• Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Tom Hardy all star in Paramount+'s new crime drama, "MobLand.'"
• Brosnan and Mirren play mob bosses, while Hardy is their fixer.
• Here's what to know about the show produced by Guy Ritchie.

Paramount+'s new crime drama, "MobLand" starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren revolves around a British crime family in London.

Mirren and Brosnan play mob bosses Maeve and Conrad Harrigan who employ Harry Da Souza (Hardy) as a fixer for their shady dealings.

The show was produced by Guy Ritchie, and comes after his 2024 Netflix series "The Gentlemen," which is a spinoff of his 2019 movie of the same name starring Matthew McConaughey.

Here's what to know about "MobLand."

'MobLand' is about warring crime families

Like any good story about London's criminal underworld, "MobLand" revolves around rival criminal gangs.

The synopsis for the show reads: "Power is up for grabs as the Harrigans and Stevensons, two warring London crime families, clash in a kill-or-be-killed battle that threatens to topple empires and ruin lives.

"Caught in the crossfire is Harry Da Souza, the street-smart 'fixer' as dangerous as he is handsome, who knows too well where loyalties lie when opposing forces collide. As kingdom goes up against kingdom, lines will be crossed — and the only saving grace is a bet-your-life guarantee: family above everything."

The show was originally meant to be a spinoff from "Ray Donovan," a long-running crime drama series on Showtime that starred Liev Schreiber. But Ritchie later reworked it into an original story, Variety reported.

Tom Hardy, Helen Mirren, and Pierce Brosnan lead the 'MobLand' cast

Hardy, Mirren, and Brosnan lead a talented cast of British actors including Paddy Considine as Kevin Harrigan, the Harrigan family heir, while "Sherlock" star Lara Pulver plays his wife, Bella.

"Downton Abbey" actor Joanne Froggatt plays Jan Da Souza, the wife of Hardy's character, and Geoff Bell plays Richie, the leader of the Stevenson gang warring with the Harrigans.

"MobLand" is a reunion of sorts for Hardy and Ritchie, who worked together on 2008's crime thriller, "Rock 'N' Rolla," in which a group of gangsters cross paths with a Russian billionaire.

"MobLand" premieres on Paramount+ on March 30. The whole season drops at once, so audiences will be able to binge-watch it.

• Reid Hoffman said Thursday that a feud with Elon Musk is one-sided.
• Musk has accused Hoffman of funding Tesla protests, which Hoffman denied.
• The two clashed on X, with Hoffman mocking Tesla's stock plunge.

Reid Hoffman has dismissed the idea that he has a personal "beef" with Elon Musk, saying their ongoing feud is one-sided.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, the LinkedIn cofounder and early OpenAI donor said Musk was still bitter over OpenAI's success after his departure. Musk left OpenAI in early 2018.

"Well, so actually, it's more his beef with me for having made OpenAI successful with his departure," Hoffman said. "Because he left saying, you know, 'You're all a bunch of jackasses and you'll fail,' and I helped them succeed."

Hoffman added that AI should be developed by those willing to "consult with and deal with other people" — something he said Musk doesn't do. "That's not how Elon operates, which anyone who has two eyes can see," he said.

The latest clash between the two played out over the weekend on X, the social media platform Musk owns. Musk claimed that Hoffman was among several donors funding Tesla protests.

"An investigation has found 5 ActBlue-funded groups responsible for Tesla 'protests,'" Musk wrote on Saturday, listing Hoffman alongside George Soros and other political donors.

Hoffman fired back on Monday, calling Musk's claims false.

"Just one more of Elon's false claims about me: I never funded anyone for Tesla protests," Hoffman replied in a Monday X post. "I don't condone violence. But it's clear Americans are angry at him—it's easier to explain away their anger than to accept that actions have consequences."

Musk replied: "Describe your favorite island vacation."

Hoffman shot back with a graph of Tesla's stock price decline, writing: "I don't know about islands but here's your least favorite mountain."

Tesla stock closed down 15% on Monday, dragging Musk's net worth down by $29 billion — a 6.7% drop in a single day. Despite the hit, Musk remains the world's richest person.

Hoffman and Musk were both early OpenAI backers. Hoffman, who remained a supporter of OpenAI after Musk's departure, has been a vocal critic of Musk's actions. In September 2024, he dismissed Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI as "sour grapes," suggesting Musk was frustrated by the company's success without him.

Last month, Musk led a $97.4 billion bid to take control of OpenAI, which the company's board swiftly rejected.

Musk and Hoffman did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• I graduated from college around the same time my grandmother died.
• When I couldn't get a job, I moved in with my grandfather.
• We became even closer during the three years we lived together. I'm grateful for that time.

As I've gotten older, I've realized that certain people have an undeniable force surrounding them. My grandfather has always been one of those people in my life. Ever since I was little, I've been enamored by him. He moves through the world with an unwavering sense of confidence, a blend of street smarts and book smarts that makes him both inspiring and, at times, maddening.

He's the kind of wise where, even when I don't like his advice, I know deep down I should listen.

The year I needed his advice the most was in 2019, the year I graduated from college, which happened to be the same year my grandmother passed away. As my senior year wound down, I had precisely one job offer. It was with a small event planning company, offering a laughably low salary and no benefits. It wasn't the dream job, but it was a job, and who was I to turn down my only option?

I called my grandfather. He didn't sugarcoat it: "It's not a good deal." So, I turned it down.

The job market was brutal, so I moved in with my grandfather

A few weeks later, I graduated with no job and no plan. I felt lost. My grandfather, meanwhile, was adjusting to life without his wife. I asked if I could stay with him in Birmingham, Alabama, for a few weeks while I figured things out. He agreed, and soon after, I moved in with him and his rescue dog.

Since I'd only ever visited with my parents before, those first few days were spent observing, trying to understand his rhythms. Shoes off at the door. One trash can for trash, one for garbage (I still don't know the difference). Beds must be made. Water cups can stay by the sink, but everything else must be hand-washed — though I later convinced him the dishwasher was worth using. Eggs are cooked with butter (lots of it), never oil.

Not only does he have rules, he has a routine, as well. Saturdays are for dinner with friends; Sundays are for family. And at the time I moved in with him, he was 80 years old and still working as an ENT surgeon. While he used to work five days a week, during this time he worked two days a week, on Mondays he performed surgery and on Tuesdays he did office visits. Again, an inspiration.

I had only planned to stay for a few weeks while I applied for jobs in big cities, like New York, L.A., anywhere but Birmingham, Alabama. But the job search was harder than I expected, and to my surprise, I found myself enjoying Birmingham more than I ever anticipated. I settled into a routine. While my career felt stalled, I was growing in other ways.

His rules were the structure I needed

Living with my grandfather taught me discipline and structure in a way college never had. His rules, which at first felt arbitrary, became the guardrails I needed. He never told me what I wanted to hear, only what I needed to. And most of all, he showed me what it meant to love your work, because to still be a practicing surgeon in your 80s and enjoy every second of it? That's something special.

I had always thought highly of my grandfather, but living with him helped deepen my admiration. It's easy to think of grandparents as relics of a different time, and while I never saw my grandfather as outdated, I also never saw us as equals. He was someone to look up to. But then, somewhere along the way, we became friends. Best friends.

We gossiped, laughed, and cried together. He consoled me. We watched Ozark every night until we ran out of episodes. I read romantic novels on the patio while he smoked a cigar and told me stories about his trips to Miami with my grandmother.

Moving in with family after graduation felt like a step back, but it wasn't

Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years. We lived together through the pandemic, through the time he got hit by a car and severely broke his ankle, through his retirement, through my first job and my first resignation, and through the moment I met the boy I'm about to marry.

I only stayed for about three years, but they were three years of profound growth, both personally and professionally. Had they not happened the way they did, I know I'd be a different person. My grandfather is the reason why I'm now driven, more confident, and more sure of myself.

It's easy to feel like moving in with family after graduation is a failure. Like it's a step backward. But for me, it was three steps forward. And for all three of them, I have my grandfather to thank.

• High schooler Matteo Paz won $250,000 for discovering 1.5 million new space objects with AI.
• Paz built an AI algorithm to search data from a NASA space telescope for objects like black holes.
• His discoveries could help solve one of the universe's biggest mysteries.

When Matteo Paz scored a high school internship at the California Institute of Technology, the scientists there gave him the daunting task of manually sorting reams of data from a NASA mission.

It was "classic intern work," Paz, an 18-year-old from Pasadena, California, told Business Insider. "The very menial, tedious, dirty tasks that require a lot of time."

Instead of manually sifting through the data, Paz built an AI algorithm to do it for him. Ultimately, he discovered 1.5 million new objects in space, including supernovae and supermassive black holes.

On Tuesday, he won $250,000 in the Regeneron Science Talent Search for his efforts.

Every year the competition casts a net across the nation for high schoolers doing the type of research you might expect from graduate students. This year Paz snagged first place out of nearly 2,500 entrants.

"Surprised isn't a strong enough word," Paz said shortly after the award ceremony. "I didn't even give a thought to what I'd say to people if I'd won."

The objects in Paz's catalog aren't just plain old stars or planets. They're all variable objects, meaning they change dramatically, violently, and often unpredictably. A black hole, for example, can emit powerful jets that vary in brightness depending on how much material it's gobbling up or how fast it's spinning.

That makes these objects a wealth of information about some of the universe's most befuddling mysteries. For example, they can be used to measure how quickly the universe is expanding from the Big Bang — a puzzle scientists are still trying to solve, which could rewrite physics.

Most of the objects Paz discovered are "candidates," meaning further study is required for scientists to confirm what Paz's analysis suggests they are.

Luckily, astronomers are already digging into his catalog.

Building an AI to scan the sky

Paz needed his machine-learning algorithm to comb through nearly 200 terabytes of data from a 10-year infrared survey of the entire sky by NASA's NEOWISE space telescope.

Looking in the infrared — wavelengths invisible to the human eye — the NEOWISE mission searched for asteroids and comets near Eart. Infrared wavelengths, however, can also reveal objects deep in space that are shrouded in interstellar dust.

Even though NEOWISE wasn't designed to look for such objects, Paz thought he could tease them out of the data with his AI algorithm.

"Prior to Matteo's work, no one had tried to use the entire (200-billion-row) table to identify and classify all of the significant variability that was there," Davy Kirkpatrick, who was Paz's mentor at Caltech, told BI in an email.

Other surveys had tried to comb through NEOWISE data for specific types of variable objects, he added.

At the end of the summer program, "we were so impressed with his results that we hired him part-time at Caltech to finish the catalog," Kirkpatrick said.

Paz said a lot of that work was him "in a dark room, eye bags heavy, looking at my computer, trying to solve a bug." Sometimes he worked out math problems on a whiteboard at Caltech. He also consulted a variety of astrophysicists and astronomers.

Once the algorithm was ready though, it blew him away.

