• A man from Vancouver caught people's attention because they thought he was RedNote's CEO.
• Jerry welcomed new users who had been flocking to the app ahead of a potential TikTok ban.
• People got a bit carried away, and it became a viral case of mistaken identity.

Americans flocking to the Chinese app RedNote thought the platform's CEO had left them an encouraging message.

Turns out, he wasn't the CEO. He's just a guy from Vancouver.

Jerry, who shares a RedNote account with his girlfriend Dani that has about 31,000 followers, posted a video on January 13.

In the video he welcomed US users who had been signing up ahead of a possible ban on TikTok. He said the app, also known as Xiaohongshum, was mainly Chinese-speaking, and it was a place people mainly used for finding restaurants and sharing lifestyle content such as makeup videos.

"But do feel free to speak English and post English content because I believe there are a lot more English-speaking people on this platform nowadays," Jerry said. "We need to build this community."

Mistaken identity

For reasons that aren't entirely clear, some users assumed Jerry was RedNote's CEO.

His video got reposted on TikTok, and the rumor quickly spread around the platform. People thanked him for welcoming them with open arms while the potential TikTok ban loomed.

Jerry's video was also mentioned at the end of a Fox 5 New York news segment about the ban threat.

"The CEO of RedNote even made a video welcoming new users who speak English to the app, and he also encouraged them to never stop sharing their voice," said Jennifer Williams, a sports reporter for FOX 5 News.

On Tuesday, Jerry and Dani, on their TikTok account FakeCEORealGF, tried to clear up the confusion. In the video, Dani showed Jerry what had happened, and he responded with disbelief.

"Guys, I'm not the RedNote CEO, just to be clear," Jerry said.

"I'm just another normal guy in Vancouver," he added. "I didn't expect this post to go viral like this, and thank you for all the comments, but I want to clarify that I'm not the CEO of RedNote."

Jerry said all the points he made were still true, and he hoped new users enjoyed the platform.

Dani, who is Chinese and grew up in North America, and Jerry, who was born in Shanghai and moved to Canada a decade ago, said they had enjoyed watching Chinese and American cultures merge on RedNote.

"Guys, I hope you guys aren't mad at us," Dani said. "We're really sorry for any misunderstandings this caused."

TikTokers who made the error joked in the comments that Jerry had been promoted.

"We married the first guy to be nice to us," one viewer wrote. Another said: "He said 'welcome' and we said 'THE CEO?!?!'"

Others remarked on Jerry's American accent, remarking, "We have to start using critical thinking skills."

Jerry and Dani and Fox 5 New York did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

TikTok faces a January 19 deadline to comply with a divest-or-ban law requiring its US operations to be sold. It remains unclear what the ramifications of the bill could be.

Creators have been highly critical of the ban, saying their small businesses and livelihoods will be destroyed. Black creators, who were instrumental in the platform's growth, could be significantly affected.

Element of trolling

In response, TikTok users have been considering their options and downloading alternative apps, including Lemon8 and RedNote. Both have rapidly climbed the app download charts in recent days.

The influx to RedNote has been helping some of its users learn English, BI reported this week.

There's also an element of trolling going on. Frustrated about losing a valuable resource for their income and ability to mobilize, TikTokers are leaning into downloading other Chinese apps to send a message.

A major criticism of the potential TikTok ban is that it is hypocritical. Many claim it focuses heavily on one app while leaving alone other tech companies such as Meta, which owns Instagram.

• I stayed in a cylindrical tiny home hotel in Germany during a European train trip in 2022.
• The 106-square-foot home made smarter use of space than any tiny home I've seen in the US.
• The European tiny home was two stories and less than half the size of the US tiny homes I've booked.

I love how tiny homes creatively use small spaces. Living in NYC for the last six years, I've rented some cramped apartments.

So, I often book tiny home accommodations when I travel to get some ideas for space-saving hacks I could implement in my own dwelling.

From Florida and Maryland to Canada and Switzerland, I've stayed in several tiny Airbnbs around the world.

But none of those homes used indoor space as smartly as this tiny home hotel in Germany, which I found on Airbnb back in 2022.

I was looking for tiny stays in Germany when I found one with a unique, cylindrical shape that packed a lot inside, so I booked it for two nights for $140.

