News for T2

A Delta plane had to U-turn after flying through a hailstorm that seemingly put a dent in its nose

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 12:21:47 +0000

A Delta Air Lines Airbus A330.

Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

A Delta Air Lines flight was damaged by a hailstorm and turned around shortly after takeoff.
The Airbus A330 departed from Barcelona, destined for New York's JFK Airport.
Delta apologized for delays, and passengers were rebooked on alternate flights.

A Delta Air Lines flight turned back to Spain after being damaged by flying through a hailstorm.

The Airbus A330 departed Barcelona around 2:30 p.m. local time on Saturday. Flight 169 was supposed to touch down at New York's JFK Airport about eight hours later.

After takeoff, data from Flightradar 24 shows the plane looped over the mainland before heading back out over the Balearic Sea.

It then circled a few times and returned to Barcelona, landing back where it started around 45 minutes earlier.

A Delta spokesperson said the plane experienced "weather-related damage after departure."

Images shared on social media appeared to show a large dent in the center of the plane's nose, and other signs of damage consistent with hail.

Travel news site Paddle Your Own Kanoo reported that some passengers said they received severe storm alerts on their phones as the plane was taxiing for takeoff.

According to flight-tracking data, the nine-year-old Airbus A330, registered as N827NW, was still parked in Barcelona on Monday.

"The flight landed safely in Barcelona and customers were reaccommodated on alternate flights to their final destinations," the airline spokesperson said in the statement. "Delta apologizes to our customers for the delay in their travels."

This wouldn't be the first time that a plane has been damaged by bad weather.

Last year, an Austrian Airlines plane's windscreen shattered and its nose cone was torn off after flying through a thunderstorm.

And back in 2023, another Delta flight, from Milan to New York, had to divert to Rome after flying through a hailstorm, USA Today reported at the time.

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I worked at Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta after struggling to land internships. Here are my top tips for getting into Big Tech.

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:42:52 +0000

Jung started his first full-time tech job at Amazon in 2019.

Courtesy of Jay Jung

Jay Jung broke into Big Tech after he initially struggled to land internships.
He had to revamp his résumé to get his foot in the door, and then he got a full-time job at Amazon.
One of his tips for landing Big Tech jobs is to treat coding interview questions as conversations.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Jay Jung, 28, a software engineer from San Francisco, about landing jobs in Big Tech. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

During college, I found it hard to get internships.

Since then, I've built my career as a software engineer at Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and other ventures and projects.

I initially studied industrial design and pivoted to computer science roughly two years into my time at Georgia Tech. I only started learning to code in my junior year, and it felt like my peers were so ahead.

The barrier to entry in tech is high. Some people have been coding and building things since high school. It felt like my résumé wasn't up to par.

These are my top tips for preparing your résumé, getting referrals, and succeeding at interviews in Big Tech.

To break into tech, I had to revamp my résumé

To get my first opportunity in tech, I looked for opportunities for early career students or people who may not have a lot of coding experience.

I came across a hackathon with JP Morgan called "Code for Good," where students can showcase their skills.

Before applying in October 2017, I decided to revamp my résumé, which at the time included irrelevant experience in tutoring and serving. I learned from a Unity tutorial about building a 3D game, so I could say I built a game from scratch using 3D algorithms. Having this end-to-end project on my résumé was hugely helpful, and I got accepted to the hackathon.

After that, I landed an internship at Amazon, where I got my first full-time role within AWS in 2019. I suspect having the JP Morgan name on my résumé helped me pass certain filters companies have regarding experience.

Jung said he had to revamp his résumé before applying for the hackathon.

Courtesy of Jay Jung

I had more than 10 people look at my résumé. It was too many.

If you don't know whether your résumé is decent, get some peer feedback. Even having one friend look at it can remove some bias you have toward it.

I asked a lot of people to look at mine, including recruiters I reached out to on LinkedIn. Many recruiters were open to it, both on a paid and free basis. By the 10th person, I noticed discrepancies. Someone would ask me to take something out, and the next person would suggest putting it back in.

Having five to seven people review your résumé is the sweet spot. There are better ways to spend your time, like improving your hard skills as an engineer, than making small subjective tweaks from a 10th perspective.

Résumés are the front page of a book that hooks the recruiter. But the rest of the book is dependant on your skillset.

Referrals are a golden ticket

Early in my career, I was always open to new opportunities for career growth. In 2021, while at Microsoft, I landed a job at Meta through a referral.

I saw a Meta manager post on LinkedIn that he was hiring for his team. I reached out, and he asked to chat for 10 minutes. Beforehand, I'd done extensive research on what his team does. I knew he worked on the API team, so I told him that I'd read the API design docs for Facebook and thought they were really interesting. He thought it was cool and asked me to tell him about it.

Even doing 20 minutes of preliminary research into what the hiring manager's team does can pay dividends in the future.

At that time, my résumé showcased projects I'd worked on, and I had a few years of experience at Microsoft and Amazon, which probably helped, too. If your résumé has enough technical fundamentals on it, and you can talk about those things, it can demonstrate to managers that you'd be able to pass a coding interview.

After the call, the manager gave me a referral, which kicked off the process of me joining that team.

Some Big Tech companies give the referrer money if the person they refer ends up joining the company, so there's a huge incentive for them to do it. If your résumé is good enough and you can showcase that you can pass the interview, they might do it to earn a lump sum.

Talk through your logic when asked a coding question in an interview

In technical interviews, you're typically set coding questions — technical puzzles that you're asked to work through. Passing those problems by having a working solution will always be a key factor in getting a Big Tech job.

You can practice coding questions on places like LeetCode. It's a battle of perseverance and time to try to cover them. Earlier in my career, I'd immerse myself in coding, spending 12 to 14 hours a day on LeetCode to prep for interviews.

The biggest thing to know about coding questions is to treat them as conversations.

I've done interviews where I didn't do that well on the coding question, but I talked through all my thoughts. I also leveraged the interviewer, saying, "I think this is my approach, what do you think?"

When I worked as an individual contributor at Amazon and Facebook, I interviewed job candidates. After the interviews, when giving feedback about candidates, a key factor I'd consider was whether the candidate talked through their solution out loud. It indicated that if they joined the team, they'd be able to have conversations about features we were building.

If one candidate spoke really well and could do most of the coding problem, and another candidate had a perfect answer to the coding problem, but didn't talk well, my peer interviewees and I would usually prefer the first candidate.

Do you have a story to share about getting into Big Tech? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Don't believe the hype around robotaxis, HSBC analysts say

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:41:07 +0000

Waymo has served around 5 million paid rides over the past three years.

Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Tesla and Waymo are battling for robotaxi dominance, but the payoff still isn't clear.
HSBC analysts found that it could take years for robotaxis to turn a profit, and the market is "overestimated."
They said some of the biggest challenges were "overlooked" costs like parking and cleaning.

Tesla and Waymo are racing to build their own robotaxi empires, but not everyone is convinced the hype is justified.

A new report from analysts at HSBC found that the potential market for driverless taxis was "widely overestimated" and warned that it could take years before robotaxi fleets began returning a profit.

In a Monday note, HSBC analysts suggested that the idea robotaxis would be more profitable than their human-driven counterparts was based on a misconception.

Although robotaxi operators do not have to worry about the cost of paying a driver's wage, they said that driverless taxis face a slew of "overlooked" extra costs that would likely cut into profits.

According to HSBC's analysts, those include parking, charging, and cleaning fees, as well as teams of remote operators to intervene when things go wrong.

"When we factor in these costs, we believe robotaxis won't be break-even on a cash flow basis until 7-8 years after launch," the analysts wrote, adding that projections for robotaxi revenues vary from the "ambitious to the unrealistic."

Industry figures have been making bold claims about driverless cars for years.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that robotaxis will add trillions of dollars to the company's market cap, and in May told CNBC that Tesla would have one million self-driving cars on the road by next year — a promise he also made back in 2019.

Amid the hype, driverless taxis are gradually becoming a reality. Tesla finally launched a pilot of its robotaxi service in Austin last month, and Alphabet-owned Waymo's autonomous Jaguar I-Paces have provided over 5 million paid rides over the past three years.

However, the division of Alphabet that includes Waymo continues to lose billions of dollars a year, and analysts estimate that Waymo's vehicles, which are outfitted with expensive sensors and lidar arrays, cost around $150,000 each.

The economics of Tesla's robotaxis are unclear, but Musk has suggested that the company's decision to use cameras and AI rather than lidar means they are cheaper to run than Waymo's.

Despite this, HSBC's analysts said the automaker faces numerous challenges in scaling its autonomous ride-hailing operation, ranging from regulatory barriers in China and Europe to upgrading the roughly 5 million Teslas on the road with hardware that is too old to run the company's robotaxi software.

They estimated that Tesla's robotaxi fleet would hit 20,000 to 25,000 cars by 2030, rising to 75,000 by 2035, and would not turn a profit until 2033.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Sesame Street says the posts its Elmo account made on X while hacked were 'disgusting'

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:17:30 +0000

Elmo's X account, which has almost 650,000 followers, was hacked Sunday night.

Martin Schutt/picture alliance via Getty Images

The X account of the Sesame Street character Elmo was hacked Sunday night.
The account posted profanity and racism, and called Trump a "puppet" of Israel.
The posts have been deleted. Sesame Workshop said it was trying to regain control of the account.

On Sunday, the X account of the Sesame Street character Elmo broke from its usual cheery tone and posted a series of antisemitic and profane comments.

A spokesperson for Sesame Workshop decried the now-deleted messages as "disgusting."

"Elmo's X account was compromised by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts," the spokesperson told Business Insider.

"We are working to restore full control of the account," the spokesperson added.

Elmo's account has almost 650,000 followers and typically posts wholesome content in the character's voice, such as "Come on, everybody! Let's get outside and play!"

On Sunday, in addition to antisemitic comments and profanity, the account called Donald Trump a "puppet" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It also posted, "RELEASE THE FILES," about the Epstein files.

The posts were live for around half an hour, according to Mediaite, which published screenshots of the posts.

As of 7:10 a.m. ET Monday, the account has not posted since the hack.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

The hack comes after xAI, X's parent company, said "extremist views" on the site had led its chatbot Grok to post inflammatory comments, including antisemitic jokes and praise of Adolf Hitler.

The company called these posts "horrific" and said it had removed the "deprecated" code and "refactored the entire system to prevent further abuse."

xAI staff had earlier voiced their anger on the company's Slack, BI revealed. One said they would resign in protest.

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My side hustle is buying and reselling secondhand merch. I sold over 470 items and made nearly $9,000 in my first year.

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 11:03:01 +0000

Breanna Lambert found a side hustle that works for her busy schedule as a mom.

Courtesy of Breanna Lambert

I started a side hustle last year. It's flexible, earned me nearly $9K, and has a great community.
Buying and reselling secondhand merchandise isn't a get-rich-quick scheme, but the money adds up.
I've learned a lot about how to organize my sales, find the best deals, and turn a profit.

The first time I dove into a Goodwill Outlet bin, I came out holding a broken belt, one flip flop, and a genuine Missoni shawl.

Around me, other resellers were elbows-deep — with gloves on, masks up — tossing clothes like someone buried a gold bar in there. There was no actual gold to dig up, just the chance to make money flipping this "trash."

Welcome to the Goodwill Outlet, aka "The Bins," as regulars call it. It's the final stop before auction, recycling, or the landfill.

Here, you buy by the pound, so the Missoni shawl, which originally retailed for $350, cost me less than $2.

I sold it for $62 on the resale app, Poshmark. It was not as much as I'd hoped, but the snags I overlooked before buying it lowered the value.

The Bins, where Lambert sometimes goes for thrifted items.

Courtesy of Breanna Lambert

I've been exploring this part-time side hustle for a little over a year. I sold my first personal item in February 2024 and started taking reselling more seriously, including regular trips to The Bins, at the beginning of that summer.

Strategic finds like the Missoni shawl helped me earn nearly $9,000 in profit my first year. However, it wasn't just about the money. I've also decluttered my house and found an unexpected online community.

I was inspired by my best friend and the online community

My best friend had been thrifting for a long time, but once she discovered Poshmark, everything changed. Suddenly, her weekend hobby was making real money.

Lambert shopping at Goodwill.

Courtesy of Breanna Lambert

She was the one who got me curious, but it was the supportive Instagram community that pulled me in.

Before spending money on new inventory at thrift stores and The Bins, it's recommended by veteran resellers to start with items you already own. So, that's what I did.

I looked around my house at all the stuff we'd accumulated, especially after having kids, and made a pile of things I wasn't using but couldn't quite let go of, until that moment, when they finally had a new purpose.

There was the maternity dress I wore to a wedding, a pack of baby onesies with the tags still on, and a set of handmade ceramic mugs we'd made tea in once.

In that first purge, I filled three trash bags full of stuff and listed it on my Poshmark store, Forsythe Canyon.

I could tell I was just scratching the surface, so I started going deeper into the reseller community on Instagram, where I followed and interacted with top sellers who shared invaluable advice like how to research an item's sell-through rate and average sale price and where to find deals on live auction apps like Whatnot.

A pair of used boots that Lambert bought and resold.

Courtesy of Breanna Lambert

Out of everything, what surprised me most was how collaborative reselling is. I'd promote other resellers' Poshmark stores on Instagram, and they would support me back.

Everyone I meet has their own reason for starting. One friend put herself through college. Another uses her earnings to take her family on dream vacations, and one guy made it his full-time career after his ADD made traditional offices too challenging.

I learned the hard way

Resale is not competitive because the inventory is endless. Americans have way too much stuff. Spend even an hour at The Bins and that becomes obvious. The one I visit, staff roll out new blue carts brimming with unwanted items every 10 minutes, eight at a time, all day, every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Of course, all the support didn't stop me from learning the hard way. When I started sourcing outside my home, I overpaid for trendy items I didn't bother to "comp" (reseller speak for checking comparable sales), and ended up losing money on a few pieces I thought were "cute."

My bookkeeping was a disaster until I found the reseller-friendly software Vendoo, which organized my messy spreadsheets into top-selling categories and brands, average sale price, and revenue vs. profit.

Lambert's packaging for an item she sold.

Courtesy of Breanna Lambert

When I look back at some of my early listing photos, I'm shocked that anything sold. There were too many shots with bad lighting, jeans half-out-of-frame, and wrinkled tops.

That Missoni shawl was a lucky flip. My average sale price per item lands closer to $30, but that adds up.

Within the first year of opening my reselling store, I've generated $14,000 in revenue, $8,700 after expenses, listed 784 items, and sold 474—all of which I photographed and wrote descriptions for with relevant keywords.

Shopping and listing take the most time. My dining table has become a photo studio, covered in a white sheet and flanked by two lamps I stole from the bedroom. Some days, I'll list until my back aches.

Reselling is my hobby, it's not a get-rich-quick scheme

Some of Lambert's packaging materials.

Courtesy of Breanna Lambert

Reselling's not glamorous. Remember me digging through The Bins? It's also definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme.

If I tracked my hours, I'm pretty sure I'm earning less than minimum wage.

However, the flexibility is worth it to me. While the kids are in school and I'm between work projects, I'll swing by the Outlets, drop $100, and turn it into $600 within a few weeks. Not bad for a mid-morning treasure hunt.

At night, while I have a show on in the background, I can crank out 20 listings and replenish my inventory.

A pair of vintage shoes that Lambert bought and resold.

Courtesy of Breanna Lambert

I like the environmental aspect, too. A pair of vintage, 1950s suede kitten-heel pumps that might otherwise have found their way to the dump found a new home in Palm Springs, where the buyer would slip them on as the statement piece for her bachelorette night outfit. I made just $16 on the flip, but the real reward was keeping them out of the landfill and giving them a second life with someone who couldn't wait to wear them.

Reselling is an oddly satisfying mix of entrepreneurship, creativity, and connection. And yeah, there's the dopamine hit of finding a valuable flip.

What started for me as a decluttering spree became a reminder: what looks like trash might actually be treasure. Sometimes you find treasure. Sometimes you find people. If you're lucky, you find both.

Read the original article on Business Insider

AI won't kill your job — it'll just completely change how you do it, Jensen Huang says

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:37:07 +0000

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says AI is reshaping work, and mastering how to prompt it is now essential.

Chesnot/Getty Images

Nvidia's CEO says AI won't kill jobs — it will transform how every job is done.
Jensen Huang said he uses AI daily and said prompting is a high-level cognitive skill.
AI will empower workers and has already changed his own job, he told CNN.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said fears about artificial intelligence wiping out jobs are overblown — but that doesn't mean your work won't change dramatically.

"I am certain 100% of everybody's jobs will be changed," he told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday. "The work that we do in our jobs will be changed. The work will change. But it's very likely — my job has already changed."