Making 1.5 million new discoveries

In order to analyze all 200 terabytes of data, Paz divided up the data into 13,000 equal parts.

The algorithm analyzed miniscule changes in infrared radiation to identify variable space objects and sort them into different classes, such as black holes or double-star systems. In some constellations, the algorithm was discovering more objects than anticipated.

"That was where I first started to see a lot of promise in the project," Paz said.

In the end, he surveyed over 450 million objects in the sky and identified 1.9 million that may be variable objects like black holes or supernovae. Of those, 1.5 million had never been cataloged before — they were new discoveries.

"It's very beautiful. Not just that number — it's a big number that obviously makes you proud — but when you visualize the data," Paz said.

Here's that visualization, plotting all the candidate objects he discovered:

"You can see the Milky Way, you can see satellite galaxies, you can see Andromeda, you can see star-forming regions," Paz said. "Even though it's a very one-dimensional view of the universe, just plotting a point at every discovery we've made, we can really see the intricacies and the glory of the night sky."

Now an infrared research group at Caltech is already using his catalog, called VarWISE, to study dual-star systems in the distant universe. They've already found dozens of star systems in VarWISE that weren't previously detected, Kirkpatrick said. He added that the research helps them calculate the mass of distant alien planets.

Paz is submitting the catalog for publication in the Astrophysical Journal later this year. The catalog has not yet gone through the peer-review process, but the algorithm itself was peer-reviewed and published in the Astronomical Journal in November.

"The variable candidates that he's uncovered will be widely studied and illustrate the enduring value of astronomical surveys," Amy Mainzer, a scientist who led the NEOWISE mission, told BI in an email.

"It's clear that he is simply a unique talent — smart, hardworking, and with a crazy ability to assimilate newfound knowledge into new ideas for studying the universe," Kirkpatrick said.

From LA fires to the Big Bang

As for Paz and his $250,000, the next frontier is college. He said he's been accepted at Stanford University, and is keeping his mind open about potential career paths.

Just weeks before flying to Washington, DC for the awards ceremony, Paz woke up in his Pasadena home to see flames outside the window. The Eaton fire traveled so quickly that he had received no official warning. After evacuations and several days of fire, his family's home was spared.

"It really gives you a new perspective," he said. "I have a new appreciation for the problems that I have the privilege not to worry about."

Now he's pondering the possibility of putting an infrared telescope into Earth orbit — this time to monitor Earth itself for emerging fires.

More immediately, though, Paz wants to use his NEOWISE findings to study the elusive expansion rate of the universe, starting from the Big Bang, and hopefully help scientists solve the biggest mystery in cosmology.

"It will either contribute to the resolution of a very contentious topic in current research, or it's going to reveal something truly foundational about the origins of the universe," Paz said.

• China has warned Walmart against squeezing suppliers to offset US tariffs.
• US tariffs on Chinese goods have risen amid heightened tensions with the Trump administration.
• Companies were already shifting some manufacturing to other developing countries due to US-China tensions.

Beijing brought Walmart executives in for a meeting earlier this week — a sign the country is keeping a close watch on retailers amid concerns about US tariffs.

On Tuesday, Chinese authorities summoned the retail giant for a meeting, reported Yuyuan Tantian, a Weibo social media account linked to state television CCTV.

A spokesperson at China's Commerce Ministry said at a press briefing on Thursday that it had communicated with Walmart after reviewing reports and feedback from some enterprises, according to CCTV. Walmart has explained the situation, the ministry said without further elaboration.

Yuyan Tantian's post said the authorities, including the Ministry of Commerce, sought to discuss reports that Walmart had asked suppliers to cut wholesale prices to offset higher US tariffs.

The social media post said such a move would create risks of supply chain disruption and may "violate commercial contracts and disrupt the order of normal trading."

It also cautioned Walmart not to pass on costs from the tariffs to its Chinese suppliers.

"If Walmart insists on doing so, then what awaits Walmart is more than just a meeting," according to the post.

Beijing's meeting with Walmart underscores Chinese leaders' concerns about the economy, as US President Donald Trump's trade war injects fresh challenges.

"Beijing has essentially warned that it would take action against Walmart if Chinese suppliers are coerced to absorb the tariff impact," wrote Vishnu Varathan, Mizuho's head of macro research for Asia excluding Japan, in a Thursday note.

Beijing "is on its guard against US tariff assault on the margins of Chinese manufacturers," he added.

The development shows the tensions between US efforts to blunt inflationary effects from tariffs and Chinese efforts to ward off worsening deflationary risks, wrote Varathan.

On Wednesday, the US started imposing additional new tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports. On March 4, Trump's administration doubled blanket tariffs on Chinese goods to 20% on top of existing levies.

Walmart did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment outside regular business hours. However, the company confirmed the meeting to Reuters and said it would continue to work closely with suppliers to "find the best way forward during these uncertain times."

China is the world's factory floor for companies worldwide, including Walmart. The retail giant's $5 billion worth of net sales in China account for about 3.5% of its total net sales globally.

Bessent: 'Prices won't go up'

Trump's new tariffs come as China is trying to revive confidence in its economy, which has been struggling to recover since pandemic lockdowns ended. It's dealing with multiple problems including a property crisis, high youth unemployment, and deflation.

In February, China's consumer inflation fell below zero for the first time in 13 months, highlighting weak demand.

China's industrial profits at large companies — a key indicator for how well factories, mines, and utility firms are doing — fell 3.3% in 2024, marking its third straight year of decline.

Last week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News he was positive Chinese suppliers would absorb the tariffs.

"With the China tariffs, I am highly confident that the Chinese manufacturers will eat the tariffs — prices won't go up," Bessent said.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have been simmering for years, spurring companies — even Chinese ones — to move manufacturing outside China. The moves accelerated during the pandemic due to supply chains disruptions in China, which implemented on-off lockdowns of nearly three years.

Beneficiaries of the trend include India, Vietnam, and Mexico.

• One number stood out in Adobe's earnings report: AI's annual recurring revenue.
• Investors are eyeing Adobe's ARR from AI as the company bets big on the technology.
• CEO Shantanu Narayen says Adobe plans to double its AI ARR by year-end.

One number from Adobe's quarterly earnings on Wednesday caught investors' attention: annual recurring revenue from AI.

At $125 million from the first quarter this year, it's a small slice of Adobe's $5.71 billion in total quarterly revenue. But analysts were quick to talk about the breakout number on Wednesday's earnings call.

Shantanu Narayen, Adobe's CEO, said on the call that the company expects to double its AI ARR by the end of the financial year.

"Whether it is innovation, having our own models, integrating it across all of our products, brand new revenue streams like GenStudio in the enterprise and then usage and monetization, I feel really good about it," Narayen said on the call.

The company said it expects revenue to increase to between $5.77 billion and $5.82 billion in the second quarter.

Adobe's stock dipped 4.5% in after-hours trading, extending a rough year that has seen shares slide 23%, even as the S&P 500 climbed 8%.

As AI spending surges, investors are watching closely to see if tech companies can turn big bets into real returns.

Narayen said on the earnings call that future info on AI's ARR would be released "periodically" — not quarterly.

In a research note ahead of earnings, Gregg Moskowitz, a managing director at Mizuho, wrote, "Adobe is unquestionably a frustrating stock in 2024."

He wrote that analysts remain optimistic that Adobe would successfully monetize its generative AI offerings and see strong growth in ARR and revenue guidance for the financial year.

Equity analysts from Jefferies said in a report published on Sunday that chief information officers they surveyed expect their companies' spend on Adobe's creative software to accelerate in 2025.

The surveys included 15 chief information officers and 40 end users. The report said that Adobe's AI offerings are "competitive" and that "fears of AI reducing the need for Adobe may be overblown."

Of end users surveyed, 65% told Jefferies their use of Adobe's creative software would increase within the next three years, while 50% evaluated Adobe's AI offerings "as better than competitors."

Adobe did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside business hours.

• I got a Chase Sapphire Preferred travel card when I got engaged.
• I used the card for big purchases for my wedding, amassing major points over my 15-month engagement.
• Those points ended up paying for all the lodging on my honeymoon.

When I got engaged in May 2023, I was overwhelmed with excitement. My now-husband and I giddily called our loved ones to share the news, and we toasted to our future with glasses of bubbly. I fell asleep fantasizing about our perfect wedding day.

By the time I woke up the next day, a to-do list had formed in my mind. I needed to insure my ring, hire a wedding planner, and find a venue. The list got longer and longer the more I thought about our nuptials, my mind racing as I tried to figure out where to start.

As we formed a plan, there was one task I was glad I had completed a few days before my husband proposed: applying for a travel credit card.

Picking a travel card

I had been interested in getting a travel rewards credit card for a while when I finally applied for one in May 2023.

I fly often, particularly because my extended family is based in Atlanta while I live in New York. I also knew I would be in Atlanta more in the lead-up to my wedding since my husband and I had decided to get married there to accommodate my aging grandmother.

It seemed like a good idea to make my travel purchases work for me, especially since my husband and I wanted to go to California for our honeymoon but knew we wouldn't have much of a budget for the trip.

There are several travel credit cards out there, but I decided to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. A friend of mine already had it and got bonus points for referring me, and it had all the travel benefits I was looking for, including five points on travel purchases and three points on dining for a $95 annual fee.

After getting the Chase card, I started using it for my daily life and wedding purchases.

Racking up credit card points

Once I got my Chase card, I made it my go-to credit card, determined to earn the 60,000 bonus points the Sapphire Preferred card offered if I spent $4,000 on it within the first three months. The task was easier than expected, as I made several big purchases for the wedding in the summer of 2023.

I booked whatever I could for the wedding on my credit card and paid it off twice a month throughout our engagement, using the wedding budget and amassing points simultaneously. I also decided not to use any points until the honeymoon, preferring to put them toward one big purchase rather than smaller ones.

As our engagement continued, I made several travel-related purchases through the card, like the Airbnb I rented for my bachelorette weekend and the hotel suite my husband and I stayed in over the wedding weekend.

Plus, I flew to Atlanta monthly for preparation and events like showers in the final six months before the wedding. Each time I booked a flight, I felt grateful the cost earned me points I could use later.

When our wedding rolled around in September 2024, I had close to 250,000 points saved. My husband and I used the points on lodging for our California road trip in February 2025.

Booking our dream honeymoon hotels

On our honeymoon, my husband and I visited Monterey, Sonoma, and Yosemite National Park for two days each, flying in and out of San Francisco.

As we planned the trip, we looked for hotels through Chase Travel℠, only considering lodging that would allow us to use the points for our stays. That didn't feel like a limitation because Chase partners with so many hotels.

After careful research, we selected three hotels that gave us a different experience in each city. In Monterey, we stayed at the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa, a high-end hotel on the water with multiple restaurants and a café.

