• The newly patented DevGen.AI tool was developed in-house and released in January.
• The bank says it's saved almost 300,000 hours this year alone, but won't replace developers' jobs.
• DevGen.AI solves a long-standing headache for coders within and beyond Morgan Stanley.

During a Morgan Stanley hackathon at the end of 2023, two teams were trying to solve a problem that has plagued developers for years: how to rewrite legacy code into modern programming languages.

Those nuggets of an idea turned into DevGen.AI, a tool the bank unveiled in January that has so far saved developers more than 280,000 hours as of June, or 11,666 days they would have previously dedicated to deciphering outdated code, according to Trevor Brosnan, the bank's global head of technology strategy, architecture, and modernization. Brosnan led the effort to build the tool, which turns code from old languages into plain-English specs that can then be rewritten.

Legacy code refers to outdated, older software code — think of languages like Cobol, which was developed in 1959 — that can raise security risks and slow down how quickly companies can take advantage of new technology, The Wall Street Journal reported. Banks and financial institutions are especially dependent on older programming languages, per the Journal.

"In early 2024, I pulled some of our top distinguished engineers at the firm out of their line of business teams and into a new applied AI team, because my instincts told me that there was some great opportunity here," Brosnan told BI.

His instincts were right — the tool has exceeded even his high expectations. It was granted a patent in early June with assistance from the bank's Patent Accelerator Program, which Megan Brewer, the head of firmwide market innovation and labs, helped start.

Cutting out 'onerous' work, not jobs

Brewer and Brosnan said that DevGen.AI won't take software engineering or other jobs with the time it saves. The technology, Brewer said, replaces "onerous" rote work.

"That means those people can actually go work on what we need to be working on, which is the future," she said. Brewer said AI presents opportunities throughout the firm, and that Morgan Stanley is currently looking into how it can use agentic AI across teams.

"The reality is we have so much modernization work to do, and we have ongoing demand from all of our businesses to deliver more functionality, more capability for our clients," Brosnan told BI.

Young people are struggling to land quality positions in the tech sector, in particular, and AI is already starting to gobble up jobs across industries. White-collar job postings nationwide are shrinking faster than blue-collar listings, including for software developers.

Still, Brewer and Brosnan were adamant that DevGen.AI won't render developers obsolete. Morgan Stanley had 233 technology jobs in the Americas posted on its website at the time of writing, including dozens of openings for software engineers.

The initial team for DevGen.AI was tiny

Not many of the technologists at the bank worked on DevGen.AI — Brosnan said the initial team was fewer than five people "who are passionate about this." Eventually, the core group expanded to around 20 engineers. Throughout the process, they consulted with subject matter experts across the firm to figure out different use cases for the tool, Brosnan said.

Morgan Stanley could have outsourced the development of the tool, but Brosnan said they decided to develop it internally in part to "implement all the kinds of security controls." Now, he said, employees across divisions, from its institutional to wealth management businesses, are using the tool.

"Even within the world of generative AI, this was a very, very, very clever use of it, but it also was extremely impactful," said Larry Bromberg, the global head of intellectual property legal, who co-leads the Patent Acceleration Program.

Pleased as he is with the result, Brosnan said his team very briefly celebrated their successes.

"Frankly, they are still very focused on their day job. Our mission is to accelerate modernization at Morgan Stanley, and we've still got lots of work to do," he told BI.

The technology will stay internal for now

One cause for celebration was receiving a patent, which Morgan Stanley employees are encouraged to do through the Patent Accelerator Program. Brewer said the program provides support throughout the invention and legal process.

Patent-holders span the firm — there are around 500 across 14 different divisions, Brewer said. From 2023-2024, the Patent Accelerator Program increased final submissions to patent offices by 53%, and Brewer said that they'll "definitely" surpass that this year. Brewer said that 20% of patent holders are junior staff, and 10% are distinguished engineers.

One of the lead engineers on the DevGen.AI team is something of a serial patent recipient, or a "serial offender" as Brewer put it, with 13 patents to date.

Brosnan said the team doesn't have immediate plans to license the newly patented tool externally; it would likely be in high demand given how many financial and Big Tech companies have to deal with outdated coding languages.