As the head of the chipmaker at the heart of the AI revolution , Huang believes AI will reshape nearly every job, not through mass unemployment, but through massive task reduction.

"Some jobs will be lost. Many jobs would be created. And what I hope is that the productivity gains that we see in all the industries will lift society," he added.

Huang pushed back on the idea that using AI reduces people's ability to think.

"I'm not asking it to think for me. I'm asking it to teach me things that I don't know, or help me solve problems that I otherwise wouldn't be able to solve reasonably," he said.

He said that prompting AI is itself a skill requiring cognitive effort and clarity.

"The idea of prompting an AI, the idea of asking questions — you're spending most of your time today asking me questions," he told Zakaria. "In order to ask good questions, it's a highly cognitive skill."

"As a CEO, I spend most of my time asking questions. And 90% of my instructions are actually conflated with questions."

When interacting with AI, Huang said he doesn't rely on a single response.

"I ask the same question of multiple AIs, and I ask them to compare each other's notes, and then give me the best of all the answers," he said. "And so I think that process of critiquing, criticizing the answers enhances cognitive skills."

For Huang, AI isn't a threat to human work but the "greatest technology equalizer" that will fundamentally redefine it.

"AI empowers people, it lifts people, it closes the technology gap, and as a result, more people will be able to do more things," he said.

Not everyone is so optimistic

While Huang believes AI will reshape jobs rather than eliminate them, other experts and tech leaders have painted a more disruptive picture.

Adam Dorr, director of research at the RethinkX think tank, predicted that "most jobs will be gone by 2045."

He cited his team's research into more than 1,500 major technological transformations, which concluded that technology typically dominates within 15 to 20 years after gaining even a few percentage points of market share.

"We're the horses, we're the film cameras," he told The Guardian last week, referring to historical patterns of disruption and the risk of AI making human workers obsolete.

Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called "Godfather of AI," echoed similar concerns, telling the Diary of a CEO podcast last month: "For mundane intellectual labor, AI is just going to replace everybody."

He said he'd be "terrified" to work in a call center or as a paralegal, and recommended becoming a plumber — a job he sees as safer from automation for now.

Geoffrey Hinton.

Mark Blinch/REUTERS

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that AI could eliminate 50% of white-collar entry-level jobs within five years.

In May, he told Axios that AI companies and the government are "sugarcoating" the risks of mass job elimination in fields including technology, finance, law, and consulting, adding, "I don't think this is on people's radar."

However, others shared Huang's outlook. In a LinkedIn post last month, Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun said he "pretty much disagrees with everything Dario says" and argued that AI will augment workers, not replace them.

Read the original article on Business Insider

I've flown American Airlines almost exclusively for 15 years. A trip on Lufthansa might have changed that.

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:17:01 +0000

Courtesy of the author

I moved to the US 15 years ago and have been almost exclusively traveling with American Airlines.
I even have the company's credit card to rack up more miles.
My family traveled to Italy on Lufthansa, and the experience was so superior.

When I moved from Argentina to the US 15 years ago, American Airlines was the only one offering an overnight, non-stop flight from New York, where I was living, to Buenos Aires, where my family was.

It became my go-to airline because of it. I racked up miles and status and even got their AAdvantage credit card to get more perks. When my kids were born, I immediately got them their own profiles so they, too, could start accumulating miles.

A recent flight on Lufthansa made me reevaluate my decision, and I realized that there may be better airlines for traveling with kids.

We boarded before everyone

If you fly with kids ages 5 and under on Lufthansa, you are automatically assigned "PRE" as your boarding group. This means your family is allowed to preboard before everyone, giving parents extra time to get everyone settled.

Parents of kids 5 and under can preboard on Lufthansa.

Courtesy of the author

My kids are 7, 5, and 5, and on a recent trip from Boston to Munich, we were the only ones preboarding. I really appreciated this because we were traveling with carry-ons only, and we didn't have to stress about finding overhead space for five bags.

We also had time to figure out who was sitting where (my kids love to argue over the window seat), and get their stuffed animals and snacks ready.

While my American Airlines status allows me to board with Group 4, I always wonder if we'll have space for our bags.

The flight attendants went above and beyond for my kids

My oldest has been traveling since he was 3 months old, so we are pretty used to flying with kids. That said, the flight attendants at Lufthansa surprised me by how much they did for my kids.

In one of our connections, my kids were greeted with stuffed animals and games for the plane. They each got one, and they were all age-appropriate.

On another flight, the flight attendants were giving chocolates to the passengers as we were landing. When they saw me with three little kids, they just dumped half the basket on my tray and smiled — those chocolates came in handy later in the trip.

Courtesy of the author

American Airlines offers cookies that my kids love. I once asked the flight attendant if we could have extra packages to avoid meltdowns and was given a cold "no" as an answer.

We were all seated together

I bought the cheapest tickets on Lufthansa only to then realize that I had to pay for our seats. I paid about $400 for our longest flights to ensure that we were sitting together, and left the shorter connections up to luck.

On both flights, we were all sitting together and in priority rows, which was key to deplane with little kids.

With my status at American Airlines, we get to choose our seats for free, and haven't had an issue sitting together. There was only one time, in 2023, when our plane was changed, and the company sat my then-2-year-old son alone at the back of the plane. We were those parents excusing ourselves and asking people to change seats with us, even though we had taken the steps prior to ensure we were seated together.

I'm questioning my exclusivity

While one trip is not enough to fully compare both airlines, the fact that everything ran so smoothly (and without delays) is making me question my exclusivity with one airline. especially now that other airlines offer the non-stop flight to Argentina that I am absolutely married to.

Next time I plan a family trip, I am more willing to go with other, more family-friendly airlines, rather than just sticking to what I've done for decades.

Editor's note: American Airlines updated its customer service policy in March 2023. The updated policy states that children 14 and under will be seated next to an accompanying adult at no additional cost, so long as certain conditions are met.

Business Insider has reached out to American Airlines for comment.

Lufthansa's customer service policy states that they will do their best to seat children between 2 and 11 next to an adult traveling in the same group, free of charge.

A rep for the company replied to Business Insider's inquiry about pre-boarding for families with the following statement: "Lufthansa does offer pre-boarding for families traveling with children, including both short-haul and long-haul routes. Families with children, group travelers and travelers in a joint booking will be seated together whenever possible. If this is not possible with the automatic seat assignment, we ask the affected passengers to report to the check-in desk to find a solution."

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Smashburger cofounder shares how he created hits like the McGriddle and Stuffed Crust Pizza— and why generational trends don't factor into R&D

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:09:01 +0000

Smashburger's new menu items are meant to be timelessly delicious, not geared toward a specific generational trend.

Smashburger

Smashburger cofounder Tom Ryan created fast food classics like the McGriddle and Stuffed Crust Pizza.
He explained his R&D process and why he doesn't chase a specific generation's taste or trends.
Ryan said focusing on generational trends puts brands on a "teeter totter" of relevance.

Don't expect to find a Labubu-themed promotion at Smashburger anytime soon.

The Denver-based chain is preparing to launch its "Summer of Smash" menu on July 22, featuring the return of its Smoked Brisket Bacon Smash and a new lineup of offerings under $4.99. But while Smashburger's new items do include a slate of hot dogs — which are, no doubt, having a cultural moment, particularly among younger fans — the chain's cofounder, Tom Ryan, says his research and development process doesn't hinge upon generational trends.

"It drives me crazy when you hear people, usually young guys who are probably 28, saying, 'Oh yeah, we're focused on Gen Z people and millennials,' and it's like, what's gonna happen when they grow up?" Ryan told Business Insider. "At some point in time, their lives are gonna change."

Ryan is known for his work creating iconic fast food classics, such as McDonald's McGriddle and Pizza Hut's Stuffed Crust Pizza. Over his nearly four decades as a food scientist for major brands, he says he's watched as chains trap themselves by chasing younger audiences with fleeting food trends, rather than prioritizing creating timeless staples that fans return to for years.

"When my kids were small, obviously, I worked there, but we went to McDonald's all the time — as soon as my kids got old, we never went to McDonald's again," Ryan said. "And now my kids, who now have kids of their own, are going back to McDonald's. Guess why? Because it's the kids who take them there. And so, to me, I didn't want to be on that teeter totter or swinging pendulum of being relevant and then not being relevant."

He added: "In my past life at McDonald's, I could point to data there, so that when those things happened, it showed up in their overall kind of seven-year swings, between doing really well and not doing well."

Set your target audience and stick to it

It's not that Ryan doesn't take the average age of the chain's customers into account at all — just that the 68-year-old fast food veteran takes a longer view of history when forming his menus than simply trying to cater to the latest whim of Gen Z — or whoever the trendiest generation is at the time.

"All product development has to start with that: Who are you appealing to, and how are you going to be talking about it?" Ryan said. "My goal in putting Smashburger together in 2007 and keeping it vital in 2025 is to basically address what's on our menu and how we talk about what's on our menu with a tonal target: the mindset of an aspirational 32-year-old."

To Ryan, consumers in their early 30s are cool, tuned in to culture without being driven by it, and have a bit of expendable income. Making food for them, no matter what generation they're from, forces him to create products with a certain level of modernity that also resonate with the next generation of consumers, because whether you're 23 or 45, Ryan says the goal is to have the energy of a 32-year-old.

This strategy also prevents him from reinventing the wheel each time a new generational cohort passes through his doors. Instead of keeping tabs on what's most trendy, he focuses on making the food taste good and keeping it modern without being pegged to a specific era.

"In the case of hot dogs, we've had them on our menu before, but we brought them back in with all the glizz and glamour that the current market is looking for in these things," Ryan said.

Smashburger's new Big Dog lineup includes an "Americana" version with ketchup, mustard, sweet relish, and diced red onions, as well as "Bacon Cheese" and "Chili Cheese" variations. The quarter-pound Angus beef dogs, while they're "not your grandfather's hot dog," Ryan said, are intended to get "all the favorites in there."

"Some things change, and a lot of it is the appearance and architecture, but the flavors stay fairly traditional," Ryan said.

So, while hot dogs may be trending, Ryan's not banking on virality — he's betting on flavor that outlasts the algorithm.

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I worried having kids would trigger my eating disorder. It actually changed my relationship with my body for the better.

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:05:02 +0000

The author says motherhood changed her relationship with her body.

Courtesy of Hannah Howard

I've felt like I was at odds with my body for much of my life.
I worried that getting pregnant would trigger disordered eating habits I worked hard to overcome.
However, that didn't happen. Instead, I marveled over the miracle my body was performing.

For most of my life, my body felt like a problem I had to solve.

Sometimes the solution looked like not eating. Other times, it looked like eating everything in sight and then drowning in shame. At different points, I was diagnosed with anorexia, binge eating disorder, and the frustratingly vague EDNOS — eating disorder not otherwise specified. The labels shifted, but the war remained the same: I was at odds with myself.

Heading to college ignited something. A new environment, new anxieties, and old beliefs collided, and suddenly, the diet culture I'd grown up with felt less like background noise and more like a tidal wave. I restricted. I binged. I obsessed. My body became the battleground where I tried to prove I was worthy — of love, success, belonging. It was exhausting.

I was nervous about what pregnancy would mean for my recovery

Recovery didn't happen all at once. It never does. It was slow, nonlinear, and full of stumbles. I relapsed. I healed. I learned to feed myself with food, yes — but also with kindness, community, and the radical act of rest. I learned that hunger wasn't something to be feared. It was a signal. A message. A chance to listen instead of punish.

So when I became pregnant with my first child, I braced myself for a storm. I expected the rapid body changes, the unsolicited advice, the suffocating cultural obsession with "bouncing back," to send me spiraling. I hadn't weighed myself in years, and I insisted on blind weigh-ins at my midwife's office. I felt like I was holding onto recovery by a thread, white-knuckling my way through every appointment.

But then something strange happened.

Instead of falling apart, I felt… grounded. And proud.

The author and her husband Tony at their baby shower.

Courtesy of Hannah Howard

My body was doing something miraculous

My body wasn't betraying me. It was growing a person. I marveled at that. At the shift from hypervigilance to awe. My belly was expanding, my hips widening, and for the first time, those changes felt purposeful. I wasn't gaining weight because I'd "failed." I was gaining because I was creating. Nourishing. Becoming.

Of course, it wasn't easy. Pregnancy was physically and emotionally intense. Postpartum was a fog of exhaustion and spit-up and meals eaten one-handed. But somehow, my body image didn't take the hit I feared. If anything, it grew stronger. I had a C-section scar and a soft belly. But I also had this wild new respect for myself — for what I'd endured and who I was becoming.

Motherhood, it turns out, didn't break me. It helped me rebuild.

My body carried me through the sleepless nights and endless feedings. It pushed a stroller for miles while I sang "Baby Beluga" on repeat. It held two babies, 19 months apart, close to my chest. It showed up for me and my family again and again, even when I wasn't sure I could.

While she was pregnant, the author started to look at her body in a different way.

Courtesy of Hannah Howard

Motherhood has changed how I see myself

Today, I look in the mirror and see a body that's been through something — and continues to show up. That soft pooch over my C-section scar? Yes, there are times I used to wish it away. Now, it feels like a badge of honor.

I'm not saying motherhood is a cure for an eating disorder. It isn't. And I'm not suggesting that everyone's experience will mirror mine. But I do think we need more stories that complicate the tired narrative that pregnancy and postpartum inevitably unravel recovery. For some of us, it can be something else entirely: a recalibration. A return. A radical reclamation of self.

There's so much noise about what motherhood should look like — what bodies should look like. But my story is proof that sometimes, the biggest transformations aren't about shrinking. They're about expanding.

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The AI labs are coming for Wall Street's quants

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:45:01 +0000

Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI

OpenAI and other firms are recruiting Wall Street quants to build artificial general intelligence.
AI labs are offering multimillion-dollar packages, outbidding traditional Wall Street firms.
The shift in AI valuations is changing the calculus for quants considering a move.

In May, a group of more than 20 finance whizzes from across the country descended on OpenAI's San Francisco HQ for what CEO Sam Altman cheekily called a "party." They sat through a presentation, mingled with researchers, and some received formal interview invites. A month later in New York City, Altman's team held another recruiting overture for quant trading professionals — the highly coveted mathematicians, physicists, data scientists, and engineers who power the world's top hedge funds and high-frequency trading firms.

Altman's pitch: Forsake Wall Street stalwarts like Citadel, D.E. Shaw, and Jane Street and join his $300 billion powerhouse's quest to build artificial general intelligence.

Much attention this summer has surrounded Mark Zuckerberg's extravagant recruiting blitz for top AI researchers for Meta. Offers in the tens of millions — in rare cases, north of $100 million — have stirred up FOMO across Silicon Valley.

AI labs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and others, are also looking beyond competitors to staff up, increasingly hunting in Wall Street's backyard.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in hot pursuit of Wall Street's quant talent.

Tomohiro Ohsumi via Getty Images

Poaching quants for Silicon Valley isn't new. But AI startups awash in cash can not only match but outbid Wall Street pay. Junior and midlevel traders at top high-speed trading firms are now fielding multimillion-dollar packages — up sharply from a year ago, quants and quant recruiters with direct knowledge of the offers told Business Insider.

OpenAI has scooped up researchers, engineers, and senior recruiters from firms like Hudson River Trading and Citadel Securities. Last year, it hired HRT's longtime HR chief.

Wall Street trading firms long vied for and often won over the brightest quantitative minds, dangling $600,000 comp packages to fresh-faced grads and multimillion-dollar guarantees to seasoned pros.

Math olympiad champs have long felt the smart money — the low-risk, high-reward wager — was at a top-tier quant hedge fund or prop trading firm. Leaving would mean accepting a comparatively uninspiring Big Tech gig, often working on internal systems like improving advertising algorithms, or a high-risk gamble on a startup in bootstrap mode.

As some AI valuations soar into the billions, though, the risk calculus is shifting for some quants.

"Optimizing ads at Google gets boring," said Paul Carr, who recruited quants for years as a business development head at prop trading firm Tower Research. "This is different."

For Wall Street's elite, prior threats from Silicon Valley never amounted to much, said Carr, who recently launched Harchester Research, a data firm that tracks early career AI professionals and researchers in academia who may be desirable hires for trading firms.

Now, they're on notice.

"If LLM research labs start aggressively poaching from trading firms, it could become a problem," Carr said.

After seeing Altman advertise his "parties" for quants, Johnny Ho, a cofounder of Perplexity, which operates a popular AI-powered search engine and a newly launched web browser, decided to throw a rival event for quants at an event space on Canal Street during NYC tech week.

