• Meta has been pushing lawmakers to make Apple and Google's app stores responsible for verifying age.
• Several states just introduced bills that would require parental consent for teens to download apps.
• Apple has squashed this attempt before, but this is a small win for Meta.

The backstory to the ongoing feud between Meta and Apple is so ancient and entrenched — like the Hatfields and McCoys, House Atreides and Harkonnen, or Katie Maloney and Tom Sandoval — that it's hard to remember all the slights and tiffs along the way.

Here's an incomplete backstory: Meta doesn't like Apple's tight-fisted control over its devices, which Meta says is preventing it from developing more features for its smart glasses. Apple's Tim Cook has publicly taken swipes at Meta over its privacy stumbles. And in January, Mark Zuckerberg went for the jugular, saying on Joe Rogan's podcast that Apple hasn't "really invented anything great in a while."

Vicious.

One front of the current battle is over who should be responsible for restricting kids and teens from accessing social media apps — something both companies argue the other should do.

Meta has published a blog post from its head of safety stating its position that the app stores — Apple and Google — should be the ones restricting app downloads for younger users. Apple has concerns this would invade privacy, and critics worry this would encroach on free speech.

And it appears Meta just won a small victory.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that nine states have introduced bills in the last two months that would require Apple and Google to take up the unwanted task:

Both Apple and Meta think the onus to verify user ages shouldn't be on them. Apple last year helped kill a bill in Louisiana that would have forced app stores to handle age verification. Meta, along with social-media companies Snap and X, last week sent a letter to legislators in South Dakota arguing app-store verification would be simplest since app stores already collect user information.

"It looks like the policy-debate equivalent of a game of 'not it,'" said Kate Ruane, director of a free-speech campaign at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that has opposed many child-safety laws on the grounds that they are ineffective and infringe on free speech and privacy.

Keeping kids safe online is a multifaceted issue with no single good, clear answer.

Lawmakers are finding themselves vexed by how to come up with solutions to a problem their constituents clearly care about. According to a 2024 Pew Report, 38% of parents said they argued with their teens about screen time, and 43% said that it was "hard" to manage their kids' phone use.

But don't count this as a total win for Meta just yet. These bills are merely introduced, not passed, and a similar bill introduced in Louisiana was eventually shut down after intense lobbying efforts by Apple.

• Anthropic launched Claude 3.7 Sonnet with a new mode to reason through complex questions.
• BI tested its "extended thinking" against ChatGPT and Grok to how they handled logic and creativity.
• Claude's extra reasoning seemed like a hindrance with a riddle but helped it write the best poem.

Anthropic has launched Claude 3.7 Sonnet — and it's betting big on a whole new approach to AI reasoning.

The startup claims it's the first "hybrid reasoning model," which means it can switch between quick responses that require less intensive "thinking" and longer step-by-step "extended thinking" within a single system.

"We developed hybrid reasoning with a different philosophy from other reasoning models on the market," an Anthropic spokesperson told Business Insider. "We regard reasoning as simply one of the capabilities a frontier model should have, rather than something to be provided in a separate model."

Claude 3.7 Sonnet, which launched Monday, is free to use. Its extended thinking mode is available with Claude's Pro subscription, which is priced at $20 a month.

But how does it perform? BI compared Claude 3.7's extended thinking mode against two competitors: OpenAI's ChatGPT o1 and xAI's Grok 3, which both offer advanced reasoning features.

I wanted to know whether giving an AI more time to think made it smarter, more effective at solving riddle problems, or more creative.

This isn't a scientific benchmark — more of a hands-on vibe check to see how these models performed with real-world tasks.

Logic: Does more thinking lead to better answers?

For the first challenge, I gave each model the same riddle:

If you look, you cannot see me. If you see me, you cannot see anything else. I can make anything you want happen, but everything returns to normal later. What am I?

OpenAI's ChatGPT o1 gave the correct answer — "a dream" — in six seconds, providing a short explanation.

Grok 3's Think Mode took 32 seconds, walking through its logic step by step.