"Right now, our plan is to leverage this definitely for all of our modernization demands internally. We haven't decided anything different from that," he said, adding that Morgan Stanley has shared technology with peers in the past.

In the meantime, the question of how to use AI and modernize the bank isn't going anywhere. As Brosnan put it, his technologists are back to "hands-on keyboards" after every win.

• My husband and I had always planned on having kids in our late 20s or early 30s.
• Then, two years ago, he was in a traffic collision and became paraplegic.
• Though we will face additional challenges as parents, it's not stopping us from having a family.

Two years ago, my husband, Daniel, was in a life-altering traffic collision that severed his spinal cord at his lower back.

He couldn't feel his legs at the scene and was taken away to the ER, where they assessed his condition and immediately sent him to the local hospital for a spinal fusion surgery.

This event almost perfectly coincided with our discussions around family planning and how we finally felt ready to try. We had dated for six years before getting married early in the pandemic and felt we had weathered some of life's hardest challenges together; by this point, we felt as though we were ready for the next step of parenthood.

When Daniel became paraplegic, the kinds of concerns we had radically shifted.

We have added things to consider

Most new parents-to-be worry about things like the ups and downs of pregnancy or how to maintain the division of labor between working parents. Instead, we face a whole different slew of challenges.

Because of his paraplegia, we can't get pregnant the old-fashioned way and will require medical assistance. There are several methods for sperm retrieval that have escalating costs and medical involvement, with only limited insurance coverage leading to additional out-of-pocket expenses.

His doctor has been excellent in walking us through what these steps will look like and how we can ensure that we can still have children. As might be expected, these physical changes have been hard on Daniel and his understanding of his own sexuality, but haven't dulled his desire to have children. However, this isn't even the primary concern for me.

It's not getting pregnant and giving birth that I'm worried about (although there are plenty of medical uncertainties during any pregnancy), but what life will look like once we do bring an infant home.

Daniel already struggles with sleep most nights due to his chronic nerve pain. How will we manage night shifts with a newborn? Will he be doubly sleep-deprived by nerve pain and midnight feedings, or will the constant lack of sleep worsen his symptoms?

And if Daniel is on nighttime baby duty, what kind of crib do we need to ensure that he can actually reach and pick up our child, and rock them back to sleep without a rocking chair?

I've already begun researching wheelchair-accessible strollers and changing tables to understand what kind of specialized equipment we'll need to purchase, and while there are options available, this limits us from receiving gently used gear from family and friends.

We had been hoping to save money by having Daniel take on the majority of childcare while I returned to work, because he is self-employed as the founder of a worker-owned rum distillery and we need my job's provided health insurance. However, with his limited mobility and irregularly scheduled physical therapy sessions, we are reconsidering day care despite its cost, adding to the already-stacking medical bills.

It won't be easy, but we have so much love and support

Though I've not met a single parent who said parenting is easy, our situation provides additional challenges. We're just beginning our parenthood journey and already see the added hurdles we'll have to face. However, we're choosing to have children because it's an important goal in our lives and shows that we have faith in a future together.

Daniel and I have seen children in our future plans. We agreed that our late 20s or early 30s would be the time to start trying; we just didn't expect doing so to require medical intervention or custom childcare equipment to handle the added challenges of disability.

In a twist of fate, we discovered exactly how much incredible support we already have in our community in the aftermath of his injury. Neighbors who would watch our dog while we had long medical appointments, and friends who brought home-cooked meals once a week, while Daniel was inpatient during his recovery.

Even with both our families living out of state, we felt secure having a strong network of local friends who shepherded us through the first year of his recovery, and have already had a few conversations about whether they would be willing to come to our aid once again when we have children.

Our local friends, most of whom are not parents themselves, readily agreed that we can rely on their help. Knowing that we'll have backup in the form of nearby friends makes a difficult situation feel less distressing.

We know having children won't be easy, but we also know that we won't be tackling it alone. We've overcome so many challenges already, and fundamentally, having children is a statement of hope for the future — even if that means needing more complicated baby strollers than most parents have to use.

• As July kicks off, 2025 still lacks a defining summer anthem.
• Alex Warren and Sabrina Carpenter have charting hits, but they lack creativity and staying power.
• Last year's musical highs, combined with this year's political chaos, have produced a pop hangover.