Raised in New York, Ho spent five years as a quantitative trader in the city after studying math and computer science and graduating from Harvard in 2017. He knew it could be a fruitful area from which to recruit new talent.

"The hot thing to do back in those years was to try and get a trading internship, and if you couldn't do it, you'd go into tech," said Ho, the chief strategy officer of Perplexity, which is valued at $14 billion and focuses on refining and honing models from other AI labs for greater accuracy and performance.

"Obviously, the tables have turned now."

Altman's call-out to quants

In January, the AI world fell off its axis when DeepSeek, a little-known Chinese firm, vaulted to No. 1 on Apple's US App Store with a free chatbot that rivaled ChatGPT. DeepSeek started as a side project of the hedge fund High-Flyer and was built at a fraction of the cost of mainstream AI labs that were spending billions on computing power. Markets lurched, and AI-related tech stocks plunged.

>be you
>work in HFT shaving nanoseconds off latency or extracting bps from models
>have existential dread
>see this tweet, wonder if your skills could be better used making AGI
>apply to attend this party, meet the openai team
>build AGI
— Sam Altman (@sama) April 14, 2025

It was a potent reminder that AI firepower was lurking inside secretive quantitative trading firms. A few months later, Sam Altman took to X, calling on high-frequency trading personnel to escape their "existential dread" of "shaving nanoseconds off latency" or "extracting bps from models," and help him build artificial general intelligence — autonomous AI systems that can outperform humans in a wide range of tasks.

He followed up with a link to an application for the two recruiting events, with a more direct pitch on the "massive impact" quants could have in making AGI.

OpenAI's event invite.

Screenshot

While the DeepSeek episode amplified efforts to recruit quants, the pursuit was already well underway, industry experts say.

In 2024, OpenAI poached a handful of people from HRT's HR and recruiting teams, including Chief People Officer Julia Villagra. HRT, one of the industry's top proprietary trading firms, produced $8 billion in net trading revenue in 2024, and Iain Dunning, an ex-DeepMind researcher, has led its AI lab since 2018. Hiring Villagra, who worked at HRT for 15 years, and her team isn't a coincidence, one quant recruiter said, requesting anonymity to protect client relationships.

"If you have somebody like Julia there, she was part of the whole ascension of Hudson River," he said, adding that she understands the talent flow and who built key systems. (Hudson River Trading did not respond to requests for comment.)

An OpenAI spokesperson said several of its top-performing researchers over the years have had experience in quant finance, showing how successfully that skill set can translate. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen joined OpenAI in 2018 after nearly seven years in quant research roles.

Noam Brown, a top OpenAI researcher who joined in 2023, worked for a small quant-trading shop after graduating from Rutgers in 2008, "but didn't want my lifetime contribution to humanity to be making equity markets marginally more efficient," he wrote in a LinkedIn post promoting OpenAI's quant recruiting event. "Taking a pay cut to pursue AI research was my best life decision. Today, you don't even need to take a pay cut to do it."

Behind AI's multimillion-dollar offers

Less than two years ago, some AI labs were offering machine-learning researchers with a couple years of experience up to $750,000, including equity, according to a researcher who recently left a high-frequency trading firm.

Those offers have now soared into the millions: The researcher says peers with similar work experience have received job offers from top AI labs ranging from roughly $1.5 million to $3 million, including equity.

The researcher is considering a job at an AI lab — not necessarily for the AGI mission Altman trumpets, but because the economics seem too good to pass up.

"The offers have come up dramatically," said Matt Moye, a 20-year veteran of quant recruiting and the founder of Monochrome, a search firm.

Four Wall Street recruiters bemoaned shepherding quant candidates to final-stage interviews at top trading firms only to lose out to one of the buzzy top AI startups.

One of the recruiters said candidates frequently juggle offers from both sides. In one case, the offers were financially comparable — both low seven figures — but Anthropic offered a more enticing and broader mandate that was tantamount to "Hey, come play in AI land," this person said. (Anthropic did not respond to requests to comment.)

Another quant headhunter said that while he has firsthand knowledge of several quant candidates getting offers worth millions to leave for AI, he's also aware of tech candidates who have been getting the same — a point Zuckerberg's recent talent raid underscores.

"The quants aren't redefining the market; OpenAI redefined it before they went after quants," this headhunter said.

Why AI labs see quants as natural fits

There's the obvious overlap in skill set that makes quants attractive to AI labs. Quants already excel at mining vast data sets and engineering systems to unearth insights. As Carr puts it, "In quantitative trading you need to be comfortable conducting research on large quantities of data, then you need to build a system that can take advantage of any insights from that research. Sound familiar?"

Then there's the high-octane culture.

"The intensity of the work is similar," said Ho, the Perplexity cofounder. "Teams are very tight-knit, working super hard."

The breakneck pace of AI fundraising and hiring mirrors the non-stop grind of elite trading desks. One consultant who's worked with both Citadel and OpenAI said, "The culture is not dissimilar. Citadel are famous for moving like a bullet train. Everyone is working every second."

In both worlds, slight edges translate to enormous returns. Trading strategies decay fast, and AI models need constant updates to stay ahead.

"In trading, there is a lot of pressure to win, and you can see results directly tied to P&L, so in many ways it's always a race," said Moye. "And that's what we're seeing with AI — everyone knows it's a race."

Another key component that makes quants attractive is the lengthy, ubiquitous noncompete clauses that systematic trading firms put in employees' contracts to prevent them from leaving for rivals with proprietary information. Because industry sit-outs can last two years, traders and researchers looking for a change have used the time to test drive a career in Big Tech. If they don't like it, they can return to finance once their noncompete has lapsed.

Or they've worked in a hot new startup sector — a potentially risky bet. In recent years, that was crypto.

The new batch of AI startups offer a more compelling vision.

"The pitch is really net impact on the world," Ho said. "You can continue farming markets for small amounts of edge on every trade. Or you can actually make a difference and make improvements in people's lives."

With AI products, "the direct impact on the user is so high," he added.

Don't count Wall Street out

The industry has been here before.

Back in the early 1990s, long before Renaissance Technologies became the industry's most fabled quant hedge fund, founder Jim Simons was trying to lure a pair of IBM researchers who were working on nascent versions of large language models and speech recognition.

Bob Mercer and Peter Brown would become invaluable leaders at Renaissance, but Brown, who was the first grad student to study under AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton, was initially uninterested in joining — until Simons offered to double his salary.

"After that offer, I came home. I took one look at our newborn daughter and realized I had no choice in the matter," Brown, now CEO of Renaissance, said in a podcast interview. "So, the decision to leave computational linguistics for a small hedge fund that no one had ever heard of was made purely for financial reasons."

The anecdote underscores that while mission matters in recruiting, money talks. And it highlights an underappreciated truth about quants: They're often risk-averse. Instead of highly leveraged, gut-wrenching bets, they favor cool calculations and expected-value math.

Now, it's firms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity — the inheritors of that early IBM work — winning those expected-value calculations.

At the moment, these AI giants may be able to outbid trading firms thanks to their lofty valuations. Carr cautions that Wall Street won't sit idle if a talent war erupts.

"Trading firms are run by competitive people with a habit of winning," he said. "They're used to resource constraints, and they've never had the option of hurling SoftBank's money at problems."

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Meet the leaders of MBB, the consulting giants advising the world's most powerful CEOs

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:15:01 +0000

The leaders of McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting Group.

McKinsey & Company; Bain & Company; Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Meet the leaders of McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting Group.
MBB firms advise companies and governments in areas like strategy, mergers, and AI adoption.
The firms' leaders focus on a global roster of clients and oversee tens of thousands of employees.

You might not know their names, but they likely have the ear of many powerful CEOs.

They're the leaders of what are widely considered the most prestigious strategy consulting firms: McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group, which are collectively referred to as the Big 3, or MBB.

MBB firms are often tough places to land a job, and their consultants are some of the most sought-after in the industry.

They're the people tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple — as well as government agencies — turn to for advice on things like mergers and acquisitions, business strategy, and AI adoption. MBB consultants have also gone on to lead some of the world's biggest companies.

So, who's leading the nearly hundred thousand employees across these influential firms?

Here's a look at the leaders at McKinsey, Bain, and BCG.

McKinsey — Bob Sternfels

Bob Sternfels has been the global managing partner at McKinsey since 2021.

McKinsey & Company

Bob Sternfels is the global managing partner and chair of the board of directors at McKinsey, which is headquartered in New York City and has offices around the world. The firm employs about 40,000 people.

Senior partners first elected Sternfels in 2021 and re-elected him to a second three-year term in 2024.

Sternfels grew up in California's Central Valley and has worked at McKinsey since 1994, when he joined the San Francisco office. Prior to becoming global managing partner, he led McKinsey's client capabilities around the world. Before that, he ran the operations practice for the Americas and the private equity and principal investors practice globally.

He studied economics and history at Stanford University, where he also played Division I varsity water polo. Sternfels has said on several occasions that his sports background has influenced his leadership style. He got his master's in politics, philosophy, and economics at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Sternfels recently told Business Insider that humor and vulnerability are some of his key leadership tools. He also said he likes to take small groups on walks when visiting McKinsey offices because it can help folks open up.

"A little levity — a joke at your own expense, a lighthearted moment — can go a long way toward building trust, breaking down barriers, and democratizing the team room," he said.

When he was elected global managing partner, the firm said Sternfels was often described as organized, proactive, and a systems thinker.

Under his leadership, McKinsey has navigated the AI revolution, launching QuantumBlack, the firm's AI consulting arm.

During his tenure, McKinsey has also faced scrutiny for earlier advising Purdue Pharma on how to boost sales of OxyContin. Sternfels testified before Congress in 2022, and the firm has paid about $1.6 billion in recent years to settle legal claims.

McKinsey has also recently reduced its staff by 10%, BI reported in May. The firm said at the time that the reorganization was in part due to AI driving new levels of efficiency and that it planned to hire thousands of new consultants in 2025.

Bain & Company — Christophe De Vusser

Christophe De Vusser is the worldwide managing partner, CEO, and chairman at Bain & Company.

Courtesy of Bain & Company

Christophe De Vusser is the worldwide managing partner, CEO, and chairman of Bain & Company, which is based in Boston and has about 19,000 employees globally. The company was founded in 1973.

Before taking on the role in July 2024 and moving to New York, De Vusser was a partner based in Brussels, where he led Bain's private equity practice for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. De Vusser is the first European to hold the role of worldwide managing partner and CEO, the company said in a 2024 press release.

De Vusser, who first joined Bain in 2000, began his career at the consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, maker of Tide detergent and Crest toothpaste. De Vusser has master's degrees in civil engineering and multilingual business communication from the University of Ghent, according to Bain.

De Vusser's rise to the top role comes as the firm's business is evolving because of tech advances. In December, Bain said tech and "AI-enabled revenue" accounted for 30% of the company's business in 2024. Bain expects that revenue to climb to 50% in the coming years.

In a Bain podcast, De Vusser said the firm's clients are grappling with massive amounts of change, including around artificial intelligence. It's a technology, he said, that's still in its early days.

"It will continue to mature at immense speeds, we believe, in the coming decades," he said on the podcast.

De Vusser has also written about AI. In a recent LinkedIn post, he pointed to Bain research that found fewer than 20% of companies had "meaningfully scaled" generative AI. The reason, he said, is that many organizations tend to view AI "primarily as a technology initiative rather than using it as a catalyst to fundamentally reimagine their business."

For organizations to get it right, De Vusser wrote, they need to simplify key processes, use technology so that it fits with strategic goals, and enable workers to use AI.

Boston Consulting Group — Christoph Schweizer

BCG's chief executive, Christoph Schweizer, starts his second term at the company in October.

Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer described his leadership style in a video produced by the company: "Values-led, empathetic, transparent, curious," he says.

The firm elected Schweizer for a second term this year. BCG says its reelection process is "unique." All 1,500 managing directors and partners have an equal vote when choosing a CEO.

Schweizer, who first became CEO in 2021, joined BCG in 1997, according to his biography on the firm's website. He holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business and a Bachelor's degree from the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany.

During his tenure, BCG has grown in several areas, including the firm's investments in AI — which accounted for bout 20% of the firm's total revenue in 2024 and are expected to grow this year, according to a press release from BCG.

Schweizer has also navigated some controversies during his tenure, including two recent projects related to the Gaza conflict. BCG backed out of a multimillion-dollar American-Israeli project to deliver aid in Gaza that was marked by violence. And two senior BCG leaders were demoted for their role in another project that modeled the potential cost of relocating Palestinians from the territory.

One of the firm's biggest challenges moving forward, Schweizer says in the company interview, will be helping clients embed AI.

"To seize the opportunity, our clients need to fundamentally redefine operating models, value chains, decision-making, and end-to-end processes, while protecting themselves from associated risks, such as info security," he said.

Another major focus for BCG is sustainability, he said.

"Companies and governments will have to get serious about decarbonization extremely fast: setting the right targets, reduction mechanisms, metrics, and enforcement," Schweizer said.

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I was laid off from my product management job at Microsoft at 25. It may have been the best thing for me.

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:05:01 +0000

Kosi Pierre-Louis.

Courtesy of Kosi Pierre-Louis

Microsoft laid off Kosi Pierre-Louis, a product manager, in May amid companywide layoffs.
The 25-year-old worked on Microsoft's Security Copilot, a key AI initiative.
Pierre-Louis is figuring out what success means to him and looking at new career paths.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kosi Pierre-Louis, a 25-year-old in Seattle. Pierre-Louis was let go from his product management role in May, when Microsoft laid off about 6,000 workers; the company laid off 9,000 more workers in July. This essay has been edited for length and clarity.

When I look at my big passions — tech, music, and visual arts — all of them come down to invention.

I studied computer science and visual media at Duke. I always wanted to get into tech. When I learned about the role of a product manager, I thought, "This is really cool. This is directly aligned with what I would do if I went into the corporate world."

I applied and was accepted to Microsoft as a product manager intern during my junior year. I got a return offer from the internship for a hybrid role in Seattle in 2022.

When I got the role, I was really excited. My team was working with Security Copilot, which is basically a space where you can look at your entire security ecosystem in one place. I sometimes like to think of it as the ChatGPT of security within Microsoft.

I was ready to take it on and learn as much as I could.

The work started out very rewarding

When I joined full time, we hadn't even gotten the product to general availability (GA), when all Microsoft customers can use the product.

My team moved and worked like a startup — the team was newer, so we were still establishing a workflow. We had to move with speed, but we had the requirements of Big Tech, so we didn't have as much leeway for mistakes.

It was very fast-paced, and my work had an impact. It was great. I was at the forefront of the AI movement.

As my responsibilities picked up, things became very stressful

I worked long hours. When we were about to launch GA last spring, there was a point where I had 6 or 6:30 a.m. meetings with international teams. As a new PM, I didn't know how to set boundaries for a while, and that included taking meetings at earlier times than I needed to.

It was intense but rewarding — until it wasn't. The stress came on slowly and all at once due to the increased pressures of AI requirements and wanting to stay at the forefront of our space.

We continued to pick up more while also wanting to maintain the same level of integrity. I was a high performer, and I thought as long as I was doing my work, I was good.

I was laid off on May 13. I didn't expect it at all.

I got on a call with my manager, who delivered the news and told me they were sorry. When I heard this, part of me was happy — I had been so sick that week. I needed to go back to bed.

Then it hit me. I was shocked. I thought, "Did I really just get laid off? Me? After the work I put in?" I was working in AI and security — I thought I had the most job security on the planet.

For the following days, I rested. If I wanted to make the most out of my time, I needed to be healthy again, and I wasn't healthy. I was ignoring my basic necessities. Maybe this was the world saying, "Take a break, rest. Figure out your life a little bit."

I never saw Big Tech as the be-all, end-all

This layoff has been quite the experience. I've been taking it in stride, but I've also realized how much it has affected me. I'm far more stressed than I thought I'd be.

I made a post on LinkedIn about getting laid off, and it went viral. I've gotten a crazy amount of support from people. I've received a lot of advice from people who've experienced layoffs, both within and outside Microsoft. They told me it was not my fault.

It also made me realize that layoffs are far more common than I thought, and a lot of people that I admire have actually gone through some type of layoff in their career. Sometimes, layoffs are the best thing that can happen to you.

I'm responsible right now for myself and myself only

A layoff forces you to take life on. I don't have children, I'm not married, and I don't own a house, so I could just get up and go anywhere and restart my life if I wanted to.

I'm only two years into the real world. There's plenty of time to pivot, especially given that I was feeling very stressed and not necessarily fulfilled at Microsoft anymore.

I'd always envisioned myself pursuing my passions. This is a moment for me to do that.

