraya will have to trust someone besides her father for the first time in years.

The competition is deadly, especially as war looms beyond the arena, but Oraya's attraction to Rhain may be an even bigger danger.

"Divergent" by Veronica Roth

If you somehow missed the "Divergent" craze when Veronica Roth's books or the films based on them were released, it's the perfect series to binge while you wait for the fourth "Empyrean" book.

In the first installment of the series, readers are introduced to 16-year-old Beatrice Prior, a girl on the precipice of changing her life forever. Beatrice lives in a society divided into factions based on people's aptitudes, and it's her turn to take a test that will tell her which faction she belongs to.

Beatrice's results put her entire society's system at risk, and the only way she can survive is to keep her results a secret. She abandons her home faction of Abnegation to join Dauntless, hoping she can hide in the group that values bravery and strength above all else. But she's not the only one with secrets.

"One Dark Window" by Rachel Gillig

Those drawn to the romantic tension of the "Empyrean" series might want to put "One Dark Window" by Rachel Gillig at the top of their to-be-read list.

The only thing keeping Elspeth Spindle safe in her home of Blunder, a land cursed with darkness, is the monster she calls Nightmare, a spirit trapped in her mind.

Elspeth's long-kept secret falls apart when she has a run-in with a highwayman, who turns out to be the king's nephew and captain of the guard working in secret to overthrow his uncle. Elspeth agrees to help the captain and his family in their quest to end the dark magic that rules their kingdom once and for all, even if it puts her own life at risk and forces her to face the Nightmare's power over her.

Elspeth and the captain are on a time crunch to accomplish their mission, particularly as the Nightmare threatens to take her mind over for good. Still, they can't ignore the attraction between them, no matter the dangers coming their way.

"His Majesty's Dragon" by Naomi Novik

If the dragons in Yarros' fictional world were the most exciting part of "Fourth Wing" and "Iron Flame" for you, you may want to give Naomi Novik's "His Majesty's Dragon" a try.

The novel is set in the 1800s during the Napoleonic Wars. Will Laurence is a normal captain in the British forces until he captures a dragon egg. When it hatches, he bonds with Temeraire and becomes a rider, fighting in the skies.

Laurence will have to learn how to fly and fight in the middle of the war — or risk his and Temeraire's lives.

"Eragon" by Christopher Paolini

"The Inheritance Cycle" series by Christopher Paolini may fall into the young-adult category, but the high-fantasy writing and the emotional coming-of-age journey the hero goes on throughout the series will make it just as exciting for adults as for younger readers.

In the series opener, Eragon is just a teenager living a simple life on a farm with his family until he stumbles upon a blue stone, which turns out to be the first dragon hatchling born in his country in a century.

Eragon immediately becomes a Dragon Rider when his dragon, Seraphina, hatches. The only living rider is supposed to be king, setting Eragon on a path of magic and danger.

Like Yarros' series, "The Inheritance Cycle" is an epic journey of dragons and their riders, full of magic, romance, and adventure.

"A Promise of Fire" by Amanda Bouchet

Amanda Bouchet's "The Kingmaker Chronicles" is a three-part series full of magic, gods, and romance that will appeal to Yarros fans drawn to Violet's powerful signet and Xaden's dedication to her.

In the first installment, "A Promise of Fire," Cat Fisa has been on the run for years. She was born with the ability to tell when people are lying, a once-in-a-generation power that makes her the "Kingmaker." Cat wants nothing to do with her power — or her family in the North that would use her for it — so she stays hidden, pretending to be a soothsayer in a traveling circus in the South.

When Griffin, the general of a newly established human kingdom, sees her, he knows what Cat is immediately and takes her in the hopes of protecting his family's throne. Cat won't go down without a fight, though, and Griffin's hostage becomes even harder to control when powerful family members come looking for her.

As they make their way toward his family's castle, Griffin will have to convince Cat his family is worth working with — a task that becomes even more difficult when he realizes he doesn't want Cat to just work with him; he wants her to be his wife.

"House of Earth and Blood" by Sarah J. Maas

If you liked the modern flair in the "Empyrean" series, you'll love Sarah J. Maas' steamy "Crescent City" series.

In "House of Earth and Blood," half-fae Bryce Quinlan thrives after graduating from Crescent City University, living with her best friend, the werewolf and alpha of the Pack of Devils, Danika Fendyr.

Bryce has everything she wants — until she comes home to find Danika and the Pack of Devils murdered by a demon. She thinks the culprit was arrested, but a year later, similar murders start up again in the city.

Because she's the only one who saw the demon that killed her friends, Bryce teams up with Hunt Athalar, a Fallen angel enslaved to work for the Archangels who run Crescent City, to solve the mystery. As the investigation progresses and Bryce and Hunt's attraction to each other grows, the unlikely pair will discover secrets about Crescent City that could upend their world as they know it.

To date, Maas has published three books in the series, including "House of Flame and Shadow" in January 2024.

"Neon Gods" by Katee Robert

As Violet was raised to hate Xaden Riorson, Persephone Dimitriou's fear of Hades was instilled in her from childhood in "Neon Gods" by Katee Robert.

Trusting Hades feels like Persephone's only option after her mother promises her hand in marriage to Zeus, the leader of the 13 houses in Olympus, whose wives mysteriously end up dead.

Persephone decides to run away from the city rather than marry Zeus, seeking refuge with Hades, a man she wasn't even certain existed until she found herself on his doorstep. Luckily, Hades wants revenge on Zeus, too, and they agree that making him jealous is the best way to do it.

Hades and Persephone decide to put on a show, but neither expects the real, palpable attraction that develops between them.

"Throne in the Dark" by A.K. Caggiano

A.K. Caggiano's "Villains & Virtues" trilogy has all the magic and enemies-to-lovers fun of the world of "Fourth Wing" with a heap of slow-burn tension and a lighter tone than Yarros' work.

In "Throne in the Dark," Damien Maleficus Bloodthorne is determined to free his demon father from his magical imprisonment and take over the world by his side. There's just one problem: a beautiful, sickeningly sweet human named Amma, who accidentally becomes one with the magical weapon he needs to bring down the mortal powers that be.

Damien has no choice but to travel the realm with Amma to find a way to separate her from the weapon. He could kill her, but Amma proves to be surprisingly helpful — and to his horror, she isn't the worst travel companion he could imagine.

Amma has secrets of her own, though, and she and Damien must work together to get through their respective missions unscathed. And worst of all, as he spends more time with Amma, Damien starts to wonder if what he truly wants is the human by his side.

"Bride" by Ali Hazelwood

Ali Hazelwood is best known for her New York Times bestselling, STEM-centered romance books. Still, her first paranormal novel, "Bride," can help "Empyrean" fans with their book hangover after they finish "Onyx Storm."

In "Bride," vampire Misery Lark is about to marry Lowe Moreland, the Alpha of the Weres, as part of a historic peace deal. Most vampires would be afraid of agreeing to bind themselves to their natural enemies, but after spending most of her childhood as an emissary among the humans, Misery is ready to take on the risk — especially since she needs the Weres' resources to try to track down Serena, her human foster sister who went missing without a trace.

Misery plans to avoid Lowe as much as possible, but from the moment they meet at their wedding, Misery seems to perplex and infuriate Lowe for reasons she can't understand (aside from their species' century-long feud). Soon, he's keeping a closer eye on her than she would like, but she might not mind his presence as much as she thought.

"The Dead Romantics" by Ashley Poston

If reading Yarros' work makes you yearn for a little magic in your day-to-day life, you might like the magical realism in Ashley Poston's "The Dead Romantics."

Florence Day's first meeting with her new editor is a disaster. After a breakup leaves her with a serious bout of writer's block, Florence desperately needs an extension on the novel she's ghostwriting. Ben, who is inconveniently handsome and charming, refuses, leaving Florence more frustrated than ever.

Then, her father dies unexpectedly, and Florence must return to her Southern hometown and her family's funeral parlor and face the actual ghosts she has always been able to see, an ability that left her alienated for much of her childhood.

Once she makes it home, it's not surprising that a ghost shows up seeking her help, but it is a shock when the specter turns out to be Ben. He needs Florence's help handling his unfinished business: her.

"A Fate Inked in Blood" by Danielle L. Jensen

The first installment in the "Saga of the Unfated" duology, "A Fate Inked in Blood," offers an enemies-to-lovers romance set against the backdrop of Norse mythology.

Freya spent her childhood dreaming of becoming a warrior, but at 20, she is married to a man she hates, trapped in her fishing village, and guarding her most closely kept secret: She is a shield maiden, possessing magic that can protect her and others from attacks.

Freya's years of secret-keeping come to an end when her husband betrays her to the local jarl. After she uses her magic to survive a fight against his son Bjorn, the jarl sees Freya as what her father always feared she could become: a weapon. The jarl magically binds Freya to him, enlisting Bjorn to keep her safe.

Freya must prove herself as a magic-wielder and warrior to stay alive, but her pull toward Bjorn may put her at greater risk than her magic ever could.

"Heartless Hunter" by Kristen Ciccarelli

By day, Rune Winters is a vapid socialite. By night, she's the Crimson Moth, a witch trying to single-handedly save those like her that her government is determined to wipe out.

When her vigilante efforts put her at risk, Rune needs a cover story, and none could be better than Gideon Sharpe, a witch hunter known for his dedication to the cause. If he falls for her, Gideon could offer the perfect protection, but Rune has no idea Gideon is onto her, happy to get close to Rune to find the witch he believes she is associating with.

Rune and Gideon are lying to each other at every turn, but the feelings they develop along the way might be the one truth they can't deny. Book one in Kristen Ciccarelli's "The Crimson Moth" series, "Heartless Hunter," is packed with dizzying magic, political rebellion, and decadent enemies-to-lovers tension.

"Quicksilver" by Callie Hart

If you loved the adventurous elements of the "Empyrean" series as much as the romance, Callie Hart's "Quicksilver" will be right up your alley.

Saeris Fane is trying to keep her brother alive in their desert world, where water is nearly impossible to come by. She'll starve herself, steal from the Undying Queen, and use her illegal alchemical powers to do it, even if it puts her own life at risk.

When she's finally caught for her thievery, Saeris is saved when she accidentally opens a portal, and a beautiful and intimidating fae named Kingfisher takes her to his homeland, where ice and magic abound. However, she'll find the fae are just as dangerous as the Queen, and after she makes a binding agreement to Kingfisher, she'll have to live among them until she can use her alchemy to fulfill her half of the deal.

Saeris wants to get their bargain over with, desperate to get home to check on her brother. Yet it might be the magnetic pull she feels toward Kingfisher that derails her.

• The startup world is littered with companies that tried to become the next YouTube.
• Andrew Morse is trying it again, anyway.
• Morse's pitch: a curated app that gives creators incentives a reason to give it exclusive content.

Are you sick of the algorithms that serve you video on giant platforms like YouTube and TikTok?

Or are you a video-maker who's sick of the algorithms that don't serve your stuff to would-be watchers?

Andrew Morse would like to talk to you.

Morse, who spent years working in big media (Bloomberg, CNN) and most recently in local news (The Atlanta Journal-Constution), is building Phareo, a startup he hopes will one day rival internet media heavyweights. The secret sauce, he says: his own AI-powered discovery engine that will make both video-watchers and video-makers happy.

This is, to put it politely, a very tall order.

But it's still worth talking about, since Morse is homing in on a problem you hear a lot about in creator circles these days: the sense that people who make content are getting increasingly bad deals from platforms, because they can't control who sees their stuff.

Phareo (the name is an allusion to Pharos, the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria) says it can solve that problem by giving creators real incentives to make exclusive stuff for the company, via levers like revenue share and options. Morse plans to launch in January with an initial group of 25 creators. The app will start out as a free, ad-supported service, but he hopes to eventually offer a paid tier.

I talked to him this week about his plans, the shifting media landscape, and why he's increasingly worried about the creator economy — at the same time he's launching a creator economy app. This is an edited excerpt of our conversation:

Peter Kafka: You have a classic chicken/egg problem: Consumers are not going to use a new app unless it has compelling content they can't get somewhere else. 
Content-makers don't want to put their stuff there unless there's a big audience.

Andrew Morse: It is the most important question we have to solve.
It starts with dissatisfaction, and it starts with a belief from consumers and creators, that they're not being currently served as well as they could be. So we're working with creators who believe that there has to be a better alternative.

We don't really have anything to lose, given the direction that the platforms are taking and given the overreliance that their creative work has on algorithms that don't serve them. We're going to build with creators and try to build a super-passionate core and grow from there.

But YouTube, TikTok, Reels, etc do a great job of giving me tons of video. And they have unlimited content. How do you move me over from the platforms I'm already using?

It's an ironic conundrum — we're trying to solve the discovery problem, but we have to be discovered ourselves.

Over the years, I've seen many companies say they're trying to solve a discovery problem. 
But it doesn't seem like consumers have a discovery problem. It's the content owners who have a problem getting their stuff in front of consumers. What's the incentive for consumers to move to a platform content-owners like? 


There's an inherent assumption that consumers are satisfied with the platforms. I don't think that that's true. I think consumers are on these platforms because they have to be. Whether they're getting what they want in an efficient way is an entirely different story.

Any advice for your former CNN colleagues who are now working for David Ellison?

Stay focused on the work. It's always the journalism that matters. 
And the truth and the facts and great storytelling will always rise to the top.

We have seen a steady stream of journalists leaving places like CNN and starting their own thing. Do you think that trend accelerates or stalls out as people realize how difficult it is to do solo media for a living?

I'm concerned about this creator economy — which is really about about businesses that have built themselves on the back of YouTube. If you go back to 2016, 2017, a number of really clever, really creative businesses were built on the back of social platforms. When the algorithms changed, it became almost impossible for these businesses to stay afloat. It was hard for us at CNN, but we had a big enough business that we were able to mitigate and ride the wave. For these other companies, it was disastrous. 


I think you're going to see more and more people trying to go out on their own — and that's what scares me. 
Because I think that the sands may begin to shift a little bit.

• Dalet Labs, an AI commerce startup, is coming out of stealth mode with a $7 million pre-seed round.
• It's launching a new app called Scene, where you can scroll through shoppable, AI-generated images.
• Read the 5-page pitch deck the startup used to raise capital — months before finalizing its product.

Would you shop from a feed of AI-generated images?

The startup Dalet Labs is betting you will.

The AI-commerce company exclusively told CMO Insider that it raised a $7 million pre-seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and is launching its first product, a shopping app called Scene.

Founded by Omer Bar-Tal in 2025 after he left the AI video startup Runway, Dalet Labs recently came out of stealth mode. The startup raised its pre-seed in late 2025, before finalizing its product road map. In addition to Lightspeed, venture capital firm SV Angel and individual angel investors participated in the round.

Lisa Han, the Lightspeed partner who led the round, said that Bar-Tal has a combination of "video AI research expertise" and a "deep understanding of what consumers want."

Scene, which became available on the Apple App Store in the US on Wednesday, lets people scroll through a feed of shoppable AI-generated images. The app will be invite-only at launch, and isn't yet available on Android. While the images of people or scenes are AI-generated, the products themselves come from real brands across categories like fashion, home decor, and sports.

Bar-Tal envisions Scene as a tool people can turn to when they want to buy something but are still uncertain about exactly what they have in mind. It's similar to scrolling through Pinterest or TikTok in hopes of being inspired to buy something, but Bar-Tal said there's a key difference: You come to Scene to shop, not be entertained.

Bar-Tal sees Scene as a virtual "mall" where users can window-shop, save items to their cart, and make purchases.

Commerce has become an increasingly attractive use case for AI tools like chatbots and agents (including Meta's Muse). However, Bar-Tal argues that AI shopping tools are missing something.

"AI is amazing when you know what you want, but it's really important to actually have an ability to discover and to see things," Bar-Tal said. Agentic commerce, he added, "misses the point in shopping — which is essentially a delightful experience."

As a Scene user scrolls and interacts with products linked in the app, the feed adapts to what type of brands or items the user is interested in. Then, Scene uses AI to generate scenes with people wearing or using those items.

Bar-Tal did not comment on which third-party models Dalet Labs uses.

Bar-Tal said Dalet Labs doesn't see its product as replacing influencers, but rather as "complementary."

"The content here is AI, but it is not aiming to replace creators because we are not aiming to create entertainment," he said.

However, even if Scene isn't competing with influencers for entertaining content, it's still competing with their business model: making money by promoting brands' products and ultimately driving sales.