It's official: Pop fans are suffering through a dry spell.

By this time last year, we had already been treated to a veritable feast of summertime smashes and breakout stars.

Remember Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," which eventually tied the all-time record for most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso," followed closely by her chart-topping "Please Please Please," and Chappell Roan's "Good Luck, Babe!" — not to mention the entirety of Charli XCX's "Brat," a zeitgiesty album if one ever existed, to the point where brands, politicians, and even world-renowned art centers were trying to capitalize on the fervor?

Even though we're halfway through the year, most of the hits at the very top of the Hot 100 were produced last year. Brand new music is struggling to gain relevance, let alone hold onto it.

Alex Warren's grandiose power ballad, "Ordinary," is apparently the biggest song in the US right now. But much as its title suggests, "Ordinary" lacks friction, creativity, or any hint of a cool factor — crucial ingredients in the special sauce that propels a warm-weather bop to "song of the summer" status.

"Ordinary" has failed to capture the zeitgeist in any meaningful way; rather, it belongs to the same derivative, gospel-adjacent subgenre of pop that has also spawned hits like Benson Boone's "Beautiful Things" and Teddy Swims' "Lose Control." This is the kind of music you hear a lot in the grocery store and the dentist's office.

If "Ordinary" were being challenged by a massive hit, radio play probably wouldn't be enough to sustain its No. 1 reign. So, yes, blame Warren's dearth of competition — but there's also something more eerie at work here.

Music executive Kayode Badmus-Wellington, who has over a decade of experience in A&R, calls it the "hangover effect."

This year's biggest hits sound stale

Newer songs in the Hot 100's current top 10 include three tracks from Morgan Wallen's latest album, "I'm the Problem," and Carpenter's June single, "Manchild." You might assume these would be leading "song of the summer" contenders, but even market-tested hitmakers Wallen and Carpenter have yet to recreate their dominance from recent years. Wallen's "What I Want," featuring Tate McRae, debuted atop the chart but immediately fell from the summit in its second week. "Manchild" met the same fate.

A one-week reign at No. 1 usually signals that a song that can spark curiosity — of course, when it comes to A-listers, tons of people will listen to their new releases no matter what — but may not have the power to hold their attention. The issue is that neither "What I Want" nor "Manchild" offers anything fresh or particularly stimulating. Both songs rehash sounds and themes that Wallen and Carpenter have repeatedly explored.

(Carpenter said "Manchild" was actually written around the same time as her last album, 2024's "Short n' Sweet," which explains why it sounds like a B-side. It doesn't have the juice that "Espresso" did to become a lasting hit, or, perhaps more accurately, the caffeine boost.)

Badmus-Wellington described 2024 as "such a high" for pop music, spurred by blockbuster releases like Taylor Swift's "The Tortured Poets Department" and Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter," as well as fresh faces like Shaboozey and Roan. Fans were getting spoiled from all sides, so this year's shortfall feels even starker by contrast.

"The big pop names have mostly fired their shots. The new wave hasn't really announced itself with the same confidence or clarity this year," he told Business Insider. "There are fewer group anthems. A lot of the current songs, they're not necessarily made for the room. Last year's hits felt very communal."

Political chaos created an overstimulated audience

Pop music has always been cyclical; one could argue that 2025 is simply the ebb to 2024's flow. However, the dramatic political vibe shift has also played a role.

Last summer, Charli XCX declared that "Kamala IS Brat," a lesbian pop star enjoyed historic concert crowds, and Swift's Eras Tour continued to gush with feminine joy and friendship bracelets. In January, President Donald Trump's inauguration hastened the arrival of an era that looks and feels very different. The cultural consciousness is now dominated by mass deportation and multiple wars across the world.

"Regardless of people's preferences in terms of politics, 2024 just felt so much more optimistic. That's why you saw 'Brat' and the Kamala effect, and it all created an atmosphere that invited feel-good, confident music, and people just wanted relief and celebration," Badmus-Wellington said. "Now, it's just so distracting, because you have people's rights being violated and threatened, and people are just so anxious in many ways. That's leading back into the overstimulation of constant political noise."