The partial oceanview room we stayed in cost 83,307 points and gave us a view of the ocean and the hotel's courtyard. Sitting on our patio, we could people-watch and look for sea otters, which we loved.

Next, we chose The Lodge at Sonoma for our time in wine country. We stayed in one of the resort's private cottages and took advantage of the hotel's amenities, such as a jacuzzi, a free wine-tasting happy hour, and a spa.

The Lodge staff also helped us book a day of winery tours in Sonoma, a highlight of our time there. The cottage cost us 71,203 points.

Our most unique stay was at AutoCamp Yosemite, a luxury glamping site in Midpines, California, that gave us easy access to Yosemite National Park through the valley. We stayed in one of AutoCamp's Vista Airstreams, which cost 49,844 points when we booked it.

The views on the property were stunning, and we loved being immersed in nature throughout our stay while still enjoying the amenities of a hotel.

One evening during our visit, we grilled out for dinner using a kit we bought from AutoCamp's store.

We spent just over 204,000 Chase points on lodging for our honeymoon, so after booking the hotels, we still had points left.

The travel card made perfect sense for us to use on wedding expenses whenever possible, as it allowed us to save on our honeymoon even as we spent on the wedding.

The memories from our honeymoon were priceless — and the fact that our wedding helped us save money on it was the perfect cherry on top of the trip.

Offers, rates, and fees for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card are accurate as of 03/12/2025.

• Lone Pine co-CIO Kelly Granat spoke about how the firm has changed in a rare interview.
• Granat, who manages the firm with David Craver, discussed how the firm's investing practices adapted.
• It's been six years since the firm's billionaire founder, Stephen Mandel Jr., stepped down.

Evolving into Lone Pine 2.0 following billionaire founder Stephen Mandel Jr.'s retirement in 2019 has been a "heavy lift," according to the Tiger Cub's co-CIO, Kelly Granat.

Speaking on investor Patrick O'Shaughnessy's podcast in a rare interview, Granat described how the firm, which was founded in 1997, has had to change from how it invests and how it runs its business because the world looks different than it did during former President Bill Clinton's second term.

Lone Pine, which manages $18 billion and is run by Granat and fellow co-CIO David Craver, has had to focus on "shoring up the organization for a different world," she said. The changes have paid off in the last two years when the manager made 20% in 2023 and 36% in 2024 in its long-short fund — but it hasn't been painless.

Hedge funds have historically struggled with succession plans; Ray Dalio's Bridgewater churned through executives in different roles before he gave way for Nir Bar Dea, who became the firm's CEO in 2022. Industry insiders gossip over the potential successors of firms like Elliott Management and Millennium as their founders set up for the next generation but also show no signs of slowing down.

For Lone Pine, it was always understood that Mandel would eventually hand over the reins, but the manager has still dealt with outflows, a rough patch of performance, and the departure of Mala Gaonkar, one of the three people Mandel left in charge of the portfolio, in early 2022.

Granat, a former Harvard tennis player who joined Lone Pine in 2007, described the "resetting" of the portfolio following 2022 — when its long-short fund fell 38% — as necessary.

"We had lost balance in the portfolio," she said. Lone Pine focused too much on the high-growth tech names, and, in the low interest rate environment following the pandemic, there was "a lack of accountability around valuation."

Now, there's a focus on sectors they had experience in but had ignored, as well as a lower level of market exposure so the firm is more flexible.

"There are lots of ways to make money in the market, and we just got really narrow in our purview," she said.

She's proud the "breadth" of the portfolio is driving returns now — the manager made 20% in 2023 and 36% in 2024 in its long-short fund — not just a few stocks. Granat pointed out the firm didn't own Nvidia last year, for example.

The portfolio's lower exposure level is partly to respond to structural market changes, such as the growth of passive and pod investing. Granat says the tweak helps them take advantage of times when stocks move for "non-fundamental reasons," such as platforms unwinding positions or a change in which stocks are in indexes.

The firm's changes are not limited solely to its investment staff. For the first time, Lone Pine is dedicating resources toward its public appearance and outreach, she said.

"We wouldn't do things like this five or 10 years ago," Granat said about speaking on a podcast. But "the world's changed," and keeping their heads down and performing is no longer enough, even though the firm still enjoys a solid investor base of long-term investors like endowments and foundations, many of which have been with Lone Pine since inception.

The firm brought on its first-ever business development leader, Pat Cronin, in 2022, and has attended events like iConnections to connect with potential LPs, for example.

"The onus is on us to tell our story," she said. "There are other things we need to be doing to continue to develop and grow our business."

But if one thing has stayed the same at Lone Pine, Granat said, it's been the focus on the next generation. Mandel "was focused at the beginning on the firm outliving him," she said, and she and Craver, who are both in their 50s, are continuing the tradition.

"If I'm in this seat in 10 years, that's probably not the best outcome for our LPs," she said.

• William Harrington became a stay-at-home dad to support his wife, Heather's, career growth.
• Heather's career in digital management outpaced childcare costs, which prompted the decision.
• When they married in 2022, William took her last name. He now helps her with her company.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with William Harrington, a stay-at-home dad from Lewisville, Texas. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I met my wife, Heather, through mutual friends in 2010. I was 19 and homeless, and she, at 21, was raising two small children on her own. When she offered me a place to stay, what started as kindness blossomed quickly into love after just two weeks.

Heather's children immediately became a cherished part of my life. I went from not having much in the world to being a young stepparent. As a stepkid myself, I wanted to provide the permanency and stability I lacked while growing up. Heather was waitressing at the time while she taught herself to code.

She now supports our entire family of five, and I stay home to care for the kids and run the household.

By the time we had our third child, one of us needed to stay home

In 2012, after two years together, I got a job as an opening manager at Sonic, working 55 to 60 hours weekly.

Shortly before that, my wife landed her first big job as a digital experience manager at an advertising agency.

Around this time, she got pregnant with our youngest. We weighed the childcare options versus my pay and my wife's, as Heather earned more, and childcare was more expensive than what I made. As Heather's career was quickly ascending, we decided it would be best if I quit my job and stayed home.

Running a house is constant work

At home, I ensure the kids get to school and all their needs are met, and I take care of all house chores and cooking.

Many people in my life imagine I've got all this free time and am doing nothing. Family can be particularly judgmental. Once, a relative asked me, "When will you be a man?" Navigating societal expectations and stereotypes about gender roles can sometimes feel like an uphill battle.

It's hard to be your own cheerleader sometimes with that criticism. Social isolation can also be challenging, as my daily environment doesn't provide the adult interactions I once had in a traditional work setting. When I reflect, I remember my fantastic relationship with my kids, which is stronger than anything I had with my parents.

In March 2017, we bought our first house

Over the next few years, Heather quickly moved from manager to director to vice president and eventually chief digital officer of two companies.

Buying our first house was a significant milestone because I was the first grandchild in our family to own a home. It was such a gift to our children to move from a two-bedroom apartment into a four-bedroom house.

My wife has made six figures for the past seven years, and it covers all our expenses and then some. Having all your bills paid is a unique feeling, but I'm also starting to build a new career path.

In 2019, I started massage school part-time and got my degree. I've always been interested in how the human body works and felt connected to healing.

We married in September 2022

I admire her so much that I even took her last name.

In 2023, Heather started her company, Level Up Digital, a marketing and technology development agency.

In addition to my massage work, I've been helping by learning to build websites, write blog content, and manage digital property. I've never been great at managing money, so I give any funds to my wife so she can handle it wisely.

Working together has been smoother than I expected. It doesn't mean it's always easy, but we check in, take breaks, and make time for our family. I've gained new titles and credibility in the eyes of those who judged me for being a stay-at-home dad.

Home life now is fantastic

Since Heather works from home, we can balance cooking and parenting. As the kids get older, I want to open my own business and brand for massage therapy. I'm most excited about joining in and helping Heather with her business.

We're so happy to be able to give our kids every opportunity they deserve, and I'm excited about the future of Heather's growing agency.

• In three years, Harvey went from an unknown startup to a pivotal AI force within the legal industry.
• CEO Winston Weinberg spoke to investor Sarah Guo on a podcast about how the legal field is changing.
• He highlighted how the work of young lawyers will evolve and why billable hours may go up in cost.

Harvey, a startup focused on legal and professional services, has a message for lawyers worried about chatbots coming for their jobs: We come in peace.

Founded by a former lawyer and an ex-DeepMind researcher, the company has taken over the legal world by worming its way through leading firms. It hired lawyers as domain experts and linked arms with high-profile firms like A&O Shearman and PwC early on to develop software for legal professionals.

Harvey investor Sarah Guo recently spoke to Winston Weinberg, Harvey's lawyer-trained founder and CEO, on her podcast, "No Priors." They covered the skepticism among some lawyers regarding artificial intelligence and its potential impact on the industry. Weinberg tried to ease those concerns.

"I don't think there is as much displacement fear," Weinberg told Guo. "It is not job displacement, it is task displacement. And I think that's a super important distinction because getting rid of those tasks does not mean the legal industry falls apart. It'll evolve."

Weinberg's reassurance has backing from the who's who of venture capital. Just last month, the company announced it had secured $300 million in Series D funding to further develop its platform and expand its team. This new round saw participation from return investors such as Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, GV, Elad Gil, Guo's Conviction, and the OpenAI Startup Fund, along with new backers Coatue and LexisNexis.

Here are three other predictions the Harvey founder shared about the future of law.

Junior associates become more valuable

The majority of junior associates are hired to do one thing: produce as much billable work as possible. These young attorneys are expected to put in grueling hours of case study and research. They are the foot soldiers of the profession.

And so the notion of a law firm using software to automate away parts of the profession might seem scariest for the people responsible for this grunt work. Not so, according to Weinberg.

"The junior folks are incredibly happy about this," he told Guo on the podcast.

The Harvey founder says that most junior associates spend the first leg of their careers on rote tasks. "So whether that's in reviewing documents in discovery or it's reviewing documents in a data room, et cetera, you end up not being able to do the strategic level things until like 10 years into your career, if you're lucky, five," he said.

Software like Harvey allows them to get tasks done faster. "And so what I think will end up happening is the timeline will compress," Weinberg said, "so you will start being able to actually do the high-level strategic work and interact with clients, which is what people really want to do earlier on in your career."

Billable hours go up in cost

The unstoppable march of artificial intelligence has fanned a long-running debate over the potential death of the billable hour or the standard method of payment in the legal profession.

The idea is that when a firm uses software to speed through routine tasks like document review and due diligence, the number of billable hours to a client is likely to be reduced. The Harvey founder believes, however, that even as billable hours fall, the value of a lawyer's time is likely to increase.

"I don't think the billable hour is going to just completely disappear," Weinberg said. The mundane, repetitive tasks can be automated with a lawyer in the loop. "Those tasks will end up being kind of a fixed-fee model," he explained, "and I think the high-level advisory work on top will still be billable hour and will be actually maybe more expensive."