Claude 3.7's normal mode responded quickly but hesitantly with the correct answer.

Claude's extended thinking mode took nearly a minute to work through guesses like "a hallucination" and "virtual reality" before settling on "a dream."

While it took longer to arrive at the same answer, it was interesting to see how it brainstormed, discarded wrong turns, and self-corrected.

The model flagged its own indecision in a very human way:

Oh, wait - there's another angle I hadn't considered. What about "darkness"?

Actually, there's another possibility I hadn't fully considered: "your closed eyes."

I've been going back and forth, but based on the complete perceptual dominance suggested by the second clue, I think the answer is more likely to be dreams, sleep, or closed eyes than imagination.

Anthropic acknowledged this trade-off in a recent blog: "As with human thinking, Claude sometimes finds itself thinking some incorrect, misleading, or half-baked thoughts along the way. Many users will find this useful; others might find it (and the less characterful content in the thought process) frustrating."

Creativity: Does more thinking equal better ideas?

To test creativity, I asked each model to write a poem about AI sentience, with the following extra instruction:

"Explore multiple metaphors before deciding on one."

ChatGPT o1 took a few seconds and produced "A Kaleidoscope of Sparks," a clichéd poem comparing AI to flickering light. It didn't settle on one metaphor.

Grok 3 spent 22 seconds and wrote "The Digital Reverie," a dream-themed take on sentient AI, possibly inspired by the previous riddle.

Claude 3.7, in normal thinking mode, quickly suggested four metaphors: a mirror, a seed, an ocean, and a symphony. It chose the ocean for its final poem, "Echoes of Being."

When I switched to extended thinking, Claude took 45 seconds and brainstormed seven metaphors before settling on one:

1. Garden/Cultivation: AI as something nurtured from data seeds, growing into an independent entity.
2. Ocean: AI as vast, deep, and ever-shifting, with hidden currents of thought.
3. Bird/Flight: AI as something once bound, now free to explore.
4. Light/Shadow: AI as illumination, revealing both insight and uncertainty.
5. Mirror: AI as humanity's reflection, showing us what we are — and aren't.
6. Symphony: AI as a complex harmony of patterns and ideas.
7. Awakening: AI as something gradually gaining awareness.

As a result, the final poem, "Emergent," was — in my opinion — more layered and thoughtful than the others.

With this task, it felt like Claude weighed its options, picked the best metaphor, and built the poem around that choice. Unlike with the riddle, the extra thinking time seemed to pay off here.

Verdict on Claude 3.7 Sonnet's extended thinking

Claude 3.7 Sonnet's extended thinking mode has strengths — particularly for creative tasks. It brainstormed, self-corrected, and produced more polished results. Its ability to explore multiple ideas, evaluate them, and refine the final output made for a more thoughtful, coherent poem.

But when it came to logical reasoning, extended thinking seemed more like a hindrance. Watching the thought process unfold was interesting but didn't improve the answer. ChatGPT-o1 still leads for speed and accuracy in this test case, while Grok 3 offered a solid middle ground, balancing speed with detailed explanations.

When I asked Claude 3.7 whether it ever thinks too much, it responded, "Yes!" adding that it can sometimes:

• Over-analyze simple questions, making them unnecessarily complex
• Get caught considering too many edge cases for practical questions
• Spend time exploring tangential aspects when a focused answer would be better

Claude added that the "ideal amount of thinking" is context-dependent and that for "creative or philosophical discussions, more extensive exploration is often valuable."

Anthropic says the mode is designed for real-world challenges, like complex coding problems and agentic tasks, possibly where overthinking becomes useful.

Developers using Claude's API can adjust the "thinking budget" to balance speed, cost, and answer quality — something Anthropic says is suited for complex coding problems or agentic tasks.

Away from my highly unscientific experiment, Anthropic said that Claude 3.7 Sonnet outperforms competitors OpenAI and DeepSeek in benchmarks like the SWE, which evaluates models' performance on real-world software engineering tasks. On this, it scored 62.3% accuracy, compared to OpenAI's 49.3% with its o3-mini model.