Scene has a catalog of hundreds of brands and retailers, Bar-Tal said, and is making more partnerships. The company did not share further details on what brands Dalet Labs has already established relationships with.

Bar-Tal said the company is also leveraging affiliate marketing to monetize the app early on, working with affiliate networks to earn from each in-app transaction.

Dalet Labs' Scene is entering a crowded market of apps offering people ways to discover brands and goods, like TikTok's growing Shop presence in the US or Pinterest's visual search prowess. Startups like Doji and Alta have also raised millions on the promise of tech that lets people try on clothes using AI-generated versions of themselves.

How will Dalet Labs get people to download an entirely new app?

Using influencers and social media to promote the app will be a core part of Dalet Labs' user acquisition plan. It also plans to roll out a coupon campaign during the holidays, offering new users discounts on purchases made through the Scene app. Bar-Tal didn't share whether the discounts would be funded by Scene or by brand partners.

The New York-based startup, meanwhile, is using its pre-seed funding to hire more engineers and researchers to build out Scene.

Read the 5-page pitch deck Dalet Labs used to raise its $7 million pre-seed:

The deck starts with background on the technology

Here's what the slide says:

For over half a century, every major shift in computing has been driven by an interface revolution.

The move from terminals to graphical user interfaces (GUIs) transformed computers from expert tools into mass-market products.

The rise of the web and mobile extended that pattern: each new medium made digital interaction more visual, intuitive, and consumable.

Text, by nature, demands active cognitive effort; Visual interfaces go a step further by allowing users to grasp high bandwidth information almost instantly with minimal cognitive effort.

Then it explains Dalet Labs' thesis

Here's what the slide says:

Today, artificial intelligence represents the most profound computing shift since the PC. Yet, paradoxically, our interface to AI remains stuck in the terminal era.

We converse with models through text prompts and receive text streams in return in synchronous manner. Our product thesis is simple and inevitable: AI requires a native GUI.

We believe the GUI to AI will not be code-based, but rather generated by media models.

It then outlines the competition

Here's what the slide says:

The core product of AI consumption platforms is inseparable from their textual chat interfaces.

For example, the OpenAI brand is strictly associated with the chat interface of ChatGPT.

Moreover, by decoupling the user interface from any specific model provider, we can integrate multiple frontier models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or open-source systems) and focus our innovation on the new media generation GUI platform. This modularity becomes increasingly valuable as AI models are commoditized. In addition, their technical stacks are anchored in the code generation paradigm, in contrast to our focus on Media Models.

Finally, it introduces Dalet Labs' founder

Here's what the slide says:

Omer Bar-Tal

• Research experience from Weizmann Institute.

  • Built the first method for editing real-world videos using text
  • Papers in CVPR, ECCV, ICML, ICLR etc.
• Trained video foundation models (Google, Pika, Runway)
• Built creative applications with media models (eg video editing, reference-to-video, etc.)
• Led applied research teams and product launches

• You know who has a cool job? Jonathan Mutch, who's a helicopter pilot in Antarctica.
• He lands on helipads made of ice and has to navigate rapidly changing weather conditions.
• Flightseeing is included in select Antarctic itineraries, which start at a whopping $20,000 a person.

Quark Expeditions helicopter pilot Jonathan Mutch is working his fifth season in Antarctica, flying high-paying tourists to some of the planet's most remote places.

Mutch told Business Insider that flying helicopters across the seventh continent is no easy feat.

It takes a team of pilots, flight engineers, mountain guides, and expedition leaders to run the operation safely. Quark says it has strict environmental parameters to avoid affecting wildlife.

He said that because Antarctic weather can be harsh and unpredictable, guests must have realistic and flexible expectations.

"It's a lot more complicated than it looks," Mutch said. "We'll start with a study of our maps and charts and previous experience with the weather, and we'll brief over the preceding days."

Helicopter flightseeing excursions are included in all Antarctic itineraries on the Ultramarine, the luxury vessel where Quark guests live during their voyage and where the helicopters take off and land.

Mutch said Quark prioritizes getting everybody a 15-minute flightseeing trip, followed by potential landings.

Pricing for the 2026-2027 season starts at about $20,000 per person and includes flightseeing, meals, housing, and other activities. Helicopter landings are $995 extra.

Deep-pocketed tourists can also pay $30,000 or more per person for a more helicopter-focused tour that includes landing near an Emperor penguin colony.

Helicopter flying is different in Antarctica

Mutch said Quark has two Airbus-made H145 helicopters, which are fitted with safety technology for polar operations, such as two redundant engines and an advanced autopilot.

The helicopters are stored and maintained in hangars atop the ship. Here, guests board and disembark, the aircraft are refueled between trips, and the crew plans flights.

Mutch said both helicopters are needed to prep the landing sites before taking passengers. Pilots and engineers ensure that things like lighting and recirculating snow won't affect safety or visibility.

Jake Morrison, senior director of expedition operations, told Business Insider that a flightseeing operation requires at least 13 employees, or 20 or more for ice landings.

Experienced mountain guides test the landing ice thickness and ensure the sites are safe for walking and void of crevasses.

"We won't get airborne if the experience is going to be lackluster or if there's any risk of leaving anybody out there," Mutch said. He added that Quark operates to the same standards as airlines and that the ships' crew will always track the helicopter's location.

Mutch said Quark pilots are trained beyond minimum standards, including twice a year in a flight simulator, and have a background in complicated flying.

"We'll put the aircraft into white-out conditions and test the pilots' decision-making," Mutch said, speaking about the simulator training. "We want guys who are not going to be too proud [that causes them] to push on and make mistakes."

There are environmental considerations

Flying carbon-emitting helicopters across Antarctica will impact the environment, but Quark said it does what it can to minimize its footprint.

Morisson said the H145 helicopters are more fuel-efficient and quieter than similar aircraft in their category.

Mutch said flightseeing tours are intended to show the landscape, so pilots will not fly within a mile of wildlife. The flight-following crew on the ship helps maintain distance.

When he performs Emperor penguin landings, Mutch said there is typically an iceberg between the birds and humans, so Quark guests are "virtually inaudible and invisible."

"The last thing we want to do is change the behavior of any wildlife or interact in any way with the wildlife down here, whether it be penguins, seals, sea birds, or whales," Mutch said. "We explain this to passengers when we board."

These are necessary considerations as Antarctic conservation is a hot topic. A record-breaking number of tourists visit the continent: About 120,000 people visited during the 2025-2026 season, up from about 100,000 the year before.

As ice levels decrease, wildlife is at risk of pollutants from ships, aircraft, and humans. A September 2026 study interviewed 25 former Antarctic tour guides who said they left the industry after facing a moral conflict between their jobs and their concerns about environmental and wildlife harm.

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, an Antarctic advocacy group, responded, saying the points were valid and should be heard, but they may not represent the views of the over 6,600-person guiding community on Antarctica. IAATO added that tourism helps educate and advocate for conservation, and the agency tries to curb risks by limiting the number of people on the continent at any given time.

Visitors should have realistic expectations

The weather will determine whether a flight can operate safely, so there are some days when a tour is scheduled but cannot fly — meaning guests must prepare for uncertainty and possible disappointment.

It's easy to get frustrated considering the high cost of the tour, but that's the reality of flying in the polar south.

"We're quite conservative about when we fly, but we'd ideally want a blue-sky day," he said, adding the company completes an average of 200 flights per season. "We'd like to fly three or perhaps four times per trip, but it's really what the weather will allow us."

Most people do get the chance to fly over Antarctica, thanks to long itineraries and a variety of destination options.

The single-pilot flightseeing tours carry up to six passengers, with everyone getting a window seat. To optimize capacity, landings will carry up to nine, as prime seating is unnecessary.

"There's Fournier Bay on Anvers Island, an amphitheater of steep ice cliffs, and if we can get above the ridge, you can see up to 100 miles of the Antarctic Peninsula on a clear day," Mutch said, speaking about his favorite sites. "It's not unusual to have guests welling up, overwhelmed with emotion."

• Rishi Sunak has senior advisor roles with Anthropic, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs.
• Sunak, who was the UK's prime minister between 2022 and 2024, makes up to $10,000 an hour from them.
• Goldman paid him about $1.5 million, compared with Anthropic shares valued at about $500,000.

How much is Anthropic paying for the advice of the UK's former prime minister? A lot less than Microsoft.

Rishi Sunak, who led the country from 2022 to 2024, last year took on senior advisor roles with Anthropic, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs.

As he still serves as a member of Parliament, the payments are detailed in a public register of MPs' financial interests. The most recent register, published Monday, shows Sunak earned more than £2.2 million, or over $2.9 million, from the three jobs.

Sunak, who started his career as a Goldman analyst before completing an MBA at Stanford, donated these earnings to charity. He and his wife Akshata Murthy set up The Richmond Project, which works to improve people's numeracy skills.

The couple is jointly worth about $750 million, according to The Sunday Times Rich List, with much of that wealth coming from Murthy, whose father founded Indian tech firm Infosys.

Anthropic hired Sunak as a senior advisor last October, paying him with equity in the AI firm. The register shows the shares were worth £373,000, or $495,000, when his one-year contract began.

Working an estimated 70 hours a year, that translates to about $7,000 an hour.

Also last October, Sunak started advising Microsoft. The tech giant paid him £741,735 a year, or almost $1 million. For an estimated 96 hours of work, per the register, that works out to about $10,200 an hour.

Sunak's role with Goldman is the most lucrative. He was paid nearly £1.1 million a year, or about $1.5 million.

The register shows the role involves an estimated 175 hours of work a year, suggesting he earns about $8,300 an hour.

Alongside his work in tech, Sunak writes a column for The Sunday Times. He also donates this money to charity, but it pales in comparison to the income from his other jobs. The register shows he earns £28,500 a quarter for five hours of work a week — about $580 an hour.

Sunak's office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

• A version of this post appears in CMO Insider.
• Sign up for Business Insider's marketing newsletter.

Keep calm: We have a plan.

That's essentially been the adtech industry's response to Apple's latest crackdown on web trackers.

The workaround may only be a temporary fix, however.

Apple recently implemented new restrictions in its Safari browser designed to stamp out "identity resolution," a method used to track users across different devices and websites by linking data points such as IP addresses, email addresses, and other identifying information collected about them.

Adtech has largely united around a proposed solution: Move the identity resolution process so it takes place inside publishers' and adtech companies' servers rather than in the browser, where Apple has more control. Adtech industry execs have said the move will mitigate disruptions to publishers' revenue and measurement from Apple's blockers, while still allowing them to respect users' privacy choices.

Privacy experts, on the other hand, say that while the server-side shift might succeed temporarily, it's far from a permanent solution. Apple has made it clear that attempts to circumvent its tracking protections could trigger further restrictions on adtech companies.

"It's tough to predict how long Apple would need to find ways to block workarounds, but adtech companies that bet against the browser are in for a rude awakening at some point in the future," said Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher and cofounder of the adtech transparency platform DecryptAds.

The stakes extend beyond the adtech companies whose technology Apple is blocking. Publishers and advertisers have increasingly relied on identity resolution to target specific audiences and to measure whether campaigns are working. If identity resolution becomes less effective, advertisers could shift more of their budgets away from web publishers and to platforms like Google and Meta that have reams of their own logged-in user data.

Anthony Katsur, CEO of the IAB's Tech Lab, which created the Trusted Server project, said its estimates show that the Apple-powered browser ecosystem accounts for 40% of total web traffic, which leaves a large chunk of potentially unaddressable ad inventory.

"That creates tremendous downside for media companies to then prove themselves to agencies and brands they work with that, yes, a consumer saw this ad, and they converted," Katsur said.

How Apple could thwart adtech's server-side solution

How could Apple block identity resolution if the data matching occurs only on servers outside its control?

There is a precedent. When Apple blocked third-party tracking cookies in Safari, some adtech companies used a workaround called CNAME cloaking. It made third-party trackers appear to Safari as if they belonged to the website a reader had chosen to visit — known as "first-party" activity. Apple soon identified and developed protections against that tactic.

Edwards said many server-side tracking systems still rely on cookies or other identifiers stored in a user's browser to recognize them across websites. Apple can block the collection of identifying information before it reaches the server.

Privacy-focused browser company Brave, for example, already blocks scripts that are known to collect and record information used for server-side identification, said Pete Snyder, the company's principal researcher.

Katsur of the IAB Tech Lab said the switch to server-side isn't an attempt to trick the browser.

"This isn't about circumventing consumer privacy preferences; this isn't about circumventing regulations; it's about moving the advertising stack to a publisher-controlled server-side solution that complies with legal regulations," Katsur said.

He added that through the Trusted Server, publishers can also strip out unwanted third-party tracking identifiers from ads.

Katsur acknowledged Apple was likely to clamp down on server-side identity resolution eventually, but that the tech giant risks breaking essential web functionality if it goes too far.

The consumer opt-out option

Some server-side matching may be impossible for Apple to stop through browser technology alone. If someone provides their home address to an e-commerce site for delivery of their purchase, Apple's Safari can't prevent the retailer from knowing it. The retailer could then potentially use that information to match the customer against other databases.

Snyder said it's why Brave supports consumer opt-out mechanisms like the Global Privacy Control signal, a browser setting that tells a website a user doesn't want their data sold to or shared with third parties for targeted advertising, a preference companies must honor where the law requires it. Starting January 1 next year, the state of California will require browsers to provide an easy-to-find setting that lets users opt out of having their personal data sold or shared.

"Protecting users against this kind of tracking requires 'privacy in depth,' or using a wide range of privacy protections, by default and automatically, to minimize how often users share identifiers, and to, whenever possible, block sites trying to collect those identifiers," Brave's Snyder said.

Moving identity resolution to servers may temporarily put the method out of Safari's current reach, but not necessarily out of Apple's sights.

"This is basically a cat-and-mouse game, but the cat in this instance is a trillion-dollar company controlling one of the most valuable user data supply chains in the world," Decrypt Ads' Edwards said.

• Retailers are hoping to win shoppers with easy, affordable Thanksgiving meal options.
• This year's lower per-person prices emphasize value as other cost pressures increase.
• Walmart's meal basket also has more items than last year, plus the company will deliver it for free.

Americans once again face a critical choice this November: where to get their Thanksgiving dinner supplies.

By now, most major retailers have shared their recipes to win shoppers with easy, affordable meal options.

The largest of the bunch, Walmart, said Wednesday that this year's $35 meal basket offers more food and a lower price than last year's offering. Plus the deal includes free delivery.

To be precise, the company says the combo includes 18% more items and costs 12% less than last year, and is the lowest price in the history of the basket.

Other retailers have also managed to lower prices on their holiday meal deals, highlighting this year's focus on value as other cost pressures rise.

Per-person prices generally range from $3.50 to $5, but one key difference between the baskets is the amount of cooking involved.

Budget-minded baskets from Walmart, Lidl, and Aldi each lean more on ingredients to make a meal from scratch, while meal kits from Albertson's, Costco and Sam's Club cost more but come ready to heat and eat. Target says its $30 basket of basics can be combined with its ready-made menu items.

Here's what's included in each of the top retailers' meal offerings, and what it costs per serving.

Walmart — $3.50

• Butterball turkey
• Stove Top stuffing
• Ocean Spray cranberries
• White potatoes
• Great Value gravy
• Great Value canned green beans
• Campbell's cream of mushroom soup
• Great Value dinner rolls
• Sweet potatoes
• Great Value fried onions
• Jet-puffed mini marshmallows
• Great Value canned corn
• Jiffy corn muffin mix
• Great Value canned pumpkin
• Great Value evaporated milk
• Great Value pie crust
• Great Value whipped topping

Total cost: $35 for 10 people.

Lidl — $3.60

• Shady Brook Farms Frozen Whole Turkey — 14 lb.
• Lidl 100% Pure Pumpkin
• Fresh Yellow Onions — 3 lbs.
• Fresh Pure Harvest Russet Potatoes — 5 lbs.
• Fresh Celery
• Lidl Chicken Broth
• Lidl Cream of Mushroom Condensed Soup — 2 cans
• Lidl Cut Green Beans — 2 cans
• Lidl Evaporated Milk
• Fresh Sweet Potatoes — 3 lbs.
• French's French Fried Onions
• Lidl Original Whipped Topping
• Lidl Brown Gravy Mix — 2 packets
• Lidl Jellied Cranberry Sauce — 2 cans
• Lidl Mini Marshmallows
• Lidl Pie Crust Dough
• Lidl Hawaiian Sweet Rolls
• Lidl Poultry Seasoning
• Lidl Turkey Stuffing Mix — 2 boxes
• Fresh Peak Harvest Baby Carrots — 2 lbs.
• Lidl Macaroni & Cheese — 2 boxes

Total cost: $35.86 for 10 people.