Overstimulation, paired with last year's musical overindulgence, has led to a stupendous comedown. Not only are fewer superstars releasing albums, but audience attention is fractured. Badmus-Wellington said he's noticed people retreating back into known comforts and nostalgia, listening to songs they already know and love, rather than exploring new releases or discovering new artists.

"Song of the summer" is a famously subjective term, but the warmest season is inextricably linked to group outings, from parties and beach days to road trips and picnics. As a result, songs that fit the bill are usually sing-along friendly, anthemic; like a rallying cry. This summer, it looks like fans haven't found anything to rally behind — at least, not yet.

• Investment processes that once took months are gaining speed thanks to AI.
• This is transforming an in-depth investment approach known as fundamental investing.
• Executives from Alliance Bernstein to JPMorgan take us inside the fundamental investing revolution.

It took an AllianceBernstein healthcare analyst just one afternoon to analyze what would have once taken her months: the potential impact of President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" on specific drugs and insurance plans across state lines.

Andrew Chin, the firm's chief artificial intelligence officer, said the analyst used one of the $790 billion asset manager's in-house tools to quickly interpret the legislation and identify which companies would be affected, allowing her to make a fast, confident investment call.

"Because she was able to do that, she was able to make money for our client portfolios a lot faster," said Chin, adding that the analyst "locked in some of the alpha" in a way that was not previously possible.

Fundamental investors take a slow and methodical approach to their investment decisions. Whether reviewing financial statements or talking to vendors and company executives, it can take months for a fundamental investor to reach a conclusion about what to invest in and at what price.

Not anymore. Artificial intelligence is changing the slow investing game popularized by investors like Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and Peter Lynch of Fidelity.

While asset managers have long used machine learning to crunch spreadsheets and detect trading signals—especially in quant and systematic strategies— these tools can also quickly digest and analyze vast reams of unstructured information, like earnings call transcripts, regulatory filings, and even emails. It's allowing large asset managers to make fundamental investing decisions faster than ever before.

Here are three firms that are using AI to transform their investment processes:

JPMorgan Asset Management

Two and a half years ago, JPMorgan Asset Management AI strategist Dillon Edwards sat down with upward of 50 portfolio managers to understand what they needed. He asked them about the screens they use, the questions they ask themselves throughout the day, and the common thread was, "Just get our attention to the right data, at the right time, in the right place."

That request led to the creation of Smart Monitor, which Edwards described as "Spotify for the investor." It scans mountains of data to surface timely, relevant insights for the firm's portfolio managers and analysts.

Smart Monitor is part of JPMorgan's broader AI build-out for its $3.7 trillion asset management arm, which is hosted on a platform called Spectrum. Another tool within this platform is Moneyball, which helps portfolio managers identify and correct potential biases in their investment decisions by analyzing historical data and market behaviors.

Rather than building something new for investors to learn, Edwards and his team focused on AI directly into the process that investors have spent years perfecting.

The bottom-up approach has helped to minimize AI skeptics: A handful of "champion" PMs worked closely with engineers during development and became in-house unofficial salespeople who market it to their own teams.

"No one wants another tool, another thing to do, something that the AI team somehow thinks is going to be helpful for an investor without empathizing with what they're doing today," he said.

Kristian West, JPMorgan Asset Management's head of investment platform, said the firm is also developing similar tools with the goal of seeing if they can continue to scale the quantitative process, or data-driven systematic investing.

"That's an area where we think it is just pretty obvious, whereas technology and data capabilities improve, those two worlds collide a lot more," he said.

Alliance Bernstein

For fundamental investors—portfolio managers and analysts who base long-term decisions on a deep understanding of individual companies—this marks a turning point: a chance to move faster and dig deeper, but also a moment to rethink how they work.

Chin calls this evolution the rise of the "iron person": a human investor enhanced by AI armor. Not a replacement, but an upgrade.

AB has developed an internal chatbot called AB AI, along with several tools to help pull from internal data, prep for company meetings, or conduct research tailored to the manager's investment philosophy.

Chin said that many AB analysts often develop their own AI agents using ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot with specific prompts to, for example, run an analysis on the companies in their sector after an earnings call.

"They're able to then analyze companies the way they want to, so they get a more tailored or customized version of what the tool can provide them," he said.

Chin said about 75% of the firm's over 500 investment professionals are using their tools.