With music, I have a talent here

Music is fueling me. I'm doing pretty well for someone who worked a 9-to-5. If I put a lot of eggs in this basket, I could make this a career.

I'm not actively applying for jobs right now. That doesn't mean I wouldn't go back to corporate, but now I'm opening my life up to other things. I could look at startups that are more aligned with what I like to do.

The blueprint for stability and success is changing nowadays, so I'm creating my own blueprint now. This feels like a plot twist, and plot twists are very exciting.

Have you been laid off from a Big Tech job? Reach out to this editor at lhaas@businessinsider.com.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Now you can get a breath of fresh air at airports — literally

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:01:01 +0000

Airports are trying to help alleviate some of the stresses of flying.

Christoph Soeder/picture alliance via Getty Images

Outdoor spaces are seeing a renaissance at airports across the US.
From New York to San Diego, designers are aiming to tackle the ever-increasing stresses of flying.
Business Insider has taken a look at how these spaces could help improve travel.

One of my travel dreams came true recently.

I was in Laguardia, Terminal C, on my way to the gate headed to Florida, when I came across a "terrace."

A kind of amphibious, indoor-outdoor space, it was enclosed with glass walls facing onto the runways, but a net ceiling that allowed in fresh air and real sunshine.

In other words, you could sit outside at the airport, past security.

For me, one of the biggest drags of travel has long been that feeling of being trapped inside on a beautiful day, waiting for a flight — delayed or on time — unable to catch a gulp of fresh air.

I get the security concerns, but couldn't there be some "outside" once you're inside?

Now, my wish was granted. In this terrace, there were lovely benches, with people sitting enjoying their time — one family having a snack, one fellow doing bench pushups, one couple enjoying each other's company.

And we were all enjoying the fresh air.

My colleague Nathan set out to find out more about airport terraces.

The terrace at LaGuardia Airport.

Jamie Heller/Business Insider

So, how common are they?

Outdoor spaces, such as terraces and viewing decks, were once fairly common features at airports across the world.

With heightened security concerns post 9/11, many of these areas closed. Weary travelers were forced to while away the hours with little more than sterile shopping malls and extortionately priced cafés and bars to occupy them.

In recent years, however, many airports have been undergoing major renovations aimed at elevating customer experiences — and outdoor spaces have become all the rage once more.

Aside from the obvious aesthetic advantages, such areas are designed to address a growing issue in aviation: passenger stress.

It's hard to blame anyone for feeling frazzled when flying. Cramped cabins, intimidating security procedures, and the nagging threat of delays and cancellations are enough to make even the hardiest of travelers fret.

But a little fresh air can often go a long way toward alleviating some of that anxiety.

"Human beings, by nature, respond very poorly to sterile environments," Terence Young, a principal and design director at global architecture firm Gensler, told Business Insider. "We feel like we're being driven. We have no sense of human agency. There's no joy in the space."

Gensler was early to embrace the alfresco trend, leading the design of JetBlue's T5 Rooftop at New York's JFK International Airport.

Opened in 2015, it was one of the first post-security outdoor areas available to all passengers in the United States.

The rooftop is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time and offers a green area, child-friendly and dog-friendly spaces, and views of the Manhattan skyline and the TWA Flight Center.

Gensler is also working on a 5,000-square-foot terrace at San Diego International Airport. Due to open in September, the space will offer flyers an outdoor restaurant and views across San Diego Bay.

Corgan worked on the Delta Sky Club and Sky Deck at Salt Lake City International Airport.

Courtesy of Corgan

Another firm looking to bring the outdoors closer to flyers is Corgan.

One of the Dallas-headquartered firm's recent projects was the Delta Sky Club and Sky Deck at Salt Lake City International Airport.

The almost 30,000-square-foot space opened in 2020 and offers passengers an open-air patio where they can take in the Wasatch Range.

Alongside Lake Flato Architects, Corgan is also designing a new terminal at San Antonio International Airport, which will include a post-security outdoor patio with views across the airfield.

"The travel journey begins long before boarding a plane," Ginger Gee DiFurio, an aviation design director at Corgan, said. "Features like natural light, fresh air, views, and greenery have become essential in reducing stress and providing a sense of calm within the often-hectic terminal environment."

John Trupiano, a principal at Corgan, who is leading the new terminal project at San Antonio, added that he believed the growing trend also reflected a "broader cultural shift toward health and well-being."

"There's a growing emphasis on providing access to the outdoors as designers seek to balance the need for shelter with the benefits of a more nature-connected, health-conscious lifestyle," he said.

Rendering of an outdoor space at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Courtesy of Pittsburgh International Airport/Gensler

At Pittsburgh International Airport, officials are also looking to take some of the stress out of flying.

The airport is undergoing a $1.7 billion new terminal program that will add four outdoor terraces, two pre-security and two post-security.

The project aims to harness a "biophilic" design to bring nature to passengers, allowing flyers to grab a breath of fresh air and shake off some excess energy before boarding.

"The stress of uncertainty can make people anxious," Christina Cassotis, the CEO of Pittsburgh International Airport, told BI.

The key question is: "How do you create calm?" she added.

And it's not just passengers who could benefit from such spaces, with designers also keeping airport employees in mind.

"Their ability to operate safely is 100% dependent on their frame of mind," Young said.

Other airports to have added similar outdoor spaces include Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Monterey Regional Airport, Long Beach Airport, Denver International Airport, and San Francisco International Airport.

Rendering of the planned dining terrace at San Diego International Airport.

Courtesy of Gensler

While many travelers will no doubt delight in the opportunity to step outside of the terminal, for others, the idea of airside outdoor spaces might conjure up even more security concerns.

But airports and designers are taking a number of precautions to minimize risks.

"Post-security outdoor spaces require careful planning to ensure compliance with safety and security regulations," Trupiano said. "This includes physical barriers and screening processes to prevent the transfer of prohibited items from non-secure to secure areas, as well as design strategies to mitigate the risk of foreign object debris near aircraft operations."

Aviation security expert Jeffrey Price told BI that "the most significant security measure" is often a plexiglass wall that extends around eight to 10 feet high.

He said these were also made "as seamless as possible" to make them difficult to climb over.

CCTV is also often in place to monitor such terraces, and security personnel may also patrol the areas or be stationed nearby, Price added.

"Everything starts with a safety and security filter. Everything," Cassotis said.

What is next on our travel wish list?

Three things. First, planes that are impervious to weather — in other words, planes that could fly even in inclement conditions. Next, more of a subway-style system where you could simply arrive at the airport and buy a ticket for whatever flight you want, and just get on the next one. And finally, more (and functioning) power outlets.

One can always dream.

What's on your travel wish list? Contact Nathan Rennolds at nrennolds@businessinsider.com

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As warehouse market staggers, Brookfield makes a bold $428 million move

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:00:01 +0000

One of the warehouses purchased by Brookfield outside of Atlanta

Brookfield

Brookfield bought a $428 million portfolio of warehouses in Nashville, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston.
The property giant believes the portfolio's older properties will appeal to cost-conscious tenants.
Tariffs threaten to raise costs for businesses that store goods and materials in warehouses.

Brookfield, one of the country's largest property investors, is banking on a strategy that might have looked out of place in recent years —buying older and cheaper warehouses.

The Toronto-based firm purchased a $428 million portfolio of 53 warehouses located in and around Houston, Dallas, Nashville, and Atlanta—one of the largest property deals of its kind this year. The deal was completed in early July, according to a spokeswoman for the company.

The acquisition comes as the once red-hot warehouse sector cools following a boom in construction. Trade tariffs, meanwhile, are threatening to diminish demand for the goods and materials that warehouses are leased to store and distribute.

Andy Smith, the head of logistics investments at Brookfield in North America, said the purchase focused on properties that are more affordable to rent than the wave of newly built warehouses that have hit the market in recent years.

Andy Smith, who leads Brookfield's warehouse investments in North America

Brookfield

He said the older buildings will appeal to tenants looking to spend less as tariffs push up the cost of goods and materials, potentially diminishing consumer spending.

"It's put a pause on people taking new space for growth prospects," Smith said of the tariff threats.

"You're not going to pay up for something that you don't need when what you have perfectly gets the job done," Smith said, explaining that some tenants have grown more conservative in the current business environment and less eager to upgrade to more expensive, brand-new warehouse spaces.

The portfolio is 96% occupied, and Smith said Brookfield will seek to increase its average rents from "the mid-single digits" to the "high-single digits" as leases expire and tenants either renew or are replaced by new occupants.

Demand for warehouses has skyrocketed over the last decade as a surge in online shopping led to a mass transfer of goods from stores to storage. A record share of consumer spending, totaling 24.1%, was done online in the first quarter of 2025, according to CBRE, a commercial real estate services firm.

A record 1.45 billion square feet of newly built warehouses were completed from 2022 to 2024, according to JLL, another real estate services firm — leading to an oversupply that pushed the average national vacancy rate up to 7.3% in the first quarter, its highest level in more than a decade.

In April, just as President Trump began to levy foreign goods, sales of warehouse properties plunged by 34% to $4.5 billion during the month, according to MSCI, a real estate data services provider. In May, warehouse deals fell by 26% to $5.2 billion year over year, MSCI reported.

Rob Kossar, the head of JLL's industrial leasing and advisory business in the northeast, said that large corporate warehouse tenants "joined the sidelines" after April's tariff actions, putting warehouse leasing decisions on hold.

More recently, he's seen signs of a rebound, he said.

Kossar said that six warehouse leases had been signed in the past month in New Jersey, totaling about 2.2 million square feet.

"The demand has had a significant uptick over the last month, and we hope that that continues," Kossar said.

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How Demis Hassabis became Google's best superpower in the AI race — and maybe its next CEO

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:00:01 +0000

DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis.

Jack Taylor/Getty Images for SXSW London

One of Google's most powerful leaders is someone who long tried to distance his company from the search giant.

AI mastermind and chess wiz Demis Hassabis, who founded DeepMind and later sold it to Google in 2014, has been propelled into the center of Google's universe in the past two years amid the frenzied race for AI dominance.

After years of trying to create more independence for DeepMind — shielding the AI research lab from the search giant — Hassabis was thrust into the belly of the beast in 2023 when Google merged DeepMind with its internal AI efforts.

Now, company insiders close to Hassabis say he is destined for even greater heights that may give him more control over the powerful AI technology he builds — and possibly one day lead the company.

Whether he's interested in those ambitions is another matter.

For years, Hassabis hoped the AI race would be one led by academics and scientists in research labs, with international organizations to prevent AI's misuse and to map humanity's path through a new era of technological transformation.

Hassabis now faces the pressures of pushing the frontiers of AI and also building it into Google's commercial products. He's wrangling a 6,000-plus team inside Google's AI engine room that has accrued increasingly more power and talent—Google DeepMind just poached the core team of the AI coding startup Windsurf, which rival OpenAI had previously planned to acquire.

The stakes have never been higher: He has to keep Google ahead of corporate rivals and keep the US ahead of China.

"His rise reminds me of Sundar's," said a longtime Google employee who has worked closely with Hassabis and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. "All of a sudden, you started hearing this name Sundar internally, and he kept having more and more responsibility, and all of a sudden, he was the CEO."

"Demis' rise has been similar," the employee added. "Now, all of a sudden, he's responsible for what is probably the most important team at Google right now."

Business Insider spoke to more than a dozen company insiders for this story. They described how Google tapped its ultimate AI weapon in Hassabis, who has the makings of a CEO — and whose ascent within Google has come with trade-offs. Google declined to make Hassabis available for an interview.

Google's AI battle plan

A British-born cognitive neuroscience Ph.D., Hassabis cofounded DeepMind in 2010 with the goal of one day creating a general-purpose artificial intelligence. In 2014, Hassabis sold the company to Google for $650 million with a caveat: It would create an AI ethics board that would limit how Google could use DeepMind's technology.

In the years to come, Hassabis would take this further, fighting to create legal thicker walls between his lab and the search giant, BI previously reported. For one thing, DeepMind's leaders worried that their AI would be used for military purposes.

After ChatGPT became a hit in late 2022, Google leaders ordered several pivots inside the company to address the potential threat to the search giant's business. In DeepMind earlier that year, Hassabis had told staff that he planned to reorient his lab toward building an AI assistant. One former employee said they were confused at the time as to how DeepMind could ever build something that would directly compete with Google's own Assistant.

It soon didn't matter. In 2023, after talks to secure DeepMind's independence failed, Pichai announced the unit would fuse with Google's internal AI lab, and they merged their AI assistant efforts. Google was caught flat-footed by OpenAI's ChatGPT and needed a battle plan. Google DeepMind, a fusion of the company's two premier AI labs, was the answer, and Hassabis is in its driver's seat.

Hassabis has done more managing than ever since. Merging DeepMind with the Brain team from Google Research meant Hassabis had to oversee the merging of two units that historically had behaved more like competitors than colleagues.

Years before the merger, things had gotten so bad between both organizations trying to scoop one another that Hassabis had DeepMind's code locked so it wasn't visible to Google employees. Now, bringing them together meant deciding who should sit under whom, leading to some political infighting, according to multiple people who were there.

DeepMind also used different programming technology than Google — a decision Hassabis made to avoid dependencies on Google teams — and so the merger posed a large technical challenge. A Google spokesperson said these issues had since been resolved.

Thrusting Hassabis into the driver's seat gave him more power but less control. For example, Hassabis has had to change his stance on what were once red lines: In February 2024, Google dropped a pledge made in 2018 not to use its AI for military purposes, following the rest of Silicon Valley. Hassabis cosigned a blog post defending the decision.

"Since we first published our AI Principles in 2018, the AI field has evolved substantially, and we've updated our Principles to more effectively meet the environment of today. Our core commitment remains: benefits must substantially outweigh harms," a Google spokesperson told BI in a statement.

In the merger process, dozens of DeepMind employees left for other labs, pushed out by internal politics and pulled away by a red-hot AI job market. A pullback on publishing certain types of research also rankled some staff, insiders said.

"Some people joined an academic research lab and suddenly they're being asked to build products, and that's not what they wanted," a former DeepMind employee said.

Others were excited by how Google had been shaken out of its slumber, especially when cofounder Sergey Brin returned to the trenches.

The merger has required Hassabis to play a hand in the sorts of Google politicking DeepMind had for a long time avoided to some degree.

AI Studio, Google's AI developer platform, was previously part of Google's Cloud organization and became a point of contention when teams working on Google's other AI cloud platform, Vertex, saw AI Studio as a competitor internally, according to two people familiar with the matter. The AI Studio team moved to Google DeepMind earlier this year, a resolution that Hassabis helped broker, one of the people said.

A spokesperson said that both those products serve different purposes and that DeepMind and Google had historically collaborated.

"There have been many shared views and ways of working between the two teams, and the merger has been very smooth," they said.

Hassabis onstage at Google I/O.

CAMILLE COHEN/AFP via Getty Images

Hassabis' new position has some employees wondering if he is being groomed to succeed Pichai and if the CEO chair could give him the level of control over Google's AI he has always wanted.

After all, if Google transforms into the AI-first company Pichai promised in 2016 — the ultimate form of Google, as cofounder Larry Page once saw it — Hassabis is the smartest bet, insiders say.

"My opinion is this is not going to happen," said another person who knows Hassabis. "But I'm less certain about that than I was a year ago."

Others close to Hassabis believe he wouldn't care for such responsibilities. Running Google means overseeing a search business and an advertising empire. It means wrangling a vocal and sometimes unhappy workforce. It means being dragged in front of Congress to answer uncomfortable questions. Above all, it means keeping shareholders happy.

"He does it because he knows the company needs it," said one former executive regarding Hassabis' elevated position running Google DeepMind. "But being CEO would push him away from the things he wants to do. This guy wants to cure cancer."

Who is Demis Hassabis?

For Hassabis, the past two years have punched up an already powerful résumé.

He was a chess prodigy at age 4 and master standard by 13. At 17, he joined the computer game company Bullfrog, where, after completing his studies, he later returned to build a multimillion-selling video game (Theme Park; you might have played it). In 2010, he co-founded DeepMind, one of the world's most powerful and successful AI labs.

In 2024 alone, he oversaw a series of Google AI product launches, earned a Nobel Prize for his work on DeepMind's protein folding project, and even slipped in a knighthood for "services to artificial intelligence," bestowed upon him by King Charles III.

People who have worked with Hassabis describe him as a double threat: He's incredibly smart and can dive deep into technical topics. He also has the charm and charisma to stand in front of thousands of people and make them believe AGI will happen — and that he'll be the one to lead them there.

Devang Agrawal, a former DeepMinder, recalled how he was studying for his undergraduate degree when Hassabis visited his university and gave the students a demo where an AI system used reinforcement learning to play Atari games. Agrawal was sold on the mission, and a few years later, he was working for Hassabis.