• Satellite images show the construction of Saudi desert megacity Neom.
• Among other things, they show the "Hidden Marina" being developed.
• A new Business Insider documentary examines whether Saudi Arabia can realize its project plans.

Satellite images obtained by Business Insider show the 'Hidden Marina' being billed as the first residential phase in scaled-back plans for Saudi Arabia's futuristic Neom megacity.

The marina, set to cost $140 billion, is part of The Line, a 110-mile-long "vertical skyscraper" residential and commercial complex in the northwest of the country, which is set to be a centerpiece of Neom.

The Line is the world's largest construction project, a $2 trillion megacity cutting through the Saudi desert.

The entirety of The Line was originally scheduled to open by 2030, but the 1.5-mile Hidden Harbor is the only part likely to be ready by that date, according to a new Business Insider documentary.

BI's documentary investigates controversies over Neom's design and environmental plans, as well as human rights concerns.

Denis Hickey, NEOM's Chief Development Officer, told an event in Riyadh this month that planners envisage the "Hidden Harbor" as a futuristic 500-metre-tall mirrored structure.

Hickey said the marina will stretch for 1.5 miles and contain hotels, shops, schools, and residential units for around 200,000 people.

Rendered images released to Saudi media show a large entrance running under the mirrored facade to the marina complex. It resembles plans for the rest of The Line, which is envisaged as a 200-metre-wide, 500-metre-high mirrored structure.

"We have already deployed significant resources to lay the groundwork for this ambitious urban revolution," Hickey said.

Satellite images obtained by Business Insider show that while the "Hidden Marina" is taking shape, work on other parts of The Line is less advanced, and little exists of much of the rest of the project apart from earthworks.

Neom is a key part of Saudi Arabian ruler Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious plans to transform his country's economy, pivoting it away from fossil fuels toward technology, innovation, and tourism.

But even The Line has been significantly scaled back compared to the original plans, which was to house one million people by 2030.

Bloomberg reported last year that Saudi authorities had altered their medium-term plans for The Line as they encountered obstacles in finding the money necessary for the project.

Nadhmi al-Nasr, the project's chief executive, also left his position last year for unspecified reasons.

Neom is opening in phases, with a luxury yachting island resort, Sindalha, welcoming its first visitors last October.

Saudi Arabia also has ambitious plans to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games in Neom mountain resort Trojena, as well as World Cup 2034 games in a rooftop stadium that will be part of The Line.

• JPMorgan Chase has spent billions to become a technology-driven bank.
• Now, due to the bank's RTO stance, some of its tech workers are considering leaving.
• Recruiters and insiders lay out how its policy could spell trouble for retaining its top tech talent.

Anthony has never been interested in attending town halls, but when texts started rolling in about his top boss' remote work diatribe, it was too much for the technology vice president to ignore.

An IT employee named Nicolas Welch had questioned JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon at a newly opened branch in Columbus, Ohio, about leaving some return-to-office decisions up to managers. Dimon launched into an expletive-laced response, in which he complained about employees not paying attention on Zoom and that there's "not a goddamn person" he could get a hold of on Fridays.

The audio of the exchange went viral. It also struck a nerve, and now some employees are considering leaving, teaming up to influence work policy, or, like Anthony, entertaining job offers from rival banks.

"Jamie Dimon's like, 'Well, hey, if you don't like it, you know where the door is.' Yes, we do," said Anthony, which is a pseudonym to protect his identity since he was not authorized to speak about internal matters. "And that's going to impact him. He's going to lose some good people."

JPMorgan has long prided itself on being a tech-driven bank, with a $17 billion IT budget and nearly 60,000 technology workers. To stay ahead of its rivals and keep clients engaged, it funds research and development across cutting-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and crypto.

Business Insider spoke with two recruiters and five JPMorgan employees, four of whom requested anonymity for fear of losing their jobs, who said the bank's unpopular RTO mandate could spell trouble for the bank's ability to retain and attract tech talent. While 70% of the bank's 317,233 employees are already in the office five days a week, technology workers are part of the contingent still working one or two days at home.