Aldi — $3.90

• Whole Turkey
• Chef's Cupboard Stuffing Mix (x3)
• Baby Peeled Carrots
• Celery
• Cranberries (12 oz)
• Sweet Potatoes (3lbs)
• L'oven Fresh Hawaiian Sweet Rolls
• Season's Choice Steamable Frozen Peas (x2)
• Baker's Corner Pumpkin Pie Mix
• Bake House Creations Pie Crusts
• Friendly Farms Whole Milk
• Friendly Farms Heavy Whipping Cream

Total cost: $39 for 10 people.

Target — $5

• Butterball turkey, up to 10 lb.
• Russet potatoes, 3 lb. bag
• Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce, 14 oz.
• Del Monte French Style Green Beans, two 14.5 oz cans
• Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup, 10.5 oz
• Good & Gather French Fried Onions, 6 oz
• Stove Top Stuffing Mix for Turkey, 6 oz.
• Heinz Homestyle Turkey Gravy, 12 oz.
• Favorite Day Take & Bake Baguette, two count

Total cost: $30 for 6 people.

Sam's Club — $10

• Boneless carver ham
• Hickory smoked turkey
• Yukon Gold mashed potatoes
• Turkey gravy
• Green beans with dried cranberries and almonds (x2)
• Macaroni and cheese (x2)
• Sweet corn with garlic butter
• Cranberry crunch salad
• Yeast dinner rolls
• Charcuterie entertainment tray
• 12" pumpkin pies (x2)

Total cost: $160 for 16 people.

Albertsons — $11

• Fully cooked 10 to 12 lb turkey
• 32 oz mashed potatoes
• 28 oz homestyle stuffing
• 24 oz gravy
• 14 oz cranberry sauce
• 12-count package of King's Hawaiian Rolls.

Total cost: $90 for 8 people, only available online with pre-order.

Costco — $25

• 5 lbs. Free Range Amish Turkey Breast
• 3 lbs. Tray of Mashed Potatoes
• 24 oz. Turkey Gravy
• 3 lbs. Tray of Mac and Cheese
• 3 lbs. Tray of Sweet Corn
• 3 lbs. Tray of Green Bean Casserole
• 2 lbs. Candied Yams
• 3 lbs. Tray of Cornbread Stuffing
• 20 oz. Pack of Cranberry Relish
• 12 Gourmet Dinner Rolls
• 2 lbs. Tray of Apple Cobbler
• 2 lbs. Whole Pumpkin Pie

Total cost: $200 for 8 people, only available online with pre-order.

• A version of this post appears in CMO Insider.
• Sign up for Business Insider's marketing newsletter.

Hugo Veiga and Diego Machado — the former AKQA global chief creative officers — spent two decades building brands at some of advertising's most storied creative agencies. Their next bet: a new type of agency that wants to be paid not just in cash, but in a share of the businesses it helps build.

Veiga and Machado exclusively told CMO Insider this week that they have launched !F Creative Capital, a company that combines conventional commissions with equity partnerships and revenue-sharing arrangements tied to clients' sales.

Rather than charging an upfront fee alone, !F Creative Capital offers creative consultancy in exchange for equity in companies it believes can grow. For example, it took a stake in the superfoods brand Authentic Fruits in a deal that includes a three-year creative engagement, a share of sales, and additional equity tied to sales performance. It has equity in CheckMy.Music, an AI platform that scans songs for plagiarism, and an equity partnership on a new project led by former Chelsea FC and Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti.

A long-held complaint on Madison Avenue is that agency holding companies prioritize businesses such as media buying — and, increasingly, data, technology, and AI services — because they are easier to package, measure, and sell repeatedly than bespoke creative work. Veiga and Machado said that !F Creative Capital was born out of a desire to create a model that more effectively ties the value of creative ideas to business results.

"In many of the creative industries, everyone is too busy doing decks, doing keynotes, and losing the connection with the final thing," Machado said.

!F Creative Capital has also launched its own brands, including SNIFF, a pet company that lets dogs smell food before their owners buy it, and Baitts, a toothpick brand.

Elsewhere, the company is coproducing a feature film set for release next year, and it's preparing to launch an eight-week "School of Creative Entrepreneurship" to help people turn their ideas into businesses.

While !F Creative Capital has taken on commission-based creative work for brands including Corona and Cristiano Ronaldo's Globe Sports Award, Veiga and Machado said they are reinvesting that money into the equity-focused side of the business and their in-house projects. !F Creative Capital is self-funded and has a team of around 15 people spanning seven countries, along with a broader network of contributors.

'You have an idea, and you give it for free'

Veiga said the long-term vision is for !F Creative Capital to become independent from commission work as it builds its own brands and effectively becomes its own client. The result might look more like a holding company for brands than the creative agencies where the duo made their name.

"A lot of times you have an idea, and you give it for free, or you push to make it happen without owning that," Machado said of the agency business.

Adland's creative agencies have explored similar equity-focused business models in the past. Uncommon, the London-based studio in which Havas acquired a majority stake in 2023, took equity in the compostable coffee pod company Halo and the finance app Communion. In 2010, former Deutsch exec Mike Duda cofounded the hybrid early-stage venture firm and creative agency that later became Bullish. Anomaly, now owned by Stagwell, began incubating and acquiring stakes in brands in the 2000s.

Brian Wieser, CEO of the advisory and consulting firm Madison and Wall, said that while the equity model still persists in the agency industry, the practice isn't common and mostly ties to the individuals running those companies because the skill sets are different.

"Most people who can do venture well focus on venture capital," Wieser said. "But the right person with the right relationships can make this happen."

• An Anthropic manager says Claude has made traditional coding interviews a poor hiring signal.
• His advice to juniors: target business problems and build a focused prototype over a weekend.
• Google and Amazon are also reshaping engineering work and hiring around AI fluency and impact.

Out with the coding test, in with Claude.

That's the shift Felix Rieseberg, an Anthropic engineering manager, says he has made to his team's hiring process, arguing that AI has rendered traditional coding interviews a poor measure of who will succeed at work.

"The coding interview is dead, at least for my team at Anthropic," Rieseberg wrote in a Tuesday post on X. "I've seen enough to know that it no longer provides signal."

Rieseberg elaborated in a blog post, writing that there's "no point" in giving candidates coding challenges or asking them about programming languages like assembly.

"Claude is now better at both," he said of the company's own AI model.

Coding challenges were once a "weak but useful" predictor of success, Rieseberg said, but the most impactful builders on his teams are not necessarily the people who excel at such tests.

"I'm seeing engineers who are comparatively new fly past people who are probably better coders and have been around much longer," he wrote. "Hunger beats tenure."

AI is writing most of the code at Anthropic, and the shift tracks with changes underway at other Big Tech companies. Business Insider's Hugh Langley reported last week that Google is expanding pilots for software-engineering interviews that allow candidates to use Gemini to assess their AI fluency and prompting skills.

Amazon, meanwhile, told engineers on Tuesday to prioritize customer and business outcomes over raw AI usage. The company calls the moment the era of the "Renaissance Developer," in which human judgment and machine intelligence combine to build products faster.

How junior engineers can stand out

The rise of AI coding tools has fueled fears that junior developer roles will become harder to get, as AI takes on work like debugging and building simple features — tasks that once helped early-career engineers learn the ropes.

In his blog, Rieseberg shared advice for junior engineers — or, more broadly, people without organizational status or power. Rather than just clearing backlog tickets, he said they should identify the business problems their company is trying to solve.

Then, they should come up with a bold idea that could materially advance those goals and build a working prototype over a weekend. The project should communicate one compelling idea, he said, rather than bury several good ones inside an overly ambitious product.

Newer engineers should also lean into their outsider perspective. They may be more likely to spot broken user experiences or question ingrained assumptions about what is possible, Rieseberg said.

He pointed to two relatively new Anthropic engineers who built a graphical interface for Claude Code over a weekend; the first public version shipped around eight days later.

Rieseberg said he has not yet solved the problem of how to assess candidates who build effectively with AI.

For now, he said he is scanning resumes and portfolios for small prototypes that show "taste, empathy, and principled thinking" — qualities that AI researchers and tech leaders are increasingly putting a premium on in the age of AI.

• Eli Lilly is developing a more potent weight-loss drug called retatrutide.
• In the first head-to-head trial versus Ozempic, retatrutide takers lost roughly twice as much weight.
• Retatrutide is not FDA-approved yet, but some peptide sellers are skirting the law.

Gym bros call it "reta." Eli Lilly is calling it the winner.

On Wednesday, the pharmaceutical giant announced the results of the first clinical trial pitting Ozempic against its newest, most powerful, and yet-to-be-approved next-generation injectable medication for obesity and diabetes: retatrutide.

Retatrutide won — and it wasn't even close. Type 2 diabetes patients on the highest dose of Ozempic (2 mg) lost an average of 21 pounds over a period of about a year and a half on the drug. Those on retatrutide lost an average of 44 pounds (9 mg) to 47 pounds (12 mg) during that same time. Patients also saw steeper reductions in their A1C, a key marker of blood sugar control (2.2% vs 1.8%).

"We believe retatrutide, if approved, could shift the treatment paradigm for people living with type 2 diabetes, obesity and related cardiometabolic conditions," Eli Lilly's Kenneth Custer, the president of Lilly Cardiometabolic, said in a release.

They're calling it 'King Kong'

Ozempic (from Novo Nordisk) was the very first medication of its kind — a novel peptide that mimics one gut hormone, called GLP-1.

Several years later, Mounjaro (from Eli Lilly) was approved, mimicking two hormones, GLP-1 and GIP, and delivering stronger results.

Insiders are calling Eli Lilly's retatrutide the "triple G" or "King Kong" for weight loss because it mimics three hormones: GLP-1, GIP, and a third peptide hormone called glucagon, which helps break down stored fat into energy. Some say it could rival bariatric surgery in clinical results in terms of weight loss.

Eli Lilly is expected to submit retatrutide to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval in early 2027. If all goes well, it could be available sometime next year, for conditions including obesity, obesity-related sleep apnea, and knee osteoarthritis.

In this clinical trial, side effect profiles were generally similar between patients taking Ozempic and retatrutide, but slightly more patients on retatrutide reported diarrhea, while constipation was slightly more common among Ozempic-takers. People on retatrutide also had slightly higher rates of a rare side effect called dysesthesia, triggering tingling, skin-on-fire type sensations.

The clinical trial results have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal, but were released as the company prepares to announce its quarterly earnings on Thursday.

Knock-off reta is already booming on the black market

The drug, which is still in clinical trials, has attracted copycat peptide sellers shipping powders labeled "reta" from overseas, stoking a gray market of do-it-yourself injections. Bodybuilders say it helps shred fat and reduce appetite, with fewer side effects than other injectable weight-loss pens.

But nobody really knows exactly what they are taking, though their results seem to roughly mirror what happens when people take the real thing in clinical trials.

In an unusual move, Eli Lilly addressed the pre-approval black-market hype in their release announcing the latest results.

"Retatrutide is an investigational molecule that has not been approved by FDA or any regulatory organization anywhere in the world," the company said in a statement. "Anyone purporting to sell retatrutide to consumers is breaking the law."

• A version of this post appears in CMO Insider.
• Sign up for Business Insider's marketing newsletter.

McDonald's is exiting the playing field.

The fast-food giant's surprise decision to end its 32-year run as a FIFA World Cup sponsor shows how major global brands are reassessing the cost, clutter, and commercial return of sports' biggest properties.

McDonald's ran its largest-ever World Cup marketing push during this summer's tournament, and McDonald's CFO Ian Borden said on an August earnings call that the effort "underperformed versus our expectations."

The company said last week that it had decided not to renew its current deal, which is due to end this year. It also indicated to FIFA that it isn't looking to invest in next year's Women's World Cup, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Sports sponsorship is seen as a way for brands to tap into huge, live global audiences and associate themselves with the feel-good factor of athletes' achievements. Management consultancy Kearney estimated the global market for sports sponsorship and in-venue advertising at $52 billion in 2025 and expects it to grow by 8% to 9% annually through 2030, reaching about $80 billion.

While many marketers continue to spend heavily on sports, they often find it hard to measure the commercial uplift from their sponsorship outlays. Research from Forrester, published in 2025, found that 76% of US business-to-consumer marketing executives who invested in sponsorships the prior year reported struggling to calculate the return on investment, or ROI, of their sports sponsorships.

"They are gaining a lot of traction around brand awareness, but can't necessarily calculate the hard and fast ROI numbers to prove to their CFOs that the money and long-term commitment for these kinds of sponsorships are necessary," Mike Proulx, a Forrester VP, told me.

For McDonald's, the figures evidently didn't justify a renewal. The deal was valued at $40 million annually, per the research firm GlobalData Sport.

For a globally recognized brand such as McDonald's, the scope for the World Cup to deliver another spike in brand awareness and associated sales may have reached its ceiling. Heineken appeared to make a similar recalculation last year when it said it would end its 30-year UEFA Champions League partnership in 2027. The brewer said it was shifting its sponsorship focus to platforms "where spend is proportionate to value creation," while retaining Formula 1 and adding Premier Padel.

McDonald's CMO Morgan Flatley said in a statement last week that sports remains important to its marketing strategy. At the company's September investor day, Flatley said she was focusing her campaigns "on McDonald's collection of iconic IP, not someone else's." The company continues to sponsor dozens of sports properties, including France's Ligue 1 top-flight soccer league and the All-American Games.

The 2026 World Cup reached nearly 6 billion people worldwide across different platforms, according to FIFA, which helps explain why brands continue to spend heavily to be associated with it. While FIFA has not disclosed a final sponsorship total for the 2026 World Cup, its latest budget forecasts $2.8 billion in marketing-rights revenue across all commercial partnerships in the 2023 to 2026 cycle. That would be about 59% more than it generated across the 2019 to 2022 Qatar cycle. For the 2026 tournament, FIFA also introduced a program that allowed host cities to sell local supporter packages, making the sponsorship market increasingly crowded compared to previous years.

Rory Natkiel, founder of sponsorship effectiveness consultancy Box Count, said the additional host-city partners risked shrinking McDonald's "share of property" — the portion of the event's commercial attention it could realistically command.

That dynamic could make smaller or newer sports properties more attractive to mature global brands. While they might not offer the global scale of long-standing events like the World Cup, they can provide greater flexibility to tailor marketing to specific audiences and channels than the tightly controlled multiyear packages from major rights holders allow. For a company like McDonald's, that could open up an opportunity to offer consumers an experience they remember rather than a sponsorship they simply expect.

"If they start going into new sports and trying to attract a different audience to the global football audience — padel for a slightly more premium audience, or whatever it might be — it does create a new compelling angle and a new avenue for creativity," said Rory Stewart-Richardson, a longtime sports sponsorship executive.

Stewart-Richardson said he wouldn't be surprised if other legacy brands start recalibrating their sponsorship deals, focusing more on local markets and digital activations, with an emphasis on "building from the consumer out rather than trying to buy into temporary cultural relevance."

• With Microsoft offering about 60,000 staff buyouts, many will be deciding whether to take one.
• Business Insider asked HR experts what advice they'd give workers offered buyouts.
• Their advice included budgeting for a longer job search and pricing out replacement health coverage.

About 60,000 Microsoft employees have a choice to make: take a buyout and leave at the end of the year, or stay.

Eligible employees have until early December to decide. Offers reviewed by Business Insider vary by level, location, and length of service.

For US employees at levels 64 and below, the cash offer is one week of base pay for every six months of service; at levels 65 to 67, it is two weeks for every six months. The offers also include continued stock vesting and health insurance.

Buyouts are a reasonably common offering for corporations looking to cut costs, but deciding whether to take one can be difficult. Business Insider spoke to two HR experts to ask which factors employees should weigh and which questions they should ask before signing.

Read their top tips below:

Work out what the offer is really worth

"The number is important," Marjo Miles, founder and principal consultant at The Ember Effect, told Business Insider. "But really, there’s more than that number."