"There's an argument that the specialist at a law firm who has seen all of these different mergers in the pharmaceutical industry, their rates for hours should not be actually 3x the junior associate in the data room, maybe 10x, I don't know," Weinberg said. "My point is there is a specialization in professional services that is incredibly valuable and is going to be more valuable over time."

Other attorneys echoed this belief when speaking to Business Insider's Natalie Musumeci last fall. Frank Gerratana, a partner at the international firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., posited that in the future, "lawyers can simply charge more per hour because they're spending more time on the highest value work." Michel Paradis, a partner at the global firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, said firms will charge a premium for "the real value that lawyers provide."

Do you have a story to share about how AI is changing the legal world? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• President Donald Trump has imposed a flurry of tariffs that have driven up costs.
• Real estate developers have been hit with sticker shock on steel orders, which have risen 20%.
• Despite widespread optimism at the beginning of Trump's second term, developers have grown worried.

President Donald Trump has promised to power the economy by imposing tariffs on foreign goods and materials.

Instead, the duties are heaping new costs on commercial real estate development projects in the US as prices rise sharply for core building components like steel, aluminum, copper, and tiling.

Joseph Taylor, the CEO of Matrix Development, a New Jersey-based warehouse developer, said that his company recently ran into tariff impacts on the steel it is buying to erect a warehouse in Newark, New Jersey.

"I can tell you steel is up 8-10%" for the project, Taylor said, noting that the increases had driven up the planned building's costs by about $2 million.

Another developer planning a more than $100 million warehouse outside of Washington, DC, meanwhile, said that Nucor, a North Carolina-based steel manufacturer that he had tapped to make the structural beams for the project, alerted him in recent days that prices were rising 15% on his $12 million order.

The developer was able to lock in his original price because he had made a reservation for the steel, but he now anticipates the project's construction costs will rise by about 10% overall because of the impact of tariffs on other materials, such as steel rebar in the project's concrete foundation, as well as growing charges for insulation and roofing.

The developer said that the increases would eat into his forecast returns for the development.

"It's going to be harder to get new projects going," the developer said.

The person did not want to be identified because he said he is negotiating with other suppliers and didn't want to tip his hand on where he anticipates price increases.

The prices of commodity goods like metals and common fabricated products like rebar and steel wall framing that are used in real estate development are strongly affected by global markets, experts say. The tariffs have had the effect of pushing up costs, even for goods made domestically.

"What you did is you hamper competition, so the domestic people simply just raised their price where they can," said Dain Drake, a principal at DeSimone Consulting Engineering, whose focus includes sourcing structural steel for commercial development.

The Trump administration placed a 25% duty on foreign made steel and aluminum imports in February and the trade barriers went into effect on March 12. Trump has explored tariffs on other important building materials, including copper, which is widely used in plumbing and electrical systems.

The increases haven't registered yet in much of the data that tracks materials costs. But experts say builders are beginning to experience sticker shock.

Drake said that quotes for fabricated steel he is helping to procure for the expansion of a manufacturing plant in the Houston area have risen 20% recently — in line with steel increases he has seen across the market. The contractor, which will have to pass the cost onto the customer, was surprised and "not happy," he said, when he reported the new quote.

Drake said that such escalations could impact whether projects proceed.

"It hasn't shut things down yet, but that conversation's going to manifest," he said.

More expensive ceiling tiles and lighting systems

The charges have been felt not just in ground-up development but also in the multi-billion dollar industry for interior work and renovations.

Richard Jantz, an executive at Cushman & Wakefield who leads its project and development services team in the tri-state region, said that a large office tenant recently put a roughly $20 million renovation of a space it occupies in Manhattan on hold because of cost escalations that coincided with the tariffs.

The duties have cascaded through the supply chain, Jantz said, raising the price of items like ceiling and acoustic tiles, which often use China-made fiberglass, or lighting systems, which can have internationally sourced components. The Trump administration has imposed a 20% tariff on imports from China.

Ceiling tile systems also employ steel or aluminum grids to suspend them, which have become more expensive.

Jantz said that construction costs have risen by about 3% on average annually in New York City for decades. This year he forecasts increases of around 5%.

"That is largely based on the tariffs and a little bit of greedflation that we're seeing," Jantz said, referring to domestic manufacturers and suppliers who have been opportunistic by raising prices because foreign competition has grown more expensive.

The higher costs have also had an impact on the construction of apartments, as Business Insider reported in February.

A lack of clarity on tariffs

Trump's return for a second term in the White House created widespread optimism across the commercial real estate industry. But a turbulent month and a half in office has rattled investors.

Trump has upended global alliances by placing tariffs on close US trading partners, including Mexico, Canada, and Europe. As major stock indexes have tumbled as a result of his policies, Trump appeared to suggest that he was willing to accept a contraction of US growth to meet his objectives, telling Fox News that the country may endure a "period of transition."

He has also zig-zagged on major policy announcements that have disoriented executives and raised uncertainty in the business sector. Trump's administration, for instance, announced a 50% tariff on Canadian steel on March 11, only to call off the sweeping action later in the day.

Construction experts say that such whiplash moves encourage developers to wait on the sidelines in the hope that other tariff actions and charges will also be pulled back.

"The lack of clarity on the tariffs and the resulting impact of those tariffs, it's driving uncertainty," said Joseph Mizzi, the president of Sciame Construction. "If someone has to guess with a lack of certainty, they're typically going to — in the contracting world — guess in a more conservative way."

Mizzi said that he and other contracting executives he speaks with have become concerned about the situation recently. He said the industry had expected an upswing in construction in 2025 after a few years of diminished activity in the sector that was brought on, in part, as a result of higher interest rates.

"We lay in bed at night thinking about things that might happen," Mizzi said. "So yeah, it's on our radar for sure."

Sam Altman has several reasons to smile these days.

He welcomed his first child into the world recently, and the kid is learning to eat. You can't top that.

But Altman's other baby, ChatGPT, is flourishing, too. The AI chatbot has added millions of new users in recent weeks and months, making OpenAI a more serious challenger to Google and other internet giants.

"Something seems to have kicked into a higher gear in terms of AI product adoption," Barclays tech analysts wrote in a recent note to investors.

ChatGPT just added 100 million users in two months, the fastest cohort adoption in two years, they noted. "As a result, we have increased our forecast for AI adoption in both consumer and enterprise."

o1, o3, oh my!

I asked OpenAI about what's been driving this growth spurt. They didn't respond. The Barclays analysts suggested several reasons, though.

OpenAI rolled out a new type of "reasoning" AI model late last year. Called o1, it uses an approach called test-time or inference-time compute that slices queries into smaller tasks, turning each into a new prompt that the model tackles. The startup also quickly launched an updated version known as o3.

The Barclays analysts credited other new OpenAI products, too, such as Deep Research and a multi-modal AI model that can handle other types of queries beyond text.

All about distribution

The technology is important, for sure. But the internet business is mostly about distribution. You think you have a great product, now how are you going to get it in front of a billion people?

The best distribution tool in the Western World is currently the iPhone. More than a billion people are glued to these gadgets for hours a day, so getting a prominent position on the devices is key.

About nine months ago, Altman pulled off a coup here. Apple and OpenAI unveiled a partnership that integrates ChatGPT deeply into iPhones and other Apple devices.

The Barclay's analysts listed this iOS integration as another likely factor leading to the accelerating growth of ChatGPT.

The new Google?

Mark Mahaney, a top internet analyst at Evercore ISI, uncovered more good news for Altman this week.

The brokerage firm conducted its fourth quarterly survey of online search habits, polling more than 1,000 US people. Mahaney and colleagues found that adoption of new generative AI versions of search has risen "meaningfully" lately.

"First-mover ChatGPT commands the #1 position in Gen AI Adoption at 37% (vs. 23% in June '24), followed by Google (Gemini or AI Overview) at 27% (vs. 17% in June)," the analysts wrote. "Particularly interesting is the ramping ChatGPT adoption among Gen Z."

For both Gen Zs and Millennials, ChatGPT has emerged as the clear GenAI winner so far, according to Evercore ISI's survey data.

This OpenAI tool has reached 55% penetration among Gen Z and 50% among Millennials. Google trails at 33%.

Google has dominated online search for so long, so these numbers are pretty stunning.

No wonder Altman is smiling.

• When a top analyst skewered AMD's software, CEO Lisa Su called him personally to chat.
• AMD's AI chips have struggled to compete against Nvidia's dominance, and software is its weakness.
• Those who know Su told Business Insider she will never settle for second place.

What should a CEO do when their company is publicly called out for an inferior product? Many would stay silent. Not AMD CEO Lisa Su.

In early February, AMD released new data showing how well its AI chips performed at training large language models, using benchmarks developed by a company called SemiAnalysis. Just weeks earlier, the same group had published a searing review of AMD's tentpole graphics processing unit.

The analysts wrote that while the chip looks good on paper, reaching its potential in reality was almost impossible with AMD's existing software. Chief analyst Dylan Patel and the SemiAnalysis team spent five months assessing AMD's GPU, which has struggled to gain market share and mindshare against the dominant player, Nvidia.

"We were hopeful that AMD could emerge as a strong competitor to Nvidia in training workloads, but, as of today, this is unfortunately not the case," SemiAnalysis published in December.

The next day, Patel got a call from Su. The call was scheduled for 30 minutes, but it lasted 90.

"Feedback is a gift even when it's critical," Su tweeted after the call. The new performance data released in February were a punch back in a fight that's far from over.

2024 was the year of Lisa Su. She was Time and Chief Executive Magazine's CEO of the year.

Last year, AMD outsold Intel in its data center business, overtaking its old rival in the traditional data center world. This became the triumphant apex of Su's first decade as CEO of AMD. Revenue for the whole of 2024 was up 14% year over year — gross profits up 22% — and yet when Su reported the results in February, the stock went down.

As Su achieved what many thought impossible and conquered her old foil, Intel, a new one had already presented itself in AI prognosticator Nvidia, led by CEO Jensen Huang, Su's cousin born in the same region of Taiwan as her. Shareholders wouldn't let her forget her biggest rival.

Whether AMD can meet the seemingly insurmountable challenge of Nvidia's estimated 90% market share may come down to the approaches of two Taiwanese-born, US-educated, distantly-related CEOs.

Su has already stated the company's goals. She's leaning into open-source software and beefing up support for large language model training and inference customers. Most importantly, she's raising the bar for AMD's software so that it can better stand up to Nvidia's — since Huang has long professed that software is Nvidia's secret sauce.

"We are still in the very early stages with AI, and we believe there's no one-size-fits-all approach to AI compute," an AMD spokesperson told Business Insider. AMD declined to make Su available for an interview.