The Airbnb was part of a tiny home hotel in Neustrelitz, Germany, called Slube. The company designs minimal concrete "Slubes" for up to two people.

There are three types of Slubes: Basic, which is one story; Home, which is two stories; and Tower, which adds a rooftop terrace. I booked a Home Slube.

It was less than half the size of any tiny home I'd stayed in before.

At 16 feet tall, the tiny home with two floors was 106 square feet.

I checked in with a code sent to my phone rather than a physical key.

When I arrived by train from the airport in Berlin, I didn't see any employees on the property.

I was confused at first, but then I checked my email. I had a message from Slube informing me I'd be staying in room five and could check in by myself.

Inside, the 53-square-foot bottom level had a bathroom on the right, a sitting area on the left, and a ladder to the second floor.

The sitting area had a foldout table. When I wasn't using it, I could push it into the wall to save space.

Across from a foldout table was a bench with two seat cushions instead of a couch.

Beneath the benches, there was enough space for me to store luggage.

This tiny home utilized more vertical space than those I've seen in the US.

There were hooks and storage cubbies above the bench, so I stored all of my clothing and toiletries on the first floor.

I was impressed by the amenities packed into such a small room.

In the back right corner of the sitting area, there was a nook of built-in shelves storing a small coffee machine, a hair dryer, and a few dishes.

The bathroom felt efficiently designed.

There was a curtain separating the shower head and sink from the toilet and storage space.

Even with two windows, I felt I had enough privacy.

The first-floor windows had a film over most of the glass, which allowed me to let natural light in without sacrificing my privacy.

After checking out the first level, I headed up the ladder to the bedroom.

I thought it was easy to climb but could be challenging for some.

There was a latched gate at the top of the ladder, which I imagine was built to keep people safe from falling.

Knowing I was securely fastened into the bed area made falling sleeping easier.

The bedroom was the same size as the living space and bathroom combined — 53 square feet.

A comfy, full-size bed covered the floor space. The pillows had the ideal ratio of fluff to firmness for my neck and head.

Above the bed, a TV equipped with Netflix and other streaming services was mounted on the wall.

Before bed, I watched some of my favorite shows.

On the far side of the bed, I used the lower platform as a nightstand.

It had easily accessible outlets, a pocket for the TV remote, and more space for my electronics and water bottle.

Above the bed, a large window opened so I could let the breeze into my room.

It had a black-out curtain for privacy and early morning light.

The Slube also had smart electricity that made my stay feel a little luxurious.

I controlled the lights and temperature of each story from my phone.

I found it fascinating that this tiny home truly left no space unused, from the loft bed to the wall cubbies.

While I can't stick a second story into my own rental, the European tiny home still gave me inspiration for how I could make better use of my space, starting with vertical storage hacks.

• Wednesday's BlackRock earnings call was CEO Larry Fink's 100th.
• The firm went public in 1999 when it was still known primarily as a fixed-income manager.
• Despite being the world's largest asset manager, the $11.6 trillion firm is looking to grow through its private market strategies.

At least one thing remains the same from when BlackRock went public a quarter of a century ago: Larry Fink's pre-earnings call dinner.

Fink, speaking on his 100th earnings call Wednesday, said — despite the many changes to the firm and the world over the past 25 years — he has had a bowl of cereal with blueberries the night before each call.

Now, with $11.6 trillion in assets and a record $641 billion in net inflows in 2024, BlackRock is looking toward private markets for its next evolution.

"This just the beginning," Fink said.

The firm hopes to close its acquisition of private credit giant HPS in the second quarter, he said and has already integrated infrastructure investor GIP. Data platform Preqin — which BlackRock bought for $3.2 billion last summer— will make the private markets more accessible, Fink said, because of its data and analytics capabilities.

Altogether, the biggest opportunity for the firm is taking these strategies downmarket to individual retirement plans and managed account models. Private market players are anticipating that the incoming Trump administration, which has promised a deregulatory push, to allow private equity and credit assets into pension plans such as 401ks.

The ideal portfolio blend, Fink said, is no longer the 60-40 portfolio of stocks and bonds that was the standard for so long. Alternatives are needed to diversify properly, and BlackRock plans to offer them.

There's close to $10 trillion in money-market funds Fink expects will "be put to work" soon, and "income-oriented products" like private credit and infrastructure investments should be at the top of the list.