Employees should check what happens to their stock, paid time off, health coverage, and any bonus or commission due after they leave, Miles said. They should calculate how long the payout would cover household expenses after tax and deductions.

Deborah Saneman, CEO of workforce management and HR technology company Würk, told Business Insider that employees should price out replacement health insurance: how long coverage lasts, what they would pay monthly, and whether the company covers any of the premium.

She also recommended checking which shares would vest after their exit. "The headline number is only part of the picture, so get the details in writing," she said.

Plan for a longer job search

"Whatever somebody thinks their job search is going to take, double it in your mind and plan for that," Miles said.

She suggested using the time before the deadline to explore options. "Instead of deciding today, maybe start your job search today, she said.

Contacting people in their network and applying for roles could give employees a clearer sense of their prospects before they commit to leaving.

Saneman said employees should ask about career coaching, outplacement, or training. "A payout covers your bills, but help with the search itself can shorten the runway," she said.

Consider what staying could look like

Turning down a buyout does not guarantee job security, Miles said, though she cautioned against assuming layoffs will follow. Companies could leave vacant roles unfilled or take other steps to meet a savings goal.

"There are a lot of different ways that organizations can strategically get to their goal without just immediately doing a reduction," she said.

Saneman also cautioned against predicting what Microsoft or any other company might do next. "The benefit of a buyout is that it's on your own terms and gives you time to plan your next steps," she said. "A layoff may not."

Miles suggested asking how departing colleagues' work would be redistributed and what support would be available.

Saneman said employees should consider their longer-term plans: "The right choice is the one that fits where you want your career and your life to go, not just the one that looks best on paper."

Questions to ask before taking a buyout

Business Insider asked Saneman and Miles to share what questions they'd advise employees considering buyouts to ask. Read their four key questions below:

Would I be eligible for rehiring?

"Microsoft is a large organization, and professional paths may cross again in the future," Miles said. That may not make or break the decision, but it is worth knowing.

Will the payout be a lump sum or continued salary?

This can affect when the money arrives and how health insurance and other benefits are handled.

What happens to my bonus or commission?

Employees should check whether they will receive any payment due after their exit date and have the answer documented by HR.

What help will I get finding another job?

Saneman suggested asking about career coaching, interview preparation, and training to build new skills.

• Have an AI agent? Need a hammer? Home Depot is thinking about how to make that palatable for the retailer.
• Angie Brown, the company's CIO, spoke to Business Insider about agents, the PHP cyber scramble, and AI fixes.
• She also talked about Home Depot's involvement in Project Glasswing, which grants access to Anthropic's Mythos Preview.

Home Depot wants to roll out the welcome mat for your AI agent — so long as it's wearing a name tag and acting on your behalf.

During a sit-down interview with Business Insider, Angie Brown, the company's executive vice president and chief information officer, said the retailer wants to support AI agents that can search and buy products on a customer's behalf. But Home Depot needs to be sure of two things first.

"We want to know you're not a bot, and we actually want to know if it's you," she said. "That's something that Muse is working on right now, to self-identify."

Her comments are the latest glimpse into how legacy retailers — and their tech staff — are thinking about the possible next generation of online shopping.

Recently, several Silicon Valley companies have launched consumer-focused AI agents, such as Meta's Muse and Spear Street Technology's Instinct AI. They promise agents capable of scanning the internet, comparing products, filling carts, and buying items with little to no intervention from the person who sent them.

Their rollout has been met with varying levels of resistance and buy-in from online retailers. Amazon barred Muse from shopping on its marketplace, saying the bots didn't properly identify themselves. Several other retailers — including Walmart, Best Buy, Sephora, and Shopify — have announced integrations or openness to AI agents. In October, Meta announced that it co-developed a personal agent protocol with Sierra AI to standardize AI agent identification.

Brown said Home Depot is open to the idea of AI agents, but the retailer doesn't want to lose its connection with loyal customers.

Frequent Home Depot shoppers, such as contractors and remodelers, are part of the company's Pro Rewards platform, where they're eligible for discounts. The retailer doesn't "want to lose contact with the customer," she said.

"That's the next evolution," Brown added, confirming that Home Depot is in active conversations with Meta about how Muse should introduce itself to websites. "There's openness on both sides, because they want it to grow."

Home Depot is already using AI to defend itself

Brown said Home Depot is deploying AI amid a recent wave of cybersecurity worries.

Last week, companies around the world raced to patch critical vulnerabilities in PHP, a programming language used in an estimated 70% of websites. The flaws were discovered with help from OpenAI and prompted US cybersecurity officials to urge affected organizations to update their systems or, in some cases, take them offline.

Brown, whose remit includes Home Depot's cybersecurity, called the hours after the warning a "little hectic," but said the company's main website was not affected.

"We had a couple of operating units — companies we've bought and things like that that are a little bit smaller — that had to plug a few vulnerabilities," she said, including an internal job application system that was taken down "in the middle of the day for about an hour to patch."

Otherwise, she said, the company was largely spared from the sudden tech anxieties.

Home Depot, Brown confirmed to Business Insider, has joined Anthropic's Project Glasswing, an initiative that gives selected companies access to Claude Mythos Preview to help secure critical software. She said the company was not granted access in the project's first wave, "despite our best efforts, and calling a lot of friends." Those slots were largely reserved for banks and cybersecurity firms, not major retailers.

The Anthropic models "found a few things" for Home Depot to fix in its code — but the agents also found a few "false positives," Brown said.

Home Depot, she said, has long ranked cybersecurity vulnerabilities, but AI is leading the company to rethink its desired time to deploy a fix.

"The speed to fix a vulnerability has to be driven down to hours," she said.

• The Fed gets first crack at markets, then Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon will provide AI-trade updates.
• Here's what investors are looking for in each event, and how markets could respond.
• Sign up for First Trade, Business Insider's daily markets newsletter.

Forget a double-header. The market is about to get a quadruple-header that could reset the trajectory of stocks and bonds.

By Thursday night, investors will have heard from the Fed and three of the biggest spenders in the AI trade: Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon.

The throughline will be a familiar one: Can Big Tech keep pouring money into AI infrastructure without breaking investors' faith in the payoff?

Here's a timeline of what investors will be looking for from each event, and how the market could respond:

Wednesday, 2 p.m. ET: Fed decision and Kevin Warsh presser

What investors are looking for: The Fed is widely expected to hold rates steady, so the focus will be on messaging from Chair Kevin Warsh. Will he sound worried about sticky inflation and higher energy prices? Or will he leave the door open to holding off on another hike by the end of the year? The latter would force markets to rethink their expectation of a December hike, which currently stands at about 75%.

Investors should also watch for dissents in favor of a hike, which could reveal just how much appetite remains for further tightening.

How markets could respond: A more hawkish-than-expected Warsh could push Treasury yields higher and make an already-fragile AI trade even wobblier. A patient tone could spark a relief rally, although it would hardly settle the bigger question of whether inflation is cooling.

After Wednesday's close: Alphabet and Microsoft report

Alphabet

What investors are looking for: Growth in the businesses where Alphabet's AI spending should show up most clearly, especially Cloud. They'll also want reassurance that Search growth is holding up as AI agents reshape how people find information online. Finally, investors will want a capex outlook that sounds ambitious without setting off fresh alarm bells about cash flow and financing.

How markets could respond: Strong Cloud growth could support Alphabet's existing role as a high-quality way to own the AI buildout. A spending surge without a matching revenue story could revive capex anxiety not just for Alphabet, but across the broader AI trade.

Microsoft

What investors are looking for: Azure growth and Copilot monetization — once again, the areas most closely tied to whether Microsoft's AI spending is paying off. They'll also want to hear that demand remains strong enough to justify the company's enormous data-center buildout.

How markets could respond: A big Azure beat would likely boost the entire AI trade. Anything that suggests cloud demand is slowing, or capex is outrunning returns, could hit the stocks of Microsoft and its chip-and-data-center peers.

After Thursday's close: Amazon reports

What investors are looking for: AWS growth (since the business is a major recipient of AI spending), guidance on operating margins, and whether CEO Andy Jassy raises the company's roughly $220 billion capex forecast again.

How markets could respond: A strong AWS print could cap the week with a renewed AI vote of confidence. A soft cloud number or another giant spending increase could lead to a flare-up of investor nerves across the AI trade.

By Friday morning, investors should have a much clearer answer to the market's favorite question: Is AI spending still a growth engine, or is it becoming too much of a financing headache?

• Jay-Z will headline the Super Bowl LXI halftime show on Sunday, February 14.
• It will be an amazing show, but there are some others we'd love to see perform in the future.
• We'd love to see Ariana Grande or Miley Cyrus headline the halftime show in 2028 and beyond.

The Super Bowl halftime show is part of the most-watched TV event of the year — it's sometimes viewed more than the game itself.

That's why the choice of performer is important: It's the biggest stage in the country.

For the next Super Bowl, Jay-Z was chosen by, well, himself, to perform at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, home of the Los Angeles Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams. This is amazing news for any fans of the "99 Problems" rapper who missed the "Jay-Z 30" tour, which celebrated the 30th anniversary of his debut album, "Reasonable Doubt," and the 25th anniversary of his landmark album, "The Blueprint."

"From 'Reasonable Doubt' to standing on the Super Bowl halftime stage, this has been a journey," the rapper said in a statement. "Thirty years of music, work, and culture on the world's biggest stage. This run continues to be a dream come true."

Of course, it doesn't hurt that his wife, Beyoncé, might be compelled to join her husband onstage to perform one of their iconic duets.

While next year's show is sure to be iconic, we have some suggestions for performers for the next couple of years, from Stevie Wonder to Olivia Rodrigo.

Ariana Grande has many successful albums, and she always brings the vocals.

Grande has eight albums worth of hits, including "The Way," "Problem," "Thank U Next," "Into You," "Everyday," "Positions," "The Boy Is Mine," "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)," "Hate That I Made You Love Me," plus the entire "Wicked" soundtrack ... the list goes on. Many of her hits include collaborations with other giant stars, like Nicki Minaj, Lizzo, Childish Gambino, Future, Jessie J, Zedd, and Missy Elliot, which would make for a great halftime show.

The Super Bowl halftime show is just the next logical step in her quest for world domination, and we're here for it.

It's surprising that Taylor Swift, arguably the biggest musical artist in the world, has never headlined the halftime show.

Everyone knows Taylor Swift can put on a show, whether you love her or hate her. Just think about the Eras Tour. Imagine that level of production at the Super Bowl.

Swift is also known for her cross-genre music — she could perform songs that appeal to everyone.

And now that she officially owns all her own music and has released a few bonus songs to add to her 12th album, "The Life of a Showgirl," Swift has more content than ever to pull from.

However, she has said that she won't do the Super Bowl while her husband, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, is still playing football, so we might have to wait a couple of years.

We're all still obsessed with Queen, who have been touring with Adam Lambert as the lead singer for more than a decade.

The NFL loves a classic rock performance, as evidenced by past performers such as The Who, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, and more. But Queen, arguably one of the most theatrical rock bands of all time, has never taken the stage.

Lambert toured with Queen for years and even performed with them at the 2019 Oscars, so he is clearly fan-approved as the band's lead singer. Just picture an entire stadium stomping along to "We Will Rock You" — it's a guaranteed good time.

Stevie Wonder shared the stage in 1999, but is long overdue for his own show.

At Super Bowl XXXIII, Stevie Wonder performed with Gloria Estefan and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. But he only got to sing a few songs, and Wonder is an artist with enough No. 1 hits to fill a 20-track album.

The Super Bowl hasn't had a more "classic" headliner since The Who in 2010. Wonder would be a solid return to form.

Pink is famous for her aerial stunts during performances — just picture her hanging from a stadium ceiling.

After her moving performance at the 2018 Grammys, Pink showed that she can do both: serious performances and high-flying spectacles.

Over 20 years after her debut album (and still cranking out hits like "Can We Pretend," "Walk Me Home," and "Never Gonna Not Dance Again"), Pink is more than capable of headlining the halftime show.

Britney Spears appeared alongside Justin Timberlake (in his NSYNC days) in 2001. She should have headlined the show before he did.

In the words of Spears herself, she's "a put-on-a-show kind of girl." One of the most iconic live performances of all time involved Spears and a gigantic python. There's no limit to what she could do on a Super Bowl-sized budget.

Now that she's been released from her restrictive conservatorship, Spears is free to perform (or not!) if she wants to, and there would be no better place than the Super Bowl.

Justin Bieber is firmly back at the top of the charts, so he has both new songs and plenty of hits to pull from.

It's been a good few years for the Biebs. He released two albums ("Swag" and "Swag II") and was announced as one of the headliners of Coachella in 2026. It would've been cool for him to do the Super Bowl show as well, but we predict he'll be releasing hits for years to come.

Besides his jams like "What Do U Mean," "Sorry," "Where Are U Now," "Baby," "Boyfriend," "Daisies," and "Yukon," Bieber also has a solid stable of collaborators he could bring onstage with him — of course, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee for "Despacito," but also Chance the Rapper, Quavo,  DJ Khaled and Lil Wayne for "I'm the One," and "No Brainer," Post Malone for "Forever," The Kid Laroi for "Stay," Daniel Caesar and Giveon for "Peaches," and even Billie Eilish on their version of "Bad Guy."

Miley Cyrus clearly knows how to put on a show.

The "Bangerz" tour will always be famous for one thing: Miley Cyrus entering through a gigantic version of her head and sliding down her tongue.

Cyrus has always known how to get people talking, starting with her pole-dancing at the VMAs during "Party in the USA" and her twerking on Robin Thicke.

After a subdued album, "Younger Now," the wilder side of her is back with a vengeance, with her eye-popping music video for "Mother's Daughter" and the heartbreak bop "Flowers," an ode to being single and loving it.

Her 2020 album "Plastic Hearts" was her first foray into real rock music, and — as we know — there's nothing the NFL loves more than rock 'n' roll. She could even bring out Talking Heads to perform "Psycho Killer," which she covered in 2024.

"Bass Persuades" might not be her strongest work, but as our own Callie Ahlgrim has pointed out, it doesn't matter: "Miley is in a league of her own."

Janet Jackson deserves to make a return.

Janet Jackson will forever be known as the first-ever Super Bowl victim of a wardrobe malfunction. But she's so much more than that: an amazing dancer and a talented vocalist, for starters.

And she's paid for "Nipplegate" ever since, even though it wasn't her fault. According to Rolling Stone, CBS rescinded Jackson's invitation to the Grammys that year, while Timberlake attended ... and even won. (He has since apologized for "falling short" and benefiting "from a system that condones misogyny and racism.")

If we're dreaming big, perhaps Outkast could reunite on the Super Bowl stage.

Outkast consists of two of the greatest rappers of all time, Big Boi and André 3000. Those two provided us with some of the best rap songs (or just songs, in general) of all time, including "Hey Ya!," "Ms. Jackson," "So Fresh, So Clean," "B.O.B.," "Roses," and more.

As the 2022 Super Bowl Halftime Show proved, classic rap and hip hop is becoming just as "classic" as classic rock and inspires the same amount of nostalgia. What would be more fun than seeing Outkast reunite for the first time in over a decade — they last performed together in 2016 — and on the biggest stage of the year?

Being the youngest headliner of the Super Bowl would just be another record for Billie Eilish to break.

Eilish is already the youngest person to win the big four at the Grammys (best new artist, song, record, and album of the year), the youngest person to headline Coachella, the youngest artist to record a theme for a Bond film ... the list goes on.

Bruno Mars is currently the youngest musician ever to do it; he was 28 when he headlined in 2014. Eilish, who's now 24, still has some time to take the record. Perhaps when she releases her highly anticipated fourth album, it'll be time.

Olivia Rodrigo could be another solid Gen Z candidate.

Rodrigo's third album, "You Seem Pretty Sad For a Girl So in Love," just solidified what we already know: Rodrigo is a generational talent and a true rock star.

"Drop Dead," "Stupid Song," "Expectations" (with or without Chappell Roan), "Good 4 U," "Vampire," "Drivers License," and "Get Him Back!" are all bangers that would fill up a stadium.

Harry Styles is a Brit we'd love to see — especially if the Packers are in.

Styles, somewhat inexplicably, is a Green Bay Packers fan and even has the "G" tattooed on his body. That's true dedication.

The former boyband star's "Together, Together" tour is currently burning down Madison Square Garden for a whopping 30 nights spread from August to November.