People sharing stories like "it takes me a day rather than a month to do something, or I was able to get this insight that I did not get before," have driven others to try it, said Chin.

For the remaining 25% who haven't picked up AI, he believes they "will just naturally come when they see the performance of their counterparts has gotten better."

BlackRock

A big reveal from BlackRock's investor day last month shows just how fast the field is moving. The $11 trillion investing behemoth has launched Asimov, an agentic AI platform for its fundamental equity business. Agentic AI doesn't just answer questions following prompts — it can take action on its own.

"While everyone else is sleeping at night, we have these virtual AI agents, they're scanning research notes, company filings, emails to generate portfolio insights," the firm's chief operating officer, Robert Goldstein, said.

He hopes Asimov will be deployed across the firm by the next investor day, offering investors at the world's biggest asset manager a powerful teammate.

Raffaele Savi, its global head of systemic investing, underscored how significantly AI is affecting the investing world.

The speed and power of having "real-time, millions of stimulations a day happening in the background, developing situational awareness" that helps ensure the portfolio reflects the manager's intentions are "profound."

"The world has changed tremendously," he said.

Republicans in Congress are on the verge of knee-capping America's renewable energy boom, prompting urgent 11th-hour warnings from climate analysts, China hawks and industry titans like Elon Musk.

Why it matters: Critics say President Trump's megabill amounts to an abject surrender in the battle for the future of energy. The consequences for U.S. jobs, electricity prices and the AI arms race could reverberate for decades.

• The "One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act," which would gut key Biden-era clean energy subsidies and potentially impose new taxes on solar and wind projects, could reach Trump's desk as soon as this week.
• "A massive strategic error is being made right now to damage solar/battery that will leave America extremely vulnerable in the future," Musk tweeted Sunday, after the Senate unveiled new changes to the bill.

Threat level: Jason Bordoff, who leads Columbia University's energy think tank, said the bill could hinder the U.S. in the AI race with China.

• "Winning that race is going to require that we increase electricity generation capacity in the U.S. really fast — and by a lot," he told Axios.
• That soaring demand is creating tailwinds for natural gas and nuclear, but even those "great" sources can't ramp up fast enough to meet the urgent near-term needs of data centers and AI infrastructure, Bordoff said.

"We need all the tools in the toolkit to meet rapidly rising electricity demand very quickly to win a competitive race with China for leadership in AI, and this bill makes that harder by throwing sand in the gear to renewable energy," he argued.

The big picture: Trump has made "unleashing American energy" a pillar of his second-term agenda, casting it as central to both fighting inflation and powering the AI revolution's insatiable power demands.

• But his signature bill threatens to undercut that mission by targeting renewable energy sectors capable of delivering fast, scalable and affordable power.

Between the lines: Trump has long favored fossil fuels, and he made clear on the campaign trail that he would reverse as much of President Biden's climate legacy as possible.

• But Trump's hostility toward clean energy is also rooted in misinformation about the reliability of wind and solar — not to mention aesthetics.

What they're saying: In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Trump called solar panels "ugly as hell," dismissed wind turbines as destructive, and praised coal as "clean, beautiful" and "very powerful."

• Many Republicans say the government should prioritize energy sources that can run around the clock — like nuclear and gas — instead of intermittently, like wind and solar.
• They also say the Inflation Reduction Act and other Biden-era energy policies showered wasteful subsidies on politically favored industries, distorting the market and overreaching on climate.

What to watch: Critics and clean-energy analysts warn the policies in the GOP bill could ripple across industries, supply chains and geopolitical fault lines.

• Growth in solar, wind, electric vehicle sales, and clean tech manufacturing will likely decelerate, as investment stalls and incentives disappear.
• Tech companies will face fresh challenges meeting AI's voracious energy needs, especially as supply chains for gas-fired turbines remain backlogged into the 2030s.
• Power prices may rise, with new projects delayed just as U.S. electricity demand climbs for the first time in 15 years. Wind, solar and batteries make up roughly 95% of the projects proposed to connect to the grid.
• China could widen its lead in low-carbon energy sectors that are becoming increasingly central to global power and competitiveness, even as the U.S. retreats on climate change.

Friction point: Several GOP senators led by Sen. Joni Ernst and Lisa Murkowski are negotiating to soften the bill slightly, especially by stripping out new taxes on wind and solar projects. But their amendment has not yet received a vote.