"I think Demis has this really brilliant quality about him, to talk in an inspirational way," said Agrawal.

"Demis is very good at convincing you that you and him together are going to change the world," said another former DeepMind employee.

Hassabis can also be fiercely competitive, colleagues and friends say.

Hassabis received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024.

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

When asked about Elon Musk's AI ambitions during an interview at Davos in January, Hassabis remarked, "I think I got him into AI in the first place." In an interview with The New York Times last year, he said of fellow DeepMind founder and now Microsoft competitor Mustafa Suleyman: "Most of what he has learned about AI comes from working with me over all these years."

DeepMind and Google's awkward dance

While he's risen as a corporate leader, people who know him say Hassabis sees himself first as a scientist. His work on AlphaFold, a project for predicting the protein structures of the human body, resulted in a new spin-off company and garnered him his Nobel Prize.

"I want to understand the fundamental nature of reality," he said during a fireside chat at Davos in January.

For him, AI is a tool to do that, and he's most comfortable when discussing the Nobel-winning breakthroughs of protein folding and the potential for AI to eradicate diseases.

"If I could wave a magic wand and create the ideal setup, everyone would be working on more narrow AI tools like AlphaFold, " he said at a recent fireside chat at Queens' College at Cambridge University. "But the technology hasn't turned out that way."

After Google bought DeepMind, the AI lab embarked on an initiative — codenamed "Watermelon" and later called "Mario" — to create thicker walls between its group and its funder. It wanted to protect its valuable creations and prevent them from being used for military or surveillance purposes.

To some employees who spoke to BI, the initiative made no sense. Why would Google spend hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire a company it could not control? Hassabis knew he was racing against the clock, multiple former and current DeepMind employees said. One recalled a presentation Hassabis once gave that finished with a warning that AI would eventually become a race.

"To be one of the people at the table to stop other people from doing bad, you also need to be at the forefront," that person said.

Hassabis speaking at SXSW London.

Jack Taylor/Getty Images for SXSW London

In April 2021, Hassabis gathered his employees to announce that the bid to form a separate legal structure had indeed failed. Hassabis spun it as a win: it meant DeepMind would continue to have access to Google's vast computing power, necessary for building vast AI systems and ultimately, Hassabis hoped, artificial general intelligence — a hypothetical level of machine intelligence that surpasses human cognition across a range of areas.

What DeepMind most lacked was leverage. When Hassabis sold the company to Google in 2014, the AI landscape looked starkly different. Before selling to Google, a person familiar with the matter said Hassabis considered forming a second company to build video games and fund DeepMind's research.

Google's $650 million price tag looks like a bargain when compared to OpenAI's $6.6 billion funding round or the $14.3 billion Meta is spending to invest in Scale AI.

Hassabis was simply too early.

"In 2014, DeepMind didn't have enough money," said another former DeepMind employee "They needed to raise it to work on something that seemed crazy to most people."

Google cofounder Page convinced Hassabis to sell, promising to give DeepMind a large amount of independence. The arrangement allowed DeepMind to continue its research without being part of Google's corporate bureaucracy, while also giving the company access to what would become more valuable than anything else: compute power.

"Whereas today there's enough interest where you can raise enough money without giving away the whole company, so they get to retain control. I can just imagine that's how Demis would prefer things — to be in control," one former employee said.

Demis Hassabis is on the quest for AGI

Hassabis now walks a difficult line between his own interests regarding AGI and those of Google's shareholders. Running Google's control room now means pushing the frontiers of AI research while infusing it into the company's suite of products, from Search to Maps to Workspace. Over the past year, the team has absorbed more parts of Google, including the team for its Gemini chatbot, consolidating more power under Hassabis.

At the same time, Google DeepMind has scaled back the types of papers it publishes to prevent rivals from taking Google's ideas. Research breakthroughs relating to Gemini or the pursuit of AGI now stay within Google's walls, according to multiple people familiar with the strategy — another compromise Hassabis has made as the capitalist engine spins into overdrive.

It's a change in tune from 2016 when Hassabis told Bloomberg Businessweek that work on AI should be carried out in an "open way" and that DeepMind did this by "publishing everything we write."

"I think ultimately the control of this technology should belong to the world, and we need to think about how that's done," he said.

"Google DeepMind has always been committed to advancing AI research, and we regularly update our policies to preserve the ability for our teams to publish and contribute to the broader research ecosystem," the Google spokesperson told BI.

Almost a decade later, Hassabis appears to still be wrestling with his concerns, though it's unclear if he has the power to do much about them while running Google's corporate AI engine.

At SXSW London in June, Hassabis again called for international cooperation to better safeguard the transformative technology he sees coming.

In recent years, he has become more vocal about his concerns that the world is not ready for AGI. At I/O in May, he and Brin predicted AGI would arrive around 2030.

People aren't thinking enough about AI's long-term implications, Hassabis has said.

"What's going to happen in the next five, 10-year timescale is going to be monumental," he said at Davos earlier this year, "and I think that's not understood yet."

"But I do think we should be thinking very carefully about these next steps."

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He sent a cold email to Sergey Brin asking for grad school advice. Years later, he's leading Android.

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 08:50:02 +0000

Google's head of Android, Sameer Samat, told Business Insider about the cold email that changed his career trajectory.

Sameer Samat

Google's head of Android emailed cofounder Sergey Brin for advice in 1999 and landed a job offer.
Sameer Samat declined the offer at the time, but Brin helped him secure startup funding.
Later on, CEO Sundar Pichai personally called Samat asking him to work at Google.

When asked about the AI talent wars, Google's head of Android, Sameer Samat, said the competition to recruit top talent has always been intense — and he speaks from experience.

Before leading Google Shopping and eventually overseeing the Android ecosystem, Samat, was a tech startup founder in his early 20s. In the midst of the dot-com boom, he found himself trying to persuade his cofounders to stick with the machine-learning company they had built together.

"A couple of them were on to go to grad school, and we had a big fight about it," Samat said in an interview with Business Insider. "I said, 'I don't understand how you can want to go to grad school; we're building this company.'"

His next move shaped the course of his career.

Samat sent a cold reach out to Sergey Brin in the middle of the night, asking the Google cofounder for advice. At the time, he didn't know Brin personally, but he had read Brin's research papers and held a deep level of respect for the company.

"This is 1999 3 a.m. email," Samat said, adding that he asked Brin, "'What would you do in this situation? I'm sure you had this wrestle with this grad school decision.'"

Samat said that Brin answered a minute later saying was familiar with the problem and inviting him to Google's offices. Samat then went to visit Brin and they talked for a bit before the cofounder "paraded one engineering person after another into the room."

He ended up doing the Google interview on the spot, Samat said.

Following the impromptu interview rounds, Samat said Brin offered him a job at the search giant. While Samat said he was flattered by the offer, he told Brin he was committed to his startup and didn't want to leave his cofounders behind.

Brin respected the decision but gave him a piece of advice: If he was going to pursue his own company, he needed to do it properly, which meant securing solid financing, Samat told BI.

Samat said that Brin was "super kind with his time," and went on a long walk with him even after Samat declined the job offer. Brin ended up introducing him to several people, some of whom went on to invest in the startup, called Mohomine.

"He didn't have to do any of that," Samat said. "And so I try to pay that forward, too, when people call me up with something similar."

Samat went on to sell his company to Kofax, a public company at the time, now known as Tungsten Automation — and he ended up eventually coming to Google in 2008.

Samat said he made the right decision by sticking with his startup because he learned "a whole bunch of things," ultimately making him a stronger contributor when he joined Google. Operating with limited resources as a founder, he said, helped him gain valuable experience that played a key role in his success.

When it comes to deciding whether to go to grad school, Samat told BI it's a personal choice, and it might be right for some people.

Years later after his startup was acquired, Samat did a program at Harvard Business School where he took MBA classes for a few months. He said he learned "a tremendous amount," but after studying strategy from an MBA perspective, he could talk himself out of almost any business plan.

"There is no substitute for taking a pretty good plan and just running like hell," Samat said. "And sometimes the naiveness of someone who doesn't have that background makes a much better entrepreneur."

Samat said the decision to "do your own thing" and follow what excites you is the most important.

When Samat received his second job offer from Google in 2008, he was initially hesitant, as he was weighing the idea of starting another company at the time. It was Marissa Mayer, one of Google's first engineers, who finally persuaded him, suggesting Google could be the place where he met his next cofounder. Others he interviewed with, including Sundar Pichai, then VP of product management, "were all wickedly smart," Samat said.

"I thought, I bet I can learn a lot here," Samat told BI.

Google's chase for Samat didn't quite end there. After joining in 2008, he left Google in 2015. When Pichai became CEO, he called Samat and asked him to come back. Samat said he was like a "work big brother," and someone he went to for product advice.

"When he asked if I would come back to work with him on Android and Google Play, it was an easy decision," Samat said. "It was a call that you don't get often in your life."

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The elite MBAs ditching corporate America

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 08:13:01 +0000

Lexey Swall for BI

In the summer of 2019, Dan Schweber was grinding through yet another career pivot. Straight out of college, he landed what he thought would be a dream job as a healthcare consultant, only to discover that he couldn't stand being a nobody in a giant bureaucracy. So he joined a tiny healthtech startup, until it was acquired by a series of bigger companies that eventually laid him off. He came to believe that a better path would be to start his own business, where he could call all the shots. So at age 28, he enrolled in Columbia's executive MBA program. In between his day job in healthtech and his weekend classes, he used every free moment he could find to rack his brain for startup ideas.

A year in, Schweber had narrowed down his list to one promising contender: an app for physical therapy exercises. He was being treated for a back injury and, as if it were still 1995, his PT was giving him printouts of exercises to do at home. There should be an app for this, he thought. But the more he considered the logistics, the more doubts he had. Who would write the code? How would he find customers? With his student loans hanging over him, could he afford to forgo an income while he got the app off the ground? It all seemed so daunting, the prospect of manifesting a viable business out of literally nothing in a process that was statistically doomed for failure. Then he saw a weeklong intensive elective in Columbia's course catalog that sounded kind of interesting: an introduction to an unusual way into small business entrepreneurship known as search funds — or more formally, entrepreneurship through acquisition. He had never heard of it.

It was love at first case study. By the end of his first day of class, he knew he'd found the path he'd been looking for. "I couldn't believe it," he says. "I was like, I can do this."

Today, at 36, Schweber is the CEO of a 60-plus-person company, calling all the shots as he intended.

The core idea behind search funds is that, in order to become an owner-CEO, young people don't need to start their own business from scratch. Instead, they can buy a business that already exists — one that comes preloaded with loyal customers, steady revenue, and a healthy profit margin. America happens to be chock-full of these businesses, many of which are owned by aging boomers preparing to retire. The caveat is that most of them are hidden in the unglamorous, overlooked corners of the economy. The duller the better: think car washes, plumbing, snowplowing, pool construction, dumpster rentals, grease trap maintenance — or in Schweber's case, air duct cleaning. All you need is to raise an initial round of funding from investors so you can search for your business. Then, once you find the perfect business, you raise a bigger round to acquire it and install yourself as CEO.

"I will never work in a corporate job ever again," Schweber told me. "There's no amount of money that you could give me."

Lexey Swall for BI

I first heard about search funds last fall, from a friend who was giving it a go after quitting her prestigious job in venture capital. A few weeks later, a management consultant I met was telling me about his Harvard Business School reunion, where so many people he ran into were starting a search fund that it became an inside joke among his former classmates. He kept trying to explain to me the mechanics, but everything about it was bizarre: that MBAs with pristine résumés would ditch their fancy corporate jobs to devote their lives to septic tanks; that 20- and 30-somethings would suddenly become the CEOs of multimillion-dollar businesses; that investors would give real money to people who have zero company-running experience to go run a company in a blue-collar industry they know nothing about.

It turns out that search funds date all the way back to 1984, when an HBS professor dreamed up the concept as a more attainable path to entrepreneurship for his students who didn't want to start a whole new company. For decades, the idea slowly gained traction within tiny circles at the top business schools. A study from Stanford found that from 1984 to 2019 investors had deployed a total of at least $1.4 billion into search funds and the companies that so-called searchers went on to acquire. But it was during the pandemic that the movement really took off, fanned by a growing number of business school classes and TikTok influencers and podcasters spreading the gospel. In just the four years since, another $1.5 billion has poured in. Add to that the rise of self-funded searchers, who combine their own savings with low-interest government loans to finance their purchases, and you get an ever-expanding web of young people buying and running small businesses all over America.

In the wake of a pandemic that changed so much about our relationship to work, in an economy that's made constant layoffs the norm, with a future in which AI is almost certain to shrink the opportunities of the white-collar class, the dream of climbing the corporate ladder has never held less appeal. A growing contingent of elite millennials and Gen Zers has sought and found an alternative, and I set out to talk to as many of them as I could find. I wanted to learn exactly how a person actually goes from Point A (cog in the corporate machine) to Point B (CEO of an extremely random and surprisingly lucrative business). That's how I ended up in Fairfax, Virginia, on the doorstep of Atlantic Duct Cleaning, the business Dan Schweber bought in 2022.

Even with his salt-and-pepper hair, there was a boyish enthusiasm to Schweber, as if he still couldn't quite believe that this — the 30 trucks, the 61 employees, the 4,600 Google reviews of the company with an average five-star rating — was all his. "It's just the best," he told me over and over again. "I will never work in a corporate job ever again. There's no amount of money that you could give me."

Growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Schweber was preternaturally driven, a little bundle of ambition dressed in his favorite truck-print shirts. At age 6, he started attending a Saturday school for gifted students at the local university. At age 10, he wrote a newsletter and sold ads in it to businesses like the neighborhood handyman. Even as a teenager, he rarely slept in: By the time his mom came in to wake him up, he was already at his desk. And he stayed just as determined as an adult.

A couple of years after Schweber quit his consulting job and moved to New York City, he developed an instant crush on someone who was friends with his friends. They refused to set Schweber up with her — he was too reserved and she too outspoken to be a good match, they thought — but he pursued her for years until she finally agreed to a first date. The two were engaged by the time he took his search fund class, and it didn't surprise her one bit that he was all in from day one of the class. "That's the most consistent thing about Dan," Ally says. "That 100% this is what I'm doing, and this is what I need to do."

With one year remaining in business school, he started laying the groundwork for his search fund career. He decided he wanted to buy a healthcare business.

Schweber estimated he'd need to meet 50 owners and have 500 introductory calls a year. That meant that he'd need to send initial emails to 4,800 businesses.

Step 1 was raising his search fund, the money he'd need to go look for a business. Some people skip this process if they have savings, but you need a lot more than you might think. Searching is a full-time endeavor that typically stretches over two years, requiring the searcher to contact hundreds if not thousands of business owners, court a fraction of them, and scrutinize every detail of their businesses to see if they're worth acquiring. The point of the search fund is to cover the searcher's cost of living during that time, as well as all the expenses of due diligence, like lawyers, accountants, and travel. Schweber made a list of about 100 search fund investors he could find online and cold-emailed them.

At first he felt sheepish about it. Why would anyone give an MBA student who has managed at most two or three direct reports money to go buy and run a whole business? But a fellow searcher reminded him that these investors needed him just as much as he needed them: They were looking for returns on their own money. Historically, searchers have gone on to deliver bewilderingly high returns that have few parallels among other asset classes: an average 4.5x, or an annual rate of 35% (compare that with the S&P 500 at 10%). By pitching in on this initial fund, investors get access to invest in the company the searcher goes on to acquire with very favorable terms. In just a few short months, Schweber raised his target $480,000, which would pay him an annual salary of $120,000 for the next two years.

Schweber's office bookshelf at Atlantic Duct Cleaning.

Lexey Swall for BI

Step 2: the actual search. Schweber quit his day job, and with a couple of months left till graduation, he began his search on Monday, March 9, 2020. He had a whole plan to start attending trade shows and conferences and visit his old clients in the healthcare industry. Then, on Wednesday, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

With his road show plans now a bust, Schweber had to come up with another way to scout for businesses. One option was to work with business brokers, who represent owners hoping to sell their companies. Searchers often go this route because it's more efficient. But what's easy for you to find is also easier for other buyers to find as well, and the competition ratchets up the price. Schweber opted to source his acquisition targets himself. He made a huge list of businesses that were in healthcare using information he scoured from industry association websites. Then he blanketed those businesses with automated emails, informing them that he was an interested buyer.