Besides his own quite expansive solo catalog and demonstrated ability to rock any stadium he's in, imagine the power of a One Direction reunion at the Super Bowl. Chills.

• Morgan Stanley is eyeing an 8% drop in the S&P 500 in the coming months.
• The bank says the sell-off could be sparked by AI fears, midterm elections, and tighter financial conditions.
• Strategists expect the S&P 500 to end the year around 8,000, implying a 12% rally from its bottom.

The stock market may be headed for its worst correction since the Iran war, Morgan Stanley says.

The Wall Street bank is warning of more downside ahead for stocks, with the market set to face a handful of "clearing events" that could pressure equity prices in the coming months, strategists wrote in a client note this week. While the bank sees the S&P 500 ending higher by the end of the year, it floated the possibility that the benchmark index drops as low as 7,100 as equities come under pressure in the near-term.

A drop to that level would implies an 8% decline in the benchmark, marking the worst sell-off since the Iran war led the market to plunge earlier this year.

The bank sees the index ending 2026 at 8,000, a 12% rally once stocks hit a trough.

Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley's chief US equity strategist, said the bank held the view that stocks were in the midst of a monthslong correction that began in June. Though the major indexes have hovered near all-time highs, market breadth has weakened considerably since then, a sign that more stocks in the S&P 500 are struggling, though the tech trade is propping up the market in the aggregate.

Around 84% of S&P 500 stocks are trading 10% below their all-time highs, meaning the majority of the index is already in a correction, according to a recent analysis from The Kobeissi Letter.

"Bottom line: We think the correction that began in June is now in its final stages, with much of the damage already done beneath the surface," Wilson wrote.

The bank said it saw three clearing events that could pressure stocks over the near-term. Here are the obstacles it's eyeing:

1. Concerns related to AI and the cost of capital

The AI trade has struggled recently, thanks to a handful of interlocking concerns held by investors:

• AI spending might slow down. Anthropic's reported third-quarter revenue figures startled investors with a sharp slowdown compared to growth in the previous quarter. Since then, investors have grown concerned that AI capex is running too high, while also worrying about what a slowdown in spending could mean for the broader trade.
• AI financing costs are growing. Credit spreads on data center-related bonds have widened in recent months. The widening reflects multiple factors, like higher borrowing costs, investors perceiving a greater risk to holding AI-related debt, and a sharp increase in the supply of debt being issued recently. All these factors are raising funding costs, which hurts AI firms.
• More AI debt is growing distressed. The health of AI debt is also coming under question. CoreWeave saw its debt slip into distressed territory this month, triggering fears of credit contagion and a broader fallout in the private credit and AI sectors.

These concerns are likely to "come to a head" over the next three to four weeks, Morgan Stanley predicted. Strategists said the recent increase in the supply of debt has been a key headwind for markets, and markets needed time to absorb the new debt issuance.

"We should find support in mid-November, about 10-15% lower," strategists said of the chips sector in particular. "We think that low will coincide with the funding concerns bottoming."

2. The midterm elections

The stretch leading up to the midterm elections is known to be challenging for stocks. In all midterm years since 1974, the S&P 500 has seen a median return of 0% from August 1st through the election day in November, strategists at Goldman Sachs wrote in a note this summer.

Historically, though, stocks have made up for the weakness by seeing strong performance in the months following the election. On average, the S&P 500 has gained 8% in the three months following the midterms, and was up 15% over the next 6-month period, Morgan Stanley said, citing its analysis of stock data from 1950 to 2022.

"Markets also loathe uncertainty and so just having it behind us can provide a positive catalyst in and of itself no matter what the outcome," strategists said of the upcoming elections. "The historical performance of equity markets post-midterms should provide investors with the extra confidence to step in should a quick downdraft arise."

3. Tighter financial conditions

Finally, markets are grappling with tighter financial conditions, which have weighed on risk asset prices. Wilson pointed to factors such as the Fed restarting its rate-hiking cycle in September, declining growth in the Fed's balance sheet, and the broader impact of higher energy prices, which have led yields to spike in the bond market.

Higher yields tighten financial conditions without the Fed needing to raise interest rates, Wilson noted.

"This is the market tightening for the Fed and when combined with the sharp rise in energy prices, this may be enough to slow growth and inflation back to target. However, it could also cause stress in the markets they cannot tolerate which leads to a pivot before the job is complete. That would be asset price bullish in the short term," he added.

Markets are waiting on the Fed to announce its next interest rate decision on Wednesday afternoon. Investors are pricing in a 90% chance the central bank will opt to keep rates steady, though more rate hikes are seen as likely through year-end and early 2027, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

• Nestlé's CEO drinks "at least" eight cups of coffee daily — and downs the first five by 10 a.m.
• Philipp Navratil enjoys his coffee black and cold and has only recently started dabbling in decaf.
• Despite a high caffeine intake, he said he sleeps about eight hours a night and wakes up at 6:30 a.m.

Lots of executives drink coffee. Few drink as much as Nestlé's CEO, Philipp Navratil.

"Before 10, I would have had five cups for sure," the CEO told Business Insider, adding that he typically has "at least" eight cups of coffee every day.

The CEO of the company behind more than 30 billion-dollar brands, including Nespresso and DiGiorno, said he likes his coffee black, cold, and without sugar. Navratil said he considers his go-to drink a "healthy beverage" and has only recently started dabbling in decaf.

Navratil said he starts with drinking water when he wakes up to make sure he's hydrated, and then switches to coffee. Starting his day with coffee is part of his routine, and he really "looks forward to that cup."

Top morning priorities

Navratil said he sleeps well despite his caffeine intake and tries to get eight hours every night, though he admits it doesn't always happen.

The CEO said he typically wakes up around 6:30 a.m. because he works best in the morning. He said he aims to get his most productive hours in before lunch.

"I'm better in the morning," said Navratil, who started working at Nestlé in 2001.

The CEO said he has his final cup of coffee after dinner, and typically drinks an espresso — although that cup might be decaf. Navratil said coffee is more of a "psychological thing" to him, anyway.

"I really enjoy coffee," Navratil said. "I just like the flavor."

• Yolanda Williams, 46, bought 3 acres in Arkansas and moved there with her daughter.
• She invited another single mom she met online to live on the property with her two kids.
• They now share expenses, childcare, and emotional support in what they call a "mommune."

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Yolanda Williams, 46, who lives in central Arkansas with her 9-year-old daughter on a farm with another single mom and her two kids. They help each other with childcare, mental support, and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2021, after my daughter Gia and I got COVID, we decided to take a drive one day. I came across this one little road that I fell in love with.

We kept coming back, driving around this neighborhood in Arkansas, and it became our Sunday thing. We'd get in the car and get ourselves a sweet treat — me a coffee and her a cinnamon roll — and drive around for an hour looking at all the different farms and houses and really just visualizing the life we wanted.

We did that for two years before I found our 3.19-acre land in rural Arkansas. After visiting it, I purchased the land in 2023 on Facebook Marketplace, For-Sale-By-Owner. It cost $40,000 to buy, and I put down $12,000.

It was fully forested raw land, so I could only see part of it, but I used a real estate agent for the process. At the end of 2024, I secured a grant to help pay for the infrastructure, and I spent 2025 getting the land ready to move into. We didn't move until March 2026 because the land needed clearing and practical things such as a driveway and utilities.

The process was expensive because I didn't have much money left to build anything on the land. We got an RV as a place to stay, stash money, and build in the next five years.

Before I'm 50, I would like to have a permanent home built on the land

I'm from Southern California, and when I left in 2017, I was paying $600 to rent a guest room from my friend. Now, I pay $485 for my land mortgage and $400 for my RV payment a month. So, all in all, for me to be on this land, it's around $885 per month. Utilities run about $150 to $200 a month in the summer, and then $100 for water. It's exponentially cheaper to live like this, especially in Arkansas.

Here we have the freedom to roam and to be outside. I'm always in the garden. I've actually lost 30lbs since March because I move so much, and I didn't even realize it. I'm getting a lot more sun and exercise — so is my daughter. I feel more content, I feel more at peace.

However, this move has turned into so much more than that for us. I've been a single mom since my daughter Gia was born. She's 9 now, and I've never truly felt what it's like to have support, to have someone around all the time. By chance, that all changed this year.

I'm not sure who followed who first, but I met a single mom called Sunnie on Threads

She posted on the social media app Threads about wanting to buy land, and I commented back that she should consider Arkansas. I explained to her that land is cheap out here, and I gave her a bunch of information.

A few months later, I randomly saw her posting on Threads that she was in Arkansas with her two kids, who were 11 and 5 years old, looking for land, so I slipped into her DMs, and we exchanged numbers. I texted her to arrange a meet-up and to show her my land. Mind you, this was before I had actually moved onto the property.

The first time we met, we had pizza with the kids. They had a look around, and the kids played really well together. Gia likes the pizza crust but not the actual pizza, and one of Sunnie's kids likes the pizza but not the crust, so it worked out perfectly.

They helped me around the property as I was in the main stretch of getting everything ready for me to move on to. That's when we got to talking about her potentially living here while she searched for her own land.

Sunnie lived in a different city about an hour from me, and she didn't know anyone in Arkansas. I offered her the chance to stay with us to avoid spending money on hotels and Ubers. Although she wanted to buy her own land, I made it clear that she was welcome to stay with me as long as she wanted to. We now split the mortgage and utility costs in half.

That's how our "mommune" started.

Although we didn't know each other for long, I felt a strong connection and vibe

I loved that she was very much like, "I want to put my gloves on, and I want to help you," when it came to laying the foundations around the property, such as weeding, spraying for ticks, building planters, and sowing seeds. Now we garden together and grow as much as we can — like comfrey, lemon balm, mint, and basil. We even make our own fertilizer.

And you know, that's what's missing. A lot of people want this life, but they don't want to actually roll their sleeves up and get dirty to help one another.

Sunnie was essentially a complete stranger. But what I've been trying to do is listen to myself and trust myself. I really felt a great vibe from Sunnie, and my daughter really took to her. We got along, and it just felt right.

Yes, it's hard to build trust because you can't really trust anyone until you start to be around them all the time, but the whole thing with Sunnie is she came, and we sat, and we had a discussion about money and about expectations and about childcare. You just have to be willing to have the hard conversations in order to build a community, and I want to be around people who understand me.

We're now growing food together and raising wildlings.

This is our matriarchal community

What I always try to tell people is we need to decenter and deprioritize romantic relationships and just focus on relationships in general, whatever that support looks like.

Whether that's friendship or family, focus on building that community, and we will get the support we're looking for, but if you're only focused on needing a man or a husband or partner to have security to feel supported, then a lot of people will miss out on invaluable support with friends or other women.

For example, I was having a really hard time this Mother's Day — it's just a hard day for me. Sunnie saw that I wasn't in a good space, so she took the kids and left so I could get some alone time. Having that support and knowing that I can say "hey, I'm having a hard time with motherhood right now" and someone will not only understand but will help me through that by watching my kid for me, taking her to the park, or giving me some space — it has been life-changing. It's the support that I need.

We really just help each other out. When I have to leave and go somewhere, I'll ask her to come inside the RV or to watch Gia play outside, and she does. Vice versa — if she needs me to watch her children, it's really not a big deal. We just ask each other for favors like: "If you're out at the store, can you get me this?"

We communicate really well with each other, and we help each other out any way we need to, and that includes having dinner together sometimes, watching TV together, and I will let her kids come over here so she can have a break and be able to be in her RV by herself, or we'll go to the park so she can be by herself sometimes.

Ever since I met Sunnie, I can just tell there's a change in my nervous system. Having someone here means I can tap out. I'm 46 this year, and I wouldn't trade this mommune we've built for the world.

• Gary Brecka is a biologist who worked on predicting mortality for insurance companies.
• He's 56 and hopes to live to 120.
• He's purchased hyperbaric chambers and red light beds, but says sleep and community are more important.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gary Brecka, co-founder of Ultimate Longevity Center. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a biologist, and for years, I worked helping insurance companies try to predict exactly when their customers might die. I also expect to live to 120 — and I'm only 56 today.

Everyone on earth has a predicted life expectancy, based on large-scale data. When I worked for insurance companies, I used their data to analyze the specific factors that affected individual life expectancy.

What I found surprised me. For example, high blood pressure wasn't always associated with increased mortality. A lot of data from insurance companies ran counter to mainstream medical dogma.

My work was sometimes grim. One day, I found a potentially deadly medical error in a patient's chart, but I had no means to tell her. That was the day I decided I wanted to stop working to predict death and start helping people live longer, happier, healthier lives.

Skip the diets and cleanses, but move daily

A lot of longevity work isn't flashy. It's about the same healthy habits that we all know we should practice. If you show me someone's daily habits, I'll show you where they'll be in three to five years.

There's no evidence for dogmatic dieting, whether that's following keto, carnivore, or any other dietary trend. What extends life is the absence of processed foods. Likewise, you don't need to cleanse: if you're peeing, pooping, and sweating, you're already living a detox lifestyle.

Unsurprisingly, exercise is critically important. I know from working in insurance that a sedentary lifestyle is one of the biggest risk factors for death: sitting is the new smoking. Daily mobility is non-negotiable for me — I block off time for it on my calendar daily.

Put sleep on the calendar and don't use your phone in bed

Sleep is one of the most critical aspects of longevity. It's our human superpower, the time when our brains clear waste and form memories. And yet, sleep is the most bullied part of most people's calendar. It happens only after everything else is done.

I take the opposite approach: sleep is the first thing I put on my calendar. I am meticulous about keeping a solid sleep schedule, and I make my bedroom a sanctuary. To get good sleep — and all the health benefits that come with it — your nervous system needs to be regulated and relaxed.

I bring my phone into the bedroom, but put it on airplane mode. I don't scroll, watch TV, send work emails, or do anything else that could put my nervous system on high alert.

Build community around healthy habits

How often have we heard a story about spouses who have been married for decades, dying in quick succession? That's because relationships are critical to longevity — and they're something money can't buy. Your community and connections have a huge impact not only on your lifespan but also on your health span.

My kids range in age between 18 and 28, spanning all of Gen Z. Their peers are realizing how important community is. Run clubs are becoming more popular among that demographic. It's not just about physical health — anyone can lace up their sneakers and run a 5K — but about the community building that takes place before and after exercise.

We should all take a page from their books. Building social space with like-minded people who share your passions and purpose will help you live longer.

I've spent big on health technologies

The basic tenets of longevity — sleep, community, exercise, and unprocessed foods — will allow me to live a happy, healthy life. And they don't come with an unattainable price tag.

Because I have the means, I also use expensive technologies that can further support my health. I've spent well into seven figures on health technology, including saunas, cold plunges, red light beds, and hyperbaric chambers at my two houses.

I'd rather have a hyperbaric chamber than a Ferrari, and a red-light bed than a Rolex. But I also know that you can't skip the basics of healthy living, no matter what cutting-edge technology you have access to.

• A startup founder said that leaner teams may not be the right approach for every company in the AI era.
• Chatbase CEO Yasser Elsaid said he plans to double his 40-person team within six months.
• AI models are "extremely smart and capable, but not fully independent," he told Business Insider.

As some companies race to use AI to shrink their teams, one startup founder is going against the grain by planning to hire more people.

Yasser Elsaid, the founder of customer-service AI startup Chatbase, said the company now has 40 employees and plans to double its team over the next six months.

"I might have been wrong about building with a lean team in the age of AI," Elsaid wrote in a post on X this month.

Elsaid previously embraced smaller teams. In a LinkedIn post in January, he said Chatbase, a San Francisco-based startup that lets companies build AI agents for customer service and support, had stayed at 17 full-time employees for much of its first three years, with most hires in engineering.

However, in comments sent to Business Insider, Elsaid said that he now considers his bet on lean teams "pretty wrong."

"I think it's a big mistake for founders to live in a future that doesn't exist yet," he said.

Elsaid said that more capable coding models, including Anthropic's latest Claude model Opus 5.5, initially made him think Chatbase could get by with fewer people.

But Elsaid said that this conclusion only holds if a startup keeps the same roadmap it had before AI. Rather than accept that code had become a commodity, he decided Chatbase should set its sights higher.

"If building is easier, build harder things," he said. "Most moats in software come from someone doing something hard for longer, and being right. That hasn't gone away."

'Not fully independent'

That view runs counter to a broader push toward AI-powered lean teams.