BI spoke with nine people for this story — five of whom have at one point had a personal relationship with Su and three of whom worked under her at AMD. They said that whether in 2007, 2017, or 2027, the stoic, thoughtful, quietly confident executive walking the brightest stages in the tech world is exactly who she seems. Though she may never conquer Nvidia, she won't rest while she's in the number two spot. Her play involves intently listening to partners as well as critics, and it's worked before.

Lisa Su says, 'Why not?'

Some early indications suggested that starting at the bottom motivated Su to get to the top.

Born in Taiwan and raised in New York, Su intentionally picked the most challenging STEM field she could think of: electrical engineering. After earning her doctorate, she received multiple offers to stay in academia but decided to join Texas Instruments instead, Dimitri Antoniadis, her MIT thesis advisor, told BI. She wanted to manage people and projects, she recently told Stanford business students. After leaving TI for IBM, she was tapped to serve as a technical assistant for Lou Gerstner, IBM's chairman and CEO.

Antoniadis recalled late-night phone conversations with Su when she was at these "juncture points" in her career. She left IBM in 2007, spent four and a half years at Freescale Semiconductor, and then came to AMD in 2012.

The professor got one such call in late 2014. Su had managed AMD's various business units and operations for nearly three years — deep in the weeds of the entire company yet without the authority to set the overall direction. She called Antoniadis when she was asked to take the CEO job, which meant going after a market dominated by Intel. The original Silicon Valley icon had a market capitalization of over $150 billion and a reputation for ruthlessness. AMD's market cap was just $2 billion.

"At the time, I said, 'Lisa, are you serious? Taking on Intel?' She said, 'Why not?'" Antoniadis told BI.

Su sought multiple opinions on the big decision to head AMD. Lip-Bu Tan, a legendary semiconductor CEO turned investor who will step into the Intel CEO role on March 18, was also on the call list. Tan and Su met years earlier when she was at Freescale Semiconductor, and he was impressed from the start, he told BI.

Tan was fully aware of AMD's sad state at the time. The firm had completed two rounds of layoffs since 2011 and pulled out of the processor market. The company needed focus.

"Only the gaming business was doing well. The rest were struggling," Tan said. Despite this, he didn't hesitate to recommend the job to Su. He had just orchestrated a revival of a similar magnitude at Cadence Design Systems and knew the opportunity such a turnaround could be.

"The market value was less than $3 billion — you can't go wrong with that. It is so undervalued," Tan said of AMD.

Su took over AMD on October 8, 2014. A 7% staff cut proceeded, and Su set out to make long-term bets and win back customers. Tan said Su soon had top tech execs like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Dell COO Jeff Clarke trusting her, mainly due to her hands-on style. Even for routine annual business reviews, Su knows all the numbers and listens intently to concerns, sources said.

"They love her. She is very engaged — very involved," Tan said.

Su has evolved her style over her 10 years as CEO of AMD. She's somewhat less stoic, makes jokes onstage, wears brighter colors, has more perfectly coiffed hair, and has come to appreciate Christian Louboutin heels. AMD declined to comment on these details.

"I am not surprised at all where she is right now. I truly expected it," Antoniadis told BI.

AMD's market cap has grown to about $160 billion as of Wednesday — much higher than its $2 billion market cap when Su first started. This month, all AI stocks have taken a dive amid uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration's policy shifts.

Now, Su has a new miracle to perform.

Su v. Huang

In 2018, Su sat with a handful of Wall Street analysts in a private meeting space near the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Consumer Electronics Show, one of the largest tech conferences of the year, bustled in the massive building's halls.

Su was just over three years into her job as CEO of AMD, and the company's stock hovered above just $10 per share.

The analysts in that Las Vegas conference room had a lot of advice for the then 48-year-old CEO, according to a person present, who asked not to be named since the session was private. The room was full of men eager to tell Su how to seize on her progress and take AMD to the next level. There was chatter in the nerdier accelerated computing circles that machine learning was ready to scale, and the analysts weren't sure AMD was seeing the signs.

Su took it all in and politely thanked everyone. She knew accelerated computing would change the world as early as 2017, she has since said in interviews. The graphics processing unit made that possible.

At the time, the entertainment industry used them for gaming and graphics rendering. While AMD has designed this kind of hardware for two decades, Nvidia's Huang beat the entire tech industry to the punch when he identified the AI opportunity for GPUs and started building software to help it spread. Since ChatGPT's birth, Nvidia and AMD have been in an epic race — only Nvidia had a massive head start.

Both Huang and Su are notoriously hardworking — late nights and weekends are a given.

But Huang is a showman. He dominates a stage whether it be at the front of a boardroom or a concert arena. Su is less flashy. She rarely, if ever, raises her voice, and her business strategy echoes that quiet, inexhaustible, confident consistency, sources said.

"You know she's in charge, but she's also a very quiet leader," said Jodi Shelton, cofounder and CEO of the Global Semiconductor Alliance. Shelton recalled an intimate dinner at Su's Texas home with just the CEO and her husband, Daniel Lin, where Su asked most of the questions.

"She doesn't need to interject when someone's speaking. She doesn't have to be the loudest person in the room," Shelton continued.

Onstage, Su often paces, making measured announcements. At team meetings, she drills for answers about what needs to be done next and delegates tasks, personally reviewing AMD's GPU distribution on spreadsheets, the AMD employees said.

In a world where CEOs like former Intel leader Pat Gelsinger have announced plans such as five nodes in four years and fell short in execution, AMD has slowly marched forward. Even Nvidia's yearly cadence of new GPU generations has hit production and installation snags. Su is wary of overpromising and underexecuting, several sources said. Execution is non-negotiable.

"That's not very easy for people to do for such a long time," Lamini founder Sharon Zhou, who has committed to AMD hardware over Nvidia, told BI. "Which is why I think she presents the main threat to Nvidia. It forces Nvidia into a place where they can't make mistakes."

Huang is motivated by being so early that he can form new markets around new technologies, Nvidia executive Rev Lebaredian told BI. Su wants to meet existing demand with an unfailingly great product.

"She knows AMD products technically in and out and can hold her own discussing any product with its respective engineers," one AMD employee said. "She's pretty quiet in person, but you could tell by the way she was looking at the lab and talking to the engineers that she was proud and happy to be there."

Her relentless consistency and focus on strong, reciprocal customer relationships make her undiminishable as a competitor, even for Nvidia, sources said.

"She's one of the most responsive people," Zhou said. When Zhou was trying to close Series A funding for Lamini, Su offered up the entire afternoon to chat with potential investors, a day after an earnings call.

The only way is software

Many chip industry analysts agree that while AMD's hardware has caught up, it can't truly compete without better software. Nvidia's CUDA software has become the industry standard and allows engineers to program GPUs with flexibility and relative ease. AMD's software is still a work in progress, as SemiAnalysis's report detailed.

For the full 2024 fiscal year, Nvidia reported $115.2 billion in revenue in its data center segment — where most AI computing happens. AMD reported $12.6 billion for data centers in the same time period (though the reporting periods are slightly different). It's an enormous gulf that even the best of execution may never close.

Those who know Su say she will never settle for second.

"She does want to win, which doesn't mean second. It actually means first. First, you have to be second, and then you get to be first," Zhou said.

If Su has a winning strategy in mind, it's still a mystery to some AMD watchers.

In a February 5 note to investors, Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya wrote that AMD had not yet "managed to articulate" how or from where it would wrest market share from Nvidia.

"It could take much more in software, scale deployment, and system-level integration to break AMD's current less than 5% market share," Arya wrote.

Winning for Su will be about picking her fights, said Tan, the incoming Intel CEO, who is also friends with Huang. In 2024, Nvidia's R&D budget was about twice AMD's. Su still has to be discerning.

"You have to pick your best field," Tan said. "You can't do everything, like Jensen," he continued. Huang makes the menu, he said. Su can only choose a few dishes to battle over.

On the company's February earnings call, Su moved up the company's next chip launch by a few months.

AMD's fourth-quarter earnings beat expectations, yet investors balked. The Wall Street analyst consensus was that revenue was growing, though not enough came from AI.

"This is a 10-year arc. This is not a 2-year arc. So let's not think about this as what's going to happen next quarter," Su told Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at its conference in September.

• Google executive Ruth Porat worked at Morgan Stanley during the 2008 financial crisis.
• The experience provided her with important lessons, she said in a recent podcast interview.
• Porat said the most important is to identify your weaknesses ahead of time and "fortify" oneself.

Google executive Ruth Porat learned a thing or two from working through the Great Recession.

Her biggest piece of advice? Figure out where you're vulnerable and "fortify" against it before you're in crisis mode.

Deeply embedded in Morgan Stanley during the recession, Google executive Ruth Porat said her experiences at the investment bank provided her with a playbook for hard times.

"There were a lot of really important lessons that came out of it, and when I got to Google, I was asked about them — which struck me as a bit odd, because Google had only seen sunny days," Porat said during an "In Good Company" podcast interview. "And I think, really importantly, the lessons are good for good times and bad."

Porat began her career at Morgan Stanley in 1987, spending 22 years in its investment banking division before serving as the bank's CFO from 2010 to 2015.

During the 2008 financial crisis, Porat said she helped advise the US Treasury through the bailouts of insurance giant AIG and mortgage-financers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As fears of a possible recession loom large on Wall Street, advice from those who've weathered them in the past may prove increasingly relevant today. Some of Porat's recommendations are applicable to the individual — not just the multinational conglomerate.

"The most important lesson from the crisis is to identify your greatest source of vulnerability ahead of time and protect against it," she said.

For businesses navigating the financial crisis, that weakness in question was liquidity, according to Porat.

"I think a really important lesson for everyone is to do that question — what is your greatest source of vulnerability?" she said. "You can protect against it early on, but not in the moment."

In the case of institutions — Porat said it's best to load up on talent with the ability to take a broad view of things.

"Make sure you have a team with horizontal vision, because you've got to connect the dots across a lot of different issues," she said.

And perhaps most crucially — there's no easy way out of a brutal situation, Porat said. It's best to just grit one's teeth and triage your way through it.

"I think the other really important lesson was that there are no good choices in a crisis," Porat said. "And so go for the least worst and just keep moving, because standing still can actually just amplify, magnify — and you're not going to end up with a good solution in any event. By definition, you're in a crisis."

Afterward her time at Morgan Stanley, Porat transitioned into the same role at Google. Today, she serves as president and chief investment officer at the search giant and its parent company, Alphabet.

• Gavin Newsom has about two years to go before his term as California's governor ends.
• Newsom has been keeping busy with a podcast featuring guests like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon.
• Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris hit the podcast circuit during their campaigns in 2024.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is facing off against his right-wing opponents on their favorite medium — a podcast.

Newsom started his podcast "This is Gavin Newsom" in February. He's also the co-host of another podcast, "Politickin," which is focused more on sports and culture.