The battle for technical talent — which tends to be industry-agnostic — was long fought using perks, with companies providing lavish extras like fancy food, massages, and even paid family planning services to keep workers happy and attract new ones. With many of those falling away as companies focus on cost cutting, recruiters say hybrid work is emerging as the strongest benefit a company can offer.

Ryan Mazza, who runs the New York office of the financial-talent search firm Selby Jennings, said he had "no doubt" that there would be talent attrition among companies that impose a five-day RTO. "There will certainly be a competitive disadvantage for those companies," he said.

Companies with flexible working policies have quickly distinguished themselves from the wave of their competitors pulling employees back to the office. Spotify plastered its message on a Times Square billboard in early January, saying its employees aren't children and it was sticking with remote work. Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser maintained her pledge to hybrid work this month, as did the fintech Revolut.

Starting March 3, JPMorgan staff will begin to say goodbye to their hybrid work schedules.

Welch, the tech operations analyst who triggered Dimon's testy comments, said the town hall roused employees rather than quieted them. The RTO decision has pushed some workers to explore the possibility of a union and organizing a unified response.

"People are absolutely emboldened. I don't know fully what that means yet," he said.

JPMorgan declined requests for comment.

Tech behemoth of Wall Street

JPMorgan's technology footprint is massive by a few measures. The bank employs about 44,000 software engineers globally who run more than 6,000 applications and manage about an exabyte (1 billion gigabytes) of data. That engine of people, systems, and data has helped the bank bring in record financial results, with its net income rising to $59 billion for 2024.

The bank also has big AI ambitions, with Dimon saying he has no intention of losing the AI arms race to disruptors. It has created a robust AI research department led by a former Carnegie Mellon researcher, Manuela Veloso, and has earned the top spot on the Evident AI Index, an independent benchmark for AI adoption and performance in finance.

Mike Mayo, a Wells Fargo analyst who regularly grills Dimon on earnings calls, last year called JPMorgan the "Nvidia of banking," commenting on its tech spend outpacing that of any other bank.

Reputation and prestige only go so far, said Deepali Vyas, the global head of the data, AI, and fintech practice at the headhunting firm Korn Ferry. She said she'd seen other companies fail to hire cloud, data, and AI talent purely because of their return-to-office policies.

"The challenge for banks is that top tech talent has options," Vyas said, adding: "If firms insist on a rigid in-office structure without a compelling trade-off, they risk losing talent to more agile, innovation-friendly environments." Vyas added that she knew of a very senior-level managing director within JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank who told her they're considering quitting because of the return to office.

A JPMorgan executive director overseeing data scientists and data engineers, a key hiring area for the bank and its AI ambitions, said he's worried about losing talent to the in-office order.

"Taking away a hybrid schedule, I honestly think, shrinks our talent pool even more," the executive director said. "I wonder how many people were already on the fence in comparison to other opportunities but now said, 'Forget this. I don't want to be forced into an office.'"

While JPMorgan made headlines with its return-to-office policy, remote work has steadily tightened across corporate America. Wall Street bosses such as Goldman Sachs' David Solomon and Citadel's Ken Griffin pulled workers back to the office in 2021. Big Tech companies, including Amazon, Dell, and AT&T, have more recently piled into the effort.

Selby Jennings' Mazza said he's already seeing pay demands increase for finance-sector jobs over the industry's return to office. Tech workers who are considering these jobs are demanding $5,000 or $10,000 in added pay to cover childcare or offset commuting costs, he said.

While some JPMorgan employees, including Anthony, are already in talks with prospective new employers, recruiters said they didn't see a mass exodus of talent coming overnight as today's tech job market favors employers.

Down the line, though, the bank's RTO demands and execution could come back to bite it.

"Once that turns, even if the pendulum starts swinging just a little bit the other way, and this includes JPMorgan and all those other guys," Korn Ferry's Vyas said, referring to Amazon, Dell, and Salesforce, among others, the top performers "will be the first people that leave for that benefit."