Block cut nearly half its workforce in February, with CEO Jack Dorsey saying AI and "smaller and flatter teams" were changing how companies are built.

Coinbase, meanwhile, cut 14% of staff in May, citing engineers' ability to ship in days what once took teams weeks; it is now testing smaller AI-native pods and "one person teams."

The same logic has powered the "tiny teams" startup trend: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has predicted a one-person billion-dollar company, while Cursor grew from $1 million to $100 million in annual recurring revenue in under a year with fewer than 50 employees, according to private market research platform Sacra.

But Elsaid said the best models are not yet independent enough to replace people. They still need humans to decide what to build, give them direction, and make sure the result works for customers, he said.

"Code is largely right or wrong: it does what you want or it doesn't," Elsaid said. "But what to build, how it should work and what the experience should feel like is what makes your product different."

He estimated that about 90% of Chatbase engineers' work is now product work: researching, talking to customers, forming an opinion, and turning that into a specification an agent can code.

The rest requires engineers who can understand the code and make sure different AI agents are not working against each other, he said.

Chatbase is also hiring customer-facing staff, particularly in sales and customer success, he said, because enterprise customers still need to be heard and persuaded.

The models are "extremely smart and capable, but not fully independent," he added. "Maybe that changes and one day you won't need humans in the building process at all. But that isn't today."

Amazon warehouse workers used to spend much of their days walking, pushing carts through long aisles to manually retrieve customer orders from shelves.

Today, hundreds of "Hercules" robots do this instead, carrying towering yellow storage pods filled with inventory to employee workstations.

"I'd walk like 10 miles a day on average," said Mohammed Khan, who started as an entry-level picker 12 years ago and is now a senior manager at an Amazon warehouse in Tracy, California.

Amazon's robots "cut down all that walking time," he told Business Insider during a recent tour of the facility.

This site is ground zero for a wave of automation that's beginning to wash over the industry. The warehouse and logistics sectors have been powerful sources of job growth since Amazon kicked off the e-commerce revolution 30 years ago, as Business Insider's award-winning Warehouse Nation series revealed in 2022.

If robots automate many warehouse tasks, this powerful engine of job growth could grind to a halt, wiping out thousands of positions and countless opportunities for future workers.

Amazon says employees are being retrained to do more valuable work, such as managing and maintaining robots. Will these new jobs be enough to cover what might be lost? Or could we actually end up with more or better jobs?

Business Insider went looking for answers inside the giant facility in Tracy, a city in California's Central Valley where suburban neighborhoods give way to open farmland.

"Autonomous to an extent"

Across 1.4 million square feet — the equivalent of 23 football fields — robots with names like Hercules, Robin, Cardinal, Pegasus, and Proteus move inventory and sort packages. But they don't run the warehouse alone. Human workers still pick and pack orders, load trucks, and intervene when automated systems fail.

Jobs have not disappeared, but they're changing. Machines increasingly handle work that once required employees to walk miles and lift boxes, while workers monitor and troubleshoot them. The Tracy site employs more than 3,000, up from roughly 1,000 when it opened in 2023, an Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider.

"They're autonomous to an extent," Khan said of his robot counterparts. "They still need a lot of help and maintenance and oversight."

An Amazon spokesperson said rising customer demand drove the facility's workforce growth and that robots help workers process more packages safely and efficiently rather than simply replacing them.

Amazon's more automated, next-generation fulfillment centers are about 25% more productive and cut order-processing time by as much as 25%. And these sites support roughly 30% more skilled jobs in areas including reliability, maintenance, and engineering.

The "Quarterback" watches robots

One of the workers now doing that kind of job is Briana Brager.

She joined Amazon about two years ago as an entry-level employee after spending years caring for her family. She had no prior experience in a traditional workplace.

Today, she's a process assistant who helps oversee the warehouse's robotic systems. When a chute jams or a robot stops working, she coordinates the response to keep packages moving.

"The robots do a lot, but we still have to maintain them," she said.

Brager began as a picker before moving into a specialized role supporting robotic-floor operations. She got two weeks of intensive training, followed by additional job shadowing, to learn how to work safely around the equipment. Her current job is less physically demanding than her previous one, she said.

Her role is informally known as the "quarterback" position. She monitors fleets of robots and dispatches employees when a machine needs intervention.

"We call the shots," Brager said.

Meet Robin

At the Tracy warehouse, humans and robots move orders together from storage to the loading dock. Employees stow individual items in fabric inventory pods, which Hercules robots carry to pick stations. Workers retrieve the items, then pack and label them.

Robin, a large robotic arm, picks finished packages off a conveyor and places them on small Pegasus mobile robots. Pegasus carries the packages to staging areas alongside other orders headed to the same destination. Cardinal then loads the sorted orders into carts, and Proteus ferries the carts toward outbound trucks.

Khan, the warehouse manager, said workers performed Robin's task manually until a few years ago. They handled packages one at a time, checked them for damage, scanned them, and fed them into the sorting system. He estimated that one Robin can perform roughly the work of two to seven people doing that process manually.

Amazon said that when it introduces systems such as Robin, employees take on other work at the site, including operating robots, clearing jams, monitoring the robotic floor and quality control, and maintenance engineering.

Robots move the carts, too

Proteus offers a clear example of how these new warehouse jobs are taking shape. Amazon brought the robots to Tracy last year.

Unlike Hercules, which operates in fenced-off areas, Proteus can move through spaces shared with people. There are roughly 200 of the robots at the Tracy facility, Amazon said.

Before Proteus arrived, workers manually pushed carts filled with packages to the loading dock. Now the robots pick up full carts, carry them to staging areas near the dock, and retrieve empty carts for the return trip.

Some employees who once moved those carts now work as "ground-floor monitors," Amazon said. Instead of spending their shifts moving packages, they respond when a Proteus reports a fault. If the problem is simple, they can reset the robot; otherwise, human maintenance staff take over.

Some workers trained in these jobs have gone on to Amazon's mechatronics apprenticeship program, which can lead to more technical maintenance work.

When automation hits the "jackpot"

For all the robots moving through the Tracy warehouse, people remain essential when automation breaks down.

Amazon calls one such destination the "jackpot." When an item loses its routing information while moving through the facility, the automated system sends it to this area, which works a bit like a lost-and-found for packages.

Here, a human worker must determine where the wayward package belongs and return it to the correct flow. "It will require manual intervention," an Amazon representative said.

Other situations require human judgment, too. Products can fall from storage pods and inventory can be damaged or mislabeled. Packing individual products into boxes and loading them onto delivery vehicles are tasks that also remain heavily dependent on people.

This helps explain why even a highly automated Amazon warehouse still employs thousands of workers. The company said it needs people for new packing stations as well as roles across the facility that keep operations running safely and efficiently.

Current and future Tetris

By the time packages get to the loading dock at the Tracy facility, the robots are gone. At least for now.

A person loads each trailer. Amazon uses equipment that extends into the trailer and adjusts to a worker's height, reducing bending and back-and-forth walking. But workers still arrange the packages themselves, trying to fill the trailer to use as much of the space as possible.

"It's a lot of Tetris," one Amazon representative said.

Amazon is already exploring how to automate this task, though. As Business Insider previously reported, Project Tetromino aims to use AI and robotics to automate sorting and vehicle loading at delivery stations, where the work has long remained stubbornly manual.

But that vision remains a work in progress. Amazon's machines can carry shelves, sort packages, stack boxes, and move carts around people. Workers still pack orders, load trailers, perform quality checks, handle hiccups and exceptions, and keep the machines running when they fail.

For Amazon, the immediate payoff is not necessarily a warehouse with fewer people, but one where the same workforce can accomplish more. Tracy employs roughly the same number of people as a nearby Amazon facility with fewer robots, company officials said, but the Tracy location processes more volume.

Khan compared the technology to something far less futuristic: a calculator.

The robots streamline work that once consumed employees' time without necessarily eliminating the work itself, he said. "It's not that the amount of work has changed," he said. "It's how we approach it."

Asked whether robots could eventually replace more jobs, including his own, Khan did not try to predict the future.

"Who knows? That's not in our purview right now," he said. "But I would say roles are evolving, and that's the cool aspect about it."

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at ekim@businessinsider.com or Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 650-942-3061. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

HOA president was not on the list of titles Lana Martin ever planned to hold, but it's one that's befallen her.

Martin bought a townhouse in a 13-unit complex in Los Angeles in 2022. She quickly realized that the leaders of her homeowners association were ignoring a number of unaddressed issues, including a leaky decades-old roof that was flooding her neighbors' living rooms. Martin, who works for the California state government, decided to join her complex's three-person board to help out.

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

The other two board members aren't very involved, so "everything falls on me," Martin says. She handles vendor calls, fields resident complaints, and babysits a low-budget property manager. Residents raised hell about the roof replacement project — they didn't want to stomach the roughly $160,000 cost that meant a painful $13,000 assessment for each unit. Some of them accused the HOA board and management company of acting illegally and threatened to lawyer up. Martin has had to block some of her neighbors' phone numbers.

"They wanted to second guess everything, Monday-morning quarterback everything, rather than just become involved," Martin says.

The reluctance to participate is understandable. It's also part of what's left Martin holding the bag.

HOAs are easy to hate. They are private mini-governments made up of non-expert volunteers who happen to live in proximity with one another. Across the country, millions of Americans have bought into condos, co-ops, and subdivisions governed by these associations, tethering their largest financial asset to an amateur bureaucracy. Most HOA stories are told from the outside looking in: a beleaguered resident hit with a ridiculous fine over a rogue garden hose or an overgrown lawn. Talk to the people who've ventured into the belly of the beast, and the picture gets gnarlier: You give up a ton of time, don't get paid, and everybody's always a bit mad at you.

And yet, HOA setups are growing. There were 373,000 community associations in the US in 2025, covering 29.6 million housing units and 78.1 million residents. By comparison, there were 222,500 in 2000. These entities collected $124.2 billion in assessments last year — about 1.5 times New York City's total tax revenue for the same year. You can see why things get so heated, and not just about money.

"HOAs are the ultimate pressure cooker environment for human interactions," says A.J. Steigman, a Florida real estate investor who currently sits on two boards. "You can cure cancer, you can pave the place in gold, you can even lower the HOA fees, and yet you're still going to have some elderly couple constantly complain about their flower patch."

Why would anyone in their right mind raise their hand for this?

HOAs typically attract two distinct archetypes, says Evan McKenzie, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Chicago and author of "Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government." On one side are the reluctant pragmatists — people who step up out of civic duty or sheer self-defense. On the other are what McKenzie calls the "condo commando" types who have some pretty strict ideas about how the people next door ought to live. For them, the board is a badge of domestic authority. Once they wind up in the same room, these groups inevitably clash — or, perhaps even worse, they run up against the paralyzing apathy of everyone else.

The paradox of HOA leadership is that the moment an owner displays basic competence, the rest of the community often abdicates. That's how James, a product designer in LA, landed in his current situation. He asked me to withhold his last name in order to protect his privacy — and keep from ruffling feathers among his neighbors.

Back in 2021, a couple of people in his complex asked him to help out since he works from home and could keep an eye on things. He officially joined the board in 2023 and now acts as an unwitting customer service desk. Residents email the board about petty issues like intercom numbers and rat spottings. One recent Friday night, someone emailed to report a gas leak. "It's like, you need to call 911," James says.

He can't walk around his residence without risking someone coming up to him to pitch an idea or air a grievance. "You're never really off the clock," he says. He wishes he could quit, but no one else will step up.

Olivia Horbowy's story is one of self-preservation. When she bought an older top-floor condo in LA in 2024, the concept of an HOA was quite foreign to her. There were signs something might be amiss when she informed the building's then-leadership of her renovation plans for her new place — demands for extra documentation, a denied in-unit washer-dryer — but she brushed them off. She is an attorney, after all. But after moving into the space in the spring of 2025, she received notice of $15,200 in surprise accumulated fines related to the remodel. "They were convinced they were above the law and could make any decision they wanted," she says. After some legal back-and-forth, she didn't wind up paying.

As a result of the incident, Horbowy also decided to run for the five-person board herself. Victory wasn't entirely sweet, because of one preexisting board member's reaction. In emails, the aggrieved veteran referred to one member as a "kiss ass minion," accused the board president of taking bribes, and called Horbowy a "Russian whore." (She's Polish.) That member eventually resigned.

What makes HOAs and condo boards different from, for example, a corporate board is the question of interest, explains Nadav Shoked, a law professor at Northwestern. In HOA boards, the directors and the people affected by the decisions are often one and the same — and their neighbors. While they all have a common interest — the property — they often have interests that conflict.

HOA boards contend with all sorts of fault lines. Older residents on fixed incomes tend to prioritize keeping monthly fees lower, while younger families lean toward upping fees for more amenities and construction projects. In situations where some owners live in their residences and others rent them out, boards wind up with a triangle of interests: Landlords want low costs and easy rental terms, full-time residents prioritize day-to-day quality of life, and renters wade through all of it without having a say.

These disconnects are why routine governance so frequently devolves into absurdity.

Andrew Simkovsky just wanted an investment property when he bought a condo in South Florida in 2024, but he wound up orchestrating a "hostile takeover" of the board amid concerns over their stewardship of said investment. He's since worked to rebuild the condo's finances and reestablish a budget. Still, the one thing that's surprised him is the hullabaloo over pets. The building's original bylaws from the 1970s officially barred them. In the '80s, there was an amendment allowing pets for owners but not renters, but over the decades, both groups had brought them in. The association's attorney advised them that enforcing the pet ban for tenants could be legally problematic, so Simkovsky decided to bring the building into the 21st century by officially allowing dogs and cats of up to 50 pounds for owners and instituting rules around leashes and cleanup that hadn't previously been in place. (Renters are still technically not allowed to have pets, but the board doesn't enforce that.) Purist residents revolted and wanted pets out. "My response to them was, they're already here, should I evict them?" he says.

Alice Young, a retiree in suburban Chicago, says she's fine to serve on her board as long as it doesn't cut into her pickleball time, even though "everything takes so goldarn long to resolve." Among the lengthy items on her agenda are finding a new property management company and convincing a fellow board member to personally confirm a single extension cord has been removed from the basement in order to close out another board member's violation.

The true crisis inside the HOA machine is money. Many boards have kept dues artificially low for decades in order to appease residents and put off pricey updates. Now, aging housing stock is colliding with surging insurance premiums, stricter reserve laws, and tighter safety regulations, and the bill is coming due.

Florida is an especially stark example. It has the second-most community associations of any state, behind only California, with 50,600 such groups covering 4.5 million housing units and 10.9 million residents. Neighbors who live under Florida HOAs kick in over $20 billion to their associations annually. A 2023 Florida Senate analysis found that 912,000 of the state's 1.5 million condo units were at least 30 years old. After the 2021 collapse of the Surfside condominiums that left 98 people dead, the state required qualifying buildings to undergo "milestone" structural inspections after a certain age and changed the rules so owners can't simply vote to underfund reserves for major structural repairs. In 2024, Redfin found double-digit annual increases in condo dues in Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach.

This creates a brutal fiduciary burden. When Paul Vesely joined the board for his Florida second-home condo in 2009, the complex's on-site managers warned him against commissioning an engineering inspection, because "they might find something." The association has since taken out over $2 million in loans to pay for various updates and renovations, which translates to thousands of dollars a year for each unit. One owner, who has cancer, is currently delinquent on her payments, and the board will send her to collections if she doesn't pay. "As badly as we may feel about a certain individual, we have to be consistent," he says.

Not everyone shares the same economic clock. Bill Masterson recalls attending a condo meeting in Chicago years ago in which an elderly man pushed back against a $225,000 assessment to put in a parking lot. "Why can't you wait until I die?" the man asked. The board went ahead anyway, and the man lived for another several years. "People of a certain age, even though they may not be financially insecure, they worry about, will the money run out in my lifetime?" he says.

Masterson swore off condo boards when he moved from Chicago to Florida in 2016 and then signed right back up. He admits he's a stickler for the rules, but he's also aware of how silly disputes can break down relationships. One of his neighbors doesn't speak to him because of a long-past disagreement over a speed bump.

"That's OK, because the work gets done," he says. "You never know in a given moment what pressure people are under."