While he's hoping to get private markets strategies into 401ks, Fink did not address his own potential retirement. Mark Wiedman, a potential successor to Fink, is leaving the asset manager. Fink said on the call that Wiedman's departure was discussed for months and he will stay on through the spring to help with the transition.

"Rob and I are proud of the deep leadership team at BlackRock," he said, referring to firm president Rob Kapito.

He said talent is "the most important thing we invest in each and every year," stating that a new generation of leaders is being developed.

Those new leaders will be the ones who will determine what BlackRock's next 25 years look like and where it will grow next. They just need to be careful not to blink.

"It goes by quick," said Bill Katz, TD Cowen's analyst, on the call, reminiscing about covering BlackRock's IPO.

• AI hiring is rising 30% faster than overall hiring, LinkedIn reports.
• By 2030, 70% of the skills needed for most jobs will change due to AI, the platform predicts.
• LinkedIn's COO told BI that fluency with AI will be something that comes up in many job interviews.

If you want to get a new job this year, it might pay to lean into artificial intelligence.

Since last fall, AI hiring has risen 30% faster than overall hiring, new figures from LinkedIn show.

This doesn't just mean being one of the technologists who build AI, though many employers are desperate to find workers with these skills. It can also mean workers comfortable using AI to do their jobs, Daniel Shapero, COO at LinkedIn, told Business Insider.

He said that, in part, that desire reflects a need to have people best positioned to withstand an enormous shift in the workplace.

"There's a feeling from employers that they need to make sure that the workers that they're hiring are up for the changes that are about to occur in the labor market," Shapero said.

Part of the coming shift is underscored elsewhere in the LinkedIn report: By 2030 — in only five years — 70% of the skills required for most jobs will change, the company said. That's largely because of AI.

"That's just an indication of how prevalent AI is likely to be across different kinds of jobs," Shapero said.

AI has also only recently become mainstream. ChatGPT was the first major chatbot to burst onto the market, and that was in late 2022. Yet workers who embrace the technology will be most likely to succeed, LinkedIn says.

Employers are expecting AI fluency

The forecast about how much many jobs will change comes years into what's sometimes called the Big Stay, the buttoned-down sequel to the job-hopping that unfolded during the pandemic era. Before the pandemic, LinkedIn said, some workers were adding to their AI skills. Then, during the so-called Great Resignation, many workers didn't feel pressure to tack on abilities because they could often readily change jobs.

Now, years later — and with many workers reporting that they feel stuck in their roles — adding to their bona fides can seem prudent, Shapero said.

LinkedIn found that the share of jobs listed on the platform that included AI literacy skills jumped more than sixfold in the past year.

Yet, even with that increase, employers are only spelling out their desire for AI literacy in one of every 500 job listings on the platform, LinkedIn found. That's perhaps in part because fluency with AI is becoming an expectation for employers, Shapero said.

"It may not be on the job description, but it's going to be something that shows up somehow in the interview," he commented.

Shapero said one head of recruiting for an employer told him that the No. 1 question they're asking candidates is how they've used AI for work or at home within the past year.

"What they're trying to get at is comfort and fluency and the ability to learn new things and new technologies," he said.

AI will affect "almost every job," Shapero said.

Kelly Mendez-Scheib, chief people officer at Crunchbase, which collects data on companies, told BI that the company is hiring for roles including machine learning engineers and data scientists.

"I'm pretty bullish on AI," she said.

Adding more skills to our profiles

Job seekers appear to feel the need to beef up — or at least enumerate — their skills.

"People are trying to make sure that they are showcasing what's most attractive about them as a candidate," Shapero said. "And it comes down in many ways to AI skills."

Since 2022, LinkedIn users have increased the rate at which they add skills to their profiles by 140%. This includes so-called soft skills like communication and leadership.

A lot of what employers are after is workers who can marry tech with old-school basics. Communication, for example, was the most in-demand skill in 2024, LinkedIn figures show.

Parminder Jassal, CEO of Unmudl, which focuses on developing workers' abilities through hands-on training, told BI that, in many ways, the ideal is a matchup is AI's power with people's skills and emotional know-how.

"You put that together with AI intelligence, and now you get this super intelligence skillset," she said.

LinkedIn's report found that "leaders and companies understand that AI is the most powerful when collaborative humans surround and lead it."

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