"I'm talking directly with people I disagree with, people I look up to, and you — the listeners. Egg prices? Tariffs? DOGE? We're tackling all your big questions," Newsom wrote in a February 26 Facebook post announcing his podcast.

Thus far, Newsom has been able to deliver on his promise. In his debut episode, Newsom spoke to Charlie Kirk, a right-wing influencer and founder of the conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA.

In his latest episode, which aired Wednesday, Newsom went head-to-head with right-wing firebrand Steve Bannon. Bannon was President Donald Trump's former chief strategist and executive chairman of Breitbart News, a far-right news outlet.

Common ground

People who tune in expecting nothing more than a high-octane war of words may be surprised. It seems that Newsom has found some common ground with Kirk and Bannon on at least two divisive issues.

For one, Newsom told Kirk that he found it "deeply unfair" that transgender athletes could participate in female sporting events.

"Would you do something like that? Would you say no men in female sports?" Kirk asked Newsom.

"I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness. It is deeply unfair," Newsom replied.

While Newsom did go on to explain how he had a "hard time" reconciling the vulnerability of transgender athletes with ensuring fairness in sporting events, his reply to Kirk was surprising, considering his political record on LGBTQ+ rights.

In 2004, when Newsom was San Francisco's mayor, he took a stand in support of the LGBTQ+ community and allowed same-sex marriages to proceed in the city in defiance of federal regulations.

Then, in his interview with Bannon, Newsom said they both had a common dislike of Elon Musk. Bannon has been a vocal critic of Musk, calling him a "truly evil person" and criticizing Musk's views on immigration.

"We may share some commonality in terms of concern about what he's doing," Newsom told Bannon.

"Hang on, hang on. You guys loved all the oligarchs, in particular Elon, until they flipped," Bannon said. "And remember, all the rest of these oligarchs were all progressive Democrats."

"I refer to them as libertarian and I know these guys intimately, known them for decades," Newsom replied.

To be sure, this isn't the first time Newsom has sought to engage his political opponents directly in tough conversations.

In December 2023, Newsom participated in a televised debate with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. At the time, both Newsom and DeSantis were seen as rising stars and potential presidential candidates.

Newsom 2028

It is unclear if Newsom's foray into podcasting is part of a plan to lay the groundwork for a 2028 presidential bid.

To be sure, podcasting is a powerful campaign tool. Trump and then-Vice President Kamala Harris both hit the podcast circuit during their 2024 campaigns.

Newsom, who still has about two years to go before the end of his gubernatorial term, is often asked about his presidential ambitions.

In September 2023, Newsom was asked in an interview with "60 Minutes" correspondent Cecilia Vega if he would run for president after finishing his term as California's governor.

"Is that a yes or a no?" Vega asked Newsom.

"That was a — that was a never-ending response to your question," Newsom said.

A representative for Newsom did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Spring is often a good time to sell a house, though that may not hold true in 2025.
• Home supply is rising, and government spending cuts may boost inventory even further.
• Here are 14 cities where prices could fall in the coming months.

Homeowners looking to relocate would normally be in luck as the weather warms up.

Spring usually ushers in the start of the busy season in the US housing market. In fact, a new report from Realtor.com remarked that the single best week to list a home is in mid-April, since median prices and buyer demand are robust, while competition and price cuts are relatively low.

But this year could be completely different — if buyers realize how much leverage they have.

Sellers' bargaining power is waning as steadily surging home inventory puts property prices under pressure, according to an analysis of Realtor.com's data on the 50 largest US markets.

And that's before accounting for the potential fallout from the sweeping budget cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk, who runs the newly formed DOGE, plans to eliminate government jobs in droves, which could cause a mass exodus from cities like Washington, DC — thereby bringing down home prices in certain markets even further.

Buyers are back in the driver's seat as supply rises

For years, buying a house has been a painful process. Home affordability was in the tank since prices and mortgage rates were uncomfortably high, making ownership unattainable for many. And a widespread home shortage complicated the process for everyone, even wealthier buyers.

However, significant increases in home supply are shaking up the US real-estate market.

Active home listings rocketed 27.5% higher in February, Realtor.com reported late last month. That marked the 16th consecutive month that there were more houses available on a typical day than in the year prior, though supply is still rather stretched relative to pre-pandemic levels.

Similarly, the number of unsold homes — which accounts for those already under contract — had been up by 18.2% from early 2024, which made for the 15th straight month of growth. That includes newly listed homes, which were 4.2% more common compared to last February.

Major inventory improvements have made homes harder to sell. US houses had been for sale for about 66 days in February, versus just over two months last year. Properties have spent more time on the market than the year prior for the past 11 months, Realtor.com noted, and listings lingered longer than last year in 42 of the 50 largest US cities.

More houses on the market means that bidding wars have largely become a pandemic-era relic. Instead, sellers are resorting to price reductions to entice buyers. Nearly 17% of listings in February had received at least one price cut at some point, versus a 14.6% rate a year earlier.

"Sellers are increasingly adjusting to slower market conditions, as the share of homes with price reductions rose significantly last month," Realtor.com researchers Sabrina Speianu and Danielle Hale wrote late last month. "This trend could indicate a potential slowdown in price growth."

Median US home prices slipped 0.8% from last year to $412,000 in February, Realtor.com had found. It's worth noting that values were up 1.2% on a price-per-square-foot basis, suggesting that cheaper, small homes went to market.

Either way, prices aren't moving much, which is a win for hopeful buyers after years of explosive price growth. Even more exciting for them is the idea that home values could decline further.

14 cities where home prices could fall after Elon Musk's cuts

If DOGE's cuts to the federal government's workforce are as widespread as Musk would like, tens of thousands of employees may be looking for new places to live. Home listings could balloon in cities brimming with government workers, which could deflate their values.

This dynamic doesn't seem to be swaying home prices yet, Realtor.com's economic researchers said, noting that there isn't a discernable difference in prices, price reductions, inventory growth, or time on the market. However, they could certainly see that changing in the coming months.

"Federal workforce reductions could have ripple effects on housing markets with a high concentration of government employees," Speianu and Hale wrote. They added: "The typical home seller takes at least two weeks and often longer to prepare a home for sale, so any real impact is likely ahead."

Below are the 14 US cities where federal government employees make up at least 2% of the workforce, meaning their housing markets are most in danger of being shaken up by DOGE. Note that only the 50 largest markets tracked by Realtor.com were included in this analysis.

Along with each location its median listing price in February, its year-over-year price growth in aggregate and on a per-square-foot basis, its listing price growth since the start of this year, and the percentage of federal government employees as a share of its working population.

1. Washington, DC

Median listing price: $579,995

Median listing price growth: -3.3%

Median listing price per square foot growth: 0%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 7%; $40,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 11%

2. Virginia Beach, Virginia

Median listing price: $392,500

Median listing price growth: 1.4%

Median listing price per square foot growth: 5.4%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 6.4%; $25,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 7%

3. Oklahoma City

Median listing price: $314,992

Median listing price growth: -2.6%

Median listing price per square foot growth: 1.3%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 4.9%; $16,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 4.2%

4. Baltimore

Median listing price: $350,000

Median listing price growth: 6.2%

Median listing price per square foot growth: 2%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 5.8%; $20,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 3.7%

5. San Diego

Median listing price: $949,995

Median listing price growth: -4.7%

Median listing price per square foot growth: -2%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 5.9%; $56,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 3.1%

6. San Antonio

Median listing price: $327,000

Median listing price growth: -2.4%

Median listing price per square foot growth: -2.1%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 4.8%; $16,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 3%

7. Memphis, Tennessee

Median listing price: $328,050

Median listing price growth: 1.3%

Median listing price per square foot growth: 2.7%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 9.4%; $31,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 2.8%

8. Tucson, Arizona

Median listing price: $396,200

Median listing price growth: -1%

Median listing price per square foot growth: -1.2%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 7.4%; $29,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 2.8%

9. Richmond, Virginia

Median listing price: $429,653

Median listing price growth: -4.2%

Median listing price per square foot growth: 2.3%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 4.6%; $20,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 2.7%

10. Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas

Median listing price: $379,450

Median listing price growth: -9.9%

Median listing price per square foot growth: -0.9%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 7.4%; $28,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 2.6%

11. Jacksonville, Florida

Median listing price: $388,098

Median listing price growth: -5.3%

Median listing price per square foot growth: -3.3%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 7.6%; $29,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 2.5%

12. Buffalo, New York

Median listing price: $249,974

Median listing price growth: -0.5%

Median listing price per square foot growth: 1.1%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 14.8%; $37,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 2%

13. Cleveland

Median listing price: $241,725

Median listing price growth: 14%

Median listing price per square foot growth: 14.9%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 16.1%; $38,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 2%

14. Tampa, Florida

Median listing price: $399,000

Median listing price growth: -4%

Median listing price per square foot growth: -4%

Listing price growth since Jan. 1: 6.5%; $26,000

Federal government employees as a share of workers: 2%

I recently opened Netflix and was prompted to watch an episode of "Saturday Night Live." When I clicked, I was told I actually wouldn't be tuning in for the cold open — because I pay Netflix the least amount of money possible for its ad-supported tier, the show wasn't available to me. I could upgrade, though, by paying an extra $10 or more indefinitely for an ad-free plan, which would come with better quality video, the ability to add my account to more devices, and the privilege of watching a show that has aired on basic cable for 50 years.

Increasingly, streaming content is subject to tiers and the trend of "premiumization." For years, companies like Netflix, Max, and Disney+ fought the so-called streaming wars — losing money because of pricey content, fierce competition, and high churn rates among users who hopped from platform to platform. But 2024 was the year things turned around. Spotify, Netflix, and Disney+ were all posting profits, finally making investors happy.

To keep investors happy, the subscriptions that appear as second thoughts on your credit card statement are still creeping up. Premiumization has long been a driver of tiered spending in the physical world — from airplane seats to airport lounges to Disney World — and now digital streamers are harnessing its power. The price hikes are working because they've got us hooked: Most people who quit Netflix come back, lured by a new cast on "Love Is Blind" or some other viral original premiere. Netflix prices went up again in January, Spotify is reportedly considering a new plan that will give users who pay extra more premium content, and Amazon Music has price hikes and more exclusive content in the works, too. Even YouTube TV went up by $10 a month last year, coming to a total of $82.99.

As streaming finally matures, our wallets may be the ultimate losers of the streaming wars.

Almost any service you try to buy today will offer add-ons. Even discount gyms like Planet Fitness offer tiered plans. What's different about these streaming companies is they were born in an era where they promised us more for less — you could listen to the entire library of Spotify rather than buying each track or album, and say goodbye to those viruses hidden in LimeWire downloads. In 2012, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said he sought to create something "better than piracy," and that the company wanted "to bring music to every single person and bring it to every moment of their life." Netflix gave us not just ways to ditch DVDs and snail mail, but access to its own hit content anywhere, anytime, without any annoying ads (goodbye forever, Geico caveman). They reinvented the way we watched TV and listened to music — streaming was so cheap and flexible that it easily hooked millennials.