Lana Martin, back in LA, says contending with everything has been a "wild ride." She spoke to me the day roof construction on her complex had finally begun. She's relieved, but there's more work to be done. Next up: writing up a towing policy. "People won't voluntarily just agree, 'Oh yeah, I shouldn't block driveways,'" she says.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• South Korea's AI trade is roaring back after a bruising sell-off sent chip stocks tumbling.
• SK Hynix's quarterly operating profit surged 632%, smashing expectations as AI chip demand soared.
• The chipmaker is rewarding shareholders with massive payouts as customers lock in years of supply.

South Korea's AI trade got another boost from blockbuster SK Hynix earnings, as the chipmaker showed just how profitable the boom has become.

On Wednesday, the benchmark Kospi index closed 7% higher, extending Tuesday's gains of more than 3%. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix ended 9% and 11% higher, respectively.

The rebound follows a turbulent year for South Korean stocks, which have swung sharply amid the AI boom and concerns about the sustainability of massive infrastructure spending. As of Tuesday's close, SK Hynix shares had lost more than half their value since a June record high and were down nearly 25% this month.

Sentiment has rebounded this week, helped by Anthropic's blockbuster IPO filing and a renewed rally in US technology shares.

SK Hynix's latest results gave investors another reason for optimism.

The world's second-largest memory chipmaker reported third-quarter operating profit of 83.3 trillion won, or $62 billion, up 632% from a year earlier. Revenue rose 328% to a record 104.6 trillion won.

The record results were driven by surging demand for AI memory chips, including high-bandwidth memory used in AI infrastructure, and rising memory prices.

That windfall is increasingly making its way to shareholders.

SK Hynix announced additional shareholder returns, bringing its planned dividends and share buybacks for this year to approximately 100 trillion won, or $75 billion. The total includes buybacks announced earlier, while some of the returns are being funded by gains from its investment in Japanese chipmaker Kioxia.

The company is also seeing signs that the demand driving its record profits could endure.

SK Hynix said it had secured long-term agreements with 14 major customers, including global cloud providers, covering more than half its production capacity for 2027 and 2028.

"The customer trust built through our technological competitiveness is leading to long-term contracts, and our business structure is transforming into one with earnings stability and mid-to-long term demand visibility," CEO Kwak Noh-Jung said in the company's earnings announcement.

Investors will get further insight into the strength of the memory-chip market in the coming days, with Samsung Electronics scheduled to report its full third-quarter results on Thursday, followed by Japan's Kioxia on Friday and China's CXMT on Saturday.

• Noah Wyle became a household name in his 20s thanks to "ER."
• But a big house and the trappings of success did not always add up to a fuller life, he said.
• These days, he says meaningful work and family life matter most to him.

Noah Wyle, 55, says his early success made him rethink what a fulfilling life looks like.

Speaking to Amy Poehler on Tuesday's episode of the "Good Hang" podcast, the newly named Sexiest Man Alive said his family taught him to use the opportunities he's had to help others and to be content with what he already has.

Wyle said that lesson stuck with him as his career took off, thanks to his role on "ER."

"I had this wonderful, huge career in my 20s when I got all the big toys, the big house. I got to see what my grandfather said was true," Wyle said. "You can only be in one room at a time. And sometimes the bigger the space, the lonelier the space."

Wyle said that realization has reshaped what he sees as worth pursuing.

"So, I've been on my own journey of defining what is enough and what makes me happy, and I've gotten to a place where it really is defined by meaningful work and meaningful family life," Wyle said. "The Pitt" star has three children from two marriages.

He said feeling fulfilled in his own life has given him room to give back and use the platform that comes with his fame to speak up about issues he cares about.

Wyle has been lending his time to a range of causes this year, including efforts to support healthcare workers and bring more film and TV jobs back to Los Angeles.

"I'm allowed to be philanthropic and feel magnanimous because my cup is full, which is a lovely thing to be able to say," Wyle said.

Other stars have similarly spoken about how getting older has changed the way they define a good life.

Kate Winslet has said that turning 50 changed how she viewed success.

"Success, actually, for me more these days is more about pulling it off, being a decent person. You know, being able to take care of people, having time for friends, also learning how to be OK with not being busy all the time," she said in a Newsweek interview in December.

Jodie Foster has said turning 60 freed her from trying to compete with her younger self.

"Everything changed. I was like, 'Yeah, I don't care. I'm no longer tortured by any of this. I don't know why I seemed to care so much,'" Foster said in a December interview with AARP.

• The Cheesecake Factory served up some sweet sales numbers in an earnings call Tuesday.
• The chain had a lot on its plate: It's been at the center of a presidential feud for days.
• The Cheesecake Factory has yet to comment on the Obama-Trump food fight.

The Cheesecake Factory's moment in the spotlight just got a little sweeter.

The California-based restaurant chain reported solid third-quarter earnings on Tuesday, a few days after getting dragged into a political feud that's become bigger than its famously large portion sizes.

It all started after former president Barack Obama stirred the pot on Saturday when he compared President Donald Trump's White House renovations to Saddam Hussein's take on a Cheesecake Factory, prompting Republicans to seize on the comments and defend the chain.

Amid the firestorm, The Cheesecake Factory reported quarterly revenue of $1.03 billion, up nearly 14% year-over-year, while comparable sales at its restaurants rose over 15% year-over-year.

CEO David Overton credited the chain's new menu items, rewards program, and social media engagement for the growth in sales.

"The Cheesecake Factory has long enjoyed tremendous brand affinity across generations, and its ability to attract younger guests reinforces the enduring appeal and relevance of our namesake concept," Overton said.

Executives did not address the feud during the earnings call Tuesday, and the company has not publicly commented on it.

The company's fiscal third quarter ended September 29, before Obama's comment, so any potential boost the chain gets from the current headlines may be icing on the cake.

Thanks, Obama

The food fight started after Obama invoked The Cheesecake Factory while mocking Trump at a campaign rally in Cleveland on Saturday.

"He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. There's gold everywhere," Obama told the crowd, referring to the gold accents and furnishings Trump has added to the Oval Office. "He's clearly not focused on lowering prices for you."

The White House seized on the comment, while Republican commentators said it showed Obama was an elitist who's out of touch with most Americans.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent visited a Cheesecake Factory for lunch on Monday and said he got his usual: the French dip cheeseburger.

"I would tell the Martha's Vineyard set to give it a try," Bessent told Fox Business. He also took a jab at Obama's taste in design, comparing his newly opened presidential library to "Darth Vader's tomb."

Trump, of course, got a piece of the pie as well.

"The White House is now in the best shape it's been since 1792 when it was built," Trump told reporters on Monday, sprinkling in a direct message for Obama: "For you to say it's The Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president."

Only time will tell if Obama and Trump go back in for seconds.

There are a couple of key things to remember to do this week: put a bowl of candy out for trick-or-treaters on Saturday, turn your clocks back on Sunday, and cancel your streaming subscriptions.

Each year, some of the best Black Friday deals come from the best streaming services, which often offer major discounts on several months of service, sometimes reaching up to a full year of savings. However, most deals are available only to "new" and "eligible returning" customers.

While each streaming platform has its own definition of "returning customer," this term almost always precludes existing users. This means that, if on Black Friday you see a deal for a service you're already subscribed to, you likely won't be able to get the discount, even if you cancel your subscription right then and try to sign up for it — you'll still end up paying full price.

While there's no single timeframe that applies to all streaming services, we've found in our combined years of experience covering Black Friday streaming deals that you'll often need to make sure you haven't been subscribed to a service for at least a month. With Black Friday on November 27, 2026, now is the time to cancel to maximize your chances of being eligible for the deals.

When it comes to which services you should cancel, that's entirely up to you. If you're in the middle of binge-watching "House of the Dragon" or "Lanterns," it might be worth hanging onto HBO Max, even if it means missing out on a potential deal. That said, if you feel like you could go without Paramount Plus for 30 days, it's not a bad idea to ditch your subscription right now.

We don't know which streaming services might be participating in Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, but we can offer some historical context. We typically see a deal from Disney Plus, usually involving the Hulu bundles. Paramount Plus and HBO Max are also frequent participants, and last year Apple TV even got in on the action with a special offer. Starz and FOX One also offered limited-time deals last year.

Netflix has traditionally not participated in Black Friday deals, and Peacock didn't have a deal last year, despite running Black Friday sales in prior years.

While there might be other workarounds, like using a different email or another credit card, canceling now is an easy way to keep things simple and boost your chances of accessing major streaming deals. Just keep in mind that for select bundle offers, like Disney Plus and Hulu, having a paid account with the ESPN streaming service often counts as being an existing customer since all of these platforms use the same MyDisney login.

We know this gets a little tedious, and eligibility ultimately comes down to what's in the fine print when a deal actually launches, but if nothing else, ditching your streaming subscriptions will help you save a little bit of money for at least a month. One of the best ways to save on streaming is to cut out services you're not actively using. Canceling multiple services at the same time is a solid way to eliminate subscription waste and see what you can do without.

If you can't wait for Black Friday, we've rounded up the best streaming deals and bundles currently available.

As an iOS user myself, it's hard to argue with how easily all of Apple's devices sync together. Even if I don't care about flashy brand loyalty, it's no coincidence that so much of my tech is from the manufacturer. Of course, that means my Bluetooth tracker of choice is the AirTag, the 2nd gen of which is now 21% off, an incredible price for a single tag.

It's a great deal, not just because it's the lowest price of the season, which it definitely is. What makes this such a good offer it's rare to find a single AirTag for so cheap. Usually, deals featuring the Apple trackers come in a minimum of four, which is great for folks getting started or distributing them as gifts, but frankly, unnecessary if you only need one.

Why you'll love the Apple AirTag 2nd Gen

You've got a lot of choices when it comes to Bluetooth trackers, especially if you're looking for something more budget-friendly. Regardless, I always recommend Apple's latest AirTag for iPhone users because it's so easy to use — especially if you're familiar with iOS features like Find My. Using the app, you can see your AirTag's last known location, and anyone who finds it can use a smartphone to obtain your contact information via NFC.

Those features aren't new, but what is new in the latest generation is Precision Finding, which provides on-screen directions to your lost item on your iPhone. It also has a farther range, a louder built-in speaker, and can even work with compatible Apple Watches.

I lose my personal belongings all the time, so I keep an AirTag in a pleather fish charm on my keys and luggage when I'm traveling. My small dog also sports one in a handy collar that keeps it close (and is the best I've found at preventing it from falling out during play). While I've never had to use it to find her myself, my family members have located lost dogs enough times with their AirTags for me to know it'll come in clutch if the time ever comes. After years of owning them, as is apparent from the scratches in my photos, I've found they're a no-fuss addition that can only help in your time of need.

Check out the latest Apple smartphone in my iPhone 18 Pro review.

Follow our WhatsApp channel and Instagram for more deals and buying guides.

• Leaders from Citadel, Bridgewater Associates, and Man Group spoke Tuesday about how their firms use AI.
• The executives said that security concerns and other risks limit the autonomy they give agents.
• They agreed that AI alone is not an investing edge: "at the end of the day, markets are human-driven."

Some Citadel investing teams have built AI agent clones of themselves that can do independent research. Bridgewater's cutting-edge AIA Labs is "imbuing" the rest of the organization with research and processes it's perfected. Man Group's trying to let its people "do more of the fun stuff" and less of the grunt work.

Executives from the three investing giants spent plenty of time on Tuesday at a New York conference hosted by Bloomberg discussing how their firms have developed top-notch AI processes and found time-saving use cases.

But none were ready to turn over their organizations completely to the machines and don't expect to anytime soon, if ever.

For one, there are concerns about letting agents run wild outside a firm's four walls.

It's an "unsolved problem" that agents can't be trusted not to put "Bridgewater at risk," said Aaron Linksy, a partner at the Connecticut-based hedge fund who was part of the founding AIA team. Citadel also spends a lot of time making sure the "sandbox" for agents doesn't allow them to leave, Andrew Janian, who rejoined this year as the organization's interim chief technology officer.

Beyond security and regulatory risks posed by a rogue agent, the speakers also made it clear that AI alone is not an edge in investing.

Janian said fundamental investing teams, which have AI sidekicks, should use the technology to help prep for meetings or to challenge their ideas, not to write their investment theses. Man Group chief investment officer Greg Bond lamented the "cognitive surrender" of people who turn their entire work over to the technology and go on autopilot.

He spoke about how he wishes PowerPoint presentations would go by the wayside and meetings would be more about "getting everyone in a room and talking."

"Let's go back to human interaction," said Bond, who was once the head of one of Man Group's quant units.

"Humans are designing these systems, and, at the end of the day, markets are human-driven," he said.

• Apple's new iPhone Duo is inspiring viral internet memes.
• Social media is buzzing about cracked screens and doomscrolling potential.
• Here are some of the most creative memes about Apple's latest creation.

Apple's long-awaited iPhone Duo is here, and while a folding phone is nothing new, it's the company's first, and it has a waitlist a mile long.

However, Apple diehards with Duo already in hand are reporting issues with the folding screen, and some have posted about their buyer's remorse online.

The cracking screen

Early owners have reported cracks along the Duo's center fold, sometimes accompanied by a bright line of stuck pixels across one side of the inner display. Apple said the issue affects a "small number" of units and directed affected customers to AppleCare for replacements.

The reports have also generated crack-themed jokes and wallpapers online — though some widely shared images of damaged Duo screens have been altered or AI-generated.

One X account made a wallpaper for those who could not afford the Duo but would like to experience the crack.

In a statement to Business Insider, Apple said that the response to iPhone Duo from early users has been "incredibly positive."

"If users experience issues with their iPhone Duo display, they should contact AppleCare for a replacement," Apple said.

The crypto memes

The crypto world made a connection to the iPhone Duo when the official Crypto.com account posted earlier in October about how the folding phone would be perfect for traders.

The association soon became memes playing on the stereotype that crypto traders are delusional and unemployed.

The multi-screen design

Many believe that the iPhone Duo's multi-screen design will be hazardous to our already short attention span by allowing multiple activities at once.

While the Duo's 7.6-inch inner display supports two apps side by side, its 5.4-inch outer display can be used when the phone is closed.

That setup has also prompted jokes about what is known as a "performative male," referring to men publicly pretending to enjoy certain niche genres of books and music in order to attract women.

Another post, more of a real video than a meme, demonstrated the iPhone Duo's potential to exacerbate doomscrolling.

For anyone worried that one screen wasn't enough for your nightly scroll, Apple has a $1,999 solution.

Black Friday is still a month away, but early deals are already popping up on over-ear headphones and earbuds. My team and I test headphones year-round, and several of our favorite models from Sony, Beats, and Apple are getting great discounts right now.

The best early Black Friday headphone deals include excellent savings on the Sony WH-1000XM5. Sony has the XM5s for 43% off, bringing them down to $228. That's close to their record-low price of $198. However, this deal is very popular, and inventory has been coming and going over the last few days. Certain colorways may be sold out, so make sure to check them all. These over-ear cans remain my pick for the best headphones overall thanks to their versatile combo of features and value for the money.

Meanwhile, if you're shopping for earbuds, the AirPods Pro 3 are a great buy at $199 on Amazon. The Pro 3s tend to fluctuate between $230 and $199, so though this is a common deal price, it's still on the low end of their typical cost. But if you're on a tighter budget and prefer open-ear style buds that let you stay aware of your surroundings, I recommend the CMF Clip Pro. They're on sale for $69, which matches their all-time low price from Prime Day.

Though I expect even bigger headphone deals to arrive once Black Friday officially starts, the discounts below are all still solid values, offering early shoppers a nice way to save before the main event begins.

The best early Black Friday headphone deals

Over-ear headphones are also getting good deals in the lead-up to Black Friday. Again, I've seen lower prices on some of these models in the past, but early shoppers can still get solid savings. For example, the AirPods Max 2 are on sale for $449, which is a common discount but still a good markdown from their typical street price of around $500-$510. The Max 2 are the best AirPods for audiophiles, thanks to their over-ear design, which delivers even better sound quality and stronger noise cancellation than earbud-style models.

The best early Black Friday earbud deals

Several of our top-tested earbuds from Sony, Apple, Beats, and more are on sale right now. Though some were cheaper on Prime Day, these deals still represent good savings on each model's street price. For instance, the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 often sell for their full retail price of $250, but right now they're $50 off. The Pro 2 are our pick for the best workout headphones thanks to their versatile features and built-in heart-rate tracking.

Headphone deals FAQs

Should you buy over-ear headphones or earbuds?