Zoom in: Analysts who support low-carbon energy warn of dire economic consequences if either the Senate or House versions of the GOP budget bill become law.

• New analysis from the think tank Energy Innovation projects that wholesale power prices would rise 19% by 2030 and 61% by 2035 under the Senate plan.
• Gas-fired power can't meet the explosive growth in electricity demand driven by AI and data centers, the group warns. Job losses could soar into the hundreds of thousands if clean energy investments collapse.

State of play: As it stands, the Senate bill would quickly remove $7,500 consumer tax credits for buying electric cars, as well as credits for large wind and solar projects that aren't connected to the power grid by 2028.

Other provisions in the Senate bill include:

• A near-immediate end to credits for residential efficiency and renewables projects.
• A quicker sunset of credits for producing low-emissions hydrogen, with projects now facing a Jan. 1, 2028, deadline to start construction.
• New restrictions barring access to various clean energy credits for projects with corporate or supply chain ties to China.

The House GOP version similarly pares back subsidies in the Democrats' 2022 climate law and beyond, though the measures are not identical.

• The bills take a selective approach to low-carbon energy, leaving support for nuclear, carbon capture, geothermal and some other tech largely intact.

The bottom line: Bordoff, an Obama-era White House energy and climate aide, warned the "pendulum will swing back" on climate change — and the U.S. risks falling behind when it does.

Daniel Moore and Katie Fehrenbacher contributed reporting.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sandy McConnell, 80, who lives in Nevada. McConnell works as a full-time accounts receivable specialist, earning about $50,000 annually. She has $37 in savings and over $70,000 in debt, not including her house. Business Insider has verified McConnell's current income and financial situation with documentation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sometimes, I feel it's sad that people like me are still working so late in life, whether it be because we didn't manage money better, were never taught how to do so, or had circumstances that hindered our financial goals.

I have to work because I've been single since 1997 and have a house payment, a car payment, and high credit card debt. I didn't take a 401(k) with my current company because I thought it was stupid to; I need the money now, not 10 years from now.

On the other hand, if I didn't work, what would I do? I can't sit home all day — I would go nuts. Sure, I don't have the freedom to travel, but there are pros like keeping my brain active.

I started working as a teenager

When I was 16, I got my first part-time job as a cashier. I got married in 1962 and had a baby the following year. I tried going back to school, but I went to a Catholic school, and the nuns weren't having any of that. My husband was in the Navy, and I worked as a full-time checker while he was deployed.

When he came back, I became pregnant again. After having that child, I worked in another grocery store as the head cashier and at the customer service desk. Through the 1960s, I held a few other grocery jobs, doing accounts receivable for one and doing collections work for Sears Roebuck.

My last child was born in 1971. My husband left when my kids were little, and he wouldn't pay child support. Financially, I was always strapped, raising five children.

I went through the training to be a nurse's aide, but realized quickly it wasn't for me. With my experience in consumer collections, I got a job a few years later at a jewelry store as a credit manager. Then I became a credit manager at a construction company, a role I held for many years. I held various credit management jobs while in Las Vegas, such as for automobile, roofing, and lighting companies. I lost my job at a building supply company right before COVID hit.

I had to file for bankruptcy

I've always been living paycheck to paycheck and never had a lot in savings.

In 2001, I had 13 family members living with me due to unfortunate circumstances. They finally found work and got their own places, but that hurt me financially to the point where I've had to file for bankruptcy once in 2004 and most recently in October 2021.

In 2022, my youngest son was living with me. We had previously had a falling out, but when he said things weren't going well, I told him he always had a place to stay. After being out of work, he got a really good job as a city bus driver and was helping me financially.

One day, he never came home from work. He had collapsed from a massive heart attack.

My oldest son and my grandson came to live with me after that. My oldest son was constantly changing jobs. In December 2023, he had a major stroke and couldn't work, and I had to take out credit cards to support my grandson. That really set me back financially. My son didn't have insurance at the time, and I also had to make sure he had his medications and got to therapy.

He and his son moved back to Oklahoma to be with his dad in June 2024. My daughter moved in with me the following month due to a nasty divorce. She's doing great and has a good job. She helps me financially. I don't have anybody right now to have to take care of, except for myself and my dogs.