Like a good millennial professional, he tracked yearly and monthly KPIs for his outreach in a Google Sheet that he called his "battle plan." He worked backward from one of the last steps of the search: getting a signed letter of intent, a nonbinding agreement that kicks off a monthslong due diligence process before the buyer and the seller ultimately agree to a sale. To get two signed LOIs a year, he estimated, he'd need to meet 50 owners in person. To get that, he'd need to have 500 introductory calls. That meant that he'd need to send initial emails to 4,800 businesses a year.

The resulting stream of rejection was relentless. "If you're lucky, people respond and say no," he says. "It's mostly silence." On the rare occasions an owner agreed to an initial call, it'd turn out they weren't serious about selling their company, or the business wasn't quite what Schweber was looking for. (One time he unwittingly got on a call with the owner of a business that turned out to specialize in collecting recordings of extraterrestrials.) Some days he felt so dejected he didn't even open his laptop: "I was like, I've got to get a job. I've got to give this up."

By the end of 2020, he decided against looking in the healthcare industry, which seemed too mired in complexities around insurance reimbursements and regulations, and made a hard pivot to home and commercial services. Part of his decision was based on his belief that DIY was on its way out and that younger generations were willing to pay someone else to do the labor-intensive dirty work of improving their homes.

In the spring of 2021, he started discussions with his most promising prospect yet: a company in the suburbs of Chicago that installs and maintains fire safety devices like extinguishers, alarms, and sprinklers. He loved it, his investors loved it, and he and the owner had even agreed on a preliminary purchase price. But after months of deliberations, the owner went quiet. When Schweber finally got ahold of him, the owner had bad news: He just wasn't ready to let go of his company, and he also didn't think Schweber was ready to be a CEO. It gutted him. It felt, he says, "like a breakup."

By the time 2022 came around, Schweber was 22 months into his search with nothing to show for it. About a third of searchers never end up buying a business. But Schweber wasn't willing to conclude his search empty-handed. "I had to buy something," he says. "I need to just get in the game and make this worth it."

One day, Schweber typed "HVAC" into Google Maps in the Washington, DC, suburbs of Northern Virginia. Among the companies that came up was Atlantic Duct Cleaning. He had no idea what duct cleaning was at that point, but no matter: He put Atlantic into his CRM software, which emailed Atlantic's owner, Tom Keys. Then it emailed him again, and again, and again. After 11 emails, Schweber had no reply.

After Schweber took over, he showed up at 7 every morning as the technicians prepared their trucks. He went to duct cleaning jobs with them. He absorbed their knowledge and deferred to their expertise.

Lexey Swall for BI

Unbeknownst to Schweber, Keys was used to receiving emails like this. He had started Atlantic in 1995 as a 28-year-old with several years of experience in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning industry. Even today, duct cleaning is pretty obscure. But back then, virtually no one thought about the dust, bugs, pet hair, skin cells, mold spores, and all the other gunk that piles up inside a building's ventilation system — and the occasional need to clean it out. Keys had the idea to do it with newer equipment than the tiny operations he knew of that ran on bare-bones crews. He grew the company painstakingly, bit by bit. By 2021, Atlantic was bringing in $4 million in annual sales, with impressive profit margins and a few dozen people on staff.

Many of Keys' suitors were private equity firms with deep pockets that were consolidating HVAC shops in the area. They offered Keys huge sums of money for his business, but he knew the PE playbook: They would almost certainly fire many of the employees he would leave behind. Other suitors were young searchers like Schweber who would, in theory, be less likely to strip his company into pieces. But when he'd suggest they come out to see Atlantic in person, they didn't seem to want it all that much. "So many people were like, Oh, let me look at my calendar three weeks out," Keys says. "I wanted to know what their attraction was to such an unsexy business."

Upon receiving the 12th email from Schweber, Keys finally picked up the phone and called him. At the end of the call, Keys suggested Schweber come out to see the business. "OK, can I come tomorrow?" Schweber asked. He told Ally he would be visiting a duct cleaning business. "What the fuck is that?" she said, and he didn't have much of an answer. He spent the rest of the day trying to familiarize himself with the art of duct cleaning, rooting through industry websites and watching amateur YouTube tutorials. The next morning, he drove three hours from their home in Philadelphia to Manassas, Virginia, where Atlantic was based at the time.

From that day on, the two spoke every day. Keys came to trust Schweber as a young guy with integrity, someone who would look after the legacy of his creation. Schweber came to see Keys as an honest businessman, someone who wasn't hiding skeletons that would later sink the company — something fellow searchers warned him about. Over the course of a three-month due diligence process, Schweber furiously scrutinized Atlantic's business with his investors and bankers. In the end, 15 of his original 18 investors — a mix of wealthy people managing their own assets and institutional investors — in his search fund chipped in, and a loan from a private lender got him over the finish line. Schweber declined to disclose the purchase price. (The median price for companies bought by investor-backed searchers in 2022 and 2023 was $14.4 million.)

"Every day for the first six months, I said, What the hell have I done?" one searcher said. "I had this desk job. I had all this salary coming in. Did I just blow up everything?"

On May 31, 2022, Schweber and Keys signed the paperwork to complete the transaction. After, Schweber got into his car and cried. In the three years since he first decided in his Columbia class to buy a small business, he had faced relentless doubt from skeptical friends, confused family members, and tough investors who were trying to discern whether he had what it takes; even he admitted it was a "relatively crazy" career choice. But after 3,592 initial emails, 375 introductory calls, 30 introductory in-person meetings with owners, and six signed letters of intent, he was now the proud owner of what was by all accounts a trusted local business. That night, he and Ally opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate.

The next morning, a nervous Schweber joined Keys, who gathered the staff in the office to break the big news: Schweber was the new owner of Atlantic. No one even knew the company was up for sale, aside from the two managers Keys had informed the day before. What? The staff erupted. Why? Schweber knew what it looked like: Here he was, a 32-year-old, telling this staff of 40 or so, many of whom were decades older than him, that he was suddenly their new boss. He was walking a tightrope that every searcher does on day one as CEO: projecting an air of both authority and humility as a first-time boss-in-chief. "I bought this company because I like what you guys are doing," he told his new staff. "I think we're the best in our market at what we do, and I just want to do more. So as long as you want to work hard and grow, you'll always have a spot here."

Schweber's long, tortuous search for a business was over. Now came the hard part.

No one goes

Alibaba-backed Moonshot releases new Kimi AI model that beats ChatGPT, Claude in coding — and it costs less

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 07:30:35 +0000

Alibaba-backed startup Moonshot released its Kimi K2 model as a low-cost, open source large language model, the two factors underlying DeepSeek's disruption.

Kim Jong Un says he'll 'unconditionally support' Russia's war amid a report he's sending 30,000 more troops against Ukraine

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 06:34:00 +0000

Kim has continued to meet regularly with top Russian officials, as Pyongyang and Moscow grow close in their isolation from the rest of the world.

Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP

Kim Jong Un is pledging to "unconditionally support" whatever Russia does to fight Ukraine.
That comes after a report from early July that he wants to send 30,000 troops to Ukraine.
North Korea, meanwhile, is estimated by Seoul to have supplied 12 million artillery rounds to Russia.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Sunday that he was all in on Russia's war against Ukraine.

Pyongyang's foreign ministry wrote that Kim had met with Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, during which the two leaders pledged to "strengthen strategic and tactical cooperation" between their countries.

Kim said he was "willing to unconditionally support all measures taken by the Russian leadership in relation to the fundamental resolution of the Ukrainian situation," the report said.

It comes as CNN reported on July 2, citing a Ukrainian intelligence assessment and an unnamed Western official, that said there was information indicating that North Korea was planning to send 25,000 to 30,000 troops to Russia.

Such a new tranche of fighters would more than triple North Korea's infantry presence in the war, up from its initial batch of about 11,000 soldiers who fought for Russia in Kursk. Western estimates say 6,000 of those North Korean troops were killed or wounded.

The Japan Times, however, reported on Sunday that Ukraine's intelligence directorate (GUR) said it had "no information" about Pyongyang's plans to increase its troop count in Russia to 30,000.

GUR's press team did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

A more likely expansion is the 6,000 extra personnel Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia's security council, said North Korea had pledged to Kursk.

In June, Shoigu said at least 1,000 of these people would be sappers, while another 5,000 would help with construction.

Meanwhile, top Russian officials have been traveling frequently to meet with Kim. According to Russian media, Shoigu visited Kim at least three times in three months in early summer.

The partnership between the two increasingly isolated nations has worried both South Korea and the West. Seoul's intelligence arm said on Sunday that it believed Pyongyang had already supplied Russia with some 12 million 152mm artillery shells, which could fill roughly 28,000 shipping containers.

By comparison, the US said in March that it has sent Ukraine roughly 3 million 155mm shells since the start of the war in 2022.

In return for his troops, ammunition, and weapons, Kim's government has been reported to be receiving food, cash, battlefield experience, and technological assistance for its space and arms programs.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Prada is rethinking its attempt to sell a version of India's ubiquitous leather sandals after backlash

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 06:28:01 +0000

Prada's leather sandals triggered backlash from social media users in India.

REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo

Prada is set to create a "Made in India" collection of leather shoes.
The fashion brand came under fire for releasing a design strikingly similar to India's Kolhapuri shoes.
A local state department said it held a "successful" meeting with Prada to collaborate on a collection.

Prada is rethinking how it's selling its new leather sandals after facing backlash on social media.

An Indian state commerce department said in a Saturday statement that the Italian fashion brand has agreed to collaborate with Indian artisans to create a "Made in India" collection.

This comes after Prada debuted flat-soled leather sandals, with a thin strap connecting the toe ring to the central belt, on June 22 at its 2026 spring/summer menswear show in Milan.

The sandals bore a striking resemblance to the Kolhapuri chappal, a style of handcrafted leather sandal made in India's Kolhapur city, in the central state of Maharashtra. The Kolhapuri chappal is widely available across Maharashtra and is sold in small, independently owned artisan shops.

According to an interview the BBC conducted with a Kolhapuri chappal artisan, the sandals cost $8 to $10.

Prada's website did not include a price tag for the Kolhapuri-style leather sandals, but other sandals sold by the brand start at $750, with some costing upward of $1,000, per its website.

The shoes quickly triggered backlash from South Asian users on social media, who said Prada was appropriating the traditional design without due credit. Prada does not have any retail outlets in India.

In response to the backlash it had received, Prada told the BBC in June that it had "always celebrated craftsmanship, heritage and design traditions," and was "in contact with the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture on this topic."

On Saturday, the chamber posted on X that it held a successful meeting with Prada representatives on Friday, which ended with an agreement to work on a "Made in India" collection of Kolhapuri sandals.

"The next step will be for Prada's supply chain team to meet a range of artisanal footwear manufacturers," the company said in a statement to Reuters.

Representatives for Prada and the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture did not respond to queries from BI asking for details about the new collection and when it would be launched.

Prada's stock price has been down nearly 25% since the start of this year. However, it reported strong first-quarter results, with a 13% increase in net revenues in the latest quarter compared to the year before.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Perplexity's engineers use 2 AI coding tools, and they've cut development time from days to hours

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 06:13:56 +0000

Perplexity's CEO, Aravind Srinivas, said at a Y Combinator event in June that the company has "made it mandatory" for employees to use at least one AI coding tool.

Wolf von Dewitz/picture alliance via Getty Images

Perplexity's CEO said employees are using AI coding tools to cut down prototyping time.
AI use is "mandatory," said Aravind Srinivas.
AI coding tools are booming, but some industry leaders warned that they come with trade-offs.

Perplexity AI's founder said he has seen a dramatic difference in engineering productivity with AI coding tools.

Aravind Srinivas, who is also the search engine's CEO, said at a Y Combinator event in June that the company has "made it mandatory" for employees to use at least one AI coding tool. That usually means using Cursor or GitHub Copilot, or a mix of both.

For engineers, using these tools to prototype has reduced "the experimentation time from three, four days to literally one hour," said Srinivas in a conversation that was uploaded to YC's YouTube channel on Friday.

That speed isn't limited to hardcore algorithm work. Srinivas said non-technical colleagues are changing interfaces quickly with these tools.

"I just give them feedback where I take a screenshot of my iOS app, and I say, 'This button needs to move here with an arrow,'" he said. "They upload my screenshot to Cursor and then ask it to write a change to the Swift UI file," he added.

"That level of change is incredible," he said. "The speed at which you can fix bugs and ship to production is crazy."

But Srinivas also said that these tools are not perfect — they can introduce new bugs that people don't know how to fix.

Srinivas and Perplexity did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

AI coding tools are going mainstream

AI coding tools are gaining traction across the tech industry.

Last month, Business Insider reported that job listings from Visa, Reddit, DoorDash, and a slew of startups showed that the companies explicitly required experience or familiarity with tools like Cursor and Bolt.

A recent survey also shed light on the explosive growth and impact of these tools in software development, Business Insider's Alistair Barr exclusively reported earlier this month.

Jellyfish, which helps companies manage developer teams, found that 90% of engineering teams are now using AI in their workflows, up from 61% just one year ago. About 48% of respondents reported using two or more AI coding tools, suggesting teams are taking a diversified, exploratory approach.

The survey in May polled 645 full-time professionals in engineering roles, from individual contributors to managers and executives. Respondents came from companies ranging from small teams with fewer than 10 people to large enterprises with over 500 engineers.

A few industry leaders also said the AI coding hype comes with trade-offs.

GitHub's CEO, Thomas Dohmke, said using AI coding tools might slow down experienced engineers. On a podcast episode released in June, he said a worst-case scenario is when a developer is forced to provide feedback in natural language when they already know how to do it in a programming language.

That would be "basically replacing something that I can do in three seconds with something that might potentially take three minutes or even longer," Dohmke said.

OpenAI's cofounder Greg Brockman also said using these tools has left humans with the less enjoyable parts of coding.

He said the state of AI coding had left humans to review and deploy code, which is "not fun at all."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Jensen Huang explains how he uses different AIs to get the best response

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 05:33:36 +0000

"You know this is no different than getting three opinions. Three doctors' opinions. I do the same thing," Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday.

Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images

Jensen Huang said he doesn't rely on a single AI tool to answer his questions.
The cofounder and CEO of Nvidia said he would "ask the same question of multiple AIs."
"You know this is no different than getting three opinions. Three doctors' opinions," Huang said.

Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, says he uses AI just like how a patient may consult multiple doctors about their medical diagnosis.

"When you receive an answer from an AI, I wouldn't just receive it. Usually, what I do is I say, 'Are you sure this is the best answer you can provide?'" Huang said in an interview on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" that aired on Sunday.

Huang said he does not rely on a single AI to answer his questions. Instead, he would use multiple AIs and have them critique each other's responses.

"You know this is no different than getting three opinions. Three doctors' opinions. I do the same thing. I ask the same question of multiple AIs. And I ask them to compare each other's notes and then, you know, give me the best of all the answers," he added.

Huang said at a panel at the 28th annual Milken Institute Global Conference in May that he uses AI "as a tutor everyday."

"In areas that are fairly new to me, I might say, 'Start by explaining it to me like I'm a 12-year-old,' and then work your way up into a doctorate-level over time," Huang told conference attendees.

Huang isn't the only tech CEO who said he uses AI in his day-to-day work. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, told Bloomberg in an interview published in May that he uses Microsoft Copilot to summarize his emails and prepare for meetings.

Huang shared his AI usage habits in response to a question from Zakaria about how using AI could affect one's cognitive skills.

Zakaria had cited a study from MIT that assessed the impact of using tools like ChatGPT to write essays on 54 participants. The study found that using AI "came at a cognitive cost" to users.

Huang told Zakaria that he has not looked at MIT's research but said he uses AI "literally every single day" and thinks his "cognitive skills are actually advancing."

"I'm not exactly sure what people are using it for that would cause you to not have to think, but you have to think," Huang said.

"When I'm interacting with AI, it's a questioning system. You're asking it questions. In order to formulate good questions, you have to be thinking. You have to be analytical. You have to be reasoning yourself," he added.

A spokesperson for Nvidia declined to comment when approached by Business Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Trump says he wants to send Patriot batteries to Ukraine. One country might be down to pay for them.

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 05:27:22 +0000

Trump wants to send more Patriot batteries to Ukraine, just as long as someone else pays for them.

Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images

Trump says he now wants to send Patriot batteries to Ukraine, but with Europe paying for them.
Germany is a likely candidate among NATO allies willing to sponsor the vital air defenses.
On Sunday, its defense minister said it wanted to discuss buying two systems for Ukraine.

President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he plans to send Patriot batteries to Ukraine, though this time with Europe paying for the air defenses.

"We basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated military equipment," he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. "They are going to pay us 100% for that, and that's the way we want it."

Trump did not say on Sunday how many Patriot batteries he planned to send to Ukraine.