Whether over-ear headphones or earbuds are the right fit for your needs depends on how you plan to use them. Over-ear headphones are generally the better choice if you care most about audio quality, powerful noise canceling, and long-term comfort. Their larger earcups and drivers can create a fuller, more spacious sound, while the over-ear design typically blocks more ambient noise, which makes them ideal for flights, commuting, and critical listening at home.

Earbuds, on the other hand, are the more convenient option for workouts, running, and casual everyday listening when you're on the go. They slip easily into a pocket and are less obtrusive during exercise. Many premium models also offer excellent sound and noise canceling, though top over-ear headphones still have an edge.

When is Black Friday?

In 2026, Black Friday is on November 27. Cyber Monday then follows on November 30. We'll keep tracking the latest deals before and during the shopping event, including discounts on headphones and other tech gadgets.

Shopping for more discounts today? Check out our deals homepage with more savings across tech, home, kitchen, style, streaming, and more.

The Milwaukee Brewers vs. Tampa Bay Rays World Series continues with a fourth and potentially final game. We've rounded up everything you need to know about where to watch the World Series, including free streaming options.

The Rays are looking to stave off a sweep in Game 4 of the 2026 World Series, but to do so, they'll need to beat a dominant Brewers team, which swept the back-to-back reigning champions during the League Championship Series. If you're hoping to tune in, you've come to the right place. Keep reading to learn how to live stream the World Series around the globe.

Where to watch the World Series for free

The World Series is broadcast and live streamed for free in select regions around the world. In Panama, fans can watch for free on RPC TV. In Nicaragua, games are free through Canal 4. While the US doesn't have a free streaming option, FOX-friendly live TV streaming services like YouTube TV and Fubo offer free trials for new customers. Or read on to learn how to tune in to a free option if you're in the US.

How to watch the World Series from anywhere

Baseball fans can keep up with their streaming options (including free ones) from anywhere using a VPN (virtual private network). VPNs are handy tech tools that let people temporarily alter their virtual locations. They're especially popular among those looking to upgrade their cybersecurity and access their usual websites and apps while traveling abroad.

Proton VPN is one of the best VPN services we've tested. It's speedy, user-friendly, and has a 30-day money-back guarantee if you find it's not helping you out.

What channel is the World Series on?

All four to seven games of the 2026 World Series will air on FOX at 8 p.m. ET in the US.

Where to watch the World Series in the US

FOX is available over-the-air, so there's a good chance you'll be able to get it with an antenna. If you don't have an antenna or cable, you can catch the entire series with a streaming service. FOX offers a direct streaming counterpart, FOX One, which costs $20 a month and is available through the FOX website.

If you're in the market for something with channels beyond just FOX, a live TV streaming service can help you out. YouTube TV and Fubo are two of our top FOX-friendly recommendations right now.

FOX is available in YouTube TV's Main and Sports plans, which offer 100+ and 30+ channels, respectively. YouTube TV's Main plan typically costs $83 a month, but a limited-time deal will knock down the first five months for first-time users to just $68 a month after a free trial.

FOX is also available in multiple Fubo plans, including the flagship Fubo Pro. Pro, which offers 200+ channels, normally costs $89 a month, but new customers can get $25 off their first month after a free trial.

• See also: How to watch NFL games | How to watch NBA games | How to watch college football

World Series schedule

The World Series is running from Friday, October 23 to at least Tuesday, October 27, 2026. Should the series go for all seven games, the latest game will take place on Saturday, October 31. You can find the full remaining World Series schedule below. An asterisk (*) denotes games that will only be played if necessary.

• Game 4: Milwaukee at Tampa Bay on Tuesday, October 27 at 8 p.m. ET
• Game 5: Milwaukee at Tampa Bay on Wednesday, October 28 at 8 p.m. ET*
• Game 6: Tampa Bay at Milwaukee on Friday, October 30 at 8 p.m. ET*
• Game 7: Tampa Bay at Milwaukee on Saturday, October 31 at 8 p.m. ET*

Note: The use of VPNs is illegal in certain countries, and using VPNs to access region-locked streaming content might constitute a breach of the terms of use for certain services. Business Insider does not endorse or condone the illegal use of VPNs.

• OpenAI said its models found that a commonly held computer science hypothesis was wrong.
• Hours later, Anthropic agreed.
• Here's how techies and mathematicians in the internet's nerdiest corners are responding.

Turns out, OpenAI might be really good at computers.

On Monday, the company said it punctured the Exponential Time Hypothesis, or ETH, the nearly 30-year-old belief in the computer science community that some logic problems get overwhelmingly time-consuming as they grow. Hours later, Anthropic released its own research refuting ETH.

OpenAI said it had asked a group of outside computer scientists to organize an open review of its claim. The researchers have highlighted that their involvement is not an endorsement.

If the AI labs' announcements hold, they would likely reopen the hunt for increasingly capable algorithms — something that computer scientists had largely assumed couldn't get much better.

The ultra-nerdy claim has been a huge topic of conversation across social media and in techie circles. Here's how some of the thought leaders have reacted to OpenAI's announcement:

Ryan Williams, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT

Williams, one of the three independent algorithm design experts who are researching OpenAI's claims, has not certified the company's results.

He wrote on X that, if OpenAI's claim turns out to be true, the fresh findings "should make every computer scientist put at least a little more weight on the possibility of P = NP," making the company closer to another potential $1 million Millennium Prize Problem.

In more practical terms, Williams said the claimed breakthrough could lead to "faster algorithms."

He has previously said that he doesn't believe in ETH.

Gary Marcus, emeritus professor at NYU

Marcus, a frequent AI skeptic, wrote that this could be "a big deal if correct," on X.

John D. Cook, Ph.D. and tech consultant in applied mathematics

In a blog post, Cook said OpenAI's claims — while impressive — didn't finally answer computer science's biggest open question.

"The status of P = NP is still unknown," he wrote. "While 3-SAT does not take exponential time, it still takes more than polynomial time as far as anyone knows."

Joshua Fonseca Rivera, AI Safety Research Fellow at Anthropic

Rivera wrote on X that OpenAI's fresh claim was a reminder that humans could have underestimated a computer's intelligence.

"The bitter lesson should make this unsurprising," he wrote. "I know this logically, but... wow, we really don't know anything."

Timothy Gowers, professeur titulaire at Collège de France and Fields Medal-winning mathematician

Gowers wrote a blunt take on X about the development: "Very surprising and consequential that it is false."

Dan Shipper, CEO at Every

Shipper, the AI-pilled chief executive at a tech startup, wrote on X what everyone else was thinking…

"I regret not getting a Ph.D. in frontier math," he said. "(Not that I ever considered getting one but still)."

I ordered the Anrabess 2-piece Sweatsuit on Amazon with fairly modest expectations. At a fraction of the price of the high-end loungewear I usually wear, I anticipated some drawbacks. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by how closely it resembled my favorite $246 Spanx AirEssentials set. And now that the Anrabess version is on sale starting at $39 and holiday travel season upon us, it's even more worth it.

Don't get me wrong: the Spanx sweatsuit is better quality. Its fit is more flattering, plus the mix-and-match separates come in various inseam lengths. But in truth, I found the Anrabess' silky fabric to be a solid dupe for the cult-favorite AirEssentials sweatsuit.

If you can't justify spending hundreds on a pair of sweats — or, like me, want multiples to fill out your wardrobe — it's a compelling option. Right now, the black colorway Anrabess set is marked down to $39 at Amazon, while all other colors are $49. Here's what makes it such a good buy:

The fabric feels far more luxurious than the price suggests. This was easily the biggest surprise when I unpacked the Anrabess sweatsuit. Its medium-weight blend of rayon, polyester, and spandex has a silky, stretchy texture and subtle sheen. It's comfortable enough to lounge in all day, but doesn't have the flimsy feel I'd expect from a budget sweatsuit. The fabric also makes the set a practical option for transitional weather, when you want something cozier than lightweight pajamas without committing to heavy fleece.

It comes in a set rather than being sold seperately. There's no need to purchase separates (though this can be a downside, if you're like me and size differently between tops and bottoms — I have the Spanx wide-leg pants and half-zip sweatshirt). The Anrabess sweatsuit also comes in a whopping 24 color options, ranging from classic neutrals to bright pinks. I have the rich brown Coffee hue.

It's stylish enough to wear beyond the couch. The Anrabess set includes a relaxed half-zip pullover and wide-leg sweatpants, giving it an elevated appearance compared to your average sweats. I wear it for running errands and casual outings. It'd also be a great cozy-but-polished travel option to wear on a plane. I like having an entire outfit ready to go without putting much thought into it, but I particularly appreciate that the sweatshirt looks just as good paired with leggings or jeans.

The bottom line

The Anrabess sweatsuit from Amazon delivers the soft, silky feel and polished look of luxury loungewear. While it doesn't quite measure up to pricier alternatives like Spanx, it's an impressive budget-friendly option that looks and feels more expensive than it is. With prices currently starting at just $39 for the complete set, now is an especially good time to add one (or more) to your wardrobe.

• Amazon shifts AI focus to business impact, not just raw usage, in new developer guidelines.
• The company warns that AI metrics can create bad incentives, including “tokenmaxxing.”
• Managers are told to examine teams at both the highest and lowest levels of AI adoption.

Amazon just issued new guidelines for software engineers in the AI era: Prioritize business outcomes over raw usage.

Terk Terkowitz, Amazon's vice president and distinguished engineer, said in a memo published Tuesday that AI is changing software development more quickly and fundamentally than earlier shifts such as cloud computing. But engineers should be judged by their impact on customers and the business, he wrote, not simply how much they use AI.

"We all need to embrace this change and take the time to learn, or we risk being left behind," Terkowitz said.

AI coding tools and agents are upending the software industry and changing what it means to be a coder. Amazon calls this the "era of the Renaissance Developer," where human judgement and machine intelligence combine to create new products and services faster and more efficiently.

"This is a time of change for our industry, and a time of change for what it means to be a software engineer," Terkowitz wrote in the memo.

The updated guidelines reflect Amazon's growing effort to make AI adoption part of how it assesses engineers and engineering managers. The company has tracked measures including AI usage, token consumption, and lines of code internally, and used leaderboards to rank teams by some of those metrics.

But the memo warns that using such measures as targets can produce bad outcomes, including "tokenmaxxing" rather than better software or customer experiences.

"Using these metrics could, if used as a target instead of a measure, drive negative outcomes," Terkowitz wrote in the memo.

Amazon has been experimenting with ways to measure and encourage AI use across its engineering organization.

Earlier this year, the company was tracking engineers's use of internal AI tools and some teams used leaderboards tied to measures such as token consumption. The programs created friction among some employees, who worried that pressure to use AI could reward wasteful activity rather than productive work.

The new guidance offers Amazon's clearest public acknowledgment of that risk. Rather than lay out a detailed AI playbook that could quickly become obsolete, Amazon said its revised developer guidelines focus on long-term impact on customers and the business.

Still, the company said AI should be "at the center of software engineering practice" and urged engineers to incorporate the technology into their daily work.

Leaders are expected to use AI tools on production work themselves, understand where they help and where they fall short, and explain that judgment to their teams, according to the memo.

Terkowitz said Amazon has found that metrics such as token use, AI-tool adoption, and code reviews can correlate with the outcomes it values. But he said the measures must be used carefully. More token use can raise costs, while a focus on lines of code can create unnecessary complexity.

He also recommended that managers pay particular attention to teams at both ends of the AI adoption spectrum: those in the bottom 10%, to understand why they are not using AI effectively, and those in the top 10%, to determine whether heavier use is translating into faster delivery.

Terkowitz said Amazon's most AI-forward "frontier teams" have shown stronger productivity and delivery. He also said teams and individuals that are not adopting AI or increasing output metrics are falling behind.

But his memo left room for engineers whose work may not yet benefit from current AI tools. In those cases, he said, employees should document why and work toward a solution by sharing their findings with peers and managers.

"An engineer who can explain where AI does not yet help their work is demonstrating the judgement we are asking for," the memo said.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at ekim@businessinsider.com or Signal, Telegram, or WhatsApp at 650-942-3061. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

TravelPro, the luggage brand favored by flight crews and frequent flyers, is offering up to 50% off select travel gear ahead of the busy holiday travel season. The standout deal is a half-price TravelPro Altitude backpack, which our reviewer has put through its paces on flights from New York to Ireland. Multipiece luggage sets are also marked down by 20%, making this a timely opportunity to upgrade your travel essentials before Thanksgiving.

TravelPro has been a favorite of the Business Insider Reviews team for its durable materials, thoughtful organization, and easy-to-maneuver designs. The Platinum Elite carry-on has held a top spot in our guide to the best carry-on luggage for years, and the Altitude backpack has similarly impressed with its surprisingly spacious interior, expandable storage, and dedicated tech compartments.

Not every deal is equally compelling, so we've rounded up the TravelPro discounts worth your attention, starting with 50% off the Altitude backpack and highlighting the luggage deals that make the most sense for holiday travelers.

The best TravelPro early holiday sale deals

TravelPro Altitude Slim Expandable Laptop Backpack: $125 (50% off)

The standout deal in TravelPro's sale is the Altitude Slim Expandable Laptop Backpack, which is 50% off right now in the Field Green colorway. It's also one of the sale items we can personally vouch for: Reviewer Shannon Ullman has relied on this backpack for domestic and international flights, including trips to New York and Ireland.

The 20-liter backpack expands to 24 liters, with dedicated laptop and tablet compartments, multiple organizational pockets, and water- and stain-resistant fabric made from recycled plastic. Our reviewer was particularly impressed by how much it could hold without feeling bulky when navigating crowded airports, airplane aisles, and city streets. It even accommodated everything needed for a short trip without checking a bag.

At 3.7 pounds, it's heavier than your average laptop backpack, and the slim model's main compartment doesn't open completely flat. But for travelers who value durability, organization, and versatility, getting this premium backpack for $125 is a particularly compelling deal.

TravelPro Crew Classic Compact Carry-On and Medium Check-In Set: $436 (20% off)

If you're looking to replace your luggage before holiday travel, TravelPro's Crew Classic two-piece set offers a practical upgrade at $109 off. The bundle pairs a compact carry-on with a medium checked suitcase, covering everything from weekend trips to longer vacations that require more packing space.

TravelPro has consistently impressed our reviewers with its soft-sided luggage. The brand's Platinum Elite Expandable Carry-On, for example, has long been a favorite for its exceptionally smooth wheels, durable construction, and thoughtful organization.

While we haven't tested this exact Crew Classic bundle, it's worth considering if you need a new carry-on and a checked bag. The compact carry-on is particularly appealing for travelers who prefer a smaller suitcase, though it's worth checking the dimensions against your airline's baggage requirements before you buy.

TravelPro Crew Executive Choice 3 Women's Tote: $99 (42% off)

TravelPro's Crew Executive Choice 3 Women's Tote is marked down to $99 from $170, making it one of the most affordable picks in the brand's sale.

A dedicated travel tote can be particularly useful for business travelers who want their laptop, documents, and everyday essentials accessible without digging through a carry-on. It's also a versatile option for commuters looking for a bag that works beyond the airport.

At $71 off, this is worth considering if you need a work-friendly personal bag rather than another piece of luggage.

More of the best deals in the TravelPro early holiday sale

• TravelPro Tourlite Rolling Underseat Carry-On: $100 (26% off)

• Maxlite Carry-On / Laptop Backpack Set: $216 (20% off)

• 20% off all luggage sets and bundles

Is TravelPro luggage worth buying?

TravelPro has earned a strong reputation among frequent flyers, and our testing experience helps explain why. The brand was founded by a pilot, and its luggage consistently emphasizes the details that make traveling easier, from smooth-rolling wheels and sturdy handles to practical organizational features.

Our favorite example is the TravelPro Platinum Elite Expandable Carry-On, which has remained one of our top-rated carry-on suitcases for years, and its durable nylon construction, comfortable handles, and exceptionally maneuverable wheels make it a standout for frequent travelers, though its weight and tendency to expand beyond some airline size limits are worth considering.

The Altitude backpack has similarly impressed our travel reviewers with its durable materials, expandable storage, and thoughtful design. It's a particularly good example of why TravelPro appeals to travelers who prioritize functionality over flashy styling.

Not every TravelPro bag will be the right fit for every traveler, but the brand's track record makes it discounted luggage worth a closer look. For more recommendations, see our guides to the best checked luggage, best carry-on bags, and best travel totes.

You can also shop the full TravelPro sale to see all the current discounts.