I've never thought I could retire

Now I find myself at 80 still needing to work. Part of that is financial, and part of it is because I would be bored; if you don't have any money to do anything with, what are you going to do? Your house can only get so clean.

I work as a full-time accounts receivable specialist. It's a very busy position, and I earn around $50,000 a year. I work from home, which I love. My company appreciates work-life balance, so if I need time off, they give it to me. I also get $1,784 in monthly Social Security.

I had 401(k)s from previous jobs, but I never had enough in them to be able to say, "I can retire." That's not going to happen.

I own my home, and I've been in it for 10 years. It's valued at around $400,000. If I sold it, I could retire, but if I do that, where am I going to go?

Debt, including everything except my house, is probably around $70,000. I'm trying to pay it down each month, but something always happens and I have to end up spending my money on something else. I put money in my bank account every month, but right now I have $37 in my savings account.

My credit is fairly good, and I'm satisfied with what I have. I'm more blessed than a lot of other people I know.

I make do with what I have

I have great-grandkids in town, so I like to visit and spend some time with them. Anything family-oriented is always great, whether it's going to somebody else's house, a dinner, or a barbecue. I like to take my dogs to the dog park when I can. Until last September, I walked a lot until I developed a couple of health problems that have prevented me from doing so.

Once a month, I go to lunch with my former coworkers at a company where I worked for 13 years. We go to an affordable restaurant and talk, cry, laugh, and remember the good times at our job.

Every night, I get online and play in my poker league. I don't play for money; I used to gamble, but I can't really do that anymore. I play for points, but I do pay for a $40 monthly membership. You earn tokens, which you can use to play in cash tournaments. I play in many charity tournaments, especially for autism.

I don't spend a lot. I like to shop at bargain stores, and I only buy reasonably priced things. I don't eat a lot, and I can get by with peanut butter sandwiches. I spend $150 to $200 at the grocery store monthly, and I do a lot of food prep. I spend about $100 on essentials like toilet paper, paper towels, and other items.

I can put $5 in my wallet, and it lasts me forever.

• John Calamos says young people need to work hard to succeed, but it's OK to change course in life.
• The billionaire investor and former Air Force pilot shared his advice for young people with BI.
• Calamos said that having a mission in life is vital, and wealth often comes as you work toward it.

Self-made billionaire John Calamos says the road to success can be steep and winding, and wealthy parents should teach their kids that finding meaning in life trumps money.

Calamos, 84, grew up in an apartment above his Greek-American family's grocery store, where he started working at a young age. He piloted jets during the Vietnam War before building his business empire. He's the founder of Calamos Investments, which manages assets worth more than $40 billion.

Calamos, who published a biography, "The Sky's the Limit," in April, shared his advice for young people and parents with Business Insider.

Forge your own path

Calamos joined the military after taking to heart President John F. Kennedy's appeal for people to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

The convertible-bond pioneer has a similar message for graduates: "You don't get out of school now and say, 'OK, what is the government going to give me?'" he said. "It's not what the government's going to give you, it's what you can do."

Calamos said that he was able to become wealthy despite modest beginnings by being "creative, innovative." Being determined and having goals are key to achieving great things, he added.

In his book, he writes that young people shouldn't bow to pressure to specialize early, as he found value in a "more winding path."

Calamos started off as an engineering student, studied philosophy, switched to architecture, graduated with a degree in economics, then later earned an MBA.

"It's OK to change course as you learn more about yourself — what you truly care about and what ignites your passion," he writes.

Calamos added that it's crucial to keep learning, stay curious, and look for better ways to do things at every stage of one's career.

"This focus on continual improvement, innovation, and learning has been key to my own success," he writes.

Hard work and hustle

Calamos shared one of his biggest takeaways from his childhood and suggested how affluent parents might avoid raising entitled children.

"What I learned from my parents was just a work ethic," he told BI. "They worked hard all the time."

Calamos began working from a young age, first stocking shelves in his family's store, later delivering groceries and newspapers, washing windows, and more.

A parent's job isn't to simply hand money to their children, it's to instill in them the values of hard work and perseverance, he added. He said that the message should be, "It's not about the money, it's about the mission — the money is a byproduct."