But one NATO ally is likely already willing to foot the bill. For the past few weeks, German leaders were reported to be scouting ways to procure more air defenses for Ukraine, which has been pounded relentlessly by growing waves of Russian drones and missile strikes.

Bloomberg reported, citing an unnamed government source, that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called Trump about the matter as early as July 4.

In the days since, Merz has publicly confirmed such discussions.

"We are ready to acquire additional Patriot systems from the United States and make them available to Ukraine," he said Thursday at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome.

More recently, Germany's defense minister, Boris Pistorius, told The Financial Times that he would discuss with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the possibility of Berlin buying two Patriot systems for Kyiv.

"We only have six left in Germany," Pistorius told the outlet in an interview published on Sunday. "That's really too few, especially considering the NATO capability goals we have to meet. We definitely can't give any more."

Germany is believed to have 12 Patriot systems, three of which it has given to Ukraine. It's stationed at least two more in Poland.

The MIM-104 Patriot system, in service since the 1980s, is considered one of the world's most advanced surface-to-air missile defense systems.

Analysts think Ukraine likely has six to eight batteries — far less than what it needs to shield its cities from Russia's nighttime strikes.

Meanwhile, the US has procured over 1,100 Patriot launchers so far. Eight of these launchers can be deployed at a time on a single battery.

Roughly 200 such launchers have been exported to other countries, while the US military actively runs 16 battalions of four batteries each.

That could mean the Pentagon has about 400 launchers, or about 50 batteries, left in its stockpile or in maintenance.

"The Americans need some of them themselves, but they also have a lot of them," Merz said on Thursday of the Patriot systems.

Last year, his nation became the largest military spender in Western Europe for the first time since the Cold War, ramping up its defense budget by nearly 30% to $88.5 billion, per the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The German Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Trump's latest comments about the Patriot batteries come after he had paused American weapons and ammo aid to Ukraine at the start of the month, sparking concerns about the latter's ability to defend itself with air interceptors.

But the president appeared to change his mind a week later, saying at a White House dinner event that he wanted to send more weapons to Kyiv.

"They have to be able to defend themselves," Trump told reporters at the dinner.

Read the original article on Business Insider

'Superman' star Edi Gathegi trained in martial arts to prepare for his role as Mister Terrific

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 04:46:29 +0000

Edi Gathegi says he trained with a South Indonesian martial artist to prepare for his role in James Gunn's "Superman."

River Callaway/Variety via Getty Images

Edi Gathegi credits martial arts and intuitive eating for getting him in shape for "Superman."
"You can't just be bulky, you also have to be able to move," Gathegi, who plays Mister Terrific in the film, said.
He also isn't into any of the modern wellness trends, like cold plunging and red light therapy.

Edi Gathegi, 46, says he got in shape for his "Superman" role with martial arts and intuitive eating.

In an interview with GQ published Thursday, the actor spoke about his fitness routine and the go-to clean meals that helped him prepare for his role as Mister Terrific in the James Gunn film, which was released in cinemas on July 11.

"Part of my process of getting ready for 'Superman' was training with this brilliant South Indonesian martial artist. He taught me Silat and Kali, which is a Filipino and Thai martial art. It was all about stances and flow and footwork, and we did a little bit of capoeira," Gathegi told GQ.

Since his character is an Olympic athlete, Gathegi said he focused on improving his agility and mobility to ensure he could perform the action sequences properly.

"You can't just be bulky, you also have to be able to move," Gathegi said.

Diet-wise, the actor said he mostly eats intuitively, and only started counting calories recently at the request of his trainer.

His go-to meals, which he cooks on his own, are simple.

"Chicken breast, turkey breast. I'll do salmon, which I enjoy a little bit too much. I'll do ribeye. That's my cheat. Then I'll do complex carbohydrates, so it's brown rice with any one of those proteins. Broccolini is my favorite, but I'll do Brussels sprouts. I'll do green beans, possibly," he said.

Gathegi says he's a creature of habit who enjoys sticking to routines, and that applies to the meals he eats each day. Breakfast typically consists of half a cup of oatmeal, a bowl of non-fat Greek yogurt and some fruit, he said.

"My lunch is a variation of the protein, the brown rice, and the veg. Then dinner's a repeat, and I'll probably do two shakes scattered in there throughout the day," he added.

Even though he has a sweet tooth, Gathegi says he knows how to be disciplined. He tracks his macros, drinks plenty of water throughout the day, and takes fish oil.

"I love me some sweets: the cakes, the cookies, the creams. I love junk food, burgers, and fries. I'm a foodie. But I also have a voice in my head that says, when I have to achieve a certain look, these are the foods that I need to be focused on," he said.

Lastly, even though wellness trends like cold plunges and red light therapy have taken the fitness world by storm, Gathegi says he isn't into any of that.

"I'm not knocking any of that, but I'm not doing any. You do that when you're trying to find your thing. I guess I've landed at a place where I'm just so grateful for the life that I have, and I'm in awe," he added.

Gathegi isn't alone. Martial arts is becoming more popular among Hollywood stars and even tech execs because of its physical and mental benefits.

Keanu Reeves trained for his role in "John Wick 2" by practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu and judo.

Charlize Theron spent four months learning various martial arts techniques — including Aikido, Judo, and Karate — to prepare for her role in "The Old Guard," the film's fight coordinator, Danny Hernandez, previously told Business Insider.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg also practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and has even competed — and won medals — in tournaments.

A representative for Gathegi did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.

Read the original article on Business Insider

'Superman' actor Edi Gathegi says he got into shape for his role without any trendy wellness hacks

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 04:46:29 +0000

Edi Gathegi says he trained with a south Indonesian martial artist to prepare for his role in James Gunn's "Superman."

River Callaway/Variety via Getty Images

Edi Gathegi credits martial arts and intuitive eating for getting him in shape for "Superman."
"You can't just be bulky, you also have to be able to move," Gathegi, who plays Mister Terrific in the film, said.
He also isn't into any of the modern wellness trends, like cold plunging and red light therapy.

Edi Gathegi, 46, says he got in shape for his "Superman" role with martial arts and intuitive eating.

"Part of my process of getting ready for 'Superman' was training with this brilliant south Indonesian martial artist. He taught me Silat and Kali, which is a Filipino and Thai martial art. It was all about stances and flow and footwork, and we did a little bit of capoeira," Gathegi told GQ.

Since his character is an Olympic athlete, Gathegi said he focused on improving his agility and mobility to ensure he could perform the action sequences properly.

"You can't just be bulky, you also have to be able to move," Gathegi said.

Diet-wise, the actor said he mostly eats intuitively, and only started counting calories recently at the request of his trainer.

His go-to meals, which he cooks on his own, are simple.

"My lunch is a variation of the protein, the brown rice, and the veg. Then dinner's a repeat, and I'll probably do two shakes scattered in there throughout the day," he added.

Even though he has a sweet tooth, Gathegi says he knows how to be disciplined. He tracks his macros, drinks plenty of water throughout the day, and takes fish oil.

Lastly, even though wellness trends like cold plunges and red light therapy have taken the fitness world by storm, Gathegi says he isn't into any of that.

Gathegi isn't alone. Martial arts is becoming more popular among Hollywood stars and even tech execs because of its physical and mental benefits.

Keanu Reeves trained for his role in "John Wick 2" by practicing Brazilian jiu-jitsu and judo.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg also practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and has even competed — and won medals — in tournaments.

A representative for Gathegi did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Bitcoin hits a fresh all-time high above $120,000

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 04:20:29 +0000

Bitcoin hit a new record price.

Umit Turhan Coskun/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Bitcoin hits a record high of $120,000, continuing its upward trend.
The cryptocurrency has been on a winning streak, setting records for three consecutive days.
Bitcoin's value has surged 29% this year, reflecting growing investor interest and market momentum.

Bitcoin has breached another record level, hitting $120,000 for the first time ever.

On Monday, Bitcoin was 2.5% higher at $120,637.21 at 12:12 a.m. ET.

The world's biggest cryptocurrency has been on a winning streak after hitting record highs for three days last week.

Bitcoin is now over 29% higher this year.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Elon Musk says Tesla shareholders will vote on investing in xAI

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 04:07:14 +0000

"It's not up to me. If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago," Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, wrote on X on Sunday.

Kenny Holston-Pool via Getty Images

Elon Musk said Tesla will hold a shareholder vote on whether to invest in xAI.
Musk said in March that xAI was valued at $80 billion. The company raised $10 billion last month.
SpaceX is looking to invest in xAI, "subject to board and shareholder approval," Musk said.

Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO, said the EV giant will ask its shareholders to vote on investing in his AI company, xAI.

Musk was responding to an X user with the handle "TSLA4orphans," who said on Sunday that it would be unfair for Tesla retail investors if the company isn't allowed to invest in xAI.

"It's not up to me. If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago," Musk wrote on X on Sunday night.

"We will have a shareholder vote on the matter," Musk added, though he did not specify when exactly the vote would occur.

Tesla and xAI did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Musk's remark comes just hours after he confirmed that his rocket company, SpaceX, is looking to invest $2 billion into xAI. The planned investment was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

"It would be great, but subject to board and shareholder approval," Musk wrote in an X post on Sunday morning.

This wouldn't be the first time xAI has sought to use its ties to Musk's business empire, or what it called the "Muskonomy," to pull in investments. Bloomberg reported in February 2024, citing a pitch deck it had obtained, that xAI had previously pitched investors on its links to Musk's businesses.

Aside from running Tesla and SpaceX, Musk also helms his tunnelling company, The Boring Company, and AI brain chip company, Neuralink. In June 2024, Musk said he would prioritize "shareholders of my other companies, including Tesla," if any of his businesses went public.

"Loyalty deserves loyalty," Musk wrote in an X post on June 8.

Musk started xAI in July 2023. The company raised over $12 billion during its Series A, B, and C funding rounds last year and was valued at a reported $50 billion.

In March, Musk announced that xAI had acquired X in an all-stock deal. Musk said the deal "values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt)." Musk had bought X, then known as Twitter, in October 2022 for $44 billion.

Last month, Morgan Stanley said xAI had raised $10 billion in debt and equity. The bank said the transaction was "oversubscribed and included prominent global debt investors." It added that the deal's proceeds will be used to develop xAI's data centers and Grok chatbot.

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Satellite photos show how Russia is building up 5 of its secret nuclear bases

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 02:35:41 +0000

This Google Earth image from October 2022 shows that Russia is building additional storage spaces at its Kamchatka naval base.

Google Earth/Screenshot

Russia has been upgrading and modernizing several nuclear bases for its European and Pacific forces.
Business Insider obtained new satellite images that show the major construction at the sites.
These newer expansions offer clues about the Kremlin's plans for its arsenal and nuclear posture.

Recent satellite images reviewed by Business Insider show extensive construction of secret facilities, shrouded in fences and defended by covered guardposts, in recent years at sites associated with Russia's nuclear facilities.

The images, captured by US satellite imaging company Planet Labs, were taken in May and June. Leading analysts who study Russia's nuclear forces told BI that the photos show new structures, roadworks, and modifications, with some sites undergoing rapid expansion.

These modernization efforts offer clues about Moscow's plans and contingencies for its nuclear forces amid the high tensions across Europe stoked by the Kremlin's all-out war against Ukraine.

The Kremlin has often tried to intimidate the West by threatening to use its nuclear warheads, and has been doing so more recently in attempts to deter support for Ukraine.

"There are two primary interests here," Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said of the photographed base expansions. "One is an internal one that has to do with something you do every once in a while, to upgrade a facility. The other one is certainly the interactions with other nuclear states or big military powers."

With Russia's land and air forces depleting in the war, other analysts have theorized that Moscow may try to reconstitute its might by relying on older military pillars from the Soviet era, such as mass mobilization and nuclear weapons.

The Russian defense ministry and the Belarusian government did not respond to requests for comment sent by BI.

The US is also comprehensively modernizing its nuclear triad, including overhauling its ground-launched missiles by replacing its Cold War-era Minuteman III with the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile.

All of these upgrades are being rolled out as nuclear tensions worsen against the backdrop of the Ukraine war and China's own arsenal build-up.

Russia is known to have the world's largest nuclear arsenal, with The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists estimating in June that Moscow holds about 4,300 active warheads. The US, meanwhile, is estimated to maintain a stockpile of 3,700 active warheads.

This is a detailed look at the construction at Russian nuclear sites and why experts believe it's a continued sign of the growing nuclear competition.

Four bases are in Europe, one is closer to Alaska

Four of the sites are related to Russia's nuclear forces in the west, while one is for its Pacific fleet.

Google Earth/Screenshot

The four European sites include Asipovichy, which hosts a Belarusian ammunition base, and Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea.

The images also capture activity in the Gadzhiyevo naval base, which is near Norway and Finland, as well as the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, which divides the Barents and Kara Seas.

Base 1: Asipovichy, Belarus

Asipovichy is home to a Belarusian ammunition base.

Google Earth/Screenshot

The first base is in Asipovichy, a strategic city in central Belarus, a former Soviet state that has closely aligned itself with Russian President Vladimir Putin. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it surged troops into the Kyiv region from Belarus.

The 1,405th Ammunition Base

This image, taken in April 2021, shows the 1,405th Ammunition base before significant work was undertaken to build what analysts believe are nuclear storage facilities.

Google Earth/Screenshot

Five miles east of the city of Asipovichy is the Belarusian 1,405th Ammunition Base.

This image shows a zoom-out of the base before significant work was undertaken to build what imagery analysts believe are nuclear storage facilities.

Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko have both publicly said that the latter's country would be able to host Russian nuclear weapons, widely seen as a political counter to the US hosting its own nukes in Europe.

A November 2022 photo of the northern corner

The northern corner of the base is already guarded by a perimeter.

Google Earth/Screenshot

Analysts such as Kristensen are most interested in the northern corner of the base, which is already guarded by the base perimeter.

May 21, 2025

This photo from May 21, 2025, shows a new facility with a perimeter and guardhouse.

Planet Labs PBC

By May 21, 2025, it was clear that a new facility with additional security had been built in the northern corner of the base.

"One thing they've done is they've put a perimeter up that consists of three layers of fencing, and the middle layer is more enhanced," Kristensen told BI.

The entrance at the southern corner of the facility is covered, likely for guards to inspect trucks while out of sight from satellites.

The thermonuclear warheads stored at such sites would likely be tactical nukes, which are more portable and create vastly smaller explosions and fallout. A single warhead would be roughly the size of a small oven and weigh about 450 to 650 pounds.

A special unit is typically tasked with transporting these warheads, whether via helicopter to be fitted onto a missile or by truck to a storage site.

Kristensen also identified a covered off-loading ramp among a cluster of trees, which likely leads to a bunker for warhead storage. On the eastern side of the compound, a massive orange antenna for command and control can be seen.

Such security measures are the tell-tale signs of Russian nuclear sites that experts watch for in satellite imagery. Particular care has to be given to these warheads not only for their strategic importance, but because they can contain toxic gases and chemical explosives.

Kristensen added that an accident or fire could scatter radioactive material from the weapon. An accidental detonation, however, is unlikely.

A major road and platform also appeared

The roadway and platform could give us clues about how Russia plans to transport nuclear warheads into the base.

Google Earth/Screenshot and Planet Labs PBC (annotations by Business Insider)

A comparison between the satellite photos from April 2021 and May 2025 also shows the construction of a major roadway leading to a large platform.

This is likely to introduce a railhead into the base from the main Belarusian train lines northwest of the base, with the platform built as a facility to offload nuclear warheads from the train.

"That's an absolute must for the Russian nuclear infrastructure," Kristensen said. "If they need to transport nuclear warheads in here, they would most likely not be flown in, but put in by rail."

The most likely type of warhead that Russia would store here is one that can be dropped via a gravity bomb from Belarus' warplanes, he said, and the Kremlin usually transports such nuclear weapons by rail. Putin said in 2023 that Russia was planning to give Belarus tactical warheads that could be deployed from Minsk's Su-25 attack jets.

Still, analysts think that while the base is built up to store those nukes, it's unlikely there are warheads there now.

"It's more likely that the weapons that are assigned to the site are stored in a national-level site," said Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. He believes the warheads are likely in Bryansk, about 200 miles away in Russia.

"They would be moved to Asipovichy when necessary," Podvig added.

A look westward reveals more

Analysts believe a related facility is located in Asipovichy city itself.

Google Earth/Screenshot

In the city of Asipovichy itself, there's an additional facility that makes analysts confident that Russia is expanding nuclear sites in Asipovichy.

This is likely an Iskander missile launcher base

Analysts believe these are Iskander missile systems parked outside a garage.

Google Earth/Screenshot

The vehicles from this September 2023 photo have been identified as Iskander missile launchers. These vehicles fire the Iskander short-range ballistic missile, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads.