That's when the streaming wars took off in earnest. Companies scrambled to gobble up existing shows and new talent for their content. Prices were low, and it felt like cinephiles and TV buffs had more control and choice than ever. Streamers advertised themselves as if they cared if we, the watchers, had a good time. On a 2020 call, Netflix's former CEO Reed Hastings said: "We want to be the safe respite where you can explore, you can get stimulated, have fun and enjoy — and have none of the controversy around exploiting users with advertising." Now, that safe haven is only offered to those who shell out more money, as Hastings ate his words and launched a cheaper ad-supported tier for Netflix in 2022. When I was blocked from watching "SNL," the Netflix app blamed licensing agreements, which make a small portion of the content it offers unavailable on the ad-supported tier. As of 2023, Peacock no longer offers the free, ad-supported tier it launched with, and now charges $7.99 a month for its cheapest plan. Max announced in February that it would remove access to Bleacher Report and CNN Max from its basic tier.

"This idea of the good stuff costing a little bit more isn't exactly new," says Max Signorelli, the consumer research lead for media and entertainment at the consultancy firm Omdia. "But certainly, long gone are the times where these relatively new streaming offerings were marketing themselves as the cheap, viable alternative to traditional media sources."

Today, streamers aren't alternatives to cable; they're the mainstream. Combining subscription and ad revenue was the model that made companies like Verizon and Comcast cable giants. "A lot of the newer media companies came out of the gate with a tech mindset of: scale first, we'll worry about profits and revenue later," Nii Addy, the chief marketing officer at the streaming company Philo, tells me. "We're at that inflection point where they're having to turn that scale into profits." Ironically, they're following in the footsteps of the companies they sought to disrupt. "A lot of these new media companies are with one hand killing the legacy cash cows, but then they're also nursing their own, and it's based on the exact same model," Addy says.

Netflix had an exceptional 2024, making $39 billion in revenue, an increase of 16% from 2023. It celebrated the news and simultaneously announced a price hike: "We continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members, we will occasionally ask our members to pay a little more so that we can re-invest to further improve Netflix," the company said in its January earnings letter. Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes Max, saw its streaming business make $677 million in profit in 2024, up from $103 million the year before. Peacock revenue grew by 46% from 2023 to 2024, coming to $4.9 billion, although it still did not post a profit. Paramount+ says it is on track to reach full-year profitability in 2025.

The music streamers have stumbled for even longer, trying to disrupt an industry that was wildly profitable before Napster and LimeWire decimated it. Spotify, which rarely made a profit through 2023, turned itself around 2024 and had its first profitable year. Now, Bloomberg reports the company is considering charging an additional $5.99 for a Music Pro plan on top of premium subscription prices that hit $11.99 a month (which is up from the $9.99 it charged from 2011 until 2023), in hopes of drawing music superfans with perks like higher-quality audio, remixing tools, and access to concert tickets. In the not-so-distant future, premium versions of Taylor Swift songs may be available only to those who can afford it. Spotify declined to confirm the rumored details for this story.

The rumors come as the music streaming game is changing; Spotify signed a deal in January with the world's largest music company, Universal Music Group, to advance what is seen as a new streaming 2.0 era in music, driven by more exclusive content and personalization. Amazon Music, too, has expanded its relationship with UMG, announced vague plans to develop exclusive content, and has raised its subscription prices by $1 a month. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. But replacing one price for nearly all the world's music, tiers will separate the superfans from the casual listeners — and some superfans may even subscribe to more than one music streamer if the exclusive offerings start to further differentiate the catalogs of Spotify and Amazon.

Ultimately, entertainment tiers might not be such a bad deal for consumers. Z. John Zhang, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School, says tiered pricing actually does democratize these services. Different pricing levels allow people who want to pay less to do so and still get decent access to content, subsidized by those willing to pay for premiumization. "What's good about tiered pricing is they give you the choice. It's not like it forces you to be in business class," he says. "For the people who pay the higher price, it's voluntary, they want to. The customers all become better off; they all have their own choice."

For now, streamers are taking divergent approaches: Some are charging more for add-on content, and others are starting to take perks away from those who pay the least. All of this will likely result in the bottom-tier price being a worse experience across the board. On airplanes, I'll take the smallest seat and forgo water if it's not free. I'll watch ads with my Netflix and Hulu if it means I can justify subscribing to both. If it wants me to pay more each month, Spotify will have to come up with something particularly exclusive and enticing, like a jump on concert tickets, to beat out the bots that plague Ticketmaster. But if more good content goes behind the steeper paywall, it'll be a test to see how long the cheap subscribers like me can hold out.

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

• Backlash against Elon Musk and DOGE has hit Tesla, with the brand becoming a target for protests and vandalism.
• Business Insider spoke to four Tesla owners about why they decided to sell their EVs.
• They said Musk's work with DOGE and fear of being harassed were the main reasons for selling.

Things might be tricky for Tesla, but at least it has one new customer — President Donald Trump, who said Tuesday he'd buy a Tesla in a show of support for CEO Elon Musk.

Away from the White House, some longtime Tesla owners have had enough.

Business Insider spoke to four people who recently sold their vehicles in response to Musk's work gutting the federal government with DOGE.

It comes as backlash against Tesla mounts, with showrooms and vehicles becoming targets for protests.

"I sold my Tesla because I found it no longer reflects my values. I was embarrassed to be seen driving it," Scott Oran, a real estate developer who lives near Boston, told Business Insider.

Oran said he was initially drawn to his 2018 Model 3 because of the company's environmental credentials and promise to address the climate crisis "in a constructive manner."

Despite his Model 3 being a "very good car," Musk's work directing government layoffs with DOGE was too much for Oran.

"I saw its sale as a protest against Elon Musk and his work at DOGE. Musk was not elected. He's gutting our American government," he said.

"He's illegally firing federal workers. He's illegally dismantling federal agencies. He's spreading conspiracy theories, and he's empowering extremists. In short, he's sowing chaos and confusion. And I felt that we need to send a message to him and others like him that that is not American democracy," Oran added.

While the majority of car buyers tend to be swayed more by price and performance than politics, Tesla and other EV brands have traditionally appealed to customers who care about environmentalism — the demographic likely to object to Musk's newfound interest in far-right politics.

The second former Tesla owner, who did not want to be named to avoid potential retaliation, said: "What attracted me the most initially was trying to get away from fossil fuels."

While his 2021 Model 3 performance variant had issues including battery and computer problems, he said he was "blown away" by its performance.

The former owner described the controversial gesture Musk made at a Trump inauguration rally as "the straw that broke the camel's back," prompting him to trade in the Tesla late last month at a valuation of $22,000, according to a purchase contract viewed by BI.

"Every tweet that he's written since then has just added more nails to the coffin in my mind," they said.

Protests and harassment

As the backlash to Musk and the widespread government layoffs enacted by DOGE has grown, Tesla has increasingly borne the brunt of public ire.

High-profile owners including singer Sheryl Crow have sold their cars in response to Musk's actions, and a nationwide protest movement, "Tesla Takedown," has staged protests at Tesla showrooms across the country.

Cybertrucks and other Tesla vehicles have also been vandalized, and police in Oregon are investigating after shots were fired at a Tesla showroom.

For some Tesla owners, fear of being harassed has played a part in the decision to sell.

"I've been having instances where drivers would brake-check me or do rolling roadblocks, and I've had a few people flip me off for no apparent reason," said the former Model 3 performance owner.

"This made my decision all more clear — I have a newborn baby and even though I know I could be defensive in my driving, I'm not comfortable having my son in the car and having to deal with the harassment."

Oran said he hadn't experienced any backlash, but had seen Tesla drivers being heckled while attending a peaceful Tesla Takedown protest at a Boston dealership. "I imagined myself being in that situation, and I just wouldn't want to have that happen."

Rivals look to overtake

Tesla's waning fortunes appear to be benefiting its EV rivals.

Two former owners who spoke to BI said they've swapped their Teslas for a Polestar. The Swedish EV brand has been aggressively targeting Tesla customers in recent weeks.

The third former owner, who had a Model Y, said they were initially skeptical about rival vehicles, but were won over by the Polestar 3. "The build quality is fantastic, it drives much better than a Tesla and the interior feels like a real car and not a cheap toy."

Oran, who sold his Tesla for about $18,000 and now drives a Hyundai Ioniq 5 EV, said: "Although Tesla did create the market for electric vehicles, there are now a number of really good alternatives."

Tesla owners who do decide to sell will find the used car market saturated with pre-owned Model 3s and Ys, with resale values plunging in recent years.

The fourth former owner, who had a Model 3, said his decision to sell was partly motivated by fear that resale values could drop even further due to Musk's conduct.

"I wasn't offended enough by his political behavior to sell the car, but I didn't want the value of my car to be tied to his political behavior," said the owner, who traded in his 2018 Model 3 for about $17,000.

"Elon Musk is getting a lot of flack for his behavior around the government, but this isn't necessarily the bottom. His behavior could get far worse … who's going to buy his car then?" the person, who now owns a Genesis EV, added.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

• Pearl Whamond is among the Canadians boycotting US products in protest of President Donald Trump.
• The Montreal resident said Trump's positions on tariffs and annexation have fueled Canadian pride.
• She also used to travel often to the States for shopping or weekend getaways, but not anymore.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Pearl Whamond, a 55-year-old nurse and mother of three who lives in Montreal. She's among the Canadians boycotting American products due to President Donald Trump's policies and comments relating to Canada, including tariffs and interest in making the country a US state. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I've always been very proud to be Canadian. I also have really enjoyed visiting the States.

But there seems to be a change in some of the US population. I'm feeling hatred toward Canada as if we're just piggybacking off the States or taking the US for granted. Americans used to feel like our cousins, nationality-wise, but I'm not feeling that anymore.

Now I'm noticing a bunch of national pride that we didn't see before, especially in Quebec, because Quebec is infamous in Canada for being the black sheep. We're the ones who have the French-speaking majority, so if Quebec is pissed off enough to fly the Canadian flag, something's really wrong.

I wouldn't go over the border these days, and I'm trying to avoid buying American products.

I don't feel safe traveling to the US

I'm half Filipino and half Irish. I don't look white. My husband is Mexican. My three kids, 25, 20, and 15, are Black. I'm afraid to go to the States. I would be concerned about going down due to what I'm hearing about ICE and deportations.

My husband has permanent residency in Canada, but if he got separated from me in the US, and I couldn't speak on his behalf, I don't know if he could explain himself well enough to get out of a scenario. If there's any question of anything like that happening, I'll just stay on my side of the border.

We're right up over Vermont, about an hour and a half drive away, and we used to go down just to grocery shop. I drove down regularly to see my friends in New Jersey and Boston. Just last summer, I took my girls to New York to see "Six" on Broadway because my daughter's a theater kid.