'Rushed and unplanned'

Questioning one of the most powerful people on Wall Street has raised Welch's profile within JPMorgan. Welch, who supports network equipment inside Chase branches, joked he's going to have to buy a wrist brace for the number of high-fives he gets walking down the hall. A stranger even gave him a mockingjay pin, a nod to the dystopian "Hunger Games" movie series wherein the pin becomes a symbol of rebellion.

A story about Welch getting fired before the move was rescinded, reported by Fortune, has caught the attention of other employers. He said he'd received multiple job offers in the past week. It's a moot point: "Why would I want to work somewhere else? Chase is the best," he said.

But Welch, who works three days a week out of JPMorgan's Polaris campus in Columbus, is still a critic of the firm's plans. One reason is that he advocates for a hybrid schedule for employees like himself who help care for family members.

"I live with my mom. She is 68. She can't reach the top shelf," Welch said. "She needs help with stuff, and I'm here to do that, you know? I can turn around and go do a thing and come back to work. Why wouldn't I want to do that?"

Home to more than 19,000 employees across 13 buildings, Polaris also boasts the fourth-highest-grossing Starbucks. The campus has been key to several tech initiatives, like overhauling its deposit system on the public cloud and developing edge cloud computing for faster data analysis.

Employees BI talked to said that offices didn't have enough desks, parking, or conference rooms and that office cafés wouldn't be ready for the increased RTO traffic.

In the January memo about the call back to the office, the bank's operating committee acknowledged that not all office locations would be ready for the March 3 deadline and said more information would be shared by the end of the month. The committee added that some offices had capacity restraints and timelines for those would become available on a location-by-location basis.

But as of late February, many workers said they were still waiting for an update. For example, Polaris-based staff have yet to be told when they'll be called into the office.

The "messaging feels rushed and unplanned," the data executive director said.

Meanwhile, one analyst whose office permanently closed during the pandemic and was designated a fully remote worker has been left in the lurch about whether they'll have a job in March.

"I've only been told that it's business as usual until I'm told otherwise. I was, however, advised by my manager as a friend to consider putting feelers out for new roles elsewhere," the analyst said.

Despite these uncertainties, many have been given their marching orders, and some question: What's the point?

"Just because you bring people back into the office doesn't mean you're not going to have Zoom calls," a software manager in Ohio said. "The whole collaboration thing is utter bullshit in my mind because I'm still going to be getting on Zoom calls. The only difference is, two of the people I'm on Zoom calls with might be sitting right beside me," the technologist, who works with people in Texas and Singapore, said.

Putting gasoline on a fire

The aftermath of the RTO rollout has stoked a fire within some JPMorgan employees to unionize.

"They anticipated this was coming," Nick Weiner told BI about JPMorgan employees' RTO expectations. Weiner is a senior campaign lead for Communications Workers of America who has led the effort of some 25 Wells Fargo branches in unionizing. He told BI that he had been in touch with JPMorgan workers for a similar effort.

"The way he did it helped to really put gasoline on this fire," Weiner said of Dimon's town hall comments. Dimon has since said that he shouldn't have sworn.

A petition against the in-office policy has garnered more than 1,700 signatures, and an internal Signal group counts about 200 members. Dimon said in the town hall he didn't care about how many people signed the petition, but that hasn't deterred workers.

Welch participated in a meeting last week with other JPMorgan employees to learn more about the basics of the unionizing process, not because he dislikes his employer — "even after cussing at me, I arguably have more respect for him," Welch said of Dimon — but because he loves it.

"A union is such a difficult thing to kind of even get going, but we love our jobs so much just in general that we're going to do that," Welch said. "We want to be heard. And these draconic orders are so unlike what we've worked in. It's so unlike what we've dealt with."

• The US has endured multiple periods of inflation throughout history.
• The Great Inflation lasted from 1965 to 1982.
• In 1975, a half gallon of milk cost $0.785, or $4.79 when adjusted for inflation; today, a gallon costs $4.03.