Therefore, if Russia stations any tactical nukes in Asipovichy, it could likely also send warheads that can be used with the 300-mile-range missile. In the event of a launch, the Belarusians would likely drive the mobile launcher to a deployment spot and wait for Russian forces to separately retrieve the warheads from the base.

In this image, the building next to the Iskander launchers is a garage. "That garage was added when the Russians handed over the Iskander launchers to Belarus," Kristensen said. The process was completed sometime in late 2022.

New buildings appeared by June 15, 2025

At least six new buildings have been constructed at the missile base over the last two years.

Planet Labs PBC (annotations by Business Insider)

The Iskander base has significantly expanded in roughly three years, with at least two additional high-security garages displaying tire tracks from the 40-ton launchers, which indicate the facilities are active.

"This is a major upgrade of the base, and fast," Kristensen said.

Base 2: Gadzhiyevo, Murmansk

Gadzhiyevo is a navy depot that houses Russia's nuclear launch-capable submarines.

Google Earth/Screenshot

Gadzhiyevo is a navy depot that houses Russia's nuclear launch-capable submarines.

A mountain storage entrance

Analysts believe this is where warheads are prepared for storage or for deployment.

Google Earth/Screenshot

Analysts know that nuclear weapons are stored here because satellite images have captured the warheads before.

This August 2020 image shows a nuclear warhead in a crane next to a green container serving as a climate control canister. To the east of the crane are entrances into the mountain, where the warheads are highly likely to be stored.

Submarines are loaded with ICBMs here

Russia's nuclear submarines dock here and are loaded via crane facilities, such as the one annotated here. The storage site can e found to the southeast.

Google Earth/Screenshot

About a mile to the north are Russia's ballistic missile submarines, which can be seen docked in piers along the coast.

The facility circled at the top of the image contains a crane that allows the subs to be loaded with intercontinental ballistic missiles, which can be fitted with strategic nuclear weapons — the type that can devastate entire cities.

September 29, 2022

The Gadzhiyevo nuclear storage site can be seen in September 2022.

Planet Labs PBC

The latest changes occur near the mountain entrance. Here's the Gadzhiyevo nuclear storage site in September 2022.

May 28, 2025: 6 new buildings

Roughly six new buildings have appeared next to the missile storage site.

Planet Labs PBC (annotation by Business Insider)

By May 28, 2025, at least six new buildings had been constructed.

"The missile storage is clearly undergoing a major expansion," Podvig told BI.

Kristensen suspects the structures could be front-loading garages or storage sites for missiles that are conventional or yet to be loaded with nuclear warheads.

"It's right outside the missile handling facility here," he said, referring to the crane. "The fact that the buildings are down here in this end indicates that it might be related to this."

In 2022, state media reported that the base had approved new workshops for maintaining missiles and underwater weapons, though it's unclear if these are the new facilities.

Base 3: Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad is home to a facility that analysts have long suspected to be a nuclear storage site.

Google Earth/Screenshot

The third base is in western Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders Lithuania and Poland, and sits on the Baltic Sea.

This is the long-suspected nuclear storage site

The multilayered perimeter is reminiscent of how Russia protects its nuclear storage facilities.

Planet Labs PBC (Annotation by Business Insider)

The multilayered perimeter, as it appears in this June 2018 satellite photo, resembles how Russia protects its nuclear storage facilities. Analysts have long suspected that it's built to house tactical nukes.

Another clue lies three miles to the southwest…

Another facility to the southwest gives analysts more confidence that the Kaliningrad facility is meant to house nuclear weapons.

Google Earth/Screenshot

… where a special nuclear unit's base is located

This street view photo from 2012 was historically a site for units in charge of nuclear arms. Posters along the fences discussed the unit's history and purpose.

Google Street View

Next to a prison in the area is a base that's historically served as a nuclear maintenance and deployment unit since the Soviet era.

In this 2012 Google Street View photo, posters on the site's fences describe the unit's purpose and history.

To analysts, its presence lends further credence to suspicions that the nearby site is for nuclear weapons.

The base underwent a bunker rework by November 2022

Between 2018 and 2022, the Russians completed and fortified a bunker with a security system of a likely nuclear storage site.

Planet Labs PBC, Google Earth/Screenshot (annotations by Business Insider)

Back at the actual storage facility, a comparison of satellite images from 2020 and November 2022 shows that Russia unburied and then reburied one of its bunkers.

Multiple layers of new fencing have also appeared.

A small building appears by June 14, 2025

Next to the covered guard house is a new, gray building.

Google Earth/Screenshot and Planet Labs PBC (annotations by Business Insider)

The Kaliningrad site also has a covered entrance to allow guards to inspect trucks covertly.

Analysts noticed a small change in the facility between June 2022 and June 2025: A gray building appeared.

When commenting on its purpose to BI, Michael Duitsman, a research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies' James Martin Center for Proliferation Studies, guessed it might be a guard shack.

However, he noted that many Russian units also draw weapons from the Kaliningrad depot, so it's unclear what system the building may be related to.

The same building emerged in Asipivochy

Banyan Group founder Kwon Ping Ho has spent over 30 years in the hospitality industry.
Ho's luxury hotel chain launched its first resort in 1994 and now operates over 90 hotels globally.
Ho told BI that tourists today have vastly different expectations from their parents' generation.

Kwon Ping Ho has come a long way since he opened his first resort in Phuket in 1994.

Ho's luxury hotel chain, Banyan Group, now operates over 90 hotels worldwide, including in countries like Cuba and Saudi Arabia. The 72-year-old told Business Insider that it's not just his company that's changed. His customers look much different than they did three decades ago, and they want different things out of travel.

"When you talk about the people of my generation, when international travel just started, people were happy to go on group tours. They just go to a hotel and they eat in a hotel," Ho said on the sidelines of the International Conference on Cohesive Societies held in Singapore last month.

"But young people today have long become jaded about international travel. They've been traveling with their parents," he added. "Today, when they're traveling on their own, they are looking much more for things that are out of the way."

Ho said today's more seasoned travelers are a vastly different breed from yesterday's checklist sightseers.

"They are much more into experiences, and not just to see something beautiful because they've probably seen that, done that with their parents already. They are looking at experiences which are deeper and allow them to interact with the local community," he continued.

Ho isn't the only one who has noticed the generational shift taking place.

Last year, McKinsey surveyed 5,000 travelers from China, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the US. The consultancy said that 52% of Gen Zers surveyed said they are willing to splurge on travel experiences compared to 29% of baby boomers surveyed.

"One-size-fits-all tourism offerings of the past have grown outdated" as travelers seek "creative experiences that are tailored to their priorities and personal narratives," McKinsey wrote.

Another change Ho said he noticed was in the countries from which tourists tended to hail and the places that they chose to visit.

"When I first started in hospitality 30 years ago, the nature of tourism was one direction and one color," Ho said. "It was basically white people from Europe, traveling in one direction, from west to east."

"Over the years, what I call 'rainbow tourism' has come up because of increasing wealth in other developing countries," he added.

Ho said this has led to a "multicolored, multifaceted, exciting tourism of people from all over the world traveling to all over the world."

"You've got Indians, you've got Africans, you've got Arabs, you've got Chinese, and Japanese, and so on, and then of course you've got young people from within the region," he continued. "That to me has been the biggest change."

In January, UN Tourism's World Tourism Barometer said an estimated 1.4 billion tourists traveled internationally in 2024, an 11% increase over 2023. UN Tourism said it expected international tourism arrival numbers to grow by 3% to 5% in 2025.

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$300 billion, 500 million users, and no time to enjoy it: The sharks are circling OpenAI

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 23:19:07 +0000

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has faced a series of setbacks in recent weeks.

Tomohiro Ohsumi via Getty Images

The sharks are circling OpenAI.
The world's premier AI startup is facing a multi-front attack from Google, Meta, Amazon, and others.
Here's everything you need to know about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's rough summer.

It's been a rough few months at OpenAI.

At the end of March, the premier AI startup was collecting superlatives. It had just secured another $40 billion in funding, the largest private tech deal ever. That valued the company at $300 billion, which is the highest of any startup on the planet. Its flagship product, ChatGPT, was attracting some 500 million users a week, far more than its closest competitor.

All seemed to be going great for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who, on top of it all, welcomed his first child a month earlier.

Then the sharks started circling.

In the last several weeks, OpenAI has faced attacks on multiple fronts, mostly from Big Tech behemoths like Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Smaller companies, too, smelled blood in the water. And rival chatbot makers, like xAI, have released buzzy new models, putting pressure on OpenAI to rush its own update.

OpenAI engineers, some of whom told media outlets they've been working 80 hours a week or more, faced burnout. The company gave them all a week off to recover earlier this month.

It's lonely at the top, as they say. Here's what the siege of OpenAI looks like.

Meta poaches OpenAI staffers

Altman said Meta had tried to recruit its staffers with offers that rival superstar professional athletes.

picture alliance/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images

It seems a top AI engineer is the new superstar athlete.

During a June episode of the "Uncapped with Jack Altman" podcast, Jack's brother Sam said Mark Zuckerberg's Meta tried to poach OpenAI's staffers with "giant signing offers."

Altman said Meta offered "$100 million signing bonuses," which he called "crazy."

"I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor, and I think it is rational for them to keep trying. Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they've hoped," Altman said.

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth later told CNBC that Altman "neglected to mention that he's countering those offers."

A week later, Meta had poached three top OpenAI researchers. One of them said on X that he was not offered a $100 million signing bonus, calling it "fake news."

Retaining top talent is a necessity to compete in the AI race (Meta's Llama has had its own struggles), and some prominent investors, like Reid Hoffman, say paying huge signing bonuses makes sense.

OpenAI itself has poached talent from xAI and Tesla in recent weeks, Wired reported, and Altman brushed off Meta's poaching on the sidelines of the Sun Valley conference earlier this month.

"We have, obviously, an incredibly talented team, and I think they really love what they are doing. Obviously, some people will go to different places," Altman told reporters.

OpenAI's deal with Windsurf falls through

OpenAI representatives told BI its deal with Windsurf fell through.

Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images

OpenAI took another hit this summer when its deal with Windsurf, the AI coding assistant startup, collapsed. OpenAI had agreed to purchase Windsurf for about $3 billion, Bloomberg reported.

By June, however, tensions were rising between OpenAI and Microsoft. The tech giant is OpenAI's biggest investor, and it considers Windsurf a direct competitor of Microsoft Copilot.

Microsoft's current deal with OpenAI would give it access to Windsurf's intellectual property, which neither OpenAI nor Windsurf wants, a person with knowledge of the talks told BI.

On Friday, OpenAI told BI that its deal with Windsurf had fallen through. Instead, Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan and some other Windsurf employees would join Google DeepMind.

"We're excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf's team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding," Google's spokesperson told BI. "We're excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere."

Tensions with Microsoft

OpenAI and Microsoft signed an agreement that defines artificial general intelligence as a system that can generate $100 billion in profits.

Justin Sullivan via Getty Images

The failed Windsurf deal was just another in a string of disagreements that have fueled tension between OpenAI and its largest investor.

The deal between OpenAI and Microsoft is unsurprisingly complex. At the heart of the dispute is revenue splits and equity, of course, but also the very definition of artificial general intelligence. AGI is broadly considered AI that matches or surpasses human intelligence, but in terms of the deal between OpenAI and Microsoft, AGI is defined as $100 billion in profit.

That's a lot of potential revenue.

Under the deal, once OpenAI reaches that benchmark, Microsoft loses its share of OpenAI's revenue. Microsoft would understandably like to revise that line.

As BI's Charles Rollet wrote earlier this month, the tension is made worse by the fact that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella isn't as sold on AGI's transformative power as all the people developing it at OpenAI. He also doesn't think it's coming anytime soon. He called AGI "nonsensical benchmark hacking" on a podcast earlier this year.

OpenAI delays release of new model

Altman said Friday that he would postpone the release of his much-anticipated new model.

Sebastian Gollnow/picture alliance via Getty Images

Back in simpler times, at the end of March, as Altman was basking in the glow of the world's most valuable startup, he said the newly secured funding would allow OpenAI to "push the frontiers of AI research even further."

He then announced that OpenAI was close to rolling out its first open-weight language model with advanced reasoning capabilities since GPT-2 in 2019.

On Friday evening, generally a good time to unveil bad news, Altman soberly told the world that OpenAI's new model would be delayed — again.

"We need time to run additional safety tests and review high-risk areas," Altman said on X. "We are not yet sure how long it will take us."

He then apologized and assured everyone that "we are working super hard!"

It marked the second delay in a month, pushing the timeline indefinitely beyond earlier promises of a June launch.

Open-weight AI models offer a middle ground between open-source and proprietary systems by sharing only the pre-trained parameters of a neural network but not the actual source code. OpenAI products, unlike some of its competitors, like Meta's Llama and the Chinese AI chatbot, DeepSeek, and despite the company's name, are not open source.

The new model's delay comes days after Elon Musk's xAI launched a major update to its chatbot, Grok. While that update came with some significant trouble, forcing xAI to ultimately apologize, the chatbot boasts advancements in vision and voice that are resonating with users.

Iyo sues IO

Jony Ive, the famous Apple designer, and Altman struck a deal in May to work together.

LoveFrom

In May, OpenAI announced a partnership with io, the design company founded by the famous former Apple design chief Jony Ive. Together, the two stars would develop future AI consumer devices.

The deal was valued at about $6.5 billion. The announcement included a photo shoot of the two men that wouldn't have been out of place in a Vogue spread and a highly produced video in which Altman and Ive sit and chat in a wine bar drinking espresso.

A month later, OpenAI removed all mentions of the collaboration from its platforms. Another company, iyO, a Google spinoff, had filed a trademark complaint. The names io and iyO were too similar, the suit says, and by all accounts, the new io collaboration would be developing products similar to ones iyO had planned.

US District Judge Trina Thompson ruled that iyO's case is strong enough to move to a hearing this fall. She ordered Altman, Ive, and OpenAI not to use the io brand and take down mentions of the name.

OpenAI denied the claims and said it was reviewing its legal options.

OpenAI announced on July 9 that, despite the lawsuit, it had completed the deal to acquire io and posted a statement on its website.

"We're thrilled to share that the io Products, Inc. team has officially merged with OpenAI. Jony Ive and LoveFrom remain independent and have assumed deep design and creative responsibilities across OpenAI," the statement said.

Amazon is making a movie about Altman

Amazon is developing a movie about OpenAI and Altman called "Artificial."

Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images

The coming film, "Artificial," produced by Amazon Studios, is all about Altman.

And it's not a wholly flattering account, said Matt Beloni, a reporter at Puck who said he has seen a recent draft of the script.

Belloni said the drama recounts the period in 2023 when Altman was fired and then rehired as CEO. It also follows OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever, who was also at the center of that drama and who left the company months later.

At the heart of the tension over those few days was a disagreement between Altman and some top OpenAI execs over the company's commitment to its mission to develop AGI safely.

A string of engineers working on alignment, an AI industry term for ensuring the tech is developed safely, left the company after Altman's reappointment (Microsoft, incidentally, played a key role in helping Altman survive). While many OpenAI employees rallied around Altman, others described him to the press at that time as "manipulative."

Belloni reported that the film has parallels to "The Social Network," the 2010 biographical drama about Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

That film gained critical acclaim and likely damaged Zuckerberg's public persona. Zuckerberg called "The Social Network" inaccurate and "hurtful."

According to Belloni, the version of the script he read depicts Altman as a "master schemer" and a liar.

OpenAI won't go down without a fight

Altman at the Sun Valley Conference in 2018.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Despite all the competition, OpenAI is still the leader in the space and is making its own moves that will likely worry rivals.

It is planning to launch a new AI-powered web browser, for instance, that could compete with Google Chrome, the current industry leader. The browser will embed ChatGPT and feature an AI agent that can handle tasks like booking reservations and filling out forms.

It also secured a $200 million contract to provide AI support to the US military. OpenAI will help develop capabilities to "address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains," the Pentagon said in June. OpenAI earlier partnered with Palmer Luckey's defense tech firm, Anduril.

OpenAI is also forming more playful partnerships. Last month, Mattel announced it was working with OpenAI to bring AI to its iconic doll, Barbie.

By using OpenAI's technology, Mattel will "bring the magic of AI to age-appropriate play experiences with an emphasis on innovation, privacy, and safety," the California-based toy manufacturer said in a press.

Altman, for his part, is at least publicly optimistic.

"I have never seen growth in any company, one that I've been involved with or not, like this," Altman said at a TED conference in Vancouver in April. "The growth of ChatGPT — it is really fun. I feel deeply honored. But it is crazy to live through."

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