We used to do weekends like that, and my kids loved it there. Our dollar has not been strong for a long while, but it was worth it to me to spend the extra in exchange for that experience. Not anymore.

I'm boycotting American brands

Many people across Canada are trying to buy products made in Canada. There are all these online groups promoting that. Some people are very, very strict, and they're not getting anything from the US. Other people are doing what they can.

My husband used to call me the Amazon queen. I haven't ordered anything from Amazon since February 5. I've cancelled my Prime membership. I'm not shopping at Walmart or McDonald's.

Food-wise, it's pretty easy to get home-grown produce. I had a hard time finding broccoli not from the US for a while. We still have the US strawberries at $1.99, which are being left on the shelf. In my neighborhood, we're paying $4.99 to $6.99 for Quebec strawberries. People are willing to pay more to buy from home.

Even my 15-year-old, who is very politically active, and her friends are boycotting American products.

There's also an awful lot of supportive Americans saying, "We're on your side. We're trying to buy Canadian. We understand how you feel about our government. What they're doing is not right. We shouldn't threaten anyone with annexation, let alone Canada, which has always been our ally."

But those who have the opposing opinion are a lot more aggressive and a lot more hate-filled, actually. It may be nine out of 10 people will be friendly and wonderful like they've always been, but it just takes that one, and that's what scares me.

I don't want to lose the close relationship between Canada and the US

I don't know anyone here who wants to be a 51st state. We like our healthcare. We like our education. We like Canada. We grew up here. We're Canadians. Nothing against the US, but we don't want to be absorbed.

We respect Americans. We respect your anthem. We fight by your side in every single war. We love your country like we always have. We're just really sad to see how some Americans are thinking of us now, and we're angry with the way your president is treating us.

Even if the tariffs issue ends or if there's another president in four years, some Canadians are saying, "Once bitten, twice shy." There have been too many threats and too much back-and-forth. It feels like bullying, it feels threatening, and as a country, we're not appreciating it.

And even if the other party gets elected in four years, in eight years it could be more of the same. It's been done once, so it feels like we're fair game now.

I grew up feeling like the US and Canada were great allies and great friends, and I don't want to let go of that. I don't want to let go of that warm, fuzzy feeling that you've got our back and we've got yours. So, I guess we're just waiting to see how far this will go.

Do you have a story to share about the relationship between the US and Canada? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

From the moment Donald Trump was reelected, Harvard University has been scrambling to confront what it views as an existential threat posed by the new administration.

Trump is targeting elite universities on a host of fronts, from their diversity initiatives and handling of pro-Palestinian protests to billions of dollars in student aid and government support. Last year, federal grants accounted for 11% of Harvard's operating revenue and paid for two-thirds of its sponsored research. In addition, Trump has proposed taxing the university's massive endowment of $53 billion by as much as 35% — a threat that Harvard's president, Alan Garber, has said "keeps me up at night." On Monday, due to "rapidly shifting federal policies," the university announced it was instituting a hiring freeze, reducing admissions to some of its graduate programs, and issuing a university-wide directive to limit spending.

"This is a crisis," says Todd Wolfson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, which represents 44,000 members at more than 500 campuses nationwide. "It's the greatest mortal threat that the higher education sector has ever faced, without a doubt."

In response, Harvard has been quietly formulating a new lobbying strategy — one unlike anything the university has ever undertaken. According to interviews with more than two dozen lobbyists, funders, professors, and alumni, Harvard's plan is threefold. First, the university has hired Ballard Partners, MAGAworld's leading lobbying firm, to represent its interests in Washington. Second, Harvard is exploring ways to ingratiate itself with Trump's inner circle by building alliances with conservatives he trusts. And third, the school has joined talks with colleges and universities in red states, looking to present a case that Trump's proposed cuts would hurt not just Ivy League intellectuals, but local economies in deep-red districts.

Such moves are out of character for Harvard, which has long considered itself in a league unto itself. "Harvard has a chance to minimize the damage of the Trump administration," says Jeff Hauser, a Harvard alum who serves as executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a government watchdog group. "But it's only going to be in solidarity with other institutions with different public profiles. They're more in it together than they might realize."

Harvard was ramping up its lobbying efforts even before Trump's victory last November. In 2024, the school spent more on lobbying than it had in the past 15 years. But those familiar with Harvard's new strategy say it began in earnest two weeks before Trump's inauguration, when Harvard hired Ballard Partners as one of its leading lobbyists. It was a shrewd move — Brian Ballard, the firm's founder, is a close Trump ally who maintains an office up the road from Mar-a-Lago. What's more, Susie Wiles and Pam Bondi — Trump's chief of staff and attorney general — are both alums of the firm.

Hiring Ballard signaled Harvard's willingness to "play by Trump's rules," says Hilary Braseth, a Harvard alum who serves as executive director of OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks political influence. The lobbying firm, she adds, gives Harvard "a direct line to the Oval Office."

Ballard's first priority for Harvard is to find out where cuts are most likely to come, and which programs might be targeted. "There's a big learning curve that comes with a new administration, particularly a Trump administration," says Dan McFaul, a Ballard lobbyist who's working on the Harvard account alongside the firm's founder. "Information seems to be the most valuable thing. What's the next shoe to drop? How do we address this? How do we respond to the next grant cancellation?"

While the price of Harvard's contract with Ballard won't be public until April, it's not cheap. According to three people familiar with the deal, the university is on track to pay the lobbying firm well into the six figures this year. Justin Sayfie, a partner at Ballard, characterized its agreement with Harvard as "a monthly retainer that is customary for firms of our caliber on K Street in Washington."

Other universities are following Harvard's lead. Public records show that institutions of higher learning are hiring lobbyists at more than twice the pace they did after Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, or when Trump won his first term in 2016. Among those who have brought on new lobbyists in recent weeks are Columbia, MIT, New York University, Oklahoma State University, and Arizona State.

Beyond the hiring of Ballard, Harvard is exploring ways to make inroads into Trump's inner circle. According to two people with knowledge of the discussions, the school is considering inviting Trump loyalists to speak on campus, as a way to blunt charges of liberal bias and to curry favor with the administration. In interviews with BI, some lobbyists and experts in government relations suggested inviting Trump or Vice President JD Vance to deliver the commencement address at Harvard, or hosting MAGA figures at Harvard's Kennedy School. "You make yourself a smaller target if you do this," says one lobbyist based in Washington.

Finally, Harvard is seeking to build alliances with red-state colleges and universities, to present a united front in Washington. The message, according to several people familiar with the talks, is that cuts to federal research grants and student aid will kill jobs and short-circuit opportunities for innovation in all 50 states. "A great way to hurt a local economy is to kick a university in the teeth," one education lobbyist says.

The hope is that the red-state institutions can make the case for supporting higher education to the Republicans who represent them in Congress. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, for instance, has already spoken out against proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health that would profoundly affect the University of Alabama.

Such alliances, insiders say, are the new norm for universities and colleges. "Strange bedfellows," observes one lobbyist with years of experience in higher education. "Get used to it."

Still, the new strategy is fraught with peril for Harvard. Forging alliances with Trump supporters could anger some of the school's most prominent donors, and provoke unrest among students and faculty. Allison P. Farrell, an opinion writer at the Harvard Crimson, recently called on the university to "not be complicit" with the new administration. "If Harvard survives by acceding to Trump," she wrote, "it has forfeited its raison d'être — it can no longer claim to be an institution dedicated to seeking and defending truth." One education lobbyist — who, like many, spoke with Business Insider on the condition of anonymity to maintain their professional relationships — called Harvard's new strategy "a pact with the devil."

While that might be a popular view on campus, at least a few professors support Harvard's efforts to make its case in Trumpian terms. Avi Loeb, a noted theoretical physicist who was critical of the university's handling of pro-Palestinian protests last year, sees an opportunity to remind Trump that research institutions like Harvard play a crucial role in driving scientific discoveries and American innovation. "Make Science Great Again!" he says. "Science is not the occupation of the elites. The Trump administration should understand that."

Unless Harvard can find a way to maintain the flow of federal support that helps underwrite its operations and research, students and faculty will be the ones who pay the price. Less federal aid could mean tighter budgets, fewer jobs, and less student aid. "It's icky, but Trump can hurt you," says one lobbyist who's based in Washington. "You're trying to mitigate risk."

Beyond traditional lobbying, universities and colleges are attempting to reach out to Trump's core constituencies. Ideas that have been floated include running commercials during the NCAA basketball tournament as well as booking school administrators on conservative outlets like Fox News and on Joe Rogan's podcast. Syracuse University, for instance, is running advertisements on subway trains in the nation's capital, touting its status as "higher education's only national veterans resource center." After the president of Yeshiva University, Rabbi Ari Berman, delivered the benediction at Trump's inauguration, the school took out ads on Facebook and Instagram to highlight the event.

And while some universities are eager to work with Harvard, others see a value in distancing themselves from Ivy League institutions that have drawn Trump's ire as bastions of "wokeness." Isaac Kamola, a political science professor at Trinity College who leads the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, says schools should remind government officials to "not conflate higher education in America with Harvard."

Still, Harvard's deep pockets and its affiliation with Ballard mean that red-state universities are unlikely to reject an invitation to work together. "There's strength in collective action, and that goes both ways for Harvard," says one education lobbyist.

The threat to elite schools is likely to mount in the coming months. The Trump administration is investigating 60 schools, including Harvard, for their handling of "antisemitic harassment and discrimination" during campus protests against the war in Gaza. Last week, the administration announced it was canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia — another school on the list — and warned that more cuts are likely. In a statement to Business Insider, the White House decried what it calls "a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse" of taxpayer money in higher education. (Harvard declined requests for comment.)

In the meantime, the university remains a favorite punching bag for the right. Last month, Steve Bannon — a Harvard alum — came to a conference held near Harvard Square to bash the university. "We need to go into these elite institutions and cut out all the money," Bannon told an assembly of conservative students. "Once you cut that money off, that's a bitch slap. They'll start paying attention."

The conference was sponsored in part by the hedge funder and billionaire alumnus Ken Griffin, a megadonor both to Harvard and to Republican causes. Griffin, whose name appears on Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has announced he is withholding new contributions until Harvard decides to "embrace Western values," ignore "whiny snowflakes," and end what he calls a "DEI agenda that seems to have no real endgame."

Given the current political climate, Harvard and other elite schools have no illusions that they can fully fend off the tsunami of cuts being proposed by the White House. For now, Harvard is focused on ways to limit the damage. And for that, the more of Trump's allies it can enlist, the better. "This will be a delicate dance," says a prominent Harvard donor who supports Trump, "and Harvard can't afford to stumble."

Dave Levinthal is an investigative journalist in Washington, DC. He was a reporter and editor at Business Insider until 2022.