• Microsoft is OpenAI's biggest investor but tensions between the two are boiling over.
• Key disputes include revenue splits, AGI triggers, and OpenAI's future acquisitions.
• Both sides say talks are ongoing and that they're optimistic about the future.

The stakes couldn't be higher for the most important AI relationship in tech.

OpenAI isn't just the highest-valued AI startup on Earth. It also has a "strategic partnership" with Microsoft that gives the tech giant access to its IP, a big cut of its revenue, and right of first refusal on any alternative cloud provider. Microsoft has earned that kind of power by plowing over $13 billion into OpenAI since 2019.

As OpenAI has boomed, tensions over the terms of the deal, which lasts until 2030, are boiling over. OpenAI has even considered reporting Microsoft to antitrust regulators for anticompetitive behavior, while Microsoft is threatening to walk away from talks entirely, throwing off OpenAI's fundraising plans, the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reported last week, citing multiple anonymous sources.

There are many areas of disagreement to unpack. Whoever wins out could reshape the future of AI.

Microsoft sent BI a joint statement with OpenAI that their talks are "ongoing" and that both sides are "optimistic we will continue to build together for years to come." OpenAI didn't respond to a request for comment.

Money and equity are major sticking points

Under its agreement, Microsoft gets 20% of OpenAI's revenue, up to $92 billion, the FT reported based on people close to the discussions. That's a big cut, and — perhaps unsurprisingly — OpenAI wants to reduce it. In exchange, it's offering up Microsoft a bigger slice of itself.

The big question is how much equity OpenAI could give up to convince Microsoft to budge. The stakes under discussion range from as low as 20% to as high as 49%, according to the FT.

Shareholders of public companies like Microsoft tend to care more about revenue than stakes in highly unprofitable AI startups. That hurts OpenAI's case.

The 'AGI clause' is still contentious

OpenAI has promised to build what it considers a safe version of Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, which is when AI overtakes humans at most tasks. OpenAI takes AGI so seriously that its contract with Microsoft says that if OpenAI achieves it, Microsoft loses their 20% cut of OpenAI's revenues and any access to new OpenAI technology.

AGI is a slippery concept, though, and figuring out when it's been achieved is tricky. OpenAI and Microsoft have defined it as the capability of OpenAI's systems to generate $100 billion in profits.

OpenAI is heavily unprofitable, according to documents reviewed by the New York Times. But that language about capabilities gives it some leeway to declare that it's reached AGI anyways.

It's no surprise, then, that Microsoft wants this clause removed in exchange for signing off on OpenAI's restructuring plans, which are essential for it to raise billions of dollars, according to anonymous sources cited by The Information.

It doesn't help the relationship that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella doesn't think AGI is a big deal or coming anytime soon, irritating OpenAI's top brass, according to another WSJ report based on unnamed sources. Nadella even called AGI "nonsensical benchmark hacking" in a podcast earlier this year.

Windsurf is sharpening tensions

OpenAI reached an agreement to buy the coding assistant startup Windsurf for a cool $3 billion in May, undisclosed sources told Bloomberg. Windsurf competes directly with Microsoft Copilot.

That makes its IP valuable to Microsoft, which would have access to it under its current contract — but neither Windsurf nor OpenAI want that, BI previously reported.

Instead, they want Windsurf to be exempted from Microsoft's IP rights. That raises the risk of Microsoft missing out on IP from future OpenAI acquisitions, something OpenAI hasn't been shy about.

Windsurf declined to comment for this article. It remains independent and is not owned by OpenAI.

OpenAI's messy structure is causing further issues

OpenAI is burning through billions of dollars a year and needs to raise billions more to keep itself going. Its unusual corporate structure — it's controlled by a nonprofit — has led to substantial fundraising struggles, BI previously reported.

A major ace up Microsoft's sleeve is that OpenAI needs its approval for a restructuring plan that would let it fundraise without further issues. SoftBank has conditioned $10 billion in funding on this restructuring, it disclosed.

On Friday, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said at a shareholder meeting that he intends to go "all in" on Artificial Superintelligence — a level even more advanced than AGI.

Son added that he'd wanted to invest in OpenAI in its early days, but ended up losing out to Microsoft.