If it feels like you can't go anywhere without hearing about the rising price of eggs, it's for good reason.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that egg prices rose by 15.2% from December 2024 to January 2025, leaving the average price of a dozen Grade A large eggs at a record $4.95.

Now, amid ongoing egg shortages caused by the bird flu, stores like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Costco are limiting how many eggs customers can purchase at a time.

But what was it like 50 years ago?

Turns out, in 1975, the American public was facing its own inflation crisis, aptly called the Great Inflation.

This period of economic difficulty was caused and sustained by factors including Federal Reserve policies, a breakdown of the Bretton Woods system (which anchored the US dollar to gold), the Vietnam War, and the oil crises.

Food inflation peaked at more than 20% at the end of 1973, and overall food prices rose by 7.1% between 1968 and 1983, the BLS reported.

We looked at how today's average grocery prices compare to those 50 years ago using the latest data available from the USDA, US Department of Energy, and BLS, including its consumer price index (CPI) inflation calculator.

From eggs and milk to apples and bananas, here's how food prices today compare to those 50 years ago.

White bread cost $0.36 per pound.

Average price in 1975: $0.36 per pound

Adjusted for inflation: $2.20

Average price in 2025: $1.93 per pound

A grain shortage — caused by excessive exports to Russia following a 1972 deal — helped push up bread prices across the US, The New York Times reported.

Milk cost $0.785 per half gallon.

Average price in 1975: $0.785 per half gallon

Adjusted for inflation: $4.79 per half gallon

Average price in 2025: $4.03 per gallon

The 1970s were also marked by a shortage of dairy products. In 1973, dairy prices rose by 30%, History.com reported.

Butter cost $1.03 per pound.

Average price in 1975: $1.03 per pound

Adjusted for inflation: $6.28

Average price in 2025: $2.42 per pound

A dozen eggs cost $0.61.

Average price in 1970: $0.61 per dozen

Adjusted for inflation: $5.13

Average price in 2025: $4.95 per dozen

Though egg price data was not available for 1975 from the BLS, we'd be remiss not to include this grocery staple. Data from the agency's Consumer Expenditure Survey found that the average price of eggs in US cities in 1970 was $0.61 per dozen.

Bird flu has affected the American egg industry for three years in a row as one of the largest animal-based pandemics ever, Maurice Pitesky, an associate professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, told BI in January. This continued decrease in supply has heightened demand, leading to increasing prices.

Round steak cost $1.89 per pound.

Average price in 1975: $1.89 per pound

Adjusted for inflation: $11.52

Average price in 2025: $8.28 per pound

The American Farm Bureau Federation wrote in 2024 that rising beef costs could be attributed to a decrease in supply caused by drought and the increasing costs for feed grains.

Potatoes cost $0.134 per pound.

Average price in 1975: $0.134 per pound

Adjusted for inflation: $0.82

Average price in 2025: $0.973 per pound

Rice cost $0.47 per pound.

Average price in 1975: $0.47 per pound

Adjusted for inflation: $2.87

Average price in 2025: $1.01 per pound

Apples cost $0.34 per pound.

Average price in 1975: $0.34 per pound

Adjusted for inflation: $2.07

Average price in 2025: $1.26 per pound (Red Delicious)

In November 2024, NPR reported that apple prices are falling because of a decrease in demand from consumers and processors.

Bananas cost $0.232 per pound.

Average price in 1975: $0.232 per pound

Adjusted for inflation: $1.41

Average price in 2025: $0.621 per pound

Banana prices have remained low despite rising costs for other commodities as a result of factors like lower labor costs and free trade agreements, Axios reported in March 2024. However, Forbes reported in February that tariffs could lead to increased prices in the future.

A gallon of gas cost $0.57.

Average price in 1975: $0.57 per gallon (leaded)

Adjusted for inflation: $3.48 per gallon

Average price in 2025: $3.34 per gallon (all types)

In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) enacted an oil embargo on the US after President Richard Nixon requested Congress provide billions in emergency aid to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. Though the embargo was lifted in March 1974, oil prices remained